All post are in US PST (Pacific Standard Time). Apologies for any inconvenience. We’ll get our tech guy to work on this.
よろしくおねがいします！

Greeting from North Hokkaido! I just want to say thanks for the show! I really enjoy it. がんばって！－アラン

Alan-san: Hokkaido huh? try use “namara” sometime, if you dont know it. It’s an adjective meaning “totemo” or “chou” or in english “very”. Like… “watashi ha namara onaka suita”

Jonas

Jonas-san, as always you are full of surprises! sabi-nuki! I love it! I may have to eat some sushi without my beloved wasabi just to try the phrase!

Alan-san and go-Kazoku. WOW! Norther Hokkaido! We would love some pictures once we get the picture section up. よろしくお願いします！

Natsuko-SAMA! great post! Teach us some of that sushi jargon!!! I ll be pestering you for some phrases tomorrow!

Scott-san, great to hear from you!
http://www.koho.or.jp/research/qa/a_activity28.html
We’ll get Sasahara-sensei to give you a proper answer in the morning.

Jonas always posts useful information. As for kanji, I dont quie understand it yet,so I cannot say anything about it. Douzo Yoroshiku

While I do not have any Japanese friends here in Texas I do try to use what I have learned by watching Japanese Anime, in Japanese. It is great to listen and see what I can pick up. What is really fun is that I am actually understanding more than I thought I would. Thanks to you all.

Peter-san, thanks for the links. Really interesting. Didn’t know that. I’m sure lots of japanese doesn’t know that either!

Basically, it says that when you’re polite, and ask for something REAL, you use kanji (omizu kudasai), but asking for something abstract, you use hiragana (oshiete kudasai, kangaete kudasai etc).

Jonas

Sakura-san & Peter-san.

I feel bad, you guys thanked me twice on the last news report. I am tony and tonyg sumimasen, I didn’t want to take up precious time during pod cast, but it was fun . Arigatoo gozaimasu

BTW I think if you listen to Love Psychedelico or Love Psychedlic Orchestra as they are known too, I like their first albumn ichi-ban yo!

Ja, ima nihongo wo benkyo shimasu,

mata ne
-tony g

Great show today, which was especially helpful as I haven’t heard either かしこまりました or ぬきでお願いします before… both are really helpful to know!

With regard to 下さい vs ください - I see the one with kanji to be just more formal… or if someone was writing by hand, I guess it could be written as 下 takes less time than くだ, so in that respect it could be informal and lazy! :p

Vynnie - when I was starting out I always heard “yo” and “ne” and didn’t understood why they were used, or the difference between them, so I asked my teacher (native Japanese) who told me that if there are two people talking, and they have similar opinions, then you can use “ne” as a tool for agreement. For example

“oishii desu”
“un, oishii desu ne”

“It’s tasty”
“Yes it is, isn’t it?”

In this sense, “ne” can be translated as “isn’t it”, “you’re right” etc to give a sense of agreement.

On the other hand, you can use “yo” if only one person holds the opinions, or if only one person has first hand experience. For example, if you went to a concert and want to tell a friend that it was good and that they should go next time, or if someone ate a new food, and another person asked about how it was, you could say “oishii desu yo” which kind of gives the implication of “it’s tasty and I recommend that you try it as well”

If you’re trying this out, and you’re in doubt as to which one is right, I would suggest to not use “ne” as it could be considered rude if it should be “yo” (though obviously as a non-native speaker you will be allowed mistakes). But just be aware that, if in the above example, you have experience of new food and someone is asking about it, and you said “oishii desu ne” it may come off a little full of yourself, sarcastic, or that you are bragging that you’ve had this experience and the other person hasn’t. Consider it in English - “how’s that new restaurant” “well, it’s good, isn’t it?” (possibly this isn’t well explained without the tone of voice I am using in my head!)

Therefore, in the case of “mata ashita ne” there is kind of an implied understanding that if a person has been listening to the podcast, that they will surely come back tomorrow - as we do!

I hope that reply wasn’t too long and detailed! But I hope I answered your question!

Amazing posts! Minasan, hontouni arigatou gozaimasu
RobGillon-san, you explanation about “yo” and “ne” was extremely to the point. Sugoi . I’ve been thinking about “yo” and “ne,” but while I use them so often, I found it very hard to explain about them. Thank you so much.
Vynnie-san, if I come up with anything that I can add to Rob-san’s explanation, I’ll post.
Today, I just wanted to share this small piece of information. I heard on TV that the term “感謝チョコ” (kansha choko; thank you chocolate) is also used recently for “giri choko.” Hajimete shirimashita
And, happy birthday アルフォンソさん.

ピーターさん、

Those links were indeed very interesting!! I’ve wondered about this subject a few times before, but never actually looked into it. Just to expand on what Jonas-san mentioned, I interpreted the pages as such:

下さい is used as a polite imperative verb to request something (physical), which is why the examples are all in the form of ___を下さい - “Please give me ___”. It is taking a direct object - the thing being requested. I.e. 上がりを下さい (green-tea please-give-me, or “(give me) green tea, please”); 新聞を二部下さい (newspaper two please-give-me, or “(give me) two newspapers, please”).

ください is used as an auxiliary verb, and is thus accompanied by the verb te-form, verb stem, etc. in order to politely request an action, behavior, etc. “Do” is an auxiliary verb in English, and could pretty much be equated with ください (with the addition of politeness - “please”). I.e. お待ちください (wait please-do, or “please wait”); 書かないでください (not-write please-do, or “please don’t write”).

Yes, I realize Jonas-san said pretty much the same thing, but I thought I would expand on it If any of that was invalid, please correct me!

