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。

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。

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.

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!

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！

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! _

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。 ;_;

The office was attacked by pirates

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。。。

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

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

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.

I wonder if in a culture or beginner sessson this week maybe we could get an explanation

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.

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.

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

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…

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.
Thanks for the itunes review!! We live for those! The image can be found on the blog, check it out. Also Nazo, Nazo while you’re there.

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？

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。

Michael-san,

Yes, “anata” can be used as a term of endearment, generally from a wife to her husband. Good suspicion

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.

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.

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

how about rss link??

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

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”).

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

Hugoさん
No problem. Hopefully I am correct. It is a good question.
John