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This entry was posted on Friday, March 31st, 2006 at 6:46 am and is filed under Intermediate 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.
58 Responses to “Intermediate Lesson #9 - A Chance Meeting!”
Friday at 6:46 am
皆さん、again we’re experimenting with the volume and other features, so please let us know if the sound seems different, etc.
Votes are in from yesterday, and sense prevailed as bachelor #2 will be escorting Natsuko out next week. Thank you everyone for voting! ありがとうございます! Vocab for today’s lesson will be up soon. よろしくおねがいします。
Friday at 6:58 am
Take, how do you always manage to out do yourself! I’m telling you, the adlibs this guy comes up with when we’re recording!!
夏子、お疲れ様!Another fabulous preformance! You too are something else.
And welcome Jun, the store employee, who will be joining our ever growing team of voice actors!よろしく!
Friday at 7:50 am
This was a great intermediate lesson! I liked the last basketball example. ピーターなら出来るかも! That had me laughing!
Was the pdf file a little short? It seemed to be missing the vocabulary and key points.
皆さん、よろしくお願いします。
Friday at 9:01 am
あなた方いい気分を上げたのでありがとうございます僕は今日のレッソンの前に悲しいですが今嬉しくなったのでいっぱい飲むにいく事ができます
奈津子(夏子)お気を付けて下さいね
皆さんありがとうございます。
また来週
Friday at 9:01 am
Peter san, The sound seems good. Also, no more podcasts on weekends? (which is ok, I can use time to catch up, though). Great lesson today’s.
Friday at 9:24 am
yup great lesson I enjoyed it muchly. the audio was fine no problems there. great job by all. made my day.
Friday at 9:48 am
I thought today’s lesson was really good, and just like Nicole, that bit had me laughing too!
This will be the last of your podcasts I listen to before I actually go to Japan! I’m 絶好調です!
Friday at 10:33 am
Ayashi na kono bengoshi! Hana no shita ga nagai dayo…ki wo tsukete ne, Yoko-chan.
Chotto matte! Why does the lawyer always have to be the wierd one?
Ii na, Rob-san. Urayamashi. Boku wa Nihon ni kairitai desu.
(sorry for my awful romanji)
Friday at 10:59 am
Nicole-san,
The office was attacked by pirates, and we were so busy fending them off that we had to put out an incomplete PDF. They say better late than never, but we figured we could extend that to better some than none while on the way to late
A more complete PDF will be out soon! Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your understanding
よろしくお願いします!
Friday at 12:12 pm
Takeさん!こわいよ!
Nats, watch out!
It’s kind of like watching a horror movie. You know the person is about to get it, but you can’t do anything to stop it.
Peterさん、how about meeting up for a coffee sometime? How about at Ben’s Cafe? Do you know it?
Oh, and here’s an idea to promote the show. How about putting together a PDF that people can print out and hand to their friends? Also, how about some kind of referral campaign for people’s blogs? I’ll put up a post myself, but if you call on your listeners to do it, you’ll probably get lots of free advertising.
Daniel
Friday at 2:13 pm
I love Daniel’s idea of a pdf about the podcast for our friends! I could hand it out to people in my Japanese class!! Great idea! (If you have time!
_
Friday at 2:25 pm
Daniel-san,
Interesting idea, indeed. Liz-san, Peter-san has tons of free time, so I’ll get him right on it
Seriously, though, a good idea to keep in mind!
Friday at 2:42 pm
FeRAAAAAAri! HAHAHAHAHA!
たけさん、面白(おもしろ)すぎます。
戸鍋の奴(やつ)は気持(きもち)ち悪(わる)いな。陽子(ようこ)さん、気(き)を付(つ)けて下(くだ)さい。 ;_;
Friday at 2:47 pm
あ、くんさん、ようこそいらっしゃいました。そして、ごめんなさい。前(まえ)挨拶(あいさつ)忘(わす)れてしまいました。
Friday at 3:01 pm
コラ!海賊(かいぞく)の野郎共(やろうども)め!邪魔(じゃま)するんじゃねぇぞ!ったくもう。面倒(めんど)くせえな奴(やつ)らだな、海賊(かいぞく)って。いつもいつも日本語(にほんご)を教(おし)えてる人達(ひとたち)に迷惑(めいわく)ばっかりかけやがって。
今日(きょう)、私(わたし)はなんだか変(へん)な気分(きぶん)がありそうですね。。。
Friday at 3:07 pm
Gah! Correction:
くんさん -> じゅんさん
Friday at 3:49 pm
I guess フェラァァーリ was probably meant as a joke. However, it’s closer to the original pronunciation in Italian than our English pronunciation.
