Today’s location is Chiba・ちば・千葉 the captial of Chiba prefecture! Chiba is a home to a huge seaport, and Disneyland is close by (after 6pm the prices are very reasonably and it is much less crowed! ) Spend some time at the near by park before heading over at 6.

About today’s lesson!
1) As Jonas pointed out Kashia・かしら should not be used by guys, as it is a girls word. We’ll have a bonus track explaining this slated for release tomorrow! Jonas asks and we deliver, but we need a little sleep this week!

2) Today’s lesson is extremely long because we included the polite form for comparison. We think that this is very important for you as some of you may not have experienced the drastic difference between the different forms of Japanese. Remember! Today’s conversation is that of 3 young friends talking together, so it is extremely informal and casual!!! This is not appropriate Japanese for talking with professors, strangers, at the office, etc. Every week will be a different situation, and the key is to realize and pay attention to what form of Japanese is used. Please compare the difference of Sayuri’s dialogue this week and last week.

3) As this lesson was so long, we have come up with something special for you guys! Please check back tomorrow for your surprise.

4) For those of you who listened to the lesson, and said where did that come from!!! The Japanese level (grammar and sentence structure) in this dialogue in NOT particularly advanced. However, the vocab and words used are very casual and not found in most textbooks, hence your unfamiliarity with them. We are confident that if you listen to the dialogue a few more times, things will fall into place. Remember, this conversation is as close as you’ll get to a conversation with young people without actually participating. This phrases and expressions are part of daily conversations, and extremely practical!

5) We would like as much feedback about this lesson as possible. In particular, did you like the casual vs. formal dialogues. Would you like the formal version seperate? Would you like the vocab seperate? Would you like a more detailed explanation of various grammar structures? Was this lesson too long? Or as there is only one intermediate class a week, the long lesson was fine? Please let us know! Remember, we’re a reflection of you.

Now, about this lesson. We’re still not sure how Peter got Sasahara-sensei to SSA (Sasahara-sensei approve) this lesson, but we’re launching an investigation! We over heard some of the conversation, but we’re currently questioning and talking to staff. So if anyone has any info, please let us know!

よろしくお願いします！

Hi there…Happy Friday!

I actually haven’t had a chance to completely finish the lesson yet, since my commute is not that long (which, most of the time, I’m grateful for). Today though, I ended up sitting in my parking garage at work for a few minutes to get a little more in.

I definitely enjoyed the casual dialog, because I would like to be able to learn “real world” usage, with the caveat that it is not to be used to your boss or people you don’t know. Although, yes, at first listen, I was feeling a little like, “hmmm…maybe I’m not ready for intermediate, and I’m somewhere in between.” By the 2nd listen, I was starting to pick up bits and pieces, so I’m sure that’s probably right where I should be with it, especially with the informal speech being completely new to me.

I am also very interested in learning the grammar, but I would be fine with that going into the lesson notes. I don’t mind the intermediate lessons being longer, especially since, as you mentioned, they would be once a week.

Overall, I’m very excited by the intermediate lessons. ありがとうございます！

〜ロンダ

Did someone say Chiba?

My wife is from Chiba! Actually she’s from the town of Toke, which if you draw a line directly across the narrowest part of the peninsula that makes up Chiba prefecture, Toke is right in the middle.

We’ve been married for about 8 years and we go back often (we live in the US). Her English is about as good as my Japanese is bad (which is really bad!). Her score on the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) was 930 and that was years ago! So that gives you an idea how poor my Japanese is.

My in-laws have been scolding her for not teaching me enough Japanese ever since we got married. Well, you are helping me change that and I just wanted to say thanks. I’ve tried language tapes before, but I always give up after a short while. You guys are different. You make it so much fun!!

I’m listening to all your podcasts while I’m at work (I’m about a month behind right now) and printing all the pdf files and keeping them in a binder as a study referrence. If there is anything I can do to repay you please let me know!! You all are the best!!!

H there again people!
Very nice lesson and lots of useful words! Where else could we learn real Japanese that easy? Answer: on japanesepod101! I have built up a large vocabulary and speaking Japanese faster than even my friend whos studying at a private school. Its because here we hear real Japanese. Doumo arigato gozaimashita
Watashi wa Nihongo o suki desu yo Jaa matta

Hi, Marcos-san, itsumo arigatou gozaimasu!
私たちも、これからもっともっと頑張っていこうと思います。
またね

Peter-san; My ex-girlfriend used “rakuchin” alot, so I guess I picked it up from there.

Morimori is a nice word too. Sometimes use it, hehe.
Oh, I’ve had the same airport-experience as you! Going back from Japan to norway, after staying in Sapporo for 6 months, I told the norwegian stewardess first “sumimasen” them “excuse me?” before finally ariving at “unnskyld?” (i guess you get the meaning )

Well, I’ll wait for your mail

Sakura-san; 詳しく説明してくれてありがとうございます！「らくちん」と「らくしょう」の違いはじめて知った。まぁ、なんとなく分かったけど、お陰でこれからちゃんと区別できます。

うちの家族結構すごいですよ。親父は中国人と再婚して、そのため今大学で中国語を勉強している。そして弟も大学通ってるし、母ちゃんも針治療を勉強。

ところで、僕の大学で「～かしら」を言う女性一回も見たことがないですよ。彼女のお母さんはたまに使うけどね。

いつも素晴らしいポッドキャストをいただいてありがとうございます。
これからもよろしくお願いします！

ヨーナス

I’d just like to answer the questions posed above.

