Mina-san, Today’s location is Ueno・うえの・上野 More info coming in a little bit!

In other news, JapanesePod101.com would like to announce the following:

Starting from today, we will switch from our homegrown hybrid Romanization scheme, and, and do our best to conform to the Hepburn system, which is the most common Romanization scheme. For more information on this, and other available systems, wikipedia has a good write-up at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji

Today’s informal notes include the furigana (hiragana above the kanji characters). Please let us know if you prefer this!

We’ll do our best to standardize the previous material in a timely manner.

よろしくおねがいします！Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu!

Hi,

I like the fact that you’re switching to the Hepburn romanization system, as that is the most widely used system out there. I think it should make it easier for people getting started with Japanese who might also be using other resources.

Now moving on to something I really like: the furigana! Personally I prefer this to a text written completely in hiragana, simply because it’s so much easier to read. I mainly try to ignore the furigana, but it can come in oh so handy when you don’t recognise the kanji.

Keep up the good work!

-Tijl

By the way, the “eheee” makes me think Peter and the station attendant are tickling eachother

Dare ka (somebody) seems to have too much experience missing that last train! When you say that “Things are really starting to add up,” I hope you are referring to something other than your hours!

Ayu-san…I do know one thing…I think you often see at Shibuya….are the so called ‘Gothic Lolitas’ I think they came about from the ‘Visual Kai’ music movement…there are also ‘Sweet Lolitas’ and ‘Classic Lolitas’ The dress is very Victorian. It is the complete opposite of the ‘Kogal’ look which can also bee seen in Shibuya. But don’t quote me on that…I am not a resident in Japan….

Great podcast….The short dialog is very comical.
Actually, when I discovered there is only 2 irregular verbs, I so pleased….kuru and suru… and they must be the easiest verbs in the whole of Japanese. I’ll worry about the rest of the irregular verbs when I start writing Japanese poetry

Peter-san…did I hear you right? You slept in a Karaoke box? How did you manage that? I mean…did they really let you sleep there? or was it just you being a bit sneaky?

O-genki de
Steve

Matt-san…There a Capsule Hotel near-by

Vicky-san.
I know…I could not resist it

Mmmmm! but on a serious note….is this the other word for tain…as in refering to a steam train or a desiel train…列車….??!!??!!

Matt-san, I could be wrong, but I don’t think you can do much for 3 hours at Narita Airport. I was there last year for 5 hours before I come to US from Korea. It was like country side that I didn’t see any buildings near by or anything. Maybe you can walk around the airport and practice your Japanese? There is nice stores at airport. But I think it was quite expensive though.

Maybe other people can give you a better idea. Don’t listen to Steve-san.

Aaaaah! Vicky-san.
I was only joking…I thought it went well with todays podcast

Jonas-san.
Thanks for that…That is what I meant…a train in general is 列車. But can that be applied to 電車? (an electric train) Or is that just a stupid question?

Oooops! my name had the wrong URL…D’OH!

Great lesson today guys, I am gonna start work on a gift for you all soon! (something little).

I wanna know what they are gonna do when electric cars become popular! They will have to call them “no petrol cars” or something.

Steve-san,

新幹線　(しんかんせん) - bullet train;
地下鉄　(ちかてつ) - underground train, subway;
列車　(れっしゃ) - ordinary passenger or freight train;
電車　(でんしゃ) - train powered by electricity;
汽車　(きしゃ) - steam train, especially for long distances;
ケーブルカー - cable car particularly for steep slopes;
and so-on…

My guess is that you could use ディーゼル列車 for diesel train. However, looking briefly at the dictionary entry for 電車, it would seem you could use it even when the engine is not actually electric, and I bet one would be much more likely to say that than ディーゼル列車. (I could very well be wrong, of course.)

And actually, there’s already a word for electric cars - 電気自動車 (でんきじどうしゃ). There is also ハイブリッド車 (hybrid car).

I love the furigana Helps me learn the reading of the kanji
Thanks for the podcasts, they are fun and informative.

I’m interested to know too rhonda
I’ve never studied it formally, just picked up a few things (ie learning katakana and hiragana). This podcast is about as serious as I’ve got, and even then I can only listen at work when concentration is almost nil, and I can’t repeat the words ( a HUGE part of remembering).

learning-time stories would be interesting

See, see, furigana is great for us beginners, I’m glad everyone liked it to. I honestly thought it wouldn’t pick up, but its great people liked it.

