Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Today is part deux of our look at accommodations in Japan. In part one, we introduced you to the various types of facilities in Japan, and today we show you how to check in! You don’t want to miss today’s episode.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2006 at 6:14 am and is filed under Survival Phrases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
62 Responses to “Survival Phrases #11 - Checking In”
japanesepod101.com says:
February 27th, 2006 at 6:18 am
Mina-san, today is Hatsumi’s final day. 
This is her best episode to date! She’ll miss you all, but we’re hoping she’ll be back.
よろしくおねがいします！
Steve says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:34 am
Another great podcast, and what was really great was learning about changing ’shimasu’ to ‘itashimasu’ 
That really is ultra-polite Japanese.
I am not sure if anyone as seen my last post for the previous podcast, but I found this video clip of an Imperial Dance dating back to 1894.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8887716987569764131&q=japanese
Apart from that, again I would like to say: Take care Hatsumi-chan.
O-genki de
Steve 
Danny says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I could not be more excited and pleased by the lessons. Excellent (the best) and am always looking forward to the next one! A colleague turned me on to these and have become addicted. Keep it up! One suggestion if I may, could you possibly name the pdf`s with the same name as the lessons? This would be much easier to keep track of. Thank you very much, Danny
P.s. Would love to be a guest on the show!
Jonas says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Danny-san: Thanks for listening, and your support! About the pdf’s, we are in the middle of revising our naming scheme now, so we will take this into consideration! Thank you for your input.
Jonas
Nate-san says:
February 27th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Today is sad to be sure with Hatsumi-san leaving today. Hatsumi-san, I do hope you will be able to return someday.
Arigatou for gracing us with your presence.
Nate-san
Vicky says:
February 27th, 2006 at 8:38 am
O hayo gozaimasu!
Monday morning is busy day for me. I had to catch up all the weekend note from Japanesepod101, and also lots of deadlines from my work.
So much comments to read!!!
Thank you so much for mentioning my name. Thank you to Sakura-san for giving me a note. I will use on this Friday.
How was your guys weekend?
I started to play tennis last month. And, I was taking some private lessons. On Saturday I was able to attend regular class, and I met some Japanese people. I didn’t know there were so many Japanese people in El Paso. I was able to talk really basic Japanese, and I felt so close suddenly.
Can’t wait for this weekend to meet them again. Hope I can speak a bit more.
Ja Ne!
Rhonda says:
February 27th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Hatsumi-san…you will be missed. Please come and visit us here online to let us know how you are doing, and we look forward to your return.
I had one of those weeks (and I bet a lot of you did too). Last Monday was a holiday for a lot of folks, however, there was still 5 days worth of work to do, but we only had 4 days to do it in! So this weekend, I was anti-computer. 
So I’m just now getting caught up, again! They don’t sleep over there at JapanesePod101.com. I miss two days and I feel like I missed weeks! 
Nathan-san…thank you for doing the links page! I hope it wasn’t a lot of work for you. I am looking forward to exploring! 本当にありがとうございます！！
Sakura-san and Hatsumi-san…what beautiful voices you have! I’d buy the album! When will you be singing again?!?
Thank you for the photograph of the team as well. Thank you Dr. Lalo for making it happen. It is nice to put some faces to the voices I’m hearing every day…ok, every weekday for me lately. Guess I better work on that. I don’t want to be behind!
Hatsumi-san, come back soon…
-Rhonda
craig says:
February 27th, 2006 at 8:45 am
I’ve just heard that Hatsumi is leaving. I’m so sad!! I miss your voice already. I’ve just put your song from Hinamatsuri as my ringer tone on my cell phone. Anyway, love the show as always!
Good luck Hatsumi!!
Craig
Peter says:
February 27th, 2006 at 9:02 am
Steve-san, thanks for the post! And thanks for the link! Very nice!
Danny-san, thanks for listening! Very nice suggestion, we’ll look into this. Just as Jonas-san said.
Nate-san, thanks for posting! Yeah, she will be missed. She was great.
Vicky-san, great to hear that you were giving your Japanese a work out! Please keep us updated!
Rhonda-san, great to have you back! Please keep the great posts coming! Yeah, we have to get them to sing more often! I am sure if there were enough requests!
Craig-san, very nice idea! We should really get a clip of that song up for everyone! Thanks for the idea. We going to work on it.
Nate-san says:
February 27th, 2006 at 9:07 am
I found this website which has all sorts of information on counting in Japanese. Can anyone comment on it’s accuracy? It looks cool.
