Fast Food in Japan      

Developed by Shunko Muroya

Introduction

• In this WebQuest, you will find out about fast food in Japan by visiting Japanese web pages.

• Both hiragana and katakana recognition is required for this WebQuest.

• There will be a lot of kanji when you visit Japanese web pages. You might find these pages difficult to understand. But don't worry about it. You are in the process of learning Japanese and what's important is to find information you need from the authentic materials and learn something from these.

• Each time you click on "Click here", a new window will open. You might want to keep all the windows open so that you can go back to one easily.

• When you visit Japanese websites, sometimes funny meaningless letters show up. This is called "mojibake". Click on "View" in the task bar, click on "Encoding" and then click on "Japanese (Auto-Select)". If this doesn't fix the problem, ask for help. 

This is what you need to do.

• There will be some tasks. You are going to find information you need to complete the tasks by visiting web pages.

• Then you create your presentation on what you found out and share it with your classmates.

• Once you find all the information you need, you can make a poster yourself, or you can use software such as MS Word or MS PowerPoint for your presentation. You might want to start taking notes (or copy and paste the information you find) from the beginning. 

            Now you can start. Have fun!           

Task 1  

• Can you name any Japanese foods?

• Have you eaten any of the foods that you named?

Task 2

• What is fast food?

• Do you think fast food in Japan is very different from what you have in your country?

• Visit a travel guide webpage to Australia for Japanese people and find out about fast food in Australia. All you have to do is to look for some katakana words.  Click here.

Task 3

• Now let's find out which are the popular fast food restaurant chains in Japan. You will see six different graphs on the page you are visiting. These are the rankings categorised by different criteria. Go to this webpage and check out 「好きなものランキング」（the left hand bottom one ranked by the number of the people who like it） .  Click here.    

Task 4

• Now you know the names of popular fast food restaurant chains in Japan. Let's find out what they offer and how much things cost.

- Choose what you like from each category (hamburgers, rice burgers, drinks, etc.) and write down what you would order. How much will your order cost you in yen?   Click here.  How much is this in Australian dollars? To convert Japanese yen to Australian dollars (or vice versa), go to this website.

- Find out if there is anything that you don't have in Australia.  You can also compare the prices.    Click here.  

- Go to this page, click on "Menu" and then click on the pull-down menu. In the pull-down menu, click on 「チキン」. Click here.

- This is a mouth-watering one. Go to this and click on each item to find out the price. Remember when you read the price to say it aloud in Japanese.  Click here.

- The 5th one is not something you are used to. The key word is 「牛丼（ぎゅうどん）」 here. It is a big bowl of steamed rice with nice shredded beef stew. Yum!   Click here and compare the prices depending on the portion. Also scroll down and check out the 「サイドメニュー」（side dishes）.

Task 5

• Although it was not listed in the ranking, noodles are a very common fast food and there are many independent noodle stands in Japan. Let's have a look at them.

- The owner of this website is crazy about 「立ち食いそば」(Japanese noodle stands) at train stations. Go to this page, click on any clickable item on the list and find out what they are and how much they cost. Click here.   

- 「ラーメン」（Chinese noodles are another all time favourite in Japan and this website is by another noodle maniac. Go to this page and scroll down. Click here.

• You may not be familiar with the words you saw in the pages above. Need help? Try an online dictionary called "Rikai". Go to the following site and look up the words (or a paragraph) you don't know. You don't even have to type in. Use the "Copy" and "Paste" function. Click here.

You have finished your research now. It's time to round up your information and make your presentation. Good luck with it!

Questions? Suggestions?  Send an email to: Shunko Muroya