NO! ポイ捨て

This is an interesting sign I saw walking back from Yodoyabashi after helping one of my students with his interview with the American embassy to get his student visa.
 

あなたの - Your
家（いえ）- House
の - Possessive particle to express 'the house's front'　
前（まえ）- In front of
でも - Particle to say 'at also'
同じ（おなじ）- The same
様に（よう）- as; just as; like it's
捨てられます（すてられます）- throw away; discard
か - Particle that makes a sentence a question

Translation
Do you also throw away the same as in front of your house?

NO! ポイ捨て（すて）- No Littering

子供（こども）- Children
も - Particle that means 'also'
みています- seeing; looking

Translation
No littering! Children are also looking.

一人の（ひとり）- Of one person
マナー - Manners
が - Subject particle
キレイな - beautiful (な adjective)
町（まち）- town
を - Particle to like the noun and verb
つくります- Makes

Translation
The manners of one person makes a beautiful town.

I doubt a young child would yell at an old man for throwing cigarette butts on the ground. If a young child did do that the old man would probably slap him or say something else entirely rude to the child. I guess if the man was weak spirited the child could get away with it and the old would apologize and pick it up, but I've never seen that before unless it was the child's grandpa. Otherwise children don't really like talking to strangers let alone shaming them in picking up their garbage. Kids litter more than anyone and adults who can understand the environmental impact of littering and choose to ignore it are setting a bad example.

I once saw some teenage kids throw trash into the river. I gave them a 'what the hell?' look and they looked back at me like 'mind your own business stupid foreigner, this is our country'. It was kind of disturbing but then again the Japanese ask for it. How so? Well if you've ever been to Japan you may have noticed that there is a brutal lack of trash cans in this country. There are about a million vending machines and can dispensers next to them for recycling bottles and cans but no trash cans for miles at a time. So why carry your trash with when you could just throw it on the ground? More than likely someone will come along and clean it up for you.

But not in the river...come on!

以上です。

ジョシュア

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黄色い線の内側

I posted this on the twitter account a few weeks back. Let's take a look in more detail to the meaning.

電車（でんしゃ）- Train
に - Particle to say 'of'
ご注意（ちゅうい）- Be Careful

黄色い（きいろ）- Yellow
線（せん）- Line
の - Possessive particle
内側（うちがわ）- Inside (behind)
で - Particle to say 'at'
おまちねがいます- Please wait

Translation
Be careful of the train. Please wait inside the yellow line.

Sometimes people and usually children play on the other side of the yellow line. It drives me mad or rather makes me terribly nervous. I've never seen anyone jump in front of the train and I hope I never do. I have been late because of death by train suicide and it's a real pain. Recently the train lines have imposed a fine for jumpers. Of course the jumpers are dead but the families have to pay for the clean up and loss of time. They hope that this will discourage people from taking that jump. So far I think it has been working. The death by train numbers last year and for this year decreased. Suicide rates haven't. People are just killing themselves in different ways I suppose. Although I heard that Korea beat Japan last year for the number of suicides.

Oh boy this is grim....

以上です。

ジョシュア  

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P.S. In case if you were wondering 自殺（じさつ） is the Japanese term for suicide.

やらないで！！

This is a popular sign to keep people from feeding those dirty pigeons in Nipponbashi.

ハト - Pigeon
に - Particle used in this sentence to say "to the pigeons"
エサ - Food or Bait
を - Particle to connect a noun to a verb
やらないで - The negative form of やる to say "Don't Do".

Translation
Do no feed the pigeons!! 

This sign doesn't have any Kanji in it, but it's good Japanese to know.

以上です。

ジョシュア

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