Daniel
Friday at 5:48 pm
BTW, after going over to leave a review for you all on iTunes, I saw that you have a rather nice icon there. However, I don’t see it on this site, nor does it come up on my iPod. Please add the image to the episodes, and place it on the site. Don’t be はずかしい!
Daniel
Friday at 7:59 pm
Nathan-san,
Don’t worry about getting the pdf out so fast. We understand problems arise. I just wanted to make sure you all were aware of it, in case it was an accident!
You all always do such a wonderful job! Keep it up!
Nicole
Friday at 8:06 pm
A hard copy of the main page makes it a nice flier.
Friday at 9:54 pm
Just wanted to say thank you for making learning Japanese so easy and enternaining to learn. I started downloading lessons about a week or 2 ago, and now I keep about 4-6 hrs of your show on my ipod every day. The only downside is that the people I work with probably think I’m crazy because I start laughing out loud and they know I’m not talking to anyone. On a side note, thanks to your pdf’s, I have been able to share your lessons with my friends who don’t have access to the internet. So I will thank you for them.
Well done.
Saturday at 3:01 am
ah I noticed in this episode you did alot of differnt versions of I
I wonder if in a culture or beginner sessson this week maybe we could get an explanation as to the differences between, atashi, watashi, boku and ore. san and sama are pretty easy but the I is difficult to understand who when and why.
Saturday at 3:52 am
How about right here, instead?
私(わたし/watshi) - this is the most neutral form of “I, me”, both in gender and politeness. If you’re not sure, this is the one to use.
私(わたくし/watakushi) - note the kanji is the same, but the reading’s different. This is a more humble version of watashi. Still gender neutral. This usually isn’t used much in general conversation. Mostly for business and other formal type stuff.
僕(ぼく/boku) - this is used primarily by boys and younger guys. When used by older people (as in older than teenagers), I get the sense that it it’s a *tad* more humble than watashi. The kanji also means “manservant”, so I think that backs up my sense.
The above 3 are pretty much always safe to use to anyone. The next ones may require discretion.
あたし/atashi - a feminine corruption* of watashi. Used pretty much exclusively by females and some males that…well, we won’t go into that here…
*corruption in strictly the gramatical sense. Not that lots of evil ladies got together and decided to corrupt the language or anything.
俺(おれ/ore) - the masculine and somewhat “macho/boastful” version. Used probably 99.9999% exclusively by males. You really shouldn’t refer to yourself with this to your teacher/boss/etc.
Here are some bonus ones, too. These are older and aren’t generally used except maybe by older people, typically men. But you may run into them at some point, and I like them so in they go.
わし/washi - basically an older form of watashi. I’m not sure of the kanji on this one.
我(わ)が/waga and 我(われ/ware) - seem to be more “official” type words. Think military type situations.
我輩(わがはい/wagahai) - I actually don’t know a lot about this one. It’s an older word that I think is closer to the modern ore than watashi. Maybe someone can add to this.
己(おのれ/onore) - I’m posting this one mostly because I’m not too sure of it. It’s kinda strange. It can mean either “I” or “you”, but I’ve never actually heard used as “I.” When used as “you”, it’s quite insulting.
Saturday at 3:53 am
(correction)
In the first paragraph: watshi -> watashi
Saturday at 4:24 am
Oh, I forgot one.
拙者(せっしゃ/sessha) - I believe this is *the* most humble form of “I” Japanese. It’s considered obsolete and never used anymore, but it does pop up in manga, anime, and samurai dramas and such sometimes. It literally means “worthless person.” You don’t get much more humble than that.
While we’re doing “I”, why not go ahead and go into “you” as well. Though you should know that it’s much more prefered to call a person by their name or title, and you should generally only use these if you don’t know either of those. It’s interesting to see that this seems to be a bit of a pain to get used to for both English speakers learning Japanese (since we use “you” all the time) and for Japanese people learning English (most would consider calling their boss “you” extremely disrespectful and take some getting used to. Well, if they’re anything like Shimizu-sensei they would).
