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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com. Today we’re taking in some sports, as some of our members make it to the stadium! We’ll be talking sports and class one Japanese verbs! If you studied class 2 and class 3 Japanese verbs with us, you don’t want to miss today’s lesson!

Grammar: , , , | Function: | Topic: | Politeness Level:


This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 1 . 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.

89 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #46 - Play Ball!”

Piet says:

アムステルダムのあいさつをありがとうございました。 japanesepod101はアムステルダムにもよく聞こえます。  :wink:

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steve says:

I am going to Amsterdam at the end of the month. I actually like the Netherlands.

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steve says:

Hello…Sorry to be a pain…but I have notice what I think is a mistake in the translation.
in the PDF is says:

Natsuko : The truth is I don’t watch sports nor play sports.
Takeya : But because I like you I am here.

I think it should be just Takeya-san saying all of the above.

Takeya : The truth is I don’t watch sports nor play sports. But because I like you I am here.

Sorry, if I am wrong.
Steve :-)

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japanesepod101.com says:

Steve-san, thanks for pointing this out! This will be corrected in the morning. :grin:
よろしくお願いします!

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steve says:

A nice podcast. I have notice that when it comes to saying soccer, in Japanese it is said as Sakkaa…which is interesting as it is almost an American way of saying Soccer…I guess that is possibly because in the USA they use soccer where as we tend to use football. You see, if I did not know how to write soccer in katakana I might end up spelling it as: ソッカー (sokkaa) instead of サッカー I am NOT being picky…I just found it interesting.
Anyway, I like the way you teach verb conjuctions and a helpful hint about going back from ‘u’ to ‘i’

O-genki de
Steve :-)

p.s.
I Hope you chaps gave the girls plenty of white chocolate :-)

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Nate says:

Great podcast.

Takeya-san - with a voice like yours you must have girls chasing you all over the place. I hope you carry a big stick to beat them off with. :lol:

Peter-san - as always thanks for the great insights into verb conjugation. It is helpful.

Sakura-san - thank you for your laugh. it is always a bright point in my day when I get to hear it.

Arigatou gozaimasu.

ネイト

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RobGillon says:

Steve-san - Yes, a lot of words in Japanese which come from English are actually the American-English way of saying things. For example, the word camping; キャンピング (kyampingu) rather than what I would prefer; カンピング (kampingu).

For anyone I’ve confused, please note that キャンピング is the correct way of saying the word, just that in a perfect world (for British English speakers) it wouldn’t be! :p

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steve says:

Hi RobGillion-san
Thanks…that is interesting. For all Americans out there…I was not being picky about it, I just happened to find it interesting.
A lot of none-English speakers may not realise that there are differences between American English and UK English…In fact even Australian English as it’s differences.
I read a theory once that maybe that is how the English spoke inculding the accent (which of course is varied) at the time they emmigrated to the USA 400 years ago.
Anyway…please…I am not Anti-American….I am worried some might think that. I have relatives that are American…..I am not Anti-anybody….I just find the difference in English interesting…that’s all.
It is also interesting how these differences are noticable in teaching. For example we have a friend in Honk Kong who learnt English from an teacher from the UK..and she has a English ‘accent’ when she speaks. But I met someone once, from Japan, and he was taught English from a teacher from the USA and he had an American ‘accent’
I bet learning English is confusing…especially if you keep having different teachers from different Engliosh speaking countries.
Anyway…I am going to eat dinner now.
O-genki de
Steve :-)

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Hen na Gaijin says:

Nice bonus track in the informal stream. I knew the sweet Natsuko was too good to be true –the “real” Natsuko emerges! (joudan dayo! :wink: )

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RobGillon says:

Steve-san - same here, I wasn’t trying to make an anti-American comment, I was just trying to say that when you come across a Japanese word which comes from English, it feels like a free word (i.e. you can expand your vocabulary with zero effort), but you just have to remember that it’s slightly different, so it no longer feels “free” any more. But yes, it is interesting, the differences.

One thing I really love is in Japanese magazines, sometimes there are adverts which are meant to be in English, but they’re written in Katakana - even my friends who have been doing Japanese for years and years still take ages trying to figure out what they say!

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Nathan says:

Oh my gosh!! So many racists here!! Why do you hate us Americans so much??!?!? Oh my gosh!!

Just kidding, of course :wink: I don’t think anyone will take offence to talking about differences in lexicon of various forms of English.

Thanks for another great lesson!! :mrgreen:

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jay says:

haha poor americans :(

And steve I think I read about that “old-english” was close to american theory too.. in a bill bryson book!

they also used to say most “a” sounds the same as in “hAve”.. so war wasn’t “wor” it was “war” .. ( hard to say haha)

Us kiwi’s sound more like english than american, although in america most people thought I was australian haha.

