heh i think I found this thread too late... there is a publicly available anki deck that I completed a few months back that quizzes:

-prefectures: readings, prefecture capitals, regions, and find-it-on-a-map type questions based on different configurations of all that information

and

-all the wards of tokyo:readings, which region it is in, and find-it-on-a-map of tokyo-fu.

and

-the same as for tokyo, but for nagoya (why nagoya? dunno)

it rocks... i suspended the nagoya cards but the rest of the deck was really well done and super fun. my japanese girlfriend is very impressed by my extensive geographical knowledge being that I've only been there twice ;D

Don't forget to memorize the traditional region names and provinces (Shinshuu, Shinetsu, Echizen, etc), as they are used almost as much as current region names in relation to travel.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Don't forget to memorize the traditional region names and provinces (Shinshuu, Shinetsu, Echizen, etc), as they are used almost as much as current region names in relation to travel.

I find that only locals know what the traditional names of their region is unless they have significant historical importance (Tosa, Satsuma, Choshu). They learn them all in school but it all goes away after entrance exams.

kofukasho Wrote:I've added my own take on the Japanese prefecture Flash game.

http://www.paulheatondesign.co.uk/images...e_game.swf

This one has more of an emphasis on the kanji and attempts to teach, then test the kanji for each prefecture. Flash has it's limitations (I had to exclude the long ō sound, and you have to click in the text box each time to type in) but otherwise it's how I wanted it.

Bookmarked and trying this right now. These types of things will make more into Japanese, after my anki reps(keeps me going)

kitakitsune Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Don't forget to memorize the traditional region names and provinces (Shinshuu, Shinetsu, Echizen, etc), as they are used almost as much as current region names in relation to travel.

I find that only locals know what the traditional names of their region is unless they have significant historical importance (Tosa, Satsuma, Choshu). They learn them all in school but it all goes away after entrance exams.

There are a good number of historically/still presently used traditional names, but yeah it's not realistic to remember every single province as there are hundreds depending on what point in history you look at, and the territory for each name also fluctuates across time.

I don't think it's important to even try to learn them in the first place.

It's one of those things where if Japanese people don't know them (except for their local areas) - there's no real need or benefit for foreigners to learn them unless you are really into that sort of thing.

i feel like it's absolutely essential to know the region names in shikoku if you want to appear on a variety show. that question seems to be the litmus test for stupidity.

After living in Japan and interacting with natives for a few years you should notice that a good number are common. You might get some omiyage that the giver says is 信州の名物, to which you could only reply "wut?" and look dumb. It's like not knowing what "the South" is in the US as an American living in New York. The South isn't an official region name but everyone knows what it is even if they don't live there.

Yeah there are a lot of province/region names not worth worrying about (Yoshinogen only existed for about 20 years), but there are also a lot that are common knowledge to just about any native. The next step of fluency is not just knowing words, it's knowing cultural things that any native speaker would know at least as passive knowledge. They also show up in product names for example. Koshi Hikari is the most popular type of rice, Koshi is the region it comes from (now Hokuriku). This doesn't go over the heads of most natives.

I'd say that at least half of the ones listed on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_provinces_of_Japan), which is not a complete list of every province ever, are common knowledge.

Of course you should also know the minor ones for your region. People in Aichi make a huge distinction between Mikawa and the rest of the area (though it's usually Mikawa vs the-rest, and not Mikawa vs Owari for some reason), though they aren't as well known nation-wide outside of discussions about history.

Seriously, it's not important. Japanese people might only know 5-10 traditional regions outside of their own. Or they might associate regional names with special regional products but have no idea where those regions are actually located on a map of Japan.

For example, everyone in Japan knows what an 伊予柑 is, but I guarantee that only 1 out of 20 persons in Tokyo will know that 伊予 is 愛媛.

When you see a どこの名物 product you should know it's a regional name and you can look it up later. The ones you see a lot are the ones worth remembering.

Most Japanese people cannot accurately place all/most of the prefectures either, though they have heard of them and have an idea of the approximate location. They have a similar level of knowledge of the major province/region names (more than 10).

Quote:When you see a どこの名物 product you should know it's a regional name and you can look it up later. The ones you see a lot are the ones worth remembering.

I don't understand your point.. You can do a lot of things by "looking it up later", but the whole point of studying is so you can understand things/conversations without relying on after the fact research.

"Thanks for the <some place> omiyage. I will look up what that <some place> means later tonight so I can continue this conversation at a later date"

vs

"Thanks for the omiyage from shinshuu. Did you go up into the mountains? I've been thinking about going skiing but I don't know how the slopes are yet."

If you look at the "memorize train stations" thread you will see that I am not for memorizing useless trivia. Having at least a rough idea of the provinces and regions is required for adult level competency.