Arigatou gozaimasu.
Nate-san
RobGillon says:
February 27th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Nate-san - that site looks accurate to me, though I wish it wasn’t… counters are so difficult! It seems like there’s a different counter for everything! It’s a good job hitotsu, futatsu etc are still understandable in all situations, even if it’s not correct.
Peter says:
February 27th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Nate-san, will check it out tomorrow, but if Rob-san says it looks good, then it’s good enough for me.
Rob-san, all the different counters means that many more chances to strike up a conversation! The most interesting for me is chop sticks as the counter is zen・膳. (At least I believe so. ) Sure Nathan-san and Jonas-san will trump that soon, but I like this one!
Michael D. Cassidy says:
February 27th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I have queation about hiragana; I find its hard to read whole text in it without the Kanji breaking it up. My eye does not seem to see the word groupings, there is now word space and little puncuation.
At the moment I sound out each character until my brain lights up “A WORD”
I do not really read it.
Does that go away? or are whole paragraphs in hiragana always hard to read?
Keep up the good work the podcasts are more interesting than the textbooks I had at Columbia and defiinately better the Rosseta stone.
Regards
Tijl says:
February 27th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Michael,
I too find it quite difficult to read texts written completely in hiragana, for basically the same reason as you. I don’t have any trouble reading texts with kanji in them (as long as I know tha kanji =P), because that seems to make it easier to break up the sentences into words.
Personally, I find texts with kanji and furigana (small kana above or under the kanji) the best for beginners.
Oh, and out of curiosity, which textbooks did you use at Columbia?
monkeyjay says:
February 27th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
jay goes to the koukyo.
*pin pon*
jay: Sakura-san o-negai shimasu?
guard: 
jay: 
guard: 
jay:
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Great podcast! Your friend did an excellent job, Sakura-san!! We hope to see you back soon, Hatsumi-san!
Steve-san,
Thanks again for sharing that link, it was very interesting!
Vicky-san,
That’s awesome that you found some friends to practice your Japanese on! That will help out a lot! My weekend was good, by the way
Rhonda-san,
No problem at all! It wasn’t too much trouble!
Nate-san,
That site looks like a pretty good little reference for some counters. Counters can look very daunting, but usually it’s much easier in practice than a huge list of counters makes it look.
Peter-san,
膳 is correct. I believe you can also use 具 and 揃. That article was interesting, thanks!
Michael-san, Tijl-san,
That’s why anyone who would like to get rid of kanji in written Japanese is off their rocker! While you can still read pure hiragana, it is much harder - especially for the learner. Reading through pure hiragana will be calling extensively on your vocabulary to match words with context. Of course, in more complex writing, even native Japanese could have difficulty with no kanji, I’m sure!
I would say that the more you read, and the larger your vocabulary becomes, it will continue to become easier, but kanji still exist for a very good reason!
Jay-san,
Haha, my thoughts exactly
Michael D. Cassidy says:
February 27th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Sorry for the bad typing in my previous post!
As for my Columbia texbook: Beginning Japanese by Eleanor Harz Jorden.
For reading in the second year it was Modern Japanese, A Basic Reader by Hibbett and Itasaka. I liked the reader.
It was a long time ago, so I don’t know if they are still used.
My instructor, Mary Hue, is still there and she was very very good.
I worked nights at a newspaper, until 3 am; went home sleeped two hours got into Columbia for Japanese at 9 am.
I was a dumby and let my Japanese go stale; even though I knew several native speakers.
Kristina Rimpley says:
February 27th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Oh Hatsumi-san! We will definitely miss you and your かわいい-ness!! Please take care! I really enjoyed the information about all of the different places to stay (SP #10) and this follow up. You are all very on the ball! I love it!!
RobGillon says:
February 27th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Maybe this isn’t the best place to post this, but I just saw the greatest thing and I’m desperate for some help. I just saw a T-shirt with なんでやねん!! on it, I think this is one of the best things I’ve seen on a T-shirt in a while and I really want one! I don’t suppose anyone could tell me where I could buy one online, or anywhere else that does random Kansai-ben phrases on Tshirts, could you? Thanks so much if you know of anywhere!
Rhonda says:
February 27th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Rob-san…
You could try J-List.
http://www.jlist.com or www.jbox.com (the PG version)
If nothing else, they have a nice selection of all kinds of things from Japan.