ANYWAY thanks for another great lesson. I have to admit, because I listen to these at work I can FEEL I am only getting about 40% of the benefit from these lessons. I need a new pc at home dammit!

take-san your voice is super cool. ALMOST as cool as peter’s. :cool:

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Rhonda says:

I would love to go to Amsterdam sometime…with a last name of Van Buskirk, seems like I should. :grin:

It will have to come after I go to Japan though. After all these Japanese lessons (and hopefully by this time next year, I will have passed JLPT 4 (or 3??), I should make a point to go as a reward. :wink:

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jay says:

Rhonda-san, JLPT 4 is the easiest one? So it goes 4 3 2 1. .. wonder why they did that :( should of started from 1 and gone up!. now they’ve sort of shot themsleves in the foot if they think of a harder test :( JLPT 0! or JLPT -1 :wink:

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Nathan says:

一級は一番難しいですね。
それでは、二級は二番難しいんですね :wink:

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Nate says:

Has anyone noticed that we are getting close to 100 podcasts? As of today the count is 86 (I did not count the blog entries). Should we celebrate when we get to 100.

ネイト

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jay says:

nathan-san, haha. I guess I’d rather be number 1 than number 4!

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Nathan says:

Jay-san,

Me too :mrgreen:

Nate-san,

Good idea! JP101 should fly us all in to Tokyo for a big party :wink:

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jay says:

nathan-san a question, 難しいん. what is the ん for? muzukashiin?
ps thanks for making me look up and learn some new kanji :)

I’ve seen that muzukashi on some import fighting games I had! (for the cpu difficulty).

still takes me a long time to read hiragana.
its like:
それでは,
so….ne..or is that wa.. no it’s re…….de……..ha… i mean wa……..
haha.

might actually start some hirigana flowing together practice. Anyone have any tips? I know them in my head but the recall is slow. to be fair i have done absolutely no practice with trying to flow it together, so any suggestions on what worked for people would be cool :)

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Vicky says:

Peter-san, there is White Day in Korea too!!!

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Nathan says:

Vicky-san,

Hisashiburi desu ne! Welcome back! How have you been? How was your birthday?? :grin:

Jay-san,

The ん is actually the particle の used as an explainer. It’s very useful, and quite common. Check this out:

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles3.html#part5

As for getting comfortable with hiragana, it just takes time and practice. Find any chunk of hiragana you can and just read through it. Don’t worry about getting the meaning so much as reading. Maybe read through all of the hiragana transcriptions in the supplemental material :grin:

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Vicky says:

Hi Nathan-san, thank you for asking. It was good. I got to play tennis lot on my B/day. :( I’m going to play a mix double tournament this weekend. i just started to play tennis 10 weeks ago same as Japanese. I’m getting nervous. It’s too soon to me. :sad:

I haven’t got Korean Birthday soup either, but I had the greatest b/day party from work that they made me crying…..

Are you on Spring Break? You go to College right?

From Japanese classmate, they think I study alot during the week. But only think I do is listening jp101……over and over….
I’m going to take 2nd level next month. Hope I can handle it.

Mata ne~~~

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jay says:

ahh ok, thanks for the explanation/link.
hmm I do read through the transcripts in hiragana, I think I need to devise a new method of quick recall. I’m gonna look into it I think. Let you know what I find.

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Nathan says:

Vicky-san,

Does that mean my message that I posted on your birthday made sense? :grin: Or was it just a coincidence that you mentioned soup :wink: I’m glad you had a good birthday :grin:

Wow, already a tournament! I bet you’re ready. We never feel ready, but when we get out there and do it, we usually find out we’re more prepared than we thought. I think you’ll do great!

Yeah, I’m on spring break right now. 春休み :grin: You’ll do fine in level two!

Jay-san,

Maybe they’re too familiar since you already know what was said. Try finding text that you aren’t familiar with, and read as much as possible. I’m sure there is probably a fancier method, though, so let us know what you come up with! :smile:

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Vicky says:

Nathan-san, yes it made a sense. Thank you for mentioning, I totally forgot about the soup that you do eat soup on your birthday.

Like always, I will do my best!!!

Question….I don’t know what’s difference using Ka and Ne the end…
I asked same question in class, maybe you can explaing a better way???

:wink:

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JP says:

Great Podcast!!!

Natsuko, OOhhhh AAAhhhhh, You sound so nice and Sweet… Peter as well, you sounded kawai interpreting Natsuko’s “I’M SO HAPPY”. haha :mrgreen: :lol:

Does anybody here got Friendster? (www.friendster.com)

I also need to know if I can syndicate Japanesepod in my Friendster account…

Mata Ne!

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jay says:

Vicky-san, :cool:

‘ka’ is like a normal question ending.
eg.
what are you doing?
do you understand?
where is the bathroom?
what shall we eat?

it needs an answer of some kind.

