Sorry to be of bother, but may I ask how you pronounce Eikoku (England/Britain/UK). Sorry if it is spelt wrong, I have only just started listening. Ive never listened to a podcast before either so its a new experience there aswell.

It’s been fantastic so far, and hopefully I do pick up the basics as I would like to be able to speak other languages as the career I am planning towards in some ocassions, needs the use of other languages.

Domo Arrigato?

AWESOME! This is really cool. Now when I click the link it says lesson 2. And the recording mentions elements from a previous lesson. Have the lessons been reordered? I want to start from the beginning

sorry for no one answering for a long time, okay like a month , but to answer your questions:
Chris-san, the first lesson recorded was survival phrases #1, making this the 2nd lesson, and so for Gary-san, survival phrases #1 is where they talk about onegai shimasu. And about the dropping the ‘u’ in pronounciation: I think that the ‘u’ sound is not completely gone, but just supressed by the ’s’ sound and is said much quieter to make is sound as if it isn’t there. And i think that the amount of suppression varies from person to person or region to region so that some people pronounce the ‘u’ more, like i think that Hatsumi-san pronounced the ‘u’ in ‘desu’ more than anyone else that i have heard. I am by no means an expert on Japanese pronounciation and the information i just gave is based upon my own understanding so you should probably get someone with a better knowledge of Japanese pronounciation to answer this one before you put this knowledge to heart .
Hope this information helps
Yoroshiku negai shimasu!

Joey-san is correct in his explanation, and there is not much else to add to it… Some people barely pronounce the last “u” at all, and some does it quite strongly… Having the “u” sound at the end makes it sound a bit more polite though, but be aware that when adding sentence ending particles like “ne” and “yo” (like “desu yo”) the “u” is almost not pronounced at all.

Jonas

Wow… what a website! I just found it reading a magazine in Tokyo.
Learning Japanese is not easy. Your method will surely help me. I thank you in advance.
Again… I am very amazed by your work. CONGRATULATIONS.

hang-san,

Welcome to JapanesePod101.com! In order to be able to access and view the PDF files on our site, you first have to be signed up to our 7-Day Free Trial, a Basic subscription, or a Premium subscription. To learn more about the various subscription levels please visit our Subscription Information help page.

To view the files, you must also have a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or FoxIt Reader installed on your computer. Finally, you may want to check out our New User Introduction Page as well as our Feature Guide to learn more about what the JapanesePod101.com Language Training System has to offer.  

If you have followed the steps above and are still having a difficult time viewing the PDF files, please contact us directly via email at support@japanesepod101.com.

Eran

Hi Donovan-san,

Welcome to our exciting, fun, and innovative language traning program! We are so glad that you found us and are here to answer any questions that you might have along your quest to learning the Japanese language and culture. You may want to check out our Introduction page as well as our Help Center, as both are great starting points for new users.

Once again, welcome to JapanesePod101.com!

Eran

Katagana? You mean KataKana, right Peter?

Also, is it such a good idea to teach beginers to say Watashi wa… Watashi wa… Watashi wa… ad nauseum like that? To most Japanese that would sound pretty awkwardly self-centered.

From my own experience, it would be more proper to introduce yourself like “Hajimemashite. (Name) to moushimasu. Dozo yoroshiku. (country)-jin desu.”?

It might also get beginers of the language off on the right foot to mention how Japanese often avoid speaking in full and complete sentences, omitting details that are assumed to be known by both the speaker and listener (another reason, other than the self-centeredness thing, why most Japanese wouldn’t keep saying the “Watashi wa…” part over and over again).

konnichiwa… may i know how to translit “i’ve 3 siblings” in japanese?

I just want to say thank you to everyone at japanesepod101.com! i have always had a strong fascination with the japanese culture and language. because i do so much driving, listening to these in my car on cd is PERFECT for me. hopefully in the next year or so ill be ready enough for my first (of many i hope) trip to japan. ^_^

I’m guessing that it’d be Burandon ブランドン
Bu Ra N Do N 5 syllables.

