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Today we introduce bring you another jam packed lesson, as this one has it all! Useful phrases, new vocab, indispensable slang, bad jokes and much, much more. Now that you can say a few things about yourself, it’s time to move on to a favorite pastime in Japan, namely, talking about the weather! We get you started today, plus much more. Don’t miss today’s episode.

Grammar: , | Function: , | Topic: | Politeness Level:


This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 1 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

34 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #16 - It’s Cold!”

JapanesePod101.com says:

I just wanted to drop you all a note to say “thank you” for this great podcast/service you are providing. I’ve been living and working in Japan for the past nine months and until I found your program in December, I’m embarrassed to admit, I wasn’t even positive how to say “no”. Needless to say, I was a very agreeable person for the first 6 months of my time here, usually resorting to “hai” in all situations. Anyways, foreign language has never been my strong suit but your program has been the best teaching tool for this subject that I have ever used. Thank you very much and keep up the outstanding work.

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Jeremy says:

excuse me,is it okay to break up the word pretty in to syllabus?

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John C. Briggs says:

Jeremyさん,
I am not sure what you are asking here. Do you want JPOD to do something for the word “pretty”? Does it show up in this lesson’s MP3? Perhaps a few more words from you would make it more clear.
Thanks
ジョン

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Brett says:

Please, what’s the breakdown of that lingering cold word? Is it kasegimi or kazegimi or kasaigimi? Sorry I can’t quite get it.

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John C. Briggs says:

Brettさん,
I am guessing it is
風邪気味 【かぜぎみ】 (n) slight cold
kazegimi

kaze (かぜ) is cold
and
gimi (ぎみ) is sensation or “like”
so “cold sensation” or “cold-like”.
じゃ また
ジョン

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Iain says:

I’m not entirely sure I understood the audio part that explained ‘desho’… what’s the difference in saying;

Kyo wa samuii desu yo.

and

Kyo wa samuii desho.

Both mean (roughly), “I think it’s cold today” ?

(sorry about the lack of accents, I can’t do them on this computer!)

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Daniel L says:

Iain,

kyou ha samuii desu yo = It is COLD today! (the yo adds emphasis to the statement “it is cold today”)

kyou ha samuii deshou = It is probably cold today. (no emphasis, and a little bit of uncertainty is implied. Perhaps the speaker didn’t step outside yet, but is seeing people walking around wearing jackets.)

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Carla says:

Konnichiwa

Anyone interested in Portuguese, visit this site for a Portuguese translation of this lesson.

http://aprenderjapones.blogs.sapo.pt/2008/02/04/

Doomo Arigatoo

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Andre says:

Hey, I wonder, what is the word for what? Nani or Nan?

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Andre says:

I have a question! Why do you sometimes say ne and sometimes just say desu?
is it politeness or something?

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JapanesePod101.com says:

nani and nan… they are the same word. think of it like english “a” and “an.”

nani is the basic word but it changes to nan before a d or t sound.

desu means polite “it is.” it’s like a verb.
but ne is a particle that elicits a response from the listener.

in casual conversations you can drop lots of things, including the verbs. so that is why sometimes they only say “ne.” :mrgreen:

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Andre says:

:wink:
thanks!

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Motorerica says:

how do you say like “oh.. no wonder” or just no wonder? =]

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Bryan says:

I think Jeremy was talking about the word at near the end of the podcast - utuskushii, which was slowed down a bit but not broken up into syllables. It also wasn’t anywhere in the notes because it wasn’t a part of the main dialogue. I too found it a little hard to pick up entirely… at first I thought it was utsugushi.

So if I’m right Jeremy, and that was what you were asking.. the syllables are:

u•tsu•ku•shi•i
う・つ・く・し・い

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Monica says:

What does desho mean?? And for some weird reason, The lessons on here don’t play the whole lesson. Is it because I’m not subscribed 2 this website anymore??

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JapanesePod101.com says:

Monica san> Audio is working….hmmm you should be able to listen to the whole audio lesson but for PDF and LC you need basic/premium membership. :dogeza:
desho means, “right?”

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Megan Pawlak says:

Any new employees at my work are guaranteed to get a cold. or . . Tabun kazegimi desu. Seems to last a while. And everyone in my workplace sneeze a lot!