あなた/anata - the “you” equivalent of watashi. The strange thing is even though it’s normally considered the most neutral “you”, it can also be a term of affection from a wife to her husband. I haven’t quite figured that out yet why…
あんた/anta - a corruption of あなた. Not rude particularly, but not appropriate to use for parents/teachers/bosses/etc either.
君(きみ/kimi) - usually used to refer to younger girls and younger boys/guys. Not appropriate to use for people older than you. It’s interesting to note that the kanji is the same for the honorific suffix -君(くん/kun) and is used pretty much the same way then too.
お前(おまえ/omae) - literally “the one in front of me.” Basically the same as 君 but has a much “harsher” feel to it. Generally used mostly by guys. Girls seem to tend to use あんた rather than お前. It can have a bit of a “looking down on someone” implication especially if you don’t know them well, so be careful. Definitely not appropriate to use for parents/teachers/etc. Sometimes it’s pronounced おめえ to sound more “macho/cool.”**
**Personally I call this the “the masculine あい/あえ to ええ corruption” trend. I have no idea if there’s an official term for it.
お主(ぬし/onushi) - an old, obsolete and honorific word for “you.” So obsolete that it’s not even in Jim Breen’s dictionary as a word for “you.” It litterally means something like “honorable master.”
There are a couple more common words for “you” but they’re appropriateness here is…erm…shaky. I won’t share those unless the JPOD101 crew ok it.
A site I saw once said that “I/you” words tend to get used in pairs. In other words, if someone uses one of the “I” words, they’ll probably use the corresponding “you” word most of the time. Namely watashi/anata, boku/kimi, ore/omae.
Saturday at 4:36 am
Jasonさん、
While your explanations are good and thorough, I think we still would like to see the gang handle it in a podcast. That is why we’re here, right?!
And, of course, we want to hear from Takaseさん whether there are any good Nagasaki-ben phrases! Takase! Takase!
Daniel
Saturday at 4:53 am
Thanks Jason excellent explanations.
I know alot of people get stuck on these. It could get a little silly if a 250lb footballer starts saying atashi all over the place. Tho could make a very good sketch about a slightly camp footballer in Japan. yay ハードゲー
Saturday at 9:08 am
皆さん、thanks for all the comments!
Will be back soon to address them all very soon. 宜しくお願いします!
Saturday at 7:39 pm
Jason-san,
Thanks for the info on “I” and “you.” I’ve been wondering about all of that for some time now!
I’ve been curious about other terms, but they’re probably some of the “shaky” ones, so I won’t ask about them…
Saturday at 9:09 pm
Grant-san, welcome to the community and thanks for listening and sharing us with your friends
clienad-san, in addition to the info posted by Jason-san, here’s a quick and dirty list that’s not too bad:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq/pronoun.html
Jason-san, I wouldn’t say that boku is more humble than watashi. Humbleness generally coincides with formality, and I don’t think you would say that boku is more formal than watashi. It is more intimate than watashi, though. I think you could probably throw atashi in with the safe ones, as well - it’s pretty similar to boku in that sense. As the link I posted mentioned, wagahai has pompous connotations. Onore is very archaic sounding and is humble when used for oneself (not often), and very rude when used for others, as you mention.
I don’t know if I would say that sessha is the most humble “I”, but you’re right in that it is generally used by samurai. The equivalent “you” is onushi, and it actually is in Breen’s dictionary
Omae is sometimes used by men for their wives much like anata the other way around - it sounds old-fashioned in this sense.
I don’t think there would be any problem with discussing less respectful pronouns here - much better to discuss them so that others understand them rather than misunderstand them. There are likely many anime fans here, which is about the only place you’ll hear a lot of the rude pronouns, so it would give them a better idea of the speech they are hearing as well.
Brenda-san, feel free to ask about your “shaky” terms, as I doubt they are too overboard. If we get into the undiscussables, I’m sure I could shoot you an email
Sunday at 1:57 am
Nicole-san, thanks for the post! Everyone was hysterical in the studio. Take-san is one funny guy. Yes, the PDF was a bit short, but the full version will be out Monday.
