Can you guess what a ポケベル　(POKEBERU) is? I had no idea when I heard it at a Japan Club meet-up last Saturday. It’s a Japanese-English word written in katakana. I always expect to know these.

The PO-KE refers to pocket, and the BE-RU refers to bell. So, pocket-bell which in Japan refers to a pager. POKEBERU is a much better word. I have re-christened my old mobile phone which prompted the comment POKEBERU.

On a Sunday podcast, I heard the expression ポケベル世代 [せだい] (Generation) referring to people of a certain age when communication was a little different.

The conversation in the podcast was about Japanese use numbers to communicate words. Because Japanese has 2 counting systems (the Chinese and old Japanese), numbers can represent more than one possible sound.

For example, 39 can mean ‘thank you’.

How? Well, the 3 represents さん　(SAN), and the 9 represents きゅう (KYUU), so put them together and you have SAN-KYUU (thank you).

4649 is also an interesting one that still gets used.

4 can be SHI or YOTTSU. So the 4 here could represent a SHI sound, or a YO sound.

6 could be ROKU or MUTTSU. So the 6 could represent a RO sound, or a MU sound.

9 could be KU or KOKONOTSU. So the 9 could represent a KU sound or a KO sound.

The 4649 represents the common expression YO-RO-SHI-KU, as in ‘yoroshiku o-negai shimasu’ which is used to request favour in future encounters.

So, 39 for reading.

And 4649 for the future