“did you like the casual vs. formal dialogues”

Yes, I thought it was helpful to hear both. I also thought it was helpful to hear casual both with and without background noise, to give it more of an authentic feel first time round, then really concentrating on it second time.

“Would you like the formal version seperate?”

I think it worked very well as it was, so no need to separate it in my eyes!

“Would you like the vocab seperate?”

Again, I think the way the PDF’s are set out are very helpful, and don’t really need changing.

“Would you like a more detailed explanation of various grammar structures?”

I think the only one that people may have found difficult is the ばかり structure, but I think it was adequately explained in the lesson, with a good breakdown of how to form it, followed by a few examples.

“Was this lesson too long?”

Not at all! Like you say, there is only one intermediate lesson a week, and seeing as there’s so much good information in it, if it were any shorter, I think it would have been at the cost of the quality of the cast. So long as you lot don’t mind doing such a long lesson, I’m sure everyone appreciates it!

And on a separate note, I think it’s a good format, having one intermedate lesson per week… I don’t suppose you guys would consider maybe doing one advanced lesson per month, for example? I think some listeners may appreciate the level of the cast stepping up another level, but alike the format of the intermedate lessons, an advanced lesson could be like a rare treat! What do you guys think?

Keep up the good work everyone, the cast is, as ever, just great!

ロンダさん、 thanks for making out day! The part about sitting in the car to get the extra few minutes was great!

Lalo-sensei! Thank you for the update. Please keep us updated, and email us with you plans!

Eriku-san, thanks for the great post! Wow a 930!! That is impressive! Please stick with us, we are hoping to get a post from you in 6 months saying how surprised your inlaws were! Please keep listening! And let us know if there is anything we can do.

Teresa-san, yes, a lot of the material is based on daily experiences that have given me trouble and remained in my long term memory, so I am sure you can relate. I also remember how painful Japanese school was, so we try hard to break the rules. But that is why we have Sasahara-sensei, she keeps us in check! We have a lot more in store to get you ready for your next trip.

Marcos-san! Great to hear from you! And thanks for the great story! Thank you for listening everyday!! So great to hear that your making such progress! Keep up the great work.
ps Nihongo ga suki desu yo! Almost all the time ga comes before suki or kirai. Well get into this later! Keep up the great work!

Sakura-san!! Great to hear from you! Keep the great posts coming, but please stop making my English look bad!! Can you make a mistake or two to make me look good?

Jonas-san, thanks for helping with “rakuchin!” And the story with the Norwegian stewardess was great!

Nathan-san! Feel free to skip to intermediate as they are seperate from the lessons!

Rob-san, Thanks for posting! I owe you and email, もうすこし待って下さい。Thanks for the feedback it was great! The advanced lesson suggestion is a very valid one, and we’ll have an 打ち合わせ about it on Monday. I actually wanted to do one to learn myself! We also have lots more in store. Please keep the posts coming.

Alexandre-san, first, your English is great! No problems what so ever! Also feel free to write in Japanese too! Thank you for your suggestion. Have you tried repeating along with Natsuko? As it is said 3 times, once, breakdown, and again, you could say it at the same time Natsuko does, how does that sound?

Peter-san,

Good idea, I think I may just have to do that! (You’ve forced me to give into my temptation!) And if I didn’t restrain myself, I’d probably have emoticons after each sentence (or more)

さくらさん：彼女はメールとかでちょっとふざけた感じでたまに使うって。

ヨーナス

ヨーナスさん、ガールフレンドの方にも是非宜しくお伝えくださいね 　いつもありがとうございます、って

Hey everyone!

I just want to thank you all for helping me with Japanese. I’m living in Japan and find this pod cast very helpful. It’s very easy to survive here with only the survival phrases. So getting something new to listen to everyday really helps me get in gear and stay focused on studying.

I finally got caught up yesterday.

The intermediate lesson was fantastic. The first time I listened to the casual conversation I didn’t really get what was going on, but I understood more of the formal conversation, I guess I’ve been studying out of textbooks too long. But the second listen of the casual conversation was much easier.

As for the questions you posted earlier Peter:

“Was the lesson too long?”

The lesson wasn’t too long. It was a good length actually. Sometimes I feel as if the 10 minutes lesson is too short.

“Do I want the vocab, formal dialogues, casual dialogues, separate?”

Well, I must say it would be nice to have track marks to skip to the grammar or vocab parts of this lesson, just because of the length. But I don’t know how hard that is to put into a pod cost and I know all of you are working incredibly hard putting these together for us. I don’t see the need for separate pod casts though.

