皆さん、今日のロケーションはManila・マニラです！ Hello to all our listeners in the Philippines!

Great lesson. I find I enjoy these Intermediate Lessons the most. But the word for bloodbath 血祭り now has me imagining some kind of Japanese Horror film ‘Blood Festival’ sounds a lot worse than bloodbath.
Anyway…the award for best Podcast Drama, goes too………………… Japanesepod101.com Watchout…NTV will be trying to buy the rights and making it into a TV series
O-genki de
Steve

Hmm, I didn’t know lawyers are also given the title sensei like doctors and teachers. “Hen na Gaijin Sensei” has a nice ring, don’t you think?

Yes, I also found tagaru to be extremely helpful. In the past I would have used (verb) tai sou desu, but that construction doesn’t take into account the fact that there may be someone standing with you who just can’t speak Japanese. Very useful!

I haven’t downloaded this lesson yet but I can’t wait to find out what has happened in Okinawa!
I really love the intermediate lessons, the story last week was fantastic. This is my first post- I always read the comments every day, but this is the first time I’ve left a message! Thanks again for the awesome lessons, I have felt more confident in speaking Japanese after speaking along with the dialogues and repeating the vocab.
Arigatou Gozaimasu!

Mel should be just fine. After all, he’s a foreigner and everyone knows foreigners are incurably ignorant and silly.

The Dean, however, is going to jail (unless he gives a heartfelt apology, then its ok)

I thought the shark was going to jail for not drinking enough at the party, AND for singing off key.

陽子（ようこ）さん、かわいそう。めんどくさい奴（やつ）らめ、しっかりしなさいよ。

たけさんの「がんばります」は超（ちょう）面白（おもしろ）かったです。 　たけさんはこの弁護士（べんごし）にぴったりです。戸鍋先生、私達のとんでもない友人共のためにがんばって下（くだ）さい。

I thought the shark was going to jail for not drinking enough at the party, AND for singing off key.

XD

Michael-san, I’m not very fond of 鼻 either. It’s possible to fit it into one space, but it usually takes me a few tries.

Also, what is the difference between 友人 and 友達? is 友人 more formal / for older generations, kind of like (friendly) aquaintance, whereas 友人 is more like mate / pal?

Hmmmm. There doesn’t really seem to be a significant difference between them. Though I would imagine that 友達 is probably used more often.

Same question for the difference between 力になる and 手伝う or 助ける?

You’re really stretching my brain this time, Rob-san. There does seem to be a difference between them, but it’s extremely subtle. 力になる is like “to be of help.” 手伝い is, quite litterally, “to lend a hand”, and more of a “general use” kinda of word. 助ける means more along the lines of “to save”, and seems to have somewhat of an implication of saving someone from some sort of trouble whether it’s carrying grociers or bailing drunken friends out of jail.

(correction 2)

grociers -> groceries

So something very interesting happened to me the other day that I had to share with you guys. I was talking to one of my classmates about podcasting, and he made this suggestion to me:

“I really like this one podcast about Japanese. These hosts are so good and funny. Have you ever hear of it? Japanesepod101?”

I told him with a smile that not only have I heard of it, but you guys even mentioned me several times before. He was in complete shock about this, and even called me a celebrity.

But this little event just showed me how much you guys have grown. How long has it been? Three months? I used to be the one spreading the word about you guys, but in just three months time, it’s come to a point that now people are recommending you to me!

みなさん、おめでとう。 I’m proud to say, “Yeah, I knew about Japanesepod101 before they were big!” (^_^)

Jason-san - as always, you’re full of great information. Thanks a lot for the help!

That looks like someone went, “hey. Let’s try to fit all the radicals we can into a single kanji.”

Jason-san,

Yeah, but they were lazy… I bet we could do better

JP-san,

Mabuti naman, at ikaw?

Michael-san,

That’s a tough one. It’s a Russian name, so I’m having trouble figuring out the correct pronunciation. So far I think I’ve figured out that it’s by Progress Publishers out of Moscow, published in 1976. These publishers did put out a lot of communism related material around that time it seems. The title is “永遠なる人間”, and I believe the correct romanization for エウゲーニイ is Evgenij. That’s all I’ve got so far

皆さん、be back shortly, but just wanted to say to Bob-san, “thanks for setting up the Mac presentation!” I still owe you an email and glad you liked the episode.

氷…

The character after mizu is missing because I didn’t bring my kanji book home;

That’s not “mizu” btw. That’s 氷(こおり/koori) = ice.

Generally speaking, 友人 is more formal than 友達.
However, it’s more complicated than this. Unless otherwise indicated, 友人 means “*my* friend”, whereas 友達 simply means “*a* friend” (i.e. either my friend or somebody else’s). Further, as your study of kanji should indicate, 達 represents plurality. Thus, whereas 友達 can be used to signify one or more people, 友人 can only be used to represent one person. The plural form of 友人 is 友人達 (ゆうじんたち). Finally, 友達 can be used in compounds such as 飲み友達　(drinking buddy), whereas 友人 cannot.

If your Japanese is up to par, try:
http://tinyurl.com/mpebs
which is basically a Japanese version of what I just said.

Yes, I love sites like that. Thank you for sharing that info, René-san!

Thanks for sharing! That first one is great

Steve:
If you have any problems, consult a Japanese-Japanese dictionary. There’s a free one online at:
http://www.goo.ne.jp/

According to goo, 血祭り means:
〔昔、中国で、出陣に際し、いけにえを殺して軍神をまつったことから〕出陣に際して、敵の者などを殺して士気を奮い立たせること。手始めとして敵をほふって気勢を揚げること。
(Coming from an ancient Chinese tradition of appeasing the God of War by killing a sacrifice before departing for battle) The killing (i.e. of an enemy) when an army is departing for battle, in order to raise the morale of the troops. The slaughter/defeat of one’s enemy from the outset, raising one’s spirits.

So it sounds like the figurative use of the word “slaughter” that we have in English. For example, “Last night, The New York Yankees slaughtered The Toronto Blue Jays 14-0.” Or “They slaughtered that poor guy.”

But I’ve never heard the word before, so I’m not sure.

I hate to complain, but the PDF has some serious problems. The bottom few lines of the hiragana are missing (presumably cropped by the text box). Also, the translation starts with MEL but the Hiragana starts with ようこ.

If you get it fixed, let me know so I can download it.
Thanks
ジョン

Eran,
I am very impressed that this has been fixed already. I will read it tonight. Also I appreciate the improved “indenting” as this makes it much more readable.
Keep up the good work.
ジョン

Could someone please inform me of the title of the lovely song in the beginning? The ringtone? And who it’s by, possibly?

Hey gang! I know that I’m getting into these lessons quite late, but I have to say that I am loving them. I listen to them all the time to supplement my own research and book-work, and it’s great. One quick question: I have, so far, found 2 typo’s in the pdf files. Since people pay for these, I thought you guys might want to know so you could change them. I personally don’t care, just trying to help out. The one from this lesson is in the vocab section of the pdf where you have べろべろ　translated to “beru beru.” I will have to listen to the lesson again, because I can’t remember which one is correct. Anyways, just thought you should know. Keep up the great work! I love it!

I loved this lesson. All my Japanese conversation partners are ladies of a certain age. Amazingly, not ONE of them has found occasion to teach me the word 血祭り。Or for that matter, べろべろ. I enjoy all these lessons immensely. さすがJapanesePod101!!!