Hello, I am Yoshi from NILS Japanese language school. Today, we would like to tell you about tatami 畳 you can see in Japanese houses.
A tatami is a mat used to cover the floor in a Japanese room. It’s made of bundled straw and covered with tightly woven rushes called igusa い草. They were originally used in the Heian period, but only for sitting or sleeping on. The longer edges of tatami are covered with cloth, the color and design of which were originally used to show a family’s status. Teh average tatami measures about 90 x 180 centimeters (about 3 x 6 feet) but it it slightly larger in the Kansai region and slightly smaller in Tokyo.
Since the dimensions are fixed, the number of mats required to cover the floor is often used to indicate the size of a room such a six-mat room or an eight-mat room.



April 5th News, from NILS Japanese language school.