‘Ne’ is not really a REAL question. its almost like a rhetorical question, or a statement.
eg.
This is good, isnt it? (or even just, this IS good)
Isn’t it nice weather we’re having?

it doesn’t require an answer, but it requires..something.. :)

This is what I have gathered from it’s usage. I could be off a little :)
:roll:

OH and happy birthday! :grin:

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Nathan says:

Vicky-san,

か (ka) is the question particle. It is very straightforward, as it simply turns the sentence into a question.

大丈夫ですか。(daijoubu desu ka)
Are you okay? (lit. “okay?”)
大丈夫です。(daijoubu desu)
I’m okay. (lit. “okay”)

Notice the only difference between the two is the question marker, か.

The ね (ne) particle is a sentence ending particle that is usually used in seeking agreement. Generally, it’s something that you expect the other party to agree on. In this sense, it can sound inquisitive like a question, but it is seeking agreement rather than an answer. When used with a falling tone, it is generally sharing your impression with someone, giving a bit of emphasis.

いいお天気ですね。(ii otenki desu ne - rising tone)
The weather is nice, isn’t it?
そうですね。(sou desu ne - falling tone)
It is, isn’t it!

In the first one, it is a statement (the weather is nice), but the speaker seeks agreement from the listener (don’t you think). In the second, the listener agrees (it is), and then emphasizes it a bit (isn’t it).

ね can also be used a bit like “like” in the valley girl sense. In this case, it can be inserted in a number of places in the sentence, kind of as an attention grabber. It can also be used on its own in that sense. (These uses are mostly feminine and can easily be overdone.)

ねぇ、どうしよう? (neee (falling intonation), dou shiyou?)
Hey… what should I do?

ね is a lot more complex than か, but that should give you a good basic idea. Let me know if it’s unclear!

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Nathan says:

Jay-san,

Sorry, I cross-posted with you :cool:

JP-san,

I have a Friendster account, but I don’t use it at all. I think I’ve logged in once. Are you asking permission or a technical question? If it’s technical, I’ll find out for you. Let me know :grin:

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JapanesePod101.com says:

皆さん、みなさん(Mina-san) Today’s location is Amusuterudamu・アムステルダム。Hello to all our Dutch listeners! As you may have heard on our Sunday News program, this week we’ll be appearing as speakers for the Tokyo Mac Users Group at 7pm on Friday night. Directions to the Ginza Tokyo store can be found via this link. :grin: Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. :grin: Show time 7pm, :wink: directions to the location: http://www.apple.com/retail/jp/ginza/

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Vicky says:

Gotcha!!!

One more~~~
difference answering by desu / desu yo the end….
is it between formal and informal thing????

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Nathan says:

よ (yo) is a sentence ending particle used to say “hey, this is new info”. It’s emphatic, and it assumes that the other party doesn’t already know the information, so you only want to use it when you know they don’t. It’s generally out of place when dealing with superiors (and out-group). It’s often described as being like the exclamation mark, but it’s more complex than that.

魚が好きですか。(sakana ga suki desu ka)
Do you like fish? (lit. “fish liked?”)
好きですよ。
I sure do! (lit. “liked!”)

Here, the first speaker isn’t confirming a suspicion, he/she is genuinely asking whether the listener likes fish. The listener knows that it is a genuine question, and so gives it that extra emphasis. It kind of says “pay attention, because this is something you don’t know”, which is where the emphasis comes to play - an attention grabber.

You can also combine よ and ね to stack the effects. In this case, ね always comes after よ (ですよね).

As the conversation becomes less formal, よ can tend to move away from the “something you don’t know” use and more toward pure emphasis.

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Vicky says:

Nathan-san, 이건 좀 어렵네요….

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Philippe says:

Hi !

You’ve got a new listener from Brussels ! …

(oups … where is it again ? … ha yeah … in Europe, some miles away from London but on the continent this time ! … do you remember this strange tiny country called Belgium … yes right … the chocolate and bier country… that will reminds you of ‘Godiva’ … ! It is valentine’s day 365 days a year here)
But I am not here to talk about my country … ( by the way am I the only one from here? )

I was writing this … ’cause I would like to congratulate the team … and mainly Peter for giving so freshly his enthousiasm to us all … cast after cast … and also the rest of the team for giving them so seriously in this work … the team is great ! …

So please continue to teach us !
Peter san … Oshiete kudasai !

Virtually yours. :smile:

Philippe.

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JP says:

Hi Nathan San,

I would like to use the RSS feed option of Japanesepod in my friendster account.

Thanks!

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Nathan says:

Vicky-san,

오늘 정말 아름다워 보이시네요.

