Japanese Lesson for Brianna

Brianna started studying Japanese this year at school, and the last time I checked, she's doing pretty well in that class. I look forward to taking her to Japan some day in the near future, so she can practice what she has learned!

But here's a Japanese lesson for her (and anybody else studying Japanese). It's also a Japanese marketing lesson, showing something creative that companies do in Japan. To the right here is a picture of a sign in a train station, for a local dentist's office. The phone number they have is quite clever, and easy to remember for people who know Japanese. First of all, let's explain how to count in Japanese, 0 to 10. I'll list TWO ways to say the numbers, the first one being the most commonly used when counting, but the second form also used when using the number by itself. For example, "I'll have one (hitotsu), please..." (not counting). Here we go:

0 = zero = rei (ゼロ = れい)
1 = ichi = hitotsu (一 = 一つ)
2 = ni = futatsu (二 = 二つ)
3 = san = mitsu (三 = 三つ)
4 = shi, or yon = yotsu (四 = 四つ)
5 = go = itsutsu (五 = 五つ)
6 = roku = mutsu (六 = 六つ)
7 = shichi, or nana = nanatsu (七 = 七つ)
8 = hachi = yatsu (八 = 八つ)
9 = kyu = kokanatsu (九 = こかなつ)
10 = juu = to (十 = 十)

Additionally, a consonant in Japanese can be given a "soft" beginning by putting two little marks after the kana symbol. Therefore, "san" becomes "zan," "ha" becomes "ba," etc. Japanese can be kinda complex, ne?

So... in the photo on the right, the phone number is very clever. Look at the kana symbols they've put over the last four digits in the phone number:
6 = MU from "mutsu" or six.
4 = SHI from "shi" or four.
8 = BA from a soft form of "hachi" or eight.
0 = ZERO.

So... take those first three digits, and you have MUSHIBA, which in Japanese means "cavity" or "cavities" (there is no plural form of this noun). Therefore, this phone number essentially reads:
33-CAVITIES-NO.
A pretty clever phone number for a dentists office, eh?! :-)