がんばって下さい。

Sorry..I mean ‘Pick up’…not big up…D’OH!!!!

I was wondering if someone could check something for me. I am testing a new feature on my Mac and wanted to see if it was worthwhile. I added the Japanese fonts and keyboard layouts to my laptop. I am using the hiragana layout in this test. Could someone tell me if this works?

食べます- this hopefully will be”tabemasu”.
ナて- this is supposed to be my first name - Nate.

If this does not work or these writings are offensive please accept my most humble apologies.

Peter-san - if they do turn out to be offensive please feel free to erase this entry.

Nate-san

Steve-san,

It’s not petty. It’s good to be curious, especially if you’re learning something as intricate as a foreign language.

Jay-san,

Thanks for the interesting link. Some of those pictures are pretty familiar

Nate-san,

“tabemasu” is correct. “nate” is nate, but it’s not how you would correctly spell it, and one character is katakana while the other is hiragana. Normally, in katakana, Nate would be either ネイト (neito) or ネート (ne-to). Don’t worry, there’s nothing offensive there

Poor Peter-san! Having to pay $80 for a cab!!!

Rhonda-san, Vicky-san, Jay-san,

I think you all definitely overestimate me. I’m resourceful and apparently I can make myself look pretty good, but I wouldn’t say that I know Japanese that well

In fact, I am only in Japanese II at the moment. I started out taking Japanese I in the Fall of 2002. I took it with a friend who wasn’t serious about learning the language, so I took the class seriously for a couple weeks and then basically blew it off

My interest remained in the following years, and I continued to read about the language, listen to Japanese music, watch anime, other media, etc. hoping to get a feel for pronunciation, flow, etc. I studied a little bit off and on picking up a few things here and there.

It wasn’t until recently, when I decided I was determined to return to Japanese classes that I decided I needed to be a little more serious about it. About 3 to 4 months ago, I set out to teach myself basically all of the material that would be covered through Japanese II so that the class would basically be review and practice. Well, I covered a big chunk, but started slacking a bit as the class drew near.

Because my studies have been largely on my own, and largely sporadic, some of the material I am familiar with is advanced, and then there are also holes in some of my more basic knowledge. I think I’ve decided just today actually that I’m going to shoot for Level 2 of the JLPT this year. This is a lofty goal considering my position now, but it will help me solidify some study patterns, goals, provide some inspiration, etc.

If I could offer advice, it would be to avoid the shortcoming that has most likely held me back the most - being fickle in my studies. If you are consistent and study for even 30 minutes or an hour every day, it will make a huge difference. Make it a priority to make the language part of your daily life and I think that will take you further than you would imagine.

Nate-san,

Your computer is giving the characters for “na” and “te”, which is Nate in English. However, to write your name in Japanese, you need to sound it out like a Japanese-speaker would. This would be ne(long e)to. You can make the e long either by adding an “i”, or using the katakana long vowel mark (ー). Thus, you have either ネイト (ne-i-to), or ネート (ne—to) - they are basically the same. Your computer is not a translator, though - you need to tell it you want “ne”+”i”+”to”, or “ne”+”-”+”to”. You might need to tell it to choose katakana over hiragana, as well.

Hopefully that makes it a bit clearer. Let me know if you need any more help!

thanks jonas and nathan
cool stories!
I will update you on my story as time goes by. (it is most definately in teh “casual” learning stage right now.

yours truly,
The Eminent Prince Jay

Hello again, I guess this is my turn. Nathan-san and Jonas-san went a normal way of learning language which is school.

Japanese is my 4th language I’m trying, and I think it will be easier than my 2nd language which was English.

For me, 1st step of learning language is hearing. If you can hear, you can speak. If you can speak, you can write.
I didn’t go to ESL school when I came to US. But I watched American TV a lot in Korea. I think I watched Soap Opera for almost 2 years. So I was able to pick some worlds after that. So my hearing was much better than speaking or writing.

