The vocabulary course of today is about the names of capitals.
So why the name of the capitals and not rather the names of the countries? I had originally planned to do a vocabulary course on the name of the countries but finally there is so much to say about it that I decided to postpone this vocabulary course until later and I finally decided to choose the names of the capitals.
The list extends to 55 names of capitals, we will leave from Ottawa, in Canada to go to Seoul, in South Korea by crossing the American continent from North to South, then the European continent, will then come Africa for end up on Asia. Of course you do not have to learn them all at the first try (besides I doubt that you will get there at once). Learn them little by little over several days and it’s gonna be OK.
There is not much else to say except that all of these country names are obviously based on English. These are foreign proper names, which is why the Japanese write them in katakana. Pay attention to names that contain a lengthening like the name ローマ. Rome or マニーユ. Manila.
I would like to clarify that this course has an exclusively didactic objective. I chose these 55 capitals at random, no choice was motivated by any geo-political or other will.
オタワ
. Ottawa
ワシントンD.C.
. Washington D.C
メキシコ
. Mexico
ハバナ
. Havana (from Spanish "Habana")
カラカス
. Caracas
ボゴタ
. Bogota
ブラジリア
. Brasilia
サンティアゴ
. Santiago
ブエノスアイレス
. Buenos Aires
リマ
. Lima
キングストン
. Kingston
パリ
. Paris
ストックホルム
. Stockholm
ロンドン
. London
ベルン
. Bern
リスボン
. Lisbon
マドリード
. Madrid
ローマ
. Rome
ダブリン
. Dublin
ベルリン
. Berlin
アムステルダム
. Amsterdam
コペンハーゲン
. Copenhagen
オスロ
. Oslo
ヘルシンキ
. Helsinki
ブタペスト
. Budapest
ソフィア
. Sofia
プラハ
. Prague
ウィーン
. Vienna (from German "Wien")
アテネ
. Athens
ワルシャワ
. Warsaw
キエフ
. Kiev
ブカレスト
. Bucharest
モスクワ
. Moscow
アンカラ
. Ankara
テヘラン
. Tehran
バグダード
. Baghdad
カーブル
. Kabul
ラバト
. Rabat
カイロ
. Cairo
サナア
. Sanaa
バマコ
. Bamako
トリポリ
. Tripoli
ヨハネスブルグ
. Johannesburg
フリータウン
. Freetown
ナイロビ
. Nairobi
バンコク
. Bangkok
ジャカルタ
. Jakarta
ハノイ
. Hanoi
マニーユ
. Manila
シドニー
. Sydney
ウェリントン
. Wellington
シンガポール
. Singapor
ヴィエンチャン
. Vientiane
ペキン
. Beijing
ソウル
. Seoul
This course is now finished, you are now able to read and write 55 names of capitals, and that’s very good. Take the opportunity to review all that we have seen on the katakana, read the course again, practice your writing and everything will be fine, you will remember them without much difficulty.
You will have noticed that I did not put the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. We have already seen this word in the Kanji Study’s Part and you will find it in another course, in season two, which will be exclusively devoted to the geography of Japan. We will see a lot there and in particular names of Japanese cities.
For now, I’ll meet you in the next vocabulary course which will focus on the countries name.
I wish you to revise your course well and see you next time.
Introduction