Camaro sells out in Japan

Looks like the "American Revolution" is extending across the Pacific. Even though the Chevrolet Camaro has not even gone on sale yet in Japan the country has met its maximum amount of orders planned. 120 orders have been placed for the V6 and V8 versions of the pony car which will be available with a price from around $45,000 to $56,000.
It is interesting that the American straight line pony car would be so popular in a country all about drifting and flashy body kits (watch "Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift" for examples).
The Camaro has also been a big hit in the states and has outsold the Ford Mustang over the past few months. Something that hasn't been done since the beginning of the pony car era.
It will be fun to see what the kids in Japan will do with the iconic car.

Mazda MX-5 (miata) to shrink

The Mazda Miata has never been a large car, but just as all car makes do as they age it has bloated a little. Mazda is planning on fixing that by promising to make the next version of the MX-5 smaller and lighter. There are also rumors that Mazda may also make aMX-2 in a few year that would be even smaller than the MX-5 Miata. Zoom Zoom! Here is a rendered speculation of what the new MX-5 may look like.

It look very good. I like the harder edges more than the happy and bubbly look of the current version seen below.To me the Miata has never been a girl car. It has always stood for handling and performance. I think it is a shame that society gives it the girlie-car title. Small size and light weight bring quick cornering and great handling to the table which is what Mazda's goal was in the first place. Something that muscle cars will never get since they only want to go in straight lines (don't get me wrong, that is fun too!). Compare it to a roller-coaster; would rather go fast in a straight line and then get off or would you rather go fast with a lot of zippy corners?

Japanese alphabet

Vocabulary:
shima: island
michi: road, street

Before we go any further, we need to define what Japanese words are made of. Just like English, Japanese words are built from a defined alphabet of characters. Because we have not yet delved into Japanese characters, I am going to show the Japanese alphabet in Romanji form. Romanji is a representation of the Japanese characters written out phonetically, and is how we have been writing our Japanese words so far. We will add the actual Japanese characters in a future lesson. Here is the table of the Japanese Alphabet in Romanji form:

Remember that Japanese is most often read from top to bottom and then from right to left. So, when studying the table, start with 'a' then move on to 'i','u','e','o', and then move up and to the left to 'ka','ki','ku' and so forth. Just remember to follow the arrows and you should have no problem.

To add some life to the alphabet let's break up today's vocabulary words to show the individual character blocks. Se if you can find these blocks in the alphabet table above.

shima = shi-ma
michi = mi-chi

now let's do a longer word:

Hiroshima = Hi-ro-shi-ma

A great way to remember the alphabet is to repeat it over and over again. Because it rhymes, it does not take long to learn. Just repeat "a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko" and so forth. Remember the pronunciation guide in a previous lesson to make sure you are pronouncing these characters correctly.

In a future lesson, we will add simple extensions to the Japanese alphabet to give us more power with vocabulary.