You can just learn these things and other cultural knowledge as it turns up in your life and/or reading/listening. Going out of your way to memorise prefecture names or old region names just so you know them ahead of time seems rather pointless to me. Do you also go and learn all the baseball teams? The state capitals? famous foods from every obscure town?

Apparently some people go and learn all the prefectural capitals, hence this thread

Learning all of this cultural knowledge through exposure is great, but realize that you are <your age> years behind Japanese people your age in getting that cultural knowledge. If you want to be able to have conversations at a level expected of your age (that aren't focused on simplistic questions about your home country) it requires a bit of study.

It took me all of a couple hours to get a good handle on the general area of the provinces, not that I can pinpoint their exact boundaries on a map (which would be more in the realm of trivia, just like knowing all prefectural capitals and exactly where every prefecture is).

Jarvik7 Wrote:The South isn't an official region name but everyone knows what it is even if they don't live there.

An off-topic nitpick, but The South is an official region name, as defined by the US Census Bureau. It isn't a universally accepted definition (some might protest the inclusion of DC, Maryland, Delaware and Oklahoma or the exclusion of Missouri), but still an official one.

Basically what I'm saying is that it's important to know cultural things like what an 伊予柑 is but it's really not important to connect the fact that 伊予 is in Shikoku. 90% of Japanese people don't even know that, even though the word 伊予 might bring up very strong feelings (mostly citrus) in their minds when they hear it.

It's actually very hard to learn that stuff.

Well, 伊予 and all of Shikoku for that matter are pretty irrelevant on a national culture level and I would agree it's not worth remembering that one .

Really everything west of Kansai and east of Kanto is more or less culturally unimportant (in the grand scheme of things) until you approach the Meiji era, and even then only pockets outside of those regions like Satsuma & Choshu are important after that (for political reasons as opposed to cultural). The big claim to fame for the far west was as a place of exile away from civilization for people who found themselves out of favor.

For that reason most of the worth-remembering region names are between Kanto and Kansai (the eastern and western limits of civilization, as the names imply).

Jarvik7 Wrote:"Thanks for the <some place> omiyage. I will look up what that <some place> means later tonight so I can continue this conversation at a later date"

vs

"Thanks for the omiyage from shinshuu. Did you go up into the mountains? I've been thinking about going skiing but I don't know how the slopes are yet."

what's wrong with asking them what "some place" is?

people do it all the time here.
"i'm moving to iowa to be with my girlfriend."
"iowa? what's there to do in iowa? where is it, anyway? is it south of illinois?"

kainzero Wrote:people do it all the time here.
"i'm moving to iowa to be with my girlfriend."
"iowa? what's there to do in iowa? where is it, anyway? is it south of illinois?"

That's plenty of knowledge about Iowa to be getting on with.
Compare to

"Iowa? Is that a nearby city?"

or even

"Iowa? What does that mean? What's the word for Iowa in my language?"

Then consider the same conversation in Japan with prefectures, and decide how much you want to know to avoid embarrassing situations, or just to have some comprehension of where people are traveling (in real life, or in fiction, or where news and documentary broadcasts are taking place.)

It's certainly not something anyone -needs- to learn (unless they need to know for their job or such), so everyone can have their own answer from 'I don't care at all because I only watch anime with outer-space settings' to 'I love geography and need to know every place-name in Japan complete with a photo for -each season- in my Anki deck' (or a scan of a woodblock print in the case of ancient place-names, perhaps... )

I'm in-between. I want to know enough to have a good idea which compass direction somebody is going from Tokyo and how far when they say they're going to travel, or to know roughly where a regional product comes from.

well, it seems that every time i talk to a japanese person and tell them i stayed in iwakuni where my cousin is an ALT, they've always asked where iwakuni is, then follow up by asking what prefecture it's in.

i think there's nothing wrong with not knowing; you can just turn it into an opportunity to learn.

So.... poking around youtube after that incredibly annoying machine-generated voice video that had me scrambling for the mute button *cough* ... and after a few really insipid educational bits, I came across this one that isn't really even a video, it's just a song with a still photo of the singer, but it's fun to listen to and definitely makes the prefectures more memorable!

kainzero Wrote:well, it seems that every time i talk to a japanese person and tell them i stayed in iwakuni where my cousin is an ALT, they've always asked where iwakuni is, then follow up by asking what prefecture it's in.

I was also quite surprised about that. I had expected that people would know Iwakuni for its famous bridge, but it seems that it isn't all that famous after all.

(By the way, the only reason I know it, is because I took a local train towards Fukuoka, but because of the thunderstorm the line was closed beyond Iwakuni. And on the transfer to the Shinkansen station the bus conveniently passed right along the historic bridge.)