Oh wait, that’s not right :razz: I wish I could properly say what I want to, but don’t worry… it’s not that hard and I’m sure you’re doing fine! Just let me know if you’re getting caught up somewhere and we’ll work it out :grin:

Philippe-san,

Welcome to the community! Good to have you with us :smile:

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Nathan says:

JP-san,

From Friendster:

Go to Friendster and click Edit Profile.
Copy the updated URL into the RSS field at the bottom of Edit Profile and click SAVE.
New updates from your blog will now be displayed on your profile.

And of course, the URL you want to use is:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/feed/rss/

Let me know if that works!

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Vicky says:

Nathan-san, 정말 한국말 할줄 알아요? :shock:
Maybe you can help me with my new job…

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Nathan says:

Vicky-san,

나로 말하면, 알고 있는 것은 단지 나는 아무것도 모른다는 사실이다. :wink:

What is your job?

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Vicky says:

Nathan-san, watashi wa graphic designer (Japanese???) desu.
But, I’m doing something else too. If I tell you, I have to kill you…..Kidding….

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Nathan says:

Well I already knew you were a graphic designer :razz:
Graphic Designer = グラフィックデザイナー (gurafikku dezainaa)

So what else are you doing? You can kill me later :wink:

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Vicky says:

Nathan-san, got msn or ichat id? There is any other way I can contact other people???

I don’t think it’s good idea talking at here…

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Nathan says:

Haha, good point… sorry commentors and comment-readers!

I have everything… how about MSN. (nathanyeldell(at)gmail(dot)com)

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zhen says:

phew~~ i finally caught up with all the lessons! :grin: i’ve spent the past couple of weeks just chasing the lessons from page 1. japanesepod no mina-san, hontou ni arigatou gozaimashita!! you have given me hours of fun learning. i especially enjoyed your banter among yourselves. your teaching method is just great, giving lessons on ordinary japanese-speak besides the formal ones. previously in language school, we were frustrated that after months of lessons, we could not understand what the japanese around us were saying. also, before we could get to the end of a sentence, they already knew what we were going to say! and i was so scared by all those words dressed in tuxedo! :lol: thanks for de-mystifying all that n giving us great stuff like the magical wa!
btw, we have mos burger here in singapore too, so anyone passing by here can grab one without having to go to japan. :wink:
also, macdonald’s has come up with a similar thing called the FAN-tastic, FAN being the same sound as rice in chinese.
well, ijyou desu

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Prem Keswani says:

Hi all,

Just a small qustion.
3 days before I made use of は twice in one sentence.
I was told that you cannot use はtwice in a single sentence.
In today`s lesson Take San said
「じつは、わたしはスポーツをみませんし、しません」in which he
used はtwice.
Can someone from our community can point out rules
regarding the use of は.

Can I use it twice in a sentence everytime or there are some
specific instances where i can and can`t.

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マービン says:

jayさん、
when i first read about JLPT i looked up the requirements for level 1, thinking it was the easiest. :lol: but then again its logical. levels of proficiency, the kyuu(級) are counted backwards. In Judo the beginners get 9th kyuu, the white belt, highest is 1st kyuu, brown belt, then comes 1st dan, the black belt.

如何してインフォルマル・レッスン・ノートに振り仮名が有りません

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Jason says:

You can also combine よ and ね to stack the effects. In this case, ね always comes after よ (ですよね).

In fact, ね always comes after any other senetence ending particles (ie, の、から). With よね in particular, it has kind of a softening on よ. よ is a fairly forceful particle, and in general it’s considered rude to be so direct with someone you either don’t know well or is in a higher position like you, like a teacher or your boss. You can use ね to tone down よ a bit when よ by itself is too strong.

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Jason says:

I was told that you cannot use はtwice in a single sentence.

In general you usually won’t have multiple はs in the same sentence, but there’s no rule against it. 実(じつ)は is a little different since the whole thing is really more like an expression by itself. From exposure, I’ve developed kind of a sense of when multiple はs work, but unfortunately this is something we never really covered in class. So I can’t give you any hard and fast rules. :neutral: I can give you an example though. This is from an autobiography we had to write for our last Japanese class where I actually use it 3 times including 実は. Translation follows:

実(じつ)は、私の心音(しんおん)のせいで、かんごふは私が生(う)まれる前(まえ)は、私が女(おんな)の子(こ)だと思(おも)っていた。
Actually, because of my heart sounds, before I was born (my Mom’s) nurse thought I was a girl.

This is a true story, btw. :mrgreen:

And yes, I realize 看護婦(かんごふ) is an outdated term for “nurse” since it implies that the nurse is female. We learned the gender neutral version, 看護士(かんごし), later.

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Takase says:

マービンさん
That’s exactly what I was working on yesterday! I wanted to make it before someone would point it out :mrgreen: . We will introduce a new form notes tomorrow. Since we got the hiragana-ban back, there are too many pages for one day, and I wanted to make it more handy. Let us know if you like it or not! 

