Today’s location is Morioka・もりおか・盛岡 located in lovely Iwate Prefecture!
I can personally vogue for Morioka, as I have been there twice! Japan’s best kept secret. Great food, reimen・冷麺, wanko soba, fun people, and just a great all around trip! For those with the time, it is a highly recommended trip!

Wanko soba
http://www.wankosoba-azumaya.co.jp/english/speciality.shtml

Personal record of 103. Nothing compared to some people, as some people actually had over 400!!!!

Oh…and before I forget, thanks for the link, it was really interesting, I think I would struggle to get past 100.:???:

メキシコからこんにちは。
こんにちは夏子と桜と一徳とぺーたーです、はじめまして、私はアルフォンソ　マガニャです、よろしくお願いします。
I’ve been a fan of 日本語 for about 二年, what fascinates me the most about 日本語 is the writing, all this time I’ve been learning how to write it, how to type it on a computer, I bought Japanese learning software, I bought books, I’ve memorized both of the 仮名字 (平仮名と片仮名) I’ve filled a couple of note book of just writing practice, and I memorized about 漢字百文字, I’ve gone pretty far by my self don’t you think?, Despite all this studying I lack something very very important the dialog part, building sentences, slang, here is were Japanesepod101 is helping me a lot and I mean a lot. I work in a Japanese manufacturing plant, hence there are some Japanese people working here, so the other day there was a situation were I spoke out 朝飯前, and they looked at me and asked me where did you learn that?, and I told them Japanesepod101 baby, it was so cool.

You guys are doing a great job in Japanesepod101, ever since I found out about you guys I have been keeping up to date with the clases downloading the lesson notes, practicing everyday, reading writing, I’ve even changed my iPod languaje to Japanese, it is quite funny when you lent your iPod to someone and they try to use it, jajajaja, they’ll look at me with a huge question mark and say I can’t read this.

Anyway great work guys, がんばって下さい。
Greetings from Tijuana Mexico.

Steve-san,
First the surprise! As we are always looking to improve our teaching methods, we have recently acquired the services of Mrs. Yuko Sasahara, an expert in her field of Japanese education. We will have more about this on the blog. She is the usage and grammar guru, and an excellent addition to our team. Please check out the blog in a few hours to find out more about this.

In the meantime, here is what the Grammar Guru Sasahara-sensei) had to say regarding your inquiry:
“Kekko” can be used as an adjective, like “Kekkou na osumai desu ne.”, which is very polite. “Kekko” can also be used as an adverb, like “Kono resutoran wa kekkou oishii desu.” And another usage of “kekko” is rejection; “No thank you” is “Kekkou desu.” in Japanese, but you should be careful not to say this too strong, otherwise you offend the other party or you will come across as an arrogant person. “Kekkou” is written in hiragana or the kanji (the kanji is the same for all uses), and is always pronounced in the same way with the same intonation. So, don’t hesitate to use this.

For more on Sasahara-sensei, please visit our members page!

Wow…that is great news Ureshii desu.
Hajimemashite Sasahara Yuko-sensei. Watashi wa steve desu. Douzo Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
Thank you so much (doumo arigatou gozaimasu) for your information on the word ‘Kekkou’ I think maybe sometimes when I use ‘Kekkou’ in rejection I might make it sound too strong, so I will be extra careful to make it sound softer.
What also was a surprise is that there is a Kanji for kekkou. I did not think it was written in Kanji, I have only ever seen it written in Hiragana.
O-genki de
Steve

Alfonso-san, 本当にありがとうございます！ 　こちらこそ！初めまして。宜しくお願いします。Thank you for making our day with that story! It is really great to hear stories of how you use Japanese you learn here! Please keep them coming! Please keep the posts coming 日本語, English or Spanish! We have quite a few Spanish speaking listeners!

Jonas-san, Thank you for the great post! I am with you! One of the reasons we are doing this help people avoid the tough situations we faced when starting out! Did you see this??
This is a must have plug-in for anyone studying Japanese and using Firefox. Check it out at http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/

Provided in a post by a listener Scott! If they only had this when we started out!!! Thanks for the recommendations! And please keep checking back as we are constantly adding new features!
宜しくお願いします。

Great idea! There is something similiar here. The word suki・すき・好き we’re planning on taking a look at this. Thank you for the great suggestion!

Sakura-san, great to hear from you! Welcome back!

Peter; thanks for the link. I know about it But I don’t use firefox… I would, but I just find Opera better for most tasks… Maybe I could install both tho. But..! I use their webpage, and www.popjisyo.com alot. Really helpful.

BTW, you should do a “slang special” sometime!

Oh….I am terrible at missing out particules…But actually I think the particle should have been を I don’t know…I find particules hard to remember. But thanks so much for your help
Steve

I am wondering if there is a phrase in 日本語 that is said when somone sneezes like “bless you” or “gesundheit” ?

ありがとう

エド

ありがとう　Nathan-さん

エド

DenDen-san,

Welcome to JapanesePod101.com! We are glad you found us and look forward to seeing you around. We love comments, feedback, and suggestions so please keep them coming!

Eran

Free Jesus cure for colds, sinusitis, coughs, and more. Please eat with food about 1/3 of a raw garlic clove, and about 1 crisp, raw, Serano pepper, (I remove the seeds), daily, or daily when ill. To cure kidney problems; please break up about 3/4 of a raw garlic clove into a small cup of warm water, let sit overnight, drink it and lots of cranberry juice from frozen concentrate, (add less than the recommended amount of water to increase potency).