Japanese - Ask questions thread

Basically if you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.

To start it off. When an animate object (iru) dies, is it considered inanimate(aru)?

I've seen some kanji/kana/IDONTKNOW on a friend's clothes, and I want to know what it means.

http://i1.tinypic.com/4p47drl.gif

There's a [poorly drawn] picture, since I can't type (or see) japanese on this computer. I think the first one means TA and the third one means KA...Or is this chinese and -not- japanese? I can't tell.