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Rob-san,
I did find this:
http://www.naniwa-meibutsu.com/miyage/search.cgi?cate01=大阪弁グッズ&name01=&cnt=10
I doubt that will help much, though. Maybe you could make your own
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Missed your post Rhonda-san… that would have been my first recommendation, but I checked and they didn’t seem to have any Kansai-ben shirts. Like you said, though, still a good selection of goods!
RobGillon says:
February 27th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
rhonda-san - good idea, I will look though those now.
Nathan-san - my firefox doesn’t seem to like certain sites, all I can see is triangles with question marks in them good idea about making one though… I may just have to try that!
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Rob-san,
It’s a company in Osaka that I doubt even ships overseas, which is why I said it probably wouldn’t very useful… so I don’t think you’re really missing out 
RobGillon says:
February 27th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Nathan-san, Ah, I see, firefox is great for all things except it will let you view Japanese on one page but not another, seemingly for no reason! Thank you for trying though, maybe I will see one when I am in Kyoto
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Rob-san,
It depends on your setup, but for the most part, if it is showing one page correctly and another not, you probably just need to manually switch the encoding. Go to View/Character Encoding, and then select Shift_JIS. Every now and then (although rare), you might even have to select a different Japanese encoding, or even perhaps UTF-8. Shift_JIS should do the trick 99% of the time, though.
Marcus says:
February 27th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Thanks!
Another great show I’m thinking about a trip somewhere in Tohoku next month, and these phrases are bound to come in handy (here it Tokyo, I can afford to be lazy about this aspect of my Japanese).
Michael-san: While its possible to have a whole paragraph of hiragana, in practice, this is rarely the case. Take my word for it - kanji make reading a lot faster and easier, even if you only know a few. I take your point about finding the word endings/groupings. Suggest that you make up some flashcards with the kanji on one side and words that it is found in on the other. I think it helps to tie the individual kanji to the words when you’re studying them.
Rhonda says:
February 27th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Another thought would be to get some Kanji flashcards. Here’s the set I have, and I really like it.
Jonas says:
February 27th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Rhonda-san, Marcus-san: Flashcards are great, if you actually use them. I bought a few sets, but they`re only collecting dust now 
What I do now, is I use my computer, with stackz(www.stackz.com). It is a flashcard program with excellent visualisation modes, so it is easy to single out your weak words. I have it on my PocketPC too, so I can practice on the train etc. too. Unfortunately it costs money… $49 for the full pack… but if you have a PDA, $19 for the PDA version is sufficient. Highly recommended! (I should use it to brush up on my english too, probably:???:My spelling is terrible)
Jonas
monkeyjay says:
February 27th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
jonas-san, haven’t noticed any spelling problems yet
and you even spelled visualisation with an ’s’ not a ‘z’! (only those americans spell it with a z
Marcos says:
February 27th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Hi there Peter-san and Sakura-san!
Sugoi lesson today guys! Introduction in Japanese is pretty easy now with today’s lesson. Later
Rhonda says:
February 27th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Jonas-san,
That doesn’t help us Mac folks, but maybe I’m in the minority. 
If you know of an equivalent, I’d be happy to try it!
Jonas says:
February 27th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Monkeyjay(sorry for not adding -san… monkeyjay-san just sounds wrong ): My english is… well… a mix of american and british english… ehehe… I mix it up alot… Like writing color instead of colour etc. Maybe we should convert english to using kanji like japanese. Then we wouldnt have the problem with different spelling! 
Rhonda-san: True… Thats the only thing holding me back from buying a mac. I don`t want to lose access to all the applications I use on my Windows/Linux box. Here at work, most people actually use macs. (5 macs vs 2 Windows boxes i think)
Jonas
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Rhonda-san,
Here are a few Japanese learning programs for Mac. Note that I haven’t used them, but I just make not of them in case someone happens to ask
http://mac.softpedia.com/progMoreBy/Publisher-Single%20Brain%20Cell.html
http://www.kung-foo.tv/kotoba/
It seems I had some more, but I’m not seeing them at the moment. Anyways, let us know if any of those work well!
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Ah, here’s one more!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kanjicrammer/
Jonas-san,
I’ll take one of each, please
jay says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
haha Jonas-san I don’t mind about the “san”. I will call myself just “jay” again for ease of use
hmm mac/pc issues, don’t get me started! I work at a design company and I use a pc . I am in a very small minority here, haha.
Nathan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Tobizaru-san
I think after being a PC user for a design company, being a gaijin in Japan will be a piece of cake for you… 朝飯前
Ormo says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Marcus-san, where in Tohoku are you visiting?