Takase

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QuiZZie (Marco) says:

JapanesePod101に本当にありがとう! 僕はオーストラリアで、高校で日本語を勉強している。そのような会話練習は僕の日本語を手伝った!次のPod楽しみに待っているよ

夏子さん酷い…かわいそう、武也さん

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Prem Keswani says:

Hello Jason thanks,

Thank you for taking an effort to explain the 「は」
thing.That was an intresting sentence.

Regards,
Prem

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Jason says:

You’re very welcome. :smile: I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a more detailed explanation other than that though. は and が are certainly interesting little particles, but the details and subtleties of what exactly they do in a sentence can be a bit difficult to understand, especially for beginners. Heck, I still sometimes have problems really wrapping my brain around them. So for the time being, I would say in general there is one は per sentence/clause, but don’t freak out if there are more. Don’t worry about the details with that too much. Yet.

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Prem Keswani says:

Thanks Jason…:-)

Prem

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steve says:

I have a question…It may have been covered before. But the Japanese word for Thank you ‘Arigatou’ does it by any chance have it’s roots in the Portuguese ‘Obrigado’ I know that Japan ’shut’ itself of from the rest of the world for nearly 300 years, but it still had trade links with Portugual during that period….or be it a very limited one. I think the Portuguese were only allowed to port at Nagasaki.
It may be a stupid question. So if it is…I am sorry.
O-genki de
Steve :-)

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Jason says:

Steve, while I don’t know for sure, my guess is probably no. If you can find usage of it before Japan had contact with Portugal, I’d say definitely no. “Arigatou” (in kanji: 有難う) litterally means something along the lines of “you’ve gone thru hardships for me.”

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steve says:

Jason-san.
Thanks for the information on Arigatou in Kanji. I seem to learn something new everyday here….for example, I never knew there was a kanji for arigatou.
I only asked because of the similarity to ‘Obrigado’ It is pronounced it a similar way to Arigatou…apart from the fact that, of course, instead of ‘A’ it is ‘Ob’ and instead of ‘tou’ it is ‘do’

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Nathan says:

Jason-san beat me to it, but I’ll go ahead and add the link I had in mind regarding the issue.

http://no-sword.jp/blog/2006/02/sorry-portugal.html

Prem-san, I will look into finding you some guidelines tomorrow, but for now I sleep :wink:

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Nathan says:

JP101 Team,

Please check the last comment here:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/2006/03/04/japanese-culture-class-9-japanese-plum-blossoms/

Also, I’m not sure if Gevorg-san saw this (last comment):
http://www.japanesepod101.com/2006/03/07/beginner-lesson-43-speciality/

Now I’m really off :wink:

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steve says:

Jason-san and Nathan-san
Obrigado…Ooooops sorry I mean Arigatou :roll: :lol: :mrgreen:
Those links were really helpful. The first link seems to based on the question…did Obrigado originate form arigatou…..I meant did Arigatou originate from Obrigado, I actually already knew it’s Latin root. But Anyway, it has cleared a few things up for me. I have also learnt more about Japanese and the way the language is made up from those links, So really..Thank you very much :-)

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penelope says:

Hi everyone,
I liked this lesson a lot, it’s so funny to hear yo guys talking (and Sakura laughing - it’s so cute and always makes me laugh, too, so I’m always in a very good mood :grin: )

For Jay, I’ld have an idea… probably I should be the last to give advice here, as I really started like 2 weeks ago learning some japanese… but maybe you just try it:
I downloaded all the pdf files from the lessons ( :sad: I didn’t find a smart way to have them all in one go, so that takes some time, which you use to listen to other lessons :wink: ).
Then I went to David Hallgren’s great webpage (David: どうも ありがと ございます, this is really a useful thing! :smile: ) stamped the hiragana chart and did the test page. After a couple of runs, you won’t do much errors any more, and it’s really quick.
Since a couple of days, I read the pdf files while listening to the lesson, and that works just great!
I don’t know if that’s Ok, but I kind of don’t “read” all the words sign after sign, as I did the first runs. It’s as if you recognize in the pdf the words you already know “in toto” as they are spoken. It gets kind of automatic, you don’t think of every sign one by one.
I don’t know if that’s a sensible way to learn, but for me it worked just fine - new words blend rapidly in. Maybe you just try and see what happens?

On the other hand, what do you do for kanji? ? I don’t know, of course, nothing about them! :sad: What is a good way to proceed – stop everything, learn 2000 kanji and then go on? Or do a bit of kanji everyday? Or are there a couple (100, 200, 500???) you really should know and study first, and then do the others by and by? How do you study? Is there a trick for the pronunciation, I mean can it be inferred from something? (Don’t laugh :mrgreen: , Ok, you are probably LOL by now…)

THANX for any help. I promise, as I learn more, I will ask less dumb questions in the future… the very far future, that is. :wink:

Saluti to everyone :smile:
さるち, now that’s a nice new word for you japanese-speakers, huh?? :wink:

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Prem says:

Hello Nathan San,

Yup I wil be waiting for your reply.
But really I think, the whole Japanese
language revolves around this letters only…
「は」、「に」、「を」、「で」…and they find
so many usages that more you dig about
these the more they get intresting….