Lance-san, thank you for listening! We’re really glad you liked the intermediate lesson! It is packed with practical expressions for speaking with intimate friends! Your point about the formal conversation was just what we expected! Yes, we know that many people are much more familiar with the polite form, so we feel it is important to introduce everyone to more casual conversations. This is tricky, as we have to be careful about how we do it, but we are confident we have a winning solution!
Thank you for the suggestion! We’ll take a look at it.

Steve-san, you can do this! Sit down with the notes, and go over them. You will definately surprise yourself!
頑張ってください！

She says “kono bangumi ha Erklaren ga o-okuri-shimasu”. If you wonder about the verb here, it’s the humble polite form of “okuru”, which is created by taking the “masu-stem” of the verb, adding “o” in front and “suru” at the end.

What they say on TV(not commercials, but before a program starts or ends) is something similar: Kono bangumi ha goran no sponsaa no teikyou de ookurishimasu.この番組はご覧のスポンサーの提供でお送りします。

I’ll leave it as a challenge for you you to decifter the meaning

Jonas

In the lesson you used 今週 when referring to this weekend. In cases like this, when people say 今週, do the 相手 automatically assume the speaker means this weekend instead of this week?

This was a perfect lesson in my book. I Japanese for several years awhile back and have been using your podcasts as refreshers. This was the first podcast in which I learned a lot and a lot of what I learned I wouldn’t be able to find in a textbook. Textbooks seem to avoid contemporary speech and cultural references like Starbucks and snowboard, but if you’re a visitor to Japan these are exactly the types of terms you need to know. At first the speech in the lesson seemed a bit fast, but then I latched on and appreciated the opportunity to really test my skills. Thanks a bunch. I’m still catching up but now that I’ve found that you’re doing these intermediate lessons I’m going to be listening more regularly!

I have a question about the difference between kimochi ii and ii kibun. While I think it is true that kimochi (ga) ii is physical and ii kibun is mental I am not sure about kimochi (ga) warui.

I think that kimochi warui, or kimoi as often used in slang, can refer to a mental or physical feeling or even a physical feeling brought on by a mental response. kimoi (kimochi ga warui) is more directly translated as “gross” in English.

Any thoughts?

Gerry, I’m no expert, but I think しる is specifically “to know”, whereas わかる can be both “to know” or “to understand”. e.g. ”Peterさんは黒人です。”　”まじで。。。しらなかった。”　You can’t use わからなかった in that situation.

I don’t know.. probably safest to stick to しる = “to know” and わかる = “to understand”

JPod101 のみんなさんこんにちは、thank you so much for creating such a great program! I discovered JPod101 a couple of weeks ago and have been listening to it on my commute to work every day since! I am the one who wrote a review on Yahoo! Podcast about you ppl’s voice being sexy and all (It’s true, very sexy!)

I just finished this lesson, I wasn’t surprised that I could understand most of it the first time around. I studied Japanese for 2 years in high school here in the US, continued in college (Univ. of Washington) until the first quarter of 2nd year Japanese, where I flunked it spectacularly!! I still blame it on the teacher, she was native Japanese but wasn’t a Japanese Language Professor. I can’t put it any better than what my classmate had said: “I used to LOVE Japanese, but she (the professor) had ruined it for me and now I hate it.” After that, I stopped studying but continued to watch anime and tv dramas and read mangas and played games. Nowadays, I can understand a lot when I read or listen, but I can’t speak or write very well. Your JPod101 is helping me A LOT in that department! You see, although I have Japanese friends here in New York, I mostly speak to them in English because they’re here to learn English. I don’t get to practice speaking in Japanese ever. Now, I can listen to your conversations and pretend I’m talking with you guys (in the subway no less!) So, thanks!! My only complaint is that the beginners lesson are a little slow, but I guess u’ll start picking up the pace from here on.

You know what will be great though? A chat room!!!! I’ve never been on an internet chat room, but if there’s one for JPod101, I’d be on there everyday!!!

I hope you guys will read this post… I wonder if you guys have a way to view all recent comments, since I don’t see you guys reply to old lessons much. BTW, Jpod101 のWebチームは、ニューヨークにいるでしょう？　僕はヤフーの社員ですけど、お前だちに応援あげたいんです。ぼくにe-mailしてください。

Jpod101 のおかげで、ほんとに感謝しています。

I checked the little email box, so I did see it! But, I’m not living in Japan anymore so it’s a considerably less pressing issue.

And actually, my host mother tried to explain it to me because I was saying しらない when she asked what I wanted for dinner. Her English wasn’t very good, of course, but she said something like, しらない is “I don’t know that.” and わからない (incidentally, I heard わかない, which I think is an abbreviation akin to “I dunno” a whole lot while I was there) is more like, “I can’t figure it out.” If you leave out the English nuances it sounds like that works fairly well.

Thanks for the advice, both of you!

Small Error in PDF
In the 13 line of the PDF in the English section.

“Sayuri: Continuously working on my thesis. I’ve just handed it in. Oh it was”

This is cut off at the end. I Think it should be “Oh it was rough.”
Thanks
John C. Briggs

As a former employee of Sutaba, I would like to note that we just call it a “mocha”, not a mocha latte . In Japan do they call it that? I live here but I don’t have any Starbuckses around me! Alas.