Jonas-san, would we use Japanese kanji, simplified Chinese or traditional?
Maybe Japanesepod should make t-shirts! they could have a logo, url and “ビーターはセンスじゃない”
Brandon says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
I still cannot stay away from these lessons. You all make learning Japanese asa meshi mae. Domou arigatou gozaimasu. Kono SAAITO wa ichiban tanoshikute omoshiroi. Jaa mata!
jay says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
haha yes, asa meshi mae!
Ryou te ni Makku-yuuzezu. (that’s my romanji for Mac-users).
workmates: Tobizaru-san, Makku wa suteki desu ka?
me: Suteki de wa arimasen 
workmates: Yappari, Tobizaru-san wa sensu ga arimasen
me:
jay says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
ormos slogan: haha.. (and i think you put BII instead of PII).
Brandon, saaito = site?
if so I totally read a whole sentence and understood it..
Jonas says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Ormo-san: Good question! I`ve leart too many japanese kanji by now… So my vote goes to japanese kanji, hehe.
And it should be “ピーターはセンスがない”. Using “jyanai” instead, it would become “Peter isnt sense” (Jyanai being the negative form of “desu”)
Brandon-san: Keep the support comming! A few corrections; Domou should be doumo, and saaito should be saito
Jonas
Vicky says:
February 27th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Kombanwa~~
I use Mac as well at home and work.
But I don’t want to get into too much web site. I just started to study, and I don’t want to burn out. I can put only so much!
Anyway, when I go to Japanese class, my teacher asked me something in Japanese, and I understood what he says, but I didn’t know how to answer in Japanese. Funny thing is I was answering in Spanish without noticing!!
I write in Korean next Japanese text because it’s easy for me write than English. And, reading in English and answering in Spanish…..I’m getting crazy here. I don’t speak none them right.
Hope I can catch up all the web site later.
O yasumi na sai….see? really basic!
Bryan says:
February 27th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
just got online…..
ki o tsukete kudasai,hatsumi-chan!…arigato gozaimasu!…
and to all the JP101 crew…keep it up ya’ll…
jay says:
February 27th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Vicky-san, wow!
So many languages
I am fascinated by languages and wish I studied more I took german for my first 3 years of high school but that’s it
Did you know the world record linguist came from new zealand? Harold Williams could speak 58 languages fluently, PLUS dialects!
Makes me think I really should have no problem learning two and you have 4! Jpod101 makes it seem a lot easier I must say
Andrew-San says:
February 27th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
はじめまして。 わたし わ アンヅロ ヤウ です。 カナダ じん です。
I’ve been listening to your shows on my ipod since day 1, they are awesome!! I’ve been studying japanese independently for about 4 months and managed to make a chart for the group 1 and 2 verbs:
Group 1 (eg. aru) Group 2 (eg. Taberu)
STEM FORM u iru/eru
PRESENT:
Formal + u> imasu ru>masu
- u>imasen ru>masen
Informal + u iru/eru (Leave it in dictionary form)
- u>anai ru> nai
PAST:
Formal + u>imashita ru>mashita
- Add “deshita” to (formal) Present Negative
Informal + ku> ita ru>ta
gu> ida
u,tsu,ru> tta
nu,bu,mu> nda
su> shita
- u>anakatta ru>nakatta
Hope that helps!
Andrew
Steve says:
February 28th, 2006 at 2:07 am
Nate-san.
I think I am a bit late on this but the counters seem fine to me. Japanese counters are a bit of a nightmare, but it is best to try an get to used them rather than hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, etc.
Peter-san
yes that is correct the counter for chopsticks is zen (膳) I also think it can be a counter for bowls of rice…But I am not 100 per-cent sure of that.
Mmmmm! I thought I would just go and check and I found this:
http://www.trussel.com/jcount.htm
They seem to have near-enough every counter in Japanese….and yes, it also says that ‘zen’ is the counter for chopsticks, bowls of rice a meal and small dinning tables.
Peter-san and Nathan-san.
I am pleased you liked the link for the Imperial Dance. I always find stuff like that really interesting. I would love to see dances like that in real life.
Jonas-san.
No…don’t change my English…it looks odd to see words such as colour spelt as color and analogue spelt as anlog…Hehehehe! 
Actually, if you really are interested in the differences between American and British English, the following link gives a nice introduction:
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html
O-genki de
Steve
Ormo says:
February 28th, 2006 at 3:20 am
Sorry Jonas, quite right about ja nai being neg of da.