Prem

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Jonas says:

Penelope-san: I don̈́’t think we had time to answer your mail, so sorry about that. If I remember correctly, you asked about learning kanji there too. I’ll answer here instead.

This is based on my own experiences, so other methods could work better for you. Learning methodology is partly an individual thing.

Learn kanji as you go. For the first 6-12 months of studying, about 15-20 kanji per week should be good(Reading and writing). Af ter that, learn how to write about 25-30 per week, and around 50 for reading. You will notice that the more you learn, the easier the learning will get. Many kanji also has similar parts, that can hint towards their on-yomi reading. That is, their “chinese” reading.

The most important thing is to do it at your own pace. And go back and repeat! Repetition is key when it comes to remembering stuff. Interval repetition works very well. This means to study a lot in the beginning, and then repeat with longer and longer intervals.

If you on top of this is able to practice what you learn in real-life situations, like writing a letter etc, learning 2000 kanji should go really smooth!

Hope this helps

Jonas

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jay says:

Jonas-san “n̈́’t.” How cool is THAT ‘n’? haha.

Penelope-san! thanks for you advice :)
Kanji is a tricky question. Any one in the business of teaching will tell you there is no one way that is right for everyone.

You have aural learners, who associate sounds to ideas/concepts easily. Visual learners, who do the same with images. Kinesthetic learners you need to ‘do’ things to learn them, or even associate things like tastes or smells to ideas or concepts.

You will find most people with AWESOME memory will remember things using a trick that combines all of these things. Stories. There are people out there who can memorise the order of 35 decks of cards shuffled together after ONE viewing with 100% accuracy (this is the world record so far). That is1800+ cards in a sequence. How do they do it? Stories. Each card is an object. (The 2 of spades may be small clock with both hands stuck on 2.) Then he imagines a house. Somewhere he has constructed in his mind. (his house has hundreds of rooms). As the cards come down, he imagines walking through this house, looking in all the rooms and seeing and hearing the interactions between all the card objects as they are shown. Basically a huge story.. Then to remember he just starts at the beginning of the story and as he walks through he just recalls what he sees/hears.

how does this relate to kanji? This is my heisig method review do far.
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji_1.htm
(the legal demo pdf is at the bottom of that page , tiny little “download” link)
For me, the story method is working beautifully. However, so far I am only learning the MEANINGS of the kanji (heisig method). after learning 170 kanji in 3 nights, I was really busy/tired after work, and had to leave it for about 4 days. When I came back I decided to review them all (I have a program that has the heisig lessons built in and can randomly quiz you :) ). I was at 97% recognition. That means there were only 5 or 6 out of 170 that I couldn’t recall properly. Also, and this is important, I was recalling them from the meaning only. That is, the word was shown, ie, “specialty”. and I had to write down the kanji. This is important because it means i wasn’t just using the visual clues of the kanji, i was actually having to reconstruct my story based on the keyword to write the kanji myself. I started again 3 days ago and I am up to 300 kanji now. I get stuck on some occasionally, but honestly that is my own fault for not making vivid enough stories. When the story is vivid I absolutely cannot forget a kanji.

now, problems with this method!:
1. the kanji are not in any order of usefulness. for instance, I have not officially learned the kanji for “what” or “minute” or “watashi”. But I have learned the kanjis for “tranquilise”, “lunatic”, and “marsh”.

2. no alternate meanings. The keywords are the ones that make the best story, but not necessarily the most common usage of the word. for instance, one kanji has the keyword “but of course” but any kanji dictionary i come across it has the definition as “condition. situation”… hmm!

3. no compounds. The kanji for “bright” then “day” means tomorrow. now, I don’t see this as a big problem. I will NEVER forget how to write “bright” or “day” so once my japanese basics get better it will be no problem how to write “tomorrow” (just combine the two).

4. your imagination. You have to take the story creating seriously and follow his notes. I often think “oh this kanji is easy its a somehting on top of a something I’ll remember it without a story”. then sure enough in review I will completely forget what the primitives were. You have to make VIVID stories.

Ok. thats an update and a review for you all. If ANYONE finds this helpful that’s great :)
As jonas said, your other option is learn as you go by repetition. then review avery now and then with longer breaks in between. this is the “burn into your head” method. The interval repetition really helps. This method has it’s own pros and cons. Either way, it’s mainly up to you. You have to put in effort :)

My basic feeling is that the heisig method does not show its results in a practical sense immediately. but I think it is a super strong basis once your grammar and vocab catch up. Plus honestly, it’s fun! I look forward to my little self study/testing nights :)

wow.. ok longest post ever..

