# アルミ



## josu87

Hi, everyone,

I need help deciphering what the image attached says. I guess it is Japanese, although I know nothing about Japanese. Can you help me??? Could you give a transcription in both Japanese and English? I need to know the exact Japanese characters, as they are very blurry in the image. Thank you so much!

All the best.


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## dojibear

This is "アル" ("a ru"), 2 letters in Katakana (the phonetic Japanese alphabet).

The meaning is not clear. Basically "aru" is an infinitive. In English it is "to exist". But normally that infinitive is written in Kanji and Hiragana as "有る". Why is it written phonetically in Katakana? Katakana is used for sounds and foreign words. So I don't know the reason, or the meaning.

There is an arrow around this mark, so my guess is that it means something like "this side up", and is a standard symbol to put on shipping boxes. But that is just a guess.


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## Joschl

It says "arumi" written in katakana (アルミ), which is a common abbreviated form of the loan words "aruminium" (アルミニウム) or "aruminyūmu" (アルミニウム). Both the words mean 'aluminium'. The third letter ミ in the picture looks a bit odd. Does my brief explanation make sense to you?

What I can see in the picture looks quite similar to a part of the symbol that is printed somewhere on drink and food cans to indicate that these items are made from recyclable aluminium.


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## josu87

Joschl said:


> It says "arumi" written in katakana (アルミ), which is a common abbreviated form of the loan words "aruminium" (アルミニウム) or "aruminyūmu" (アルミニウム). Both the words mean 'aluminium'. The third letter ミ in the picture looks a bit odd. Does my brief explanation make sense to you?
> 
> What I can see in the picture looks quite similar to a part of the symbol that is printed somewhere on drink and food cans to indicate that these items are made from recyclable aluminium.


It has to be related to recycled because it is on a product made out of recycled materials, cardboard in this case, not aluminium. Thanks for the help!


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## winenous

I did a reverse google image search, and found this:
https://www.city.tsuruoka.lg.jp/kurashi/gomi-seikatsu/gomishigen/basicrule.files/29itirannjp.pdf

The symbol is on the green bag(?) 2nd from the bottom on the left hand side.


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## josu87

OMG, that is it, right?? What does it mean though? You are genius of Internet searching.🙌🙌🙌


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## winenous

josu87 said:


> OMG, that is it, right?? What does it mean though? You are genius of Internet searching.🙌🙌🙌




Sadly, my Internet-search skill is infinitely better than my Japanese (zero). Another search confirms @Joschl was certainly correct about it indicating recylable aluminium, but that doesn't explain why it is on cardboard. Perhaps it was a box to hold recycled aluminium?

If it is important for you to find out, now you know for sure it is Japanese you would do better to ask here in the Japanese forum. And you should give more context about the item you found the symbol on.


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## Joschl

winenous said:
			
		

> [...]but that doesn't explain why it is on cardboard.


It's just because I don't know why either.


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## josu87

I know now people why it was on cardboard. It's because underneath the cardboard there's aluminium, and these signs are marking where the metal parts are. Thank you all for your help, you're amazing!

Cheers.


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