Spanish, I was tired of English that I wanted to learn something else. But I studied grammar part first that it got me bored. Also I had still trouble with English spelling, and Spanish worlds got me more confused. So I had to stop Spanish for a while. And, I moved to here in El Paso, and started pick up some worlds again. So I was able to go back with my text books after I was okay with hearing in Spanish.

i’m sure I will be the shortest time of person being study in Japanese. But I’m really enjoying so far. Especially listening JP101 helps me lots to pick it up since i like to listen, and I try to repeat. And, try to use whenever I have a chance.
I’m taking once a week Japanese class for 2 hours. Which there isn’t any homework or test what so ever. It’s pretty relaxing. But I try to study everyday, so I won’t forget. Or try to talk something while I’m driving to home.

I’m not really into studying detail of Japanese, but I want to able to speak with my friends.

If you don’t want get into book or studying, you could rent some Japanese movies, or Japanese Soap Opera. If you go to Korean or Japanese store, they have lots of dvd/vhs soap operas at grocery store. That will make more easy to catch up and also it will be able to check the fashion, music, hair style stuffs from Japan.

Also when I was studying in English, somebody told me this. I had same question as Rhonda-san, how do I know that I do know the language?

It’s a dreaming…..when you are a sleep, if you speak the other languages that means you know.

I do dreaming both Korean and English while I’m sleep.

So you guys can check yourself out. If you are speaking in Japanese while you are dreaming, that means you know the language.

I’m just sharing my experience. I tried to make short as possible that it might not make a sense. But maybe we can share more next time.

Hope everybody can dreaming in Japanese while you guys are a sleep!
See you tomorrow~~~

Nathan-san,

As always, arigatou for your input. I will do my best to remember what you said about the sign-off and the spelling of my name.

Nate

Whats scary if you’re speaking japanese in your dream and you don’t know what you are saying.

I’ve been renting Japanese films also. Several movies theaters in NYC had Japanese movie ‘festivals’ 25 years ago but that has stoppped. It was a great way to see all Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Mifune movies; also Zatoichi and Miyamoto stories. I remember dragging my wife to see the ‘7 Samurai’ her complaining the whole way; then she was stunned when we got there and there was a line around the theater waiting to get in.

Getting her to see ‘Ran’ and ‘Rashomon’ was easy later. Though she showed no interest in seeing ‘Throne of Blood.’

みんさん、こんばんは！
Glad to hear most like the new systems! Please keep letting us know how we’re doing!
Steve-san, yes, the sofa is much more comfortable that it looks! Are you familiar with box karaoke?? It’s actually an individual room you get to yourself, and the workers might be more relieved to see people sleeping on them as opposed to standing on them!

Bob-san, we’re working on way to go over 24 in a day!

Ayu-san, I’ve seen what you’re talking about in Harajuku!

Matt-san, sorry, Narita is in the boon-docks, but they do have good restaurants!

Kristina-san, yeah, 8000 yen, ouch!

Nathan-san, I would never correct you!

Great links and great reading today! Thanks everyone! Please keep the posts coming.

Chanun-san,

That’s a great link. I did a Pera Pera Penguin reading spree a long time ago

Vicky-san,

Even though I’ve done the school thing, I would say that I didn’t do the normal school-learning method. I haven’t actually really learned anything in school yet. Even before I took Japanese I, I taught myself the kana and basics. And before I took Japanese II, I taught myself most of the material. The school thing is mostly for motivation and speaking practice.

I think immersing yourself as much as possible is a good goal. Listen to Japanese as often as possible. Read Japanese as much as possible, even if you can’t understand. Speak Japanese as much as possible, even if you don’t know what you’re saying (be careful who you’re saying things to in that case ). Write Japanese as much as possible. It’s easier said than done, though, and I could still improve on a lot of these!

Peter-san,

Your fingers thank you

Jay-san,

I slept on a couch for a year. I slept on an air mattress the next year. I’m sleeping on the floor this year I had a furnished bed, but I decided the floor is more comfortable

Marcussan,
Yeah, I was thinking of something like that too. Peter and the crew, don’t panic though, we know you guys are extremely busy. I’m sure this Japanesepod101 will get better and better soon enough!

Nathansan,
I printed all the Pera Pera files and keep them handy so whenever I have free time I can just savour them!

by the way,

The adding Furigana is Saiko!!!