Today’s location is Utsunomiya・うつのみや・宇都宮 capital of Tochigi・とちぎ・栃木 renown for its Gyouza・ぎょうざ・餃子 (dumplings). Also, famous for their cocktail bars!

Micheal-san, thanks for posting!
Big discussion on the issue, please see the following link:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/2006/02/15/lesson-35-pickup-lines-round-2ding/

よろしくおねがいします！ We’re considering all suggestions, but for now that is the way the site is set up. Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu!

Vicky-san, welcome to the community and thanks for posting!! Great to have you! Please keep listening, you’ll be speaking in no time! BTW, right now, Korean pop culture is huge in Japan!! Movies, music, etc. Very big here right now. Please keep the posts coming! And feel free to ask us anything!

(:???:) was meant to have been

Just thought you’d like to know, I have been interested in learning Japanese since I was 12, but our school district doesn’t have any support of it. We’ve got the typical Spanish, German and French, but no Asian languages. I know there are high school students out there who are in their 4th year of high school Japanese, and are way ahead of me. My first few years were pretty slow, because I didn’t have much of a direction. I decided that I wanted to avoid romaji, so I learned the kana. Then I tried to actually learn the spoken language. I tried several methods; I’ve got an entire shelf of language books which have gotten minimal use due to the complete lack of teaching. For example, one book I have has 30 lessons, it goes over a few grammer points and then has about 40 vocabulary words that it just throws at you. Am I supposed to memorize this? I can’t learn like that. I tried Pimsleur as well, which was pretty good, but I was frustrated by the lack of any written supplements. I found myself having no idea how to spell the words I learned. Finally, I tried YesJapan.com, which I still like for the video features, but it’s pretty expensive, and the lessons have the same “here’s some vocab — learn it” system that I loathe.

Of course, I found my way to this podcast, and am very happy with it. I can’t tell you just how helpful it is to approach the vocab like you do, so I can actually learn it. Also, with my discovery of Kanji, I’m noticing how much sense the language actually makes. This is just another great lesson in a long line of them, and it’s just getting better. I may still not have any actual classes, but I’m very thankful that I have this great resource to learn in. A lot of people might not say it, but thanks for bringing the japanese langauge closer to the spotlight. I’m happy to live in a time where creative and nice people have the technology to help people learn where they have no other way. Thanks again.

Hi JapanesePod101 Team,

thank you very much for all these great lessions! I download the files and listen to them in my car when I go to work to learn japanese. Just great and very useful conversations.

I wonder if you could put some pictures of you on the member introduction side, so we all have a picture in mind when we listen to you.

Tom

haha I have not even heard the lesson (wrong computer) but the pdf notes already sound hilarious.

poor Piigu-san! I know how you feel. what’s the japanese for “why do my legs always feel heavier when I go shopping with you?”.

and tom, good idea! pictures of the team would be cool then another plan of mine could come to fruition

OOOPPSSSS…. not AOI-kunai, it was supposed to be AKA-kunai!

gomen!

Hello,
You guys are really great. I don’t know learning japanese can be such an interesting and easy thing. Everyday I listen to the podcast and go to work. It really refreshes me everyday and adds very very much fun to the daily boring life. Nice work! Keep doing this podcast.

Ken-san,

你好！欢迎来到JapanesePod！

Vicky-san,

I actually have a friend who is studying art and design in Savannah, GA

I understand your feelings. When I went through El Paso, I remember thinking that it might be nice to visit, but I wouldn’t really want to live there. What could be better than Japanese class to spice things up?

What is your favorite Korean movie? I watched 장화, 홍련 just a couple days ago. It was pretty scary! How about 클래식? That one actually made me cry, even though I tried not to Or maybe 주유소 습격사건… that one was so funny that I watched it two days in a row because I had to show my other friends

Just finish downloding the lesson..will be listening to it on my way back to the university…anyways,i wonder when kaze ichi kyuu nana san and kazunori will be together on the same lesson…lol…keep it up,Japanesepod101!

Bryan-san,

That will be a fun one if that happens!

