The History of Karuta's Card
The Translated Karuta
The History of Karuta's Card >> The translated Karuta

There are also Ogura Hyakunin Isshu karuta cards translated into various languages.

Ogoola Karuta

Created by Feurst Aya

English version

English version

 

French version

French version

Since 2009, Aya Feurst has been promoting "Foreign Language Karuta," a game played with poems from other countries.
She has translated the Japanese "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu Karuta cards" into many languages and has produced English, Swedish and French versions of the Karuta cards since 2016. Currently, German and Chinese versions are also available.

All products have separate cards for "Torifuda(cards to be taken) " and "Yomifuda(cards for reading)",so you can also play “Kyogi karuta(karuta competitions)".
The size of the cards she produces is larger than Japanese competitive karuta cards, about the size of playing cards. As you can see in the picture, each card has translation of a foreign language on the Ogoola mark and Japanese characters written on the back of it.

English translation by Clay J. MacCauley (1917), using picture cards by Tamura Shogundo Co.

●Web Site:Ogoola Karuta

Swedish version

Swedish version

WHACK A WAKA Hyakunin English Karuta

Created by Peter MacMillan

WHACK A WAKA(cover)

WHACK A WAKA(cover)

WHACK A WAKA(cards)

WHACK A WAKA(cards)

"WHACK" is an English word that means "to hit with a snap," and it reminds us of whacking a karuta card. "WAKA" means the Japanese poem "Waka", and "Hyakunin English" imitates the pronunciation of "Hyakunin Isshu" in Japanese.

Japanese literature scholar and poet Peter MacMillan has translated the Hyakunin Isshu into English.
In 2008, he translated the Hyakunin Isshu into English and published a book titled "One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each".

In 2019, he produced "WHACK A WAKA Hyakunin English," based on a new English translation with five-line poems with an excellent rhythm, based on the rhetoric of Japanese poetry and pivot words.

The illustrations on the cards, which depict scenes from the poems, were painted by painter Yasushi Yokoiyama.

Because the English version requires more space, the cards are larger than Japanese competitive karuta cards, and are the size of poker playing cards.
As you can see in the photo, this version of the game is bilingual and the backs of each card has the original poems in Japanese on them, The game is divided into five colors so that each of the 20 cards is color-coded.

●Web Site:WHACK A WAKA

WHACK A WAKA
JP
EN
CONTENTS
In 1925, the "Standard Revised Official Karuta" was created to standardize "karuta cards". The following article is an explanation of why standardization was necessary, which was published in the annexed instruction manual of that karuta card.

 

Reasons for revising the Kyogi karuta card

To be fair in the competition, the letters on the Karuta cards must be exactly the same on all cards. Until now, the Karuta cards have been used in a mixture of types that use normal typefaces and types that use "hentai-gana". It was an unfair situation in the competition.

The revised competitive the Karuta cards are based on the standard "Hiragana typeface", and the original version is produced using characters using a brush. In the revised version, the text is slightly larger and bolder than the previous version, making the cards easier for competitors to read and take.

The reason why the backing paper of the card is green is to make the existence of the card clear and to reduce irritation to the eyes. We have also thoroughly studied the original text of the "tanka" (poem) to ensure that there are no errors in notation. This is how we created our club's "Kotei Karuta(Official Karuta cards)".

This is not to say that this Karuta card is perfect. However, it is at least better than the various Karuta cards that have been used in the past.

September 1925 <Tokyo Karuta Kai>

 

Features of the "Kotei Karuta" (Standard Revised Official Karuta)

Make the lyrics accurate

In the past, there have been quite a few errors in the reading of the lyrics and the names of the poets on the "Karuta cards". In this "Karuta card", all those errors have been corrected.
All "kanji" characters in the "Yomifuda(Reading cards)" are marked with "furigana".
In addition, we have made it easier to understand the reading by adding a diacritic mark to the letters that have a voiced sound.

Make the reading cards easier to read

The text displaying the poet's name is smaller than the text in the poem section, making it easier to read the text in the poem section.

We lowered the "Shimonoku" (the last two lines of the poem) by two characters from the "Kaminoku" (the first two lines of the poem). This makes the distinction between the " Shimonoku " and the " Kaminoku " clear.

Make it easy to pick up the "Torifuda"

Characters such as which were previously used as "hiragana" characters, have been unified as "か", "は", and "ゆ". In addition, the "hiragana" character "む," which was previously written as "ん," has been unified.
The font is slightly larger and thicker to make it easier for competitors to read the text on the cards during the competition.

Being elegant

The size of the top and bottom of the card is larger than that of conventional karuta cards, and the color of the edge is green.
On the backing paper of the cards, we put a pattern of the letters of karuta on the bird of Tokyo so that people can imagine "Tokyo Karuta Kai".
The typeface for the cards has been changed from the traditional typeface to a special typeface for this Karuta cards, based on characters written by a calligraphy master.

Being robust

Both the backing paper and the core paper of the cards are made of a special product specially designed for "Kotei Karuta" in cooperation with a paper company. Also, the karuta card packaging is so robust that it will never be broken until the Karuta cards are damaged and can no longer be used.

 

Distributed by Tokyo Zuan Printing Co.

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