宜しくお願いします!
Clienad-san, wow, what a home page!!物凄い!!!Checking out your work put all of us in a great mood!ありがとうごじざいました!How about a Sakura or Natsuko character??
Roberto-san, thanks for the feedback! As for lessons on the weekends, no plans to stop them.
Rob-san, keep us posted on your trip!! And let us know where you’ll be.
hen na gaijin, probably due to all the lawyer drama series they have out there, but please don’t worry, I’m sure our writers will offend everyone.
Nathan-san, come on, pirates?? Nobody will buy that. Stick to small woodland animals, as everyone is familiar with their tenacity!
Daniel-san, sounds great. Not sure about when as we usually leave the office really late! I’ll email you. And thanks for the great idea! Sure you’ll have a few more for us.
We live for those! The image can be found on the blog, check it out. Also Nazo, Nazo while you’re there.
Thanks for the itunes review!!
Grant-san, thanks for the post! Please keep them coming.
And thanks also for spreading the word! We love to hear that people are laughing while learning.
Clienad-san, we’re actually working on something!
もうちょっと待ってください。
Jason-san, wow!
Thanks for the info! You are doing the community a great service, and we really appreciate it!!ありがとうございました!
Brenda-san, how are you??
お久しぶりですね。元気ですか?
Sunday at 2:08 am
Indeed.
I think my favorite part is the FLCL section. ^_^ But you spelled ryokan wrong.
Sunday at 5:02 am
皆さん、遅くなってしまいまして、申し訳ございませんでした。
The revised PDF is now available.
宜しくお願いいたします。
Sunday at 8:36 am
I have a question not related to the lesson.
I was watching a Japanese movie and the wife kept saying ‘anata’ and it was translated as ‘Honey’.
Is anata used as an endearment between married couples?
Sunday at 10:05 am
Michael-san,
Yes, “anata” can be used as a term of endearment, generally from a wife to her husband. Good suspicion
Sunday at 10:58 pm
Daniel-san,
応援ありがとうございます!
Yoshi and I are thinking the best way to introduce it! or maybe we can do it without people noticing…
Takase
Monday at 1:00 am
ahh thanks guys
glad you like my stuff. didn’t spot that spelling mistake thanks for pointing it out
. I’d love to do one of Natsuko and Sakura hmmm maybe I can sneak them into a title here at work.
Monday at 2:27 am
Ok, this is completely unrelated, but I thought it might could give some people extra reading (and possibly listening) practice:
昨日(きのう)、私(わたし)の日本語(にほんご)’を書(か)く能力(のうりょく)が下(さ)がらないように、(ほとんど)毎日(まいにち)LiveJournalで日本語の日記(にっき)を書くことにしました。誰(だれ)かなぜか気(き)に入(い)ったら、下(した)のリンクをクリックして御覧(ごらん)下さい。それとも、私の名前(なまえ)をクリックすればいいです。私がエントリーを読むことを録音(ろくおん)して、エントリーにMP3のリンクを置(お)こうと思(おも)っています。それじゃ、よろしくお願(ねが)いいたします。
Yesterday, in order to keep my Japanese writing skills from decreasing, I decided to start writing an (almost) daily journal in Japanese using LiveJournal. If for some strange reason anyone’s interested, please click the link below. Or you can just click my name. I’m thinking of recording myself reading the entry and putting a link to the MP3 in the entry. Well then, I hope you check it out.
http://jkc42.livejournal.com/tag/journal
I should note here that I plan to keep journal entries quite informal because I’ve never really had the chance to practice more informal Japanese anywhere else. I should also note that while I’m by no means The Master of Japanese or anything, my entries will probably not be aimed at beginners in terms of difficulty (though I encourage you to read anyway
).
Monday at 2:34 am
Oh, I forgot to mention that I don’t plan on providing furigana in the entries. So I recommend using rikai.com or the rikaichan Firefox extension if there are kanji that you don’t know.
Monday at 2:45 am
Ah! “Intimate!” That’s the word I was looking for. Thanky. ^_^
Monday at 2:49 am
Takaseさん!
You so totally rock!
I know you will find a way to do it because you are a Kyushu woman and can’t be stopped!
楽しみ!
Daniel
Monday at 5:24 am
jason,
the journal is good idea.
how about rss link??
