Today’s location is Niigata・にいがた・新潟 is the capital of Niigata Prefecture, the largest city located on the Sea of Japan.

http://www.city.niigata.niigata.jp/e_page/e_index.html

Has anyone been to Niigata?

http://www.voiceblog.jp/nippon/

Marcos-san; thanks for the link Listening to some of it now. Voiceblog.jp seems to have lots of different podcasts (not educational, but in japanese… so… well… educational )

Peter-san; You forgot to mention Susukino under Sapporo! Thats where I spent most of my free time during my 6 months up there, hehe. (Susukino is a mix of roppongi and kabukicho )

God ! I understood today’s lesson before Peter translated it in English !!
This is really helping me ^^ !
Thank you !!

Great lesson, as always.
It was good to learn how to count minutes. Here’s some others to know:
- Half (as in “half past”): han (はん、半);
eg: “Ichi ji han desu.” (It’s 1:30.)
- AM: gozen (ごぜん、午前)
- PM: gogo (ごご、午後)
So, if you wanted to say “It’s 1:30 p.m.” you would say “Gogo ichi ji han desu.” (午後　一時　半　です。) Right?
Keep up the good work!　ありがとう,
-john

Just to throw my two cents in.

Japan is +8 hours GMT.
Japan does no observe daylight savings.

when - itsu.
Morning - asa
Noon - shougo.
lunch time - hiruyasumi.
evening - yuugata
night - your
From 10 o’clock - Juu-ji kara desu.
Until 6 P.M. - Gogo roku-ji made desu.

Minty

Thanks for correction, I knew I should have but a disclaimer on that…..

By the way, Japanesepod101 as of today has produced exactly 100 pages of pdfs and 10 hours 43 minutes and 1 second of audio and video.

Huge round of applause,

Minty

I don’t know what it was, but something in the way Peter said, “It’s funny because it’s true” about Kazunori being late caused me to laugh hysterically on the commute between classes today. I got quite a lot of weird glances on the bus over it.

MintyFresh says
“…Japan is +8 hours GMT.
Japan does no observe daylight savings…”

In the summer Japan is 8 hours ahead of the United Kingdom which is using BST (British Summer Time, GMT+1). In the winter it is 9 hours ahead of the United Kingom which is then using GMT as its winter time.
So Japan time is +9 hours GMT… But it doesn’t observe DST just like you said.

Hey guys!
You are welcome Jonas. Lots of useful information here. Thanks folks for posting these useful infortion see ya

Responses coming soon! Today we working on producing 2 full lessons! もうすこし待って下さい。.

Marcos-san 久々！Long time! (with good friends even one day is a long time!) Great to hear from you! Yes, we have so much more in store, and it is so great to see your motivation. One of the best English speakers I ever met was Japanese self taught guy, who used to speak to his tv! He was really good! I would often say my actions out loud to practice my Japanese, in fact I still do! My favorite is Kangaerou (think!) when talking to oneself. I used to speak to myself in the polite form, until I found out I should be using orders!

Sarah-san, welcome and thanks for the post! It will be great when you come back next time fluent! Yes, working here is a bit on the rough side, while travel is on the great side! Definately make it back!

Gevorg-san, GREAT JOB! Tell us more about the new book. How many characters?

John-san, thanks for the extra info! Definately some really useful info in there! Everyone, please check it out.

Matthew-san, in my book the worse Minna no Nihongo lessons go, the better your Japanese is getting! Great job on catching up! As for some advice, definately find a Japanese study partner. Offer exchange lessons, 30min/30min English/Japanese, that will add much more incentive! Let us know how it turns out.

MintyFresh-san, thanks for the post and the update! Wow, we didn’t even realize it! Thanks for letting us know.

JP-san, great to hear! Wow, that is impressive!! We had to up our production to 2 today! Trying to keep ahead of you. Keep the posts coming!

Scott-san, thanks for the great post and story! We live for those. You know, personally I find Sakura and Natsuko hyterical too! And the same thing has happened to me many times! You’re not alone.

チャナンさん,こんにちは！

Ormo-san, were working on getting the videoes on the site, please hang on a bit longer. よろしく！

Marcos-san, always a pleasure! How did you like the videoes?

Steve-san, great job to you too!よかった！

Thanks, Peter. The videos were really fantastic! Also, today’s lesson was awesome. mata

Hi, I love Japanese Pod so much! I just have a few question!

First, is Japan on a 24-hr clock or a 12-hr clock? Someone told me that they were on army time, but I wasn’t sure if that was right.

Also, I love coming on this site to sit down and listen to the podcasts, but I like to listen on the way to school too. The problem is that on iTunes, there are only a few podcasts that we can upload, and they are random, such as begginer lessons, part 2, and things like that. I was wondering why there are only a couple podcasts on there, and how I can I get more?

Keep it up! Thanks a lot!

yup. we use a 24 hour clock here. but in reality, you see both kinds of clocks.
for example, they say both 4:00 and 16:00 (４時 and １６時, respectively). however, i think ４時 is more common.

to get the other podcasts, check here:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/downloads/#myfeed

the best way to subscribe is using the My Feed option, so you can easily choose which lesson you want (for example, just Newbie Lessons or Beginner Lessons or just Video Vocab, etc…)

Lucyさん,

I am a beginner, so I hope this explanation is at least not wrong, but perhaps incomplete. The end of “gozaimasu” is the present (actually non-past) polite form. “gozaimashita” is the past tense. It is used in situations, for example, when people are parting. I am done, thank you very much.

For example, when someone brings you something in a restaurant you might say “arigatou gozaimaus”. After you have paid the bill and you are leaving, you might say “argiatou gozaimashita”, thank you, that *was* very nice. Of course, the end of that phrase is inferred by the fact that you used “mashita” (past tense) instead of “masu” (non-past polite).

I hope that clears it up at least a little bit.

がんばって。　よろしくお願いします。