Hakushon…Hakushon….Hakushon! :roll:

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Hiroko says:

Megan Pawlak san> Why guaranteed??! :shock: I like Hakushon better than Achu! :wink:

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JKid says:

Alysia-san,
So glad you found us. Please continue to listen and post your feedback on each lesson! :)

Iain-san and anyone else wondering about deshou,

Deshou expresses uncertainty so in this case:

the difference between
Kyou wa samui desu yo and kyou wa samui deshou is that the first mean simply “(I think) It’s cold today”. Whereas the later translates as “It’s cold today, isn’t it?”

More examples: http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa093000.htm

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Michelle says:

First of all I want to say Thank you for having this wonderful site and teaching tool, I have completed my university’s entire Japanese course, but still find these to be very helpful.
Secondly, I noticed with this audio file that the audio itself cuts out quite a bit, but the time bar continues to move forward, making the end of the lesson dissappear :cry: . For example, when Sakura was explaining the breakdown of Kyou, it went Kyo/ about 2 seconds of silence/ o-u, instead of Kyo-u.

Aside from that, great lesson, and a wonderful tool for learning Japanese!

Arigatou Gozaimashita! :dogeza:

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Mayumi says:

Michelle-san,
Thank you for your warm comments and feedback about the audio! :dogeza:
This is the lesson at our early stage. :roll: We believe that our audio quality has been improving so much! Please keep enjoying our lessons!

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Samuel says:

the dialog only audio seems to be incorrect. it is about “White Day”…

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Mayumi says:

Samuel-san,
Thank you for letting us know this issue. :dogeza: We apologize for the inconvenience. We’ll fix it as soon as possible.

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Kiyashii says:

What is the difference between nande and nante?

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Mayumi says:

Kiyashii-san,
Nande is the casual way of saying “naze” meaning “why.” “Nante” can be used in many ways depending on the context, but it sometimes means “what” as in “nante itta?” meaning “what did you say?” or “how” as in “nante kawaii!” meaning “how pretty.” :wink:

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Greg says:

This is just me thinking out loud but i do have a question. When you say “mata ne” or “ja ne” or Mata ashita ne”. Their is one word that is the same, “ne”. So would it be safe to say that “ne” means you?

arigatoo gozaimasu.

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Yukiman says:

Greg-san,

Japanese is complete different language from English obviously..
I don’t think it’s safe to say “ne” means “you”.

“ne” is roughly translated as “right?”

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Greg says:

hai, arigatoo. Your right it is obvious japanese is completly different than english i was just making a speculation that it seemed like “ne” may have meant “you” after i posted that comment i stated looking it up to find what it meant and basically it means “right”. any way thank you for the help

sumimasen

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ビアンカ 西谷 Bianca Nishitani says:

Konban wa Mina san. watashi wa Bianca desu.

my husband doesn’t agree with this line on this lesson.

Sakura:Kyō wa san do deshō he says it should be Gurai (not sure if that’s spelt correctly) not desho. Sumimasen Sakura Chan…

My husband is a Nihonjin.

thanks for reading

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Lee says:

Hi!

I was wondering if you could explain the difference between desho (でしょう) and desu yo (ですよう).

Thanks!

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Lee says:

Hi Bianca,

I think your husband is right! I think ‘desho’ is used when we definitely know the answer based on experience or knowledge.

If I were a meteorologist for example, then it would be okay for me to say “3 do desho”

At least that is my understanding.

This is a pretty cool way of learning though!

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おう says:

何処から来ましたか。
中国から来ました。
今日は何度ですか。今日は丸度です。そうですね。今日はとても寒いです。なんて寒い。

また今日ね。

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Lacey says:

I found this lesson very humerous :razz: I am very glad that I found this website. I is the first one that I have tried out, and I think it might be the last! I only have a basic subscription, but I’m still learning a lot quicker than I thought I would. Thanks soooo much! :mrgreen:

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Greycoat says:

Hi there. I’m loving the lessons - thank you so much! I have a couple of questions though.

I am doing some ’sentence mining’ on the word でしょう, having heard it in the lesson, and came up with this sentence: 私はだれでしょう. I understand that it must mean something like “Who am I?”, but why doesn’t it have か on the end, and why have でしょう instead of です? I don’t think I really understand how to use でしょう in a question. It must change the connotation of the sentence, but I’m not sure in what way.

Thanks again!

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