立春

Spring, on the fourth of February. Which is absurd — it is the coldest part of the year and 大寒 finished about a fortnight ago. But 立春 is where the old calendar started, so in a real sense this is New Year, and there is a festival the night before to prove it.

You have read half a year. Everything from here you can already sound out.

So this volume is not about new sounds. It is about a second alphabet for the sounds you already have.

The night before 立春 you throw roasted soybeans out of the door and shout 鬼は外、福は内 — *demons out, fortune in*. Someone, usually a father, wears a demon mask and is pelted. Then you eat one bean for each year of your age.

節分 means the division between seasons, and there are technically four of them a year — one before each 立. But this one, before spring, absorbed all the ceremony, because it was the old year's end. The beans are a cleaning-out.

It is also, unmistakably, a party for children, which is the most reliable way for a ritual to survive several centuries.

The kana

Japanese has a second script for the same sounds, and this is the easy one.

カタカナ — katakana — is forty-six characters that map exactly onto the hiragana you already know. ア is あ. カ is か. Nothing new to *hear*: you already own every sound in it. Only the shapes are new, and they are simpler shapes — straight lines and angles where hiragana curved.

It is used for words borrowed from other languages, and that is what makes this volume fun. Once you can read katakana you can read a menu, because half of it is English wearing a disguise.

One extra character comes first because nothing works without it: **ー** is a long vowel. It stretches whatever came before. ケーキ is *kēki* — cake. Two of them in オーケー.