Vicky-san,

I’m not Korean. I try to learn a little bit of the language on my own every now and then, though, and I would like to study it more seriously eventually. I live in Austin, now, but I grew up in the Dallas area.

I haven’t really watched many until recently, either. What kind of movies do you like, then?

I’m sorry, I made mistake ↑

JP-san,

Thank you for your posting!

Are you turning GreeN!? That’s interesting!
Maybe hold you drink well, aren’t you?

I’m easily get drunk and turn red so
my friends says AKA-i! AKA-i!!

I just say AKA-kunai! AKA-kunai-yo!!

Dear japanesepod-Crew.
I found out about your lessons 2weeks ago and it is a great pleasure to hear your language and culture informations. I lived in Düsseldorf/Germany for a while. I don’t now exactly why but there exist a great japanese community. I loved to go to the japanese supermarkets and shops to make a ‘little Trip to Japan’ right next to my house. Maybe the next time I go there I can start a little conversation! Thank you very much. Leonie

Leonie-san: Thanks for listening! If you end up using something you learnt here, please let us know how it went!

As for dusseldorf (sorry, dont have the 2 dots on my japanese keyboard ), yeah, lots of Japanese companies put up their european headquarters in Dusseldorf. I actually have a japanese friend working there.

Jonas

I want to agree with Steve-san that the humor helps me learn. It’s very entertaining, also, but I remember the vocabulary much better because of the humor. The recent “arguments” in the dialogues have been very funny. Peter-san, Sakura-san, Hatsumi-chan, minna-san, arigatou gouzaimasu!

chime not chim… whoops….

hi

i’m so happy to stumble onto this site. even though i’ve studied up to the intermediate level, i haven’t been able to speak more than simple sentences because there’s just no chance of interacting with japanese speakers. i tried to keep up by watching animes n j-dramas but the japanese they used seemed to be different from the formal language i learned in school.

this podcast is so lively n i could understand it, i’ve become a fan! but there’s just one thing - when i click on the pdf lesson notes, i just get a blank page. is there something else i should be doing?

thanks, u guys are doing such a great job!

ピーターさん、さくらさん、なつこさん、かつのりさん、はつみさん、

あなたたちの podcast はいちばんですね！

OK, thats’ probably the extent of my crazy experimental japanese. Anyway, you guys and girls make a great podcast, I’ve listened to all of them and my vocab is already growing tremendously. I recently vowed to learn Japanese so I can come and work there, and this is helping so much.

I’d usually have a critism here somewhere about something you should change, but you are mixing it up so well, its hard to find any fault. The dialog is funny and certainly nothing I find out of a textbook. Keep up the good work.　がんばで!

Oh, one question, on Japanese TV, I always heard people saying あの。。 before they answer a question, is that just equivalent to “emm…” or does it have some other subtle meaning? Or maybe its just that particular show everyone has a speech impedment?

Yohan-san, zhen-san, Alastair-san,

Welcome to the community! zhen-san, I recommend right-clicking and saving as well, because then you can go back and reference the PDF again on your hard drive Alastair-san, you might have also been thinking がんばれ since the r-sounds can sound a bit familiar to our d-sounds, but the one Jonas-san mentioned (がんばって) is safer since it doesn’t sound to forceful

Alastair-san,

No problem! Being afraid to make mistakes can be a huge roadblock to learning. Getting out there, making them, and learning from them will get you so much further! I could probably use a bit of my own advice on that one

がんばりましょう！ (Let’s do our best!)

Hi,
I just started listening and realised that at this time, not many people will be reading this post cos it’s already april. Just wanna say that Hatsumi has a very nice voice, it’s so sweet!

Very funny lesson!

Piruさん、
Suki is a often translated as “like”. So it looks like a verb. However, suki is an adjective. Perhaps “fondness” is a better way of thinking of it.
Watashi wa JPOD101 ga suki desu.
I have a fondness for JPOD101.
In this case, the verb is “desu” or “is”.

And yes it looks like an i-adjective, but really it is a na-adjective as in “sukinamono” for a thing you like. Mono is thing.
じゃ　また
ジョン