And Good Luck with learning Japanese.

ganbatte ne!

ANMさん,
Welcome to JapanesePOD101. Please feel free to post if you have questions about the lessons.
John C. Briggs

First, ARIGATO GOZAIMASU for making such a easy-to-follow and easy-to-listen-to series of podcasts. I tried Pimsleur a while back, but got frustrated with it because it was hard to listen to. I really feel like I have a little better grasp on the language even after just a few podcasts.

Second, is it better to start with the Beginner lessons, or the Newbie lessons? I started with Newbie, but I’m only on #3, so it wouldn’t be difficult to switch, if it’s better. Thanks again!

where do u people seem to get teachers?! LOL…wait…ROR! (er…Kinda racist ,… i am sorry.)
Anyway, Where do you people get teachers?
I can’t seem to find one, i never did ether!
I had to teach myself with the PC. TT^TT’ How sad…

hello everyone! Hajimemashite!

I’ve listened to the first week and quickly listened to the second week, and I have definitely learned how to say hello to someone for the first time. However, can anyone give me one (or more) greeings to someone I’m already familiar with? Even just a simple “hello”??
thanks so much.

Thank you for offering free seven day trial. materials appear high quality.

Gregg

Konnichiwa “the BOMB team”, Peter & guys!

Well, could you help me to clear my doubts with 2 questions only:-

Q1) When I click on Kanji Flashcards, I realized there are 2 types of reading for the Kanji:-

a) Kun Yomi &
b) On Yomi

Could you explain the meanings of these two? And must I learn the reading of these two or just only one of them?

Q2) “Add to my Kanji Bank”, if I add chosen words to my Kanji bank, can I print it out?

If Yes, how do I go about printing it out. Please tell me step by step as I am computer nuts.

Thank you so much!

Peter san, your lessons are really a “BOMB”, I enjoy it everyday.

one more thing about kanji……….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji
wikipedia is always helpful

and yes, you can print out from the word bank!
i do it all the time:
at the top of the screen you can see this:

My Word Bank
My Word Bank Flashcards | Show Printer Friendly Version

click on Show Printer Friendly Version and it will print a clean version of your word bank.

hope this helps!!!

marky

I must say I am really impressed! I have always wanted to go to Japan and have the worst time learning languages. I find this webcast to be exciting. How would I pronouce my name in Japanese? And how would my name be spelled in Japanese?

Thanks a lot!!!

thanks usagiさん！ thanks & welcome kellyさん！
we’re just trying to have fun with japanese! it’s got a reputation as being difficult or something, so we want to take a different approach!

marky

I think it would be ライアン (Raian)

My name is Brenda. How do I pronounce my name in Japanese?

thank you.. ^^ Arigato!

hi there, guys! I’ve been listening to your lessons just last October and its really great because learning japanese in your site makes it easier to me than to read a bunch of japanese-english books specially if those books were thick in appearance… I love hearing your lessons and repeat it every now and then so that the japanese words would really stick in my mind …I found your site thru skype.com and I was interested to learn japanese through listening to your pod cast… omedetou gozaimasu for making this site and for having your amazing hosts…

I just have two questions. First, how can I renew my subscription because my account is already expired just 2 days ago and what (or who’s) website will I write when I want to join the affiliate program?

I also wanted to know how my name would be written in katakana and pronounced, if it is different.

I can’t think off the top of my head how an a as in “hay” sound is made.

I’m confused. I’ve gone through the entire ‘Newbie’ section and I was expecting the ‘Beginner’ section to be more advanced than ‘Newbie,’ but I find that this lesson is completely trivial in comparison.

Am I wrong in assuming that the level of difficulty goes ‘Newbie,’ ‘Beginner, ‘ ‘Beginner 22, ‘Intermediate,’ and ‘Advanced?’

Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Carura desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Watachi wa Porutogaru jin desu and I am enjoying so much hearing and learning japanese with japanesepod101 lessons that I made a blog where you can read what is said in the lessons with the meaning in portuguese.