Hope it brings you good luck. or as heisig would say : A SAMURAI with his MOUTH hanging open that people walk by and bow to for GOOD LUCK —> 吉

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Jason says:

A guy in my class came up with possibly the best description of a kanji ever. He used to refer to 学 as “the dude with the (spikey) hair.” :mrgreen:

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jay says:

haha jason-san, yeah those sort of things make it easy to remember! as long as you also include what it actually means haha.

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Oranda-jin says:

Since this is the place to be for the dutch, I would like to challenge other JP101 addicts to set a new altitude podcast record, which currently is at 3506 metres (physical contact with the earth is mandatory, so hikoki not included :mrgreen: ).

In Holland (highest mountain 300 metres :wink: ) we are used to living and listening to “Pittaa & friends” at 6 meters below sea level, try skiing and listening at 3500 in Cervinia Italy, have double fun and set a record.

For some historical oranda nihon background have a look at:
http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/dejima/
and you will know why some dutch have Japan in their genes…

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Joey says:

When Natsuko-san says “Kore wa sakkaa desu kedo” what does the “kedo” mean because in the translation it is just translated as “This is soccer.”? Also in beginners lesson 41 Kaze-san says “Moshi moshi, Kaze desu kedo” and it is just translated as “Hello, it’s Kaze”. Is that the same use of “kedo” as from this lesson or is that something completely different. Thanks in advance!

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SkyDiver says:

ohhhh BIG mistake in the Vocabulary section. 分かる means “to understand” and NOT “to ask”. Why hasn’t anyone pointed this out yet?? Is everyone just flying through the lesions without actually learning them?

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SkyDiver says:

Forgot email notification again…

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Peter says:

SkyDiver-san, thanks for pointing that out. :dogeza: Correction made. Please send an e-mail to contactus@japanesepod101.com. Thx.
Peter

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SkyDiver says:

Thanks!

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Gene says:

Ohayou. I come from the depths of the Intraweb to ask questions about old lessons once again. Hopefully someone will see this!

There’s definitely something grammatical I’m not understanding in this lesson, or maybe in general; in the notes, the romaaji says, “demo, anata ga suki desu kara-” and then the rest of the sentence, et cetera. This apparently translates to “Because I like you-”, but what I initially got out of it when reading was, “Because you like it-”. I feel totally stupid for not understanding this, but I guess my grasp of Japanese grammar is such that I stumble on this kind of stuff. Is there something I’m missing? Can anyone give me a tip for how to piece sentences like this together more effectively? Onegai shimasu!

I humbly submit myself to your judgement!

Gene
:hachimaki:

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Jean-Michel says:

Gene-san,
I can understand your problem : I am also lagging behind in the sequence of podcasts —though at the lower intermediate level…

Hopefully I can help you with this one.

The sentence you are mentioning can be regarded as a variant of the “A wa B ga C” construction, which is very typical for Japanese. Key sentences (taken from Makino and Tsutsui’s grammar) are:

(1) watashi wa futtobôru ga suki desu : I like football
(2) Hanako wa me ga kirei desu : Hanako has pretty eyes
(3) jisho wa Webusutâ ga ii desu : Talking about dictionaries, Webster is good

All three examples correspond to the same structure, but with somewhat different meanings :
In (1), A is a person, and “B ga C” expresses physical or mental state
In (2), B is a part of A, and “B ga C” expresses something about B, thereby giving information about A
In (3), B is a member of a group represented by A, and “B ga C” expresses a property of B

Your question thus relates to case (1), except that the topic (normally marked by wa) is omitted. The word marked by ga represents the object of like (or dislike).

Other expressions which require the same construction as “suki” here are
wakaru (be understandable, understand), dekiru (can be done, can do), mieru (be visible), jôzu/heta (good/poor at), hoshii (desirable), hitsuyô (necessary), kirai (be disliked), kowaii (fearful), etc.

Things become a little more confusing in subordinate clauses where the topic marker ~wa itself changes to ~ga as in:
Watashi GA osake GA sukina koto wa minna shite imasu : everybody knows that I like sake.

Hope this helps,

Jean-Michel

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Sasquatchua says:

Just to add a little bit on what Jean-Michel said in a way I think might help…

the “ga” particle can be used in multiple ways, which I think is what’s hanging you up. In the sentence from the lesson, it is as Jean-Michel described - the subject is “watashii wa” and has been dropped, as it’s expected to be understood.

