noun
playing karuta
Refers to the activity of playing karuta, a traditional Japanese card game often involving matching poems or proverbs.
See also: かるた
お正月に家族でカルタ遊びをした。
We played karuta as a family during the New Year holidays.
Standard kanji-katakana spelling for the activity of playing karuta.
Hiragana spelling of the loanword component; less common but still seen.
かるた refers to the cards themselves or the game in general; カルタ遊び specifically emphasizes the act of playing the game.
Compound of カルタ (from Portuguese 'carta', meaning 'card') and 遊び (play, game).