Peter-san,

After getting on your case yesterday, I want to complement you on your use of the very expressive phrase “smoke and mirrors” to describe the completely different words used at different levels of politeness. In fact, this is what caused the physics Nobel laureate Richard Feynman to give up his quest to learn Japanese. There’s a hilarious vignette from his autobiographical book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”. Surprisingly for a book still under copyright, you can find it on the web:
http://www.gorgorat.com/
Scroll way down to Part 5, and read the first section there entitled “Would You Solve the Dirac Equation?”

電車の中に夢中
I still can’t get over how pleasant these podcasts are to listen to. I remember many years ago when one columnist defined the epitome of self-improvement as “listening to Japanese language tapes while jogging” (it was the Walkman era). These podcasts are nothing like that kind of punishment! For their effect on my mood, it’s more like listening to the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. (Hebi meta, indeed!) Only they require more concentration. I nearly missed my train stop at Ikebukuro last night, and had to do a Koi nobori act against the inrushing passengers!

To all the crew: Keep up the fine work!

Bob-san, we must have been posting at the same time! After I hit the submit button, I saw your post! As for the your post yesterday, I loved it! Constructive criticism is the best way to refine! We still have a lot to do, but thanks to great listeners like you, we feel our Japanese is continually improving! Pretty soon we’ll get around to English!
Thanks for the great link. Just finished reading it, and boy can I relate! I can’t imagine tackling this language without an electric dictionary, the Internet, and Tony Roma’s every now and again! The passage about Japan was a great read; however, your koi nobori act was even better, very easy to visualize.
Please keep the great posts coming, and don’t get too soft on us!

italics… badaboom! fixed?

Marcos-san, your post about use of “ne” in Brazil was very interesting Arigatou gozaimasu. I was really surprised. And it made me realize once again the close relationship between Japan and Brazil. Burajiru toiu kuni wo, mae yori zutto chikaku ni kanjiru youni narimasita. I’d love to actually hear “ne” mixed in Portuguese

桜さん、どうもありがとうございます。
バレンタインデーおめでとうございます。

桜と夏子 good luck with giving your presents on this day .
一紀さん lucky you.
As for us westerners we need to get to work on our present and dinners and flowers (right Peter) 　 .
Oh here in Mexico a lot of men bring what we call a “serenata”, or in English serenade, don’t know if there is a word for this in Japanese, anyway they bring this to their ladies houses and sing their hearts out.

Mmmmm…. 下さい…… I work in a Japanese company and I see 下さい　everywhere, very few times do I see ください。

皆さんバレンタインデーおめでとうございます　 。

hmm… about the italics thing earlier, seems it is only me? Well, in firefox, half the page is in italics… starting from bob’s post. Loaded the page in Opera now, and no such problem. Firefox spesific maybe?

Could someone confirm?

Jonas

Jonas-san,

Yes, I guess I am the “oni” in this case. I thought that the XHTML tag for italics would toggle it on and off, so I included four tags in my post, two flanking “Hebi meta” and the other two flanking “Koi nobori”. It didn’t work out quite the way I had hoped, even in my Safari browser. And you’re right; I tried my Firefox browser, and it is just as you describe. It would help if there were a “preview” button, though that still wouldn’t solve differences among browsers.

I have a question about よ　I have heard it being used in an abrupt way, such as ‘Dame desu yo!’　（だめですよ。） Which I think means something along the lines of ‘Stop it!’ or ‘Don’t do that!’ Or have I just been watching to many Japanese films? What I have noticed in the films that I have watched is the よ sounds more like ‘Yooo!’ In other words it seems to have a long sound. I guess this just stresses the meaning more.

Steve - だめですよ is kind of difficult to give a literal translation for… だめ means “no good” です means “is” and よ is for abrupt emphasis, or I guess you could say, like I said above, that it is used because one person is of the opinion that whatever is happening is bad, whereas the other doesn’t see what they’re doing as bad (therefore, only one person holds the opinion)… so literally, だめですよ can mean “I am suggesting that this is no good”… or more naturally “stop it!” - so yes, your translation was good. There’s no particular reason as to why they say “yoooo” much like there’s no reason why someone speaking English might say “yeeeeeah” :p

Hello,

Todays lesson was also intresting.
Till date i used example “こり　なし　で”,
for excluding something, it worked for me.
But from today i will use
ぬきtoo…

Thank you for the word…

Prem

Hey Jonas,

Thank you for that tip…
I will stick with that then
in case of ICE…

and thanks for the right
かきかた　for 氷。

Prem

Sakura-san: Naruhodo! benkyou ni narimashita kanojo ni mo tsutaeteokimasu!

よ is often confused with exclamation. as in “dame desu yo!”

But it’s more akin to “…,you know”

Many times (unfortunately myself included) westerners incorrectly use it as an exclamation, probably due to its closeness in sound to “yo!”

but when you said “genki desu yo” it doesn’t have the intimation of meaning “why are you asking, of course I’m fine!”

but rather, “I’m fine, you know” letting them know your feeling.

dame desu yo, is more akin to “That’s Bad, you know!” and actually lightens the phrase, “Dame desu!” which would be That’s Bad! or Stop it!

“ne” is used in canada, as “…eh?” a lot. It’s used similar to Japanese, to lighten a statement, so you’re expressing an opinion, but want their approval before making it absolute.

It’s pretty cold, eh? could be resonded with, “Yea, no kidding, eh?”

Japanese uses it a little differently, however, as it an actual grammatical construct and much more defined in its usage.

If i’m incorrect in any of this, please correct me.

I love your site - it makes learning japanese so fun and easy too.
Arigato Gozaimasu!!!
Ashurii Arekusandora

Just a quick question on the subject of getting what you want in resturants…How would I I ask if something contained meat and tell people that I dont eat meat or fish? Thanks

Finally i know the difference between さん and さま !