Monday at 5:50 am
Well, the only problem with that is that I also use the same LJ account for general blogging. Though I’ll be putting all the journal entries under one category, LJ doesn’t seem to provide RSS links for just individual categories. If you’re willing to sort through the non-Japanese journal entries, here’s the RSS link:
http://jkc42.livejournal.com/data/rss
If you want to set some kind of filters on your newsreader, all the journal entries will start with 日記 in the title and will have the keyword “journal” in them.
Heh. I never though anyone would want an RSS link to my journal. That’s kinda cool
Monday at 6:25 am
Peter-san,
Konnichiwa, genki desu. Chotto isogashii desu. Too much work!
Still trying to keep up on the podcasts, though.
Monday at 9:51 am
Onushi isn’t honorific. It’s used between equals, and in fact, if you watch “Seven Samurai” in Japanese, you’ll hear the samurai using “onushi” all the time, usually in condescending ways.
Like “おぬし。何の用だ?” (You. What the hell do you want?”)
It’s one of the rare examples of Japanese sarcasm, like お前 (”honorable one in front of me”) or 貴様 (”my lord”).
Thursday at 2:04 am
shitsurei shimasu kedo…
What does “ateru/atemasu” mean in this case? I looked it up in a dictionary and it said that it meant “to hit.” But it sounded like in the conversation (about watching tv, eating, drinking, and playing basketball at the same time!) that Peter was asking if it were “possible”? Can it be interpreted in that way? or is it a completely different word that i’m hearing?
Thanks!
-Hugo
Thursday at 3:12 am
First thing here is that it is always nice to give a time marker for such questions. This occurs at 15:56.
Here is what I think they are saying.
あっていますか (あってますか)
あっているかな (あってるかな)
so the verb is ある (aru) or “to exist” in the present progressive form.
John
Thursday at 3:46 am
Great, thanks for the clarification, John. I will give a time marker in the future.
-Hugo
Thursday at 4:12 am
Hugoさん
No problem. Hopefully I am correct. It is a good question.
John
Wednesday at 6:29 pm
I am writing for the first time because I am trying to keep learning Japanese after graduating and unfortunately having nothing to do anymore with it. There are no great chances of working with Japanese here in Italy…
As I am Italian, I am writing this post to say a word about the pronunciation of the word Ferrari.
The right way to pronounce it is not the strong accent on the A (even if the accent is on the A), but the double rolled R, which must be pronounced as in Spanish.
hope this is useful
salvatore
Wednesday at 9:47 pm
みんあさん
おつかれ さまです
わたしわ SIVA と もします。 わたしは JPODの だいふぁん です。
まいにち あるきなはら JPOD の れっそんを ききます。めちゃ やばい ですよ。
きいて きいて きいていましょ
ようろしく おねがいします
Siva
Thursday at 1:53 pm
Sivasakthivel-san,
にほんごで こめんと、ありがとうございます!
>めちゃ やばい ですよ。
⇒「とても いい ですよ」という いみ です よね~
Thursday at 11:49 pm
Mayumiさん

もちろん
そんな いみ ですね
Tuesday at 2:59 pm
Sivasakthivel-san,
ありがとうございます!
Tuesday at 10:24 pm
最後にPeterさんはあっていますか とききました。
意味を説明してください。
Thursday at 1:41 pm
Kanchana-san,
あっていますか means “is that correct?” So, he wanted to ask if the sentence Natsuko said right.
Tuesday at 11:13 pm
Umm, a cultural question.
I realize that this is an improbable story that gets its “fun” value out of its improbability. However, I’m wondering if there is somewhat of an attachment to reality in this point?
Yoko-chan is trying to sell her car to pay the lawyers’ fees for two idiots, Mel and Gakuchou-san, who were acting up in Okinawa. It’s hard for my western brain to wrap itself around that idea. I would envision contacting the lawyer and getting the necessary counsel, but after checking with Gakuchou-san about if he’s willing to accept such counsel (and bill), I wouldn’t worry my little head about the money any longer.
However, it does seem that jumping in and taking responsibility for others seems to have some connection to reality in Japanese culture. Is that right?
Thursday at 5:08 am
いいせつめやな!”ながら”のやつ本当にわかる!
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