Help translating a mug

That's Japanese: inu - dog saru - monkey ushi - cow toshi - year

So, it probably says Year of the Dog, etc. Japanese uses kanji (Chinese characters) and kana (phonetic symbols). Was what you posted shown on the cup in the roman alphabet or did you read the kana and write it in roman characters? Each set of letters between the dashes maps to one kana character. (There are 2 kana systems - hiragana and katakana, hiragana is used to write Japanese sounds such as certain words, verb endings, particles, etc. while katakana is used to write foreign words using Japanese sounds.)

Ahh... sweet thanks. I really figured it to be Japanese, but the woman selling them said that they were in Chinese and since she was Chinese I tended to believe her even though the words I listed were quite apparently Japanese. There is a big block of Chinese characters which I am now guessing simply explains the year of the cow.

The part that kind of threw me beyond all of that is why a Japanese mug would be about the Chinese zodiac/calendar? In any event the colors and cartoonish cow picture on it are pretty awesome which was the original draw. I'll take a photo before I wrap it up.

Thanks again, Dominic

Dominic, The Japanese also recognize the Chinese zodiac/calendar. I believe they imported the use of it several hundred or more years ago. In Japan everyone knows which animal corresponds to their birth year. There are many Chinese zodiac related products sold in Japan. For example each temple usually produces a wooden plaque each year with the Chinese zodiac animal for that year on it. Japan has imported much from China in both language and culture. This is one example.

I honestly didn't know that, I know the Japanese are very big into blood type as a sort of measure of your personality/traits but not the Chinese zodiac. Learn something new every day. Thanks for the info.

- Dominic