Learning Japanese

For children making friends can be so much about shared knowledge and experience. This can be difficult when moving to a new country where cultural references are different (and I will never forget the sting of being told, as I sat outside of my new American home after having moved from England that the MC Hammer album I was playing on my ghettoblaster was ‘played out’). This issue can be doubly tricky when things are in a different language. But there are plenty of great TV shows out there that you can watch with your children that will help them to not only have something that they can recognize with friends at playgroup or school but also help them learn Japanese. And who knows, you may learn something too. Anpanman – アンパンマン Imagine if Superman had a bun filled with red azuki paste for a head, and you kind of have Anpanman. Anpanman has been going since the early 1970s but remains endearingly popular with young children to this day as they follow his battles against his arch-nemesis, Baikinman. Baikinman regularly attempts to disrupt Anpanman’s bread-based friends, often by stealing tasty treats by deception with the help of his right-hand girl…