I’ll buy your t-shirt
Nathan says:
February 28th, 2006 at 4:51 am
Vicky-san,
Don’t worry - you just need to find other people that know Spanish, Korean, English, and Japanese, and then you can all communicate in a hybrid mix
Andrew-san,
Just a couple of notes for you… first, you shouldn’t use suffixes (san) when referring to yourself (typing your own name) - it sounds… haughty, and almost like you’re joking. Second, make sure you use the は hiragana for the “wa” particle. Also, Andrew would normally be written アンドル (andoru). アンジロ sounds closer to “Angelo” than “Andrew”.
Thanks for sharing your chart. It’s probably a bit hard to understand for someone who doesn’t know the forms yet, and you’re missing some of the quirks like u -> wanai and the exceptional verbs. It’s good to make references like this for yourself, though.
Also, welcome to the community!
Steve-san,
I thought about posting the counters site that you mentioned, but I figured I didn’t want any beginners seeing that and running away imagining that they needed to memorize 500 counters
I really enjoy the traditional dances, music, etc. as well. I’m looking forward to a Thai festival coming up in a month or so here that will include a lot of that. The Thai language is really interesting, as well!
Steve says:
February 28th, 2006 at 6:30 am
Nathan-san.
Ooooops 
I hope I have not scared anyone off
The Thai festival sounds great. Last year in the town I live they had a Maylasian festival. And also a few months before that in my favourite shopping mall, Oriental City, they held a Thai festival…..I feel in love with the dancing girls in both festivals…..Oooooops! Ssssssh! don’t tell my wife that Hehehehehe! Ummmmm! Back to work
Marcus says:
February 28th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Jonas: flashcards are great on the train (when not listening to Japanesepod101). I never can get a seat to do revision on my laptop
Ormo： not sure let… any suggestions?
Marcus
Nate-san says:
February 28th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Rhonda-san,
Just to let you know that you are not alone for I am another Mac user. One thing I found yesterday which you might like to check out is found at:
http://www.sugoisoft.com/ - check out the Jisho utility. Looks cool.
Nate-san
John_Powell says:
February 28th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Wow as another Mac user! Thanks! I’ve wasted a good 45 minutes today tinkering around with this now. Thanks Nate! Very cool.
japanesepod101.com says:
March 1st, 2006 at 8:47 am
Micheal-san, thanks for the support. Yes, complete Kanji paragraphs are a bit rough.
Tijl-san, thanks for the input. Do you like the new furigana passages?
Monkeyjay, funny, very funny!
Nathan-san, as always a pleasure to hear from you!
Rhonda-san, thanks for helping out!
Rob-san, did you get what you were looking for?
Marcus-san, Tohoku is awesome! Morioka, Morioka!!
Ormo-san, I think you have a winner! Sakura especially liked that!
Brandon-san, thanks for the support! Keep the posts coming!
John-san, lots of mac users at Jpod, in fact right now we’re all Mac, we’re trying to convert Jonas-san.
Hatsumi says:
March 5th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Oops!
Mina-san, thank you for warm messege! And I’d like t say Im sorry I wasn’t able to answer here timely.I don’t have my PC so that I pint on this page at internet cafe and read your comments in my freetime.
Steve-san,
Thanks again.
Nate-san,
Thank you for posting. I’m glad you hope my retun. Arigatou gozaimasu, Nate-san!
Rhonda-san,
Thank you for posting and listening. I’m sorry kept you these days here and thanks to look foward to my return.ありがとう！
I’m not conscious that my voice is beautiful. I’m sure Sakura has really attractive voice! I’d buy her album, too!
Sakura-san, mata utatte kudasai ne♪
Nthan-san,
Thanx again! I hope to see you someday. Arigatou-gozaimasu!
Kristina Rimpley-san,
Thank you for posting ,again! I miss you, too.
monkeyay-san,
You have fun, too! Thanks^-^
Bryan-san,
Thank you for posting.ありがとう！
Nathan says:
March 5th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Hatsumi-san,
Well now that you’ve said that, I’ll have to make a special trip to Japan just to come say hi to you
Peter says:
March 6th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Hatsumi-san, we miss you!!!!!! Come back!!! Your post was great!! And you rock!
Nathan-san, great to have you back! We missed you!
jhjeong80 says:
April 25th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Today lesson is a little bit faster than previous one.
I’ll catch up with all of lessons.
Category: Survival Phrases |
Function: checking into a hotel, counting people | Topic: hotels | Politeness Level: Polite
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