Kitty Karuta Battle – Japanese Card Game

こんにちは！ \(◕ω◕)/♥

Today we found these pictures of a kitty かるた (karuta) battle online!

かわいい！ (>ω<)♥(>ω<)

Have you ever heard of かるた (karuta)? It’s a Japanese card game that uses poems from the famous Japanese anthology 小倉百人一首 (Ogura Hyakunin Isshu) – 100 poets, 1 poem (each).

There is an anime called ちはやふる (Chihayafuru) about かるた (karuta). It is really good! We recommend it! (◕ω<)♪

If you watch Chihayafuru, you will learn a lot about how to play かるた (karuta).

There are two basic types of karuta. The first type is called 歌がるた (uta-garuta) and it is the type that is used for competitive karuta like you can see in Chihayafuru.

To be able to play 歌がるた (uta-garuta), you have to memorize the 100 Japanese poems from the Hyakunin Isshu.

There are two types of cards that are used in uta-garuta: 読み札 (yomi-fuda – reading cards) and 取り札(tori-fuda – grabbing cards).

Players try to beat their opponents to take the 取り札 (tori-fuda) which has the last two lines of the poem when the card with the first three lines is read out loud.

The second type of かるた (karuta), called いろはがるた (iroha-garuta), is much more simple.

In this type, the 取り札 (tori-fuda) has a picture with a kana at one corner of the card. Its corresponding 読み札 (yomi-fuda) features a proverb connected to the picture with the first syllable being the kana displayed on the 取り札 (tori-fuda).

If you know hiragana, you can play いろはがるた (iroha-garuta).

It is also a good way to study if you are learning hiragana, and you can learn a lot of Japanese ことわざ (kotowaza – proverbs) too, so I recommend it!

Don’t know how to read hiragana? Get our free Japanese ebooks!
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