The basic idea of any karuta game is to be able to quickly determine which card out of an array of cards is required and then to grab the card before it is grabbed by an opponent. Anyone who can read hiragana can play "iroha-garuta" (いろはがるた). In this type, a typical torifuda features a drawing with a kana at one corner of the card. Its corresponding yomifuda features a proverb connected to the picture with the first syllable being the kana displayed on the torifuda. Karuta is often played by children at elementary school and junior high-school level during class, as an educational exercise.
Rules
Rules
- Lay out the torifuda with the pictures and hiragana face up so everyone can see.
- One player reads out the words on a yomifuda card (e.g. warau kado niwa fukukitaru).
- All players search for the torifuda card that has the hiragana corresponding to the first kana read out (in the example given above this is "wa")
- The player who finds this card first gets to keep the card.
- Continue by reading out all the yomifuda and finding the associated torifuda.
- The winner of the game is the player who collects the most torifuda.
Information from these links:http://www.japanya.co.uk/Karuta.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuta#Iroha_Garuta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuta#Iroha_Garuta