Yesterday was such a cool and beautiful day, I decided to take my grandson for his first visit to Omoriyama Zoo.

We had a really good time, but he went to sleep about halfway through.

Anyway, I was thinking about the differences in talking about animals in English and Japanese, so today I’m going to give you a few animal quizzes.  Good luck!

First quiz;  In Japanese, almost all baby animals are called ”子”.  子犬、子猫、子豚 etc.  In English, most of the babies have a unique name.  Some are easy, and some are really hard to guess.  Can you match the animals with their babies? The answers are at the bottom of this page.

Second quiz, groups of animals.  In Japanese groups of animals are usually called 群れ.  (牛の群れ）．In English, we have different names for different animals.  Can you match the animals to their groups?  The answers are at the bottom.

1. cows                         a.   gaggle

2. lions                          b.  school

3. dogs                          c.  tower

4. whales                     d.  herd

5. monkeys                e.  pride

6. snakes                     f.  hive

7. fish                            g.   troop

8. geese                       h.  nest

9. giraffes                   i.  pod

10. bees                         j.  pack

A group of people.

Quiz #1:     h c g l a e b f j k d i

Quiz #2:    d e j i g h b a c f

How was your score?