Anyone interested in Portuguese, visit the above site for a Portuguese translation of this lesson.
http://aprenderjapones.blogs.sapo.pt/2008/01/14/

Doomo Arigatoo

Mata ne

AWSOME,
I’m stationed in Guam and there are ALOT of japanese tourist that come out here. I personally wanted to learn to better myself and to be able to make my way around japan too.

Uso means “a lie.”
So if you say, “uso!” it’s like “no way, you’re lying!”

こんにちは・・・Hallo from Indonesia ….
I love JapanesePod101 ..
Its so easy to understand. Especially for people new to Japanese.
In my office we usually have a Japanese class every Saturday. One day i try to use one of the material from JapanesePod101, and my friends said that it was really great material. They can easily understand it and they can practice their listening.
So thank you very much and please keep up the great work

O yeah, i think i will put JapanesePod101.com in my website so each of my friends can access it and learn some more …

Thanks ..

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for the shows and all the most excellent quality you are providing.

I have been trying to learn using your site, and the talking and listening coming along nicely, my kanas are already good too, but I have huge problems memorising the kanjis.

I basically need something that will remind me where a kanji comes from, some sort of “logic”, or mnemonic.

For e.g. in the first lesson, I can easily see why 人 would be a stylicized person, and why 日 should be the sun, why 木 would be a tree, and therefore why moto 本 shows the root or the tree, or by extention the origin, so ni-hon makes “origin of the sun”, where the sun rises.

And when looking at other kanjis, I can see a stylicized moon in 月, I can see someone speaking in 言 (mouth with wind coming out of it), and some mountains in 山.

But for the more complexe ones, I am desperate for some explanation.

名 meaning “name” is a combination of evening and mouth, why? Is there somewhere an explanation?
Also why is 夕 the evening? Is it a stylicized moon?
for 私, I have no clue why it should mean “I” or “me”.

Do you know any website that explains the origin of the kanjis or gives mnemonics for them?
Have I missed a page where this is described on this site? Or are you planning to do that yourselves later?

I really feel I won’t be able to memorise any of the complicated ones otherwise.
You made the speaking easy, I am not used to learn the hard way any longer!

Many thanks.

Laurent Griot-san,

First and foremost, you’ll need to know that the current Chinese characters have changed a lot over the years.

名 is name probably due to historic conventions.

1) When a child was given a name, his father would go out at evening of the child’s birth and tell the child the name he has chosen.
2) When you want to identify yourself during the evening, you’ll need to call out your name.

Whether it’s 1 or 2 for the Chinese character, I don’t know. #2 is more of a mnemonic and #1 is a more of a historic convention by different cultures, but you can think of it as a mnemonic.

私 is a combination of grain and selfish/private radicals. This is probably another character based on historic interpretation, and could use the mnemonic “This grain belongs to me.”

夕 is probably a pictograph of a crescent moon.

I believe mnemonics may work if you don’t force them. The same can be said about looking at the radicals, pictographs, and ideographs.

However, I do recommend using flash cards in the long run. Its format doesn’t matter, but an electronic version on your ipod/phone/pda would be a good idea since you can take it anywhere and not bring too much attention to yourself.

Monica-san

It looks Japanese to me.

maxiewawa,

So it’s both Chinese and Japanese??

Oh I understand now. ^-^ Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu Sasquatchua-san! :]

hi monicaさん、
you might want to try this question out in the forum. the irregular use of kana for particles has been discussed at length in there, and the everybody will be happy to help you out.

the short answer is the character は (normally “ha” in words) is read “wa” when used as the topic marking particle.
(this was probably included in the pdf as well).

hope this helps!

Love it!
It was really difficult to learn Japanese in busy life. Japanese Pod 101 made it ‘Asa Mashi Mai’

Dear Kath

Thank you for putting questions!!

a) You can use Hajimemashite only for the first time meeting.
b) Do you want to say that you are Chinese Singaporean? If so, that would be 中国系シンガポール人です。Watashi wa Chuugoku kei Shingaporu jin desu.
c) If you want to prepare for JLPT4 Newbie Nihongo Dojo “Welcome to Style You 1″ is the best place to start.
d) We use both Onyomi(Japanese reading) and Kunyomi (Chinese reading). So, you need to check both readings when you learn a new Kanji. For JLPT4, it is said that you should know about 100 Kanji.