However, ga can also be used to draw attention to the subject in certain cases, and that seems to be the way you read the sentence. For example:

dare ga kinou tokyo ni ikimashita ka? - Who went to Tokyo yesterday?
X-san ga ikimashita - Mr./ Ms. [X] went

in this case, ga is used as the subject marker, but it’s only in a very specific situation as a question & response where the subject itself is the most important, newly revealed piece of information. You would not use ga as the subject marker without the conversation already being in the context of the subject’s identity being the unknown or unexpected part of the sentence.

Certainly, the tone of the sentence “demo, anata ga suki desu kara-” is one where the speaker is saying something only to build the foundation for the next statement… you would not be saying that and drawing focus to a new person at the same time.

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Gene says:

Hmmm, I see. So maybe it’s the fact that the “watashi wa” was left out of the sentence that confused me. Looks like I’ll just have to keep working at it. I’ll get it eventually. I definitely appreciate you guys taking the time to give such detailed responses. 有難う!!

Gene
:hachimaki:

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Monica says:

I have heard “Chigau” used so many times, that I was just waiting for them to do a lesson with it! didn’t take long!

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Andre says:

why do u say “Take DE ii desu ne”? Whats the de for?

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Tommy says:

Hello Andre,

I am fairly new to JapanesePod101 — around 2-3 weeks now — and am taking this lesson for the first time. And so I was a bit surprised that no one was around to answer your question of July 2008 before now. It appears to be a pattern that there will be a flurry of posts right after a lesson is first published, and then nothing. It even appears that no one who watches the website even knows that a new post has been made on a particular topic, such as yours.

I suppose that we just have to accept the fact that those of us who are joining the lessons at a later time just will not get any care or attention from the main site people — but that won’t prevent us from helping each other, even though that help may be months in coming. Kind of sad, actually, when you think about it. ちょっと 恥ずかしいじゃない?

Anyway, to answer your question: Why did Take say “Take de ii desu?” Because Take-san’s full first name is really “Takeya,” and so when he responded (during the introductions part of the conversation) by saying only “Take,” Peter checked with him to make sure it was OK if Peter used the shortened version of his first name. (” ‘Take’ de ii desu ka?) In that case, the “de” is the right particle for this situation.

By now, Andre, you probably know this — a sign of your progress. But for any others who may come upon this, I hope it will help.

Regards,
Tommy

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Kate says:

Hi Tommy
I’m back here in the beginner lessons, too. Glad to know there’s someone I can talk to back here! I feel the pressure to catch up with those who are doing the current lessons, but I really am a beginner, so I’ll just keep plodding along.
Cheers
Kate

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Hiroko says:

Mina-san! We apologize for the late response :oops: We get a lot of comments every day and we realized we weren’t very good at responding to each of them every time someone comments, but now we are making every effort to answer the comments/questions from the listeners :dogeza: AND we are glad to know there are many listeners who help each other and build the community for the Japanese learners :kokoro:

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JKid says:

Mina-san,
Every day I (along with other staff members) at Japanesepod101 read all the new lesson comments and posts on the forums. Normally all questions are answered within a very short time frame (usually the day they are posted), even on the older lessons. Please continue to comment on every lesson. Your comments are read and the greatest attempts are made to answer any queries within the shortest possible time.

Kate-san,

Don’t feel presured to catch up. The beauty of podcasts and  learning via the internet is that you can learn in your own time at your own pace.

Mina-san, thanks for your comments :)

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lisa says:

hi!
i just had a question about the use of ’し’when combining verbs. I was taught in my japanese class that you need to use ‘plain form ‘ of a verb before ‘し’. But in the dialogue here, they use the ‘ます’ form before it.

What are the grammer rules for this? When can/can’t you use masu form or plain form with ‘し’?

thanks!
Lisa

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Jessi says:

Lisaさん,
While the plain form usually comes before し, if you are trying to be extra polite, it is okay to use the masu form before し (as long as the main clause is also in the masu form) :grin:

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lisa says:

Hi Jessi,
ahhh, わかりました! どうも ありがとう ございます。

That makes sense :-D

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Sora says:

Awww~ Take’s ‘yes’ was so cute! :smile:

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StevieB says:

I have adhd! Real bad! I’m learning so much! thank you!

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王凱 says:

どうですか。とても楽しいです。野球は大好きです。
ちょっと、違います。これはサッカーですけど。
そうですか。すみません、スポーツの試合は初めてです。
初めてですか。そうです。実は、私はスポーツを見ませんし、しません、でも、貴方が好きですから、ここにいます。
嬉しい、スポーツは大丈夫です。私はあなたに教えます。

どう、とても楽しい。野球は大好き。
ちょっと、違うな、これはサッカーだけど。
そう。ごめん、スポーツの試合は初めてなんだ。
初めて、そう。実は、僕はスポーツを見ない、しないんだ。でも、貴方は好きだから、ここにいるんだ。
嬉しいな、スポーツは大丈夫だよ、私は貴方に教えるから。

また、後で。

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