  thumb|right|200px|shiritori shiritori (ããã¨ã) is a japanese word game in which the players are required to say a word which begins with the final kana of the previous word. no distinction is made between hiragana, katakana or kanji. "shiritori" literally means "taking the buttocks" or "taking the end". ==basic rules== *two or more people take turns to play. *only nouns are permitted. *a player who plays a word ending in the mora n (ã) loses the game, as no japanese word begins with that character. *words may not be repeated. *phrases connected by no (ã®) are permitted, but only in those cases where the phrase is sufficiently fossilized to be considered a "word". example: sakura (ããã) â rajio (ã©ã¸ãª) â onigiri (ãã«ãã) â risu (ãã) â sumou (ããã) â udon (ãã©ã) the player who used the word udon lost this game. there are various optional and advanced rules, which must be agreed on before the game begins. ==optional rules== *dakuten and handakuten may be ignored or added. thus suupu (ã¹ã¼ã) may be followed by furo (ãµã), and sato (ãã¨) may be followed by dochi (ã©ã¡). *a long vowel may either be ignored or considered as a vowel. mikisaa (ãã­ãµã¼/ã¿ããã) can be followed by either sakura (ããã) or aki (ãã). *common pronouns and place names may be permitted. example: edo jou (ãã©ããã) lit. edo castle is safe. *two words spelled with the same kana but different kanji may be permitted. for example, su (ã) can either be spelled as "å·£" (lit. a birdnest) or "é¢" (lit. vinegar). ==advanced rules== *words are limited to a certain genre. *instead of using only the last kana, the final two kana must be used again. in this case, only the first kana may not be the mora n (ã). *the length of a word must be three or more syllables. *only words beginning and ending in dakuten and handakuten may be used. ==english shiritori== a shiritori game using only english words was invented to help people learn english. most rules are the same, yet there are several original and optional rules that are used. *for students of english, any words including nouns, verbs, and adjectives can be used. *players cannot use different tenses of previously used verbs, unless they have nonstandard conjugation. for example, a player may use "be," "was," and "is," but not both "kick" and "kicked." *when a word ends in a vowel, like "life," one may use the preceding consonant instead. ==similar games== in english, th
Japanese_word_games