Good luck!!!頑張ってください！！Ganbatte kudasai!!

Hajimemashite everybody!
Watashi wa Nhi.Watashiwa Betonamujin desu. Sorry if I made any mistakes. I am Vietnamese but living and studying in Michigan now. I love Nihon and Nihonjin, so I hope I will have a chance to visit Japan someday. I learned Nihonjin before,then I stopped , now I want to start over again. I love this website.I love to hear Peter’s voice. Sayoonara!

初めまして。メガーンです。音楽は聞きません。でも毎日仕事にJapanesepod101が聞きます。私の犬は白くて可愛いです。私の初心はアメリカのチカグです。日本語が好きです。どうぞよろしくお願いします。

I hope that’s mostly correct. I have to love the Japanese dictionary you guys provide that shows the kanji.

I’ve listened through all the Newbie lessons so many of the beginner lessons are way too easy. But some of them have new vocab so I listen anyway. And yes, I listen to your files all the time I’m at work: roughly 8 hours. It’s amazing and funny. And I’ve learned more in the last couple weeks than in 3 months of taking a formal Japanese 1 class. I mostly want to learn Japanese because I like to watch Anime in the original Japanese when I can. This is really useful for me.

Keep it up!

I have a quick question. I was looking at the speech bubble above and noticed that the word(s) “watashiwa” was spelled out like わたしは. Logically the phrase “watashiwa” contains two instances of “wa” but in the speech bubble different characters are used in both “wa”s. I took a quick glance at a hiragana chart and noticed that they had the characters listed as わ=wa and は=ha. Why would the phrase have a “ha” character for a “wa” sound? Shouldn’t it be spelled out like this? わたしわ

How do i pronounce my name (kristine) in Japanese ?

This is great I started on this a couple of days ago with itunes and it has been very useful. My school does not have japenese just chinese which is fun also and I take the class also its my second year in it. Now I am learning Japenese which is so cool. Oh well thank you and sayonora.

Bybeammapsems-san,

Hello! Welcome to JapanesePod101.com!
Please enjoy learning Japanese with us!

Hy my name is mnorgovudkka
Im from mongolia
Buy

mnorgovudkka-san,
Welcome to Japanesepod101!

MoonPrincess-san,
Thank you for your kind words. Glad to hear you are finding the site useful!

konnichiwa! i hope i learn more from this resourceful site!

i want to learn step by step so i can follow-up with new lessons

i hope this site last-long and ARIGATO GOZAIMASU to all members of this site!

i really love this site!! japanesepod101 ROCKS!

sayonara!!

Doesn’t Hajimemashite mean “How do you do”?
What’s the difference between hasimemashite and yoroshiku?

Konnichiwa!
Watashi wa Samedin desu. Hajimemashite. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

I am very grateful for these! Just one question, how do i upload these to my ipod? as podcasts? I am very confused as to how to add things to my ipod for on the go. I dont want to randomly subscribe because it starts at a random lesson that isnt for begginers. I want it from lesson 1!

killakittyさん,
It would be best to use iTunes to download the podcasts to your iPod Click on the Basic/Premium Feed graphic on the right-hand side of the main page!

Rheesさん,
Have you looked up exchange student programs online? It would be good to know basic Japanese before you go - the more you know, the better! I would recommend the Newbie series and Survival Phrases series!

Rhees-san,
What anime do you like best?

Nice good luck with that girl.

I do want to give a word of causion to learning from anime. You need to make sure that you know what form is being used because nihonjin languge has formal and informal versions. So what you heard in the anime might be a rude way to say something and you would not know that with out studying the regular teachings.

Oh by the way “Bleach Rules!” lol

Domo Arigato.

Fabulous lesson.

I began learning Japanese a few years ago, but having two children delayed my learning. I am pleasantly surprised how much I knowledge I retained as I understood everything in this lesson.

I found the format very enjoyable and I would definitely recommend to others.

Caroline

PS: My youngest daughter (just over 2) started to pick up some words too, much to her grandparents confusion.

Pallin-san,

はじめまして (hajimemashite)

It is said that the last freedom a person has in Japan is how to spell their name. See my post above to Kristine for a bit more information.

Two possibilities are:
エフラン　(E-fu-ran) or
エフレン　(E-fu-ren).
The ‘u’ sound between fu and the next syllable would be contracted so it sounds fairly similar (but not identical) to your name when spoken naturally.

Since there are other possible spellings, you should go to the Forum section, the first “sticky” conversation topic in “All About Japanese” is about how to say / spell your (non-Japanese) name. I would post in the forum there.

I belive that is correct for thank you very much. I think I will take that advice and check out that forum section myself.

Doumo arigatou gozaimasu!

Stone-san,

Hajimashite, yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

-san is an honorific suffix that is very commonly used. -kun is another suffix but is fairly different because only someone with higher social status can use the suffix when addressing someone of lower social status. This is fairly complicated stuff and safely ignored right now. The most important two suffixes you should know right now are:

~san
~sensei

The latter one, I am sure you know, means “teacher”. As in Naomi-sensei.

~san can be roughly translated as “Mr.” or “Ms.”. The somewhat confusing thing is that once you hear ~san as a suffix for a 3rd person, you cannot tell if that 3rd person is male or female. So a somewhat long translation is “honorable person”. But “Mr./Ms.” is a better translation. It’s like the difference between saying “This is Smith” versus “This is Mr. Smith”.

As you go through the lessons, you will learn more about the “social status” impact on the language. Right now, don’t worry about it too much.

To be honest… I got Hajimemashite and the others but it kinda confused me. I don’t know… I don’t get it…

I just started using japanesepod
よろしくおねがいします。

Just a quick note! The Kanji-Closeup lists one of the kanji meanings as ‘one-sieded’. Unless I’m crazy, that’s a spelling error? =O

I’m not sure I fully understand how the Japanese language alters our name. I was just reading some of the post about what their name would look like and be spoken as in Japanese. Could someone explain that a little?

Vipin -san
Konnichiwa! Yoroshikuonegaishimasu.

If you want to learn grammar systematically, I recommend that you start with Newbie series season2 after you listen to some beginner lessons.
Newbie series season 1 and Beginner series season1 are mainly focusing on set phrases and there isn’t enough grammar explanation. If you want to learn only conversation, those courses might be OK. However, if you’re planning to take JLPT4(this would be New JLPTN5), Newbie series season2,3 beginner lesson 4 and 5 would be good.

We also have JLPT prep course so please check that course! I’m sure that course helps you to prepare for the test.

Benito Finitoさん,
I’d recommend our new Basic Japanese videos!

#1) http://www.japanesepod101.com/2010/01/08/video-1-basic-japanese-1-self-introductions/
#2) http://www.japanesepod101.com/2010/01/15/video-2-basic-japanese-2-basic-greetings/
#3) http://www.japanesepod101.com/2010/01/22/video-503-basic-japanese-3-basic-greetings-2/

They’re presented in an easy to understand format and only introduce a couple phrases in each video Please try them out!

janis-san,
Thank you for subscribing our premium course! Could you try to download the latest version of Acrobat Reader, if you don’t have it yet? Beginner Lesson #1 has our new version of lesson PDF format, which needs the latest version of Acrobat reader. If this doesn’t resolve the issue, please email us at contactus@japanesepod101.com. Thank you!

初めまして。私はブラムです。よろしくお願いします。
Nice to meet you. My name is Bram. Please be kind to me.

Great site. Just started on the lessons.
I’m from Indonesia, how do you write “Indonesia” in 方仮名if I want to say my nationality?
ありがとうございます。