There seems to be a problem with downloading the podcast, not running the audio from the on page bitton, but the actual podcast.

I can’t believe we have to wait a whole week to find out what happened!

A suggestion for the intermediate lessons’ “kanji close-up”: more kanji from the dialogue rather than a practice sheet. By this level, most of us can figure out the stroke order without instruction and can easily practice on a blank sheet of paper, right? What does everyone else think?

Bluestocking-san,
I am no longer a subscriber so it would be unfair to judge; but it sounds like a good idea to me.

Eran-san,
Things are working just fine at the moment!

J-pod team-san,
I just listened again and I hope you don´t take this the wrong way. I do still love the podcasts and am very grateful for all your work.
That said I think….now how can I put this????…. Well, in the words of Austin Powers “I think you are loosing your Mojo.”
Thanks for everything, I had a great time ! I don´t really think one subscriber more or less will make any difference!!
I am sure you will have many, many more!

You did a “great, great job” and I wish you the best of luck!
Unfortunately, my time is restricted at the moment so I need to focus on what works effectively for me.

O-genki-de-ne

usagi -san

if you don’t mind me asking, what is about the subscription you did not find worthwhile? It is not a trick question - I am genuinely trying to find out what others think.

I am a premium subscriber and I joined for a full year- the feature I find most useful is the self-study category because of the JLPT level questions that are interactive. I am getting exposed to so much material there and it is all in sizeable chunks…

I am finding that I have very little time to look at the PDF but I am saving them for later and occasionally go and check how words are written in kanji because a word sticks better in my mind if I understand how it is put together that way. I can only listen to the podcasts in the car so I create a CD with all the lessons of one week which means I tend to be one week behind but find the ability to listen repeatedly very very useful.

I guess by the time my first subscription expires next year I will be able to assess how it has worked for me.

usagi-san, I hope you will continue to frequent the site as a non subscriber - I am sure you have lots to contribute and your contributions so far have been most appreciated.

Best wishes for your studies.

mikuji

Well, I have to agree with Takase-san that Ryuuta-kun’s incident is probably associated with it somehow. But it’s not easy to predict with these writers! (at least not for me )

ジョンさんー
ほこりdoes seem to have those two meanings, but they use different kanji characters (specifically: 誇り for pride and 埃 for dust). I have found that, many times even when the kanji are different, the meanings of homophones will be related (like taking general items — 取る — and taking photos — 撮る) but it’s not always the case, as we see here.

As for ラムネ, it’s great! The soda is like a less citrusy 7-up, but the marble and the glass bottle makes it like a special experience. If you’ve seen the video, that’s good — I wouldn’t want to try to explain how to open it with just text!　enjoy!

Hi guys, just wanted to tell you that I’m featured in this weeks Cream of the Crop - if you like my music, please vote!

Yeah, I know, this has nothing to do with the lesson, but…

Takaseさん、

You rock! I always enjoy hearing you on the podcast! And it was nice to finally meet you. When the other half of the Nagasaki Connection returns, the three of us have to hang out.

Sølviさん、

That’s great. I’ll give it a listen.

Well, if anyone wants to see my video submission, I’ve posted it on my blog. You can access it by clicking on my name (in Red) above.

David Cさん、

Sorry you feel this way. Yes, sometimes we get carried away with the personal stuff, but the community feel here is a large part of the success of JP101. Plus, you can always scroll.

PS. the video stuff, while it might not be directly on topic to this lesson, is on topic for the site.

Daniel B,

You realize this sometimes means scrolling down over 80 posts, right? The community feel is certainly a good thing but don´t forget there are paying customers out there who do not post but come here to learn.

Anyhow, I have taken yr. *you can always scroll* advice to heart.
Yes, as a customer I do have choices, so not only will I scroll but I have unsubscribed now , not that it makes any difference. In a few days no-one will remember this post anyways and I don´t want to rain on yr. parade so I´ll just leave it at that.

David C.さん, I’m so sorry! I feel terrible now… And I’ll try to keep to the forums in the future.

David Cさん,

Being easier to post to, the comments sections lends itself to chatter more than the forum. The forum is full of serious, in-depth discussions with very minimal chatter. Anyone who would take a little time to explore it would know that. Like Liz said, more people see the comments section than the forum. Many people are attracted to jpod101 because of the very friendly, helpful, and highly visible community. I’m sorry you don’t like the way we do things here, but it’s gotten jpod where it is now.

My problem is that the forum is so much of a hassle to get to… You have to go to ‘forum’, log in again, then find out where someone might have posted a personal message… Maybe a separate forum for daily posts, linked from this page?

Just listened to the show… Good work!

I went out with a group of Japanese salariman-tachi (and salary women) and it was a real eye opener.

In a situation like that, even if you don’t understand what people are saying, you can probably pick the last 2 or 3 syllables of the last word of the sentence, and so pick up if it’s honorific, plain, or ‘worshipping’ voice.

The Bucho (boss), was lazing back in his chair with a cigarette for most of the time. Everyone laughed at his jokes, and he never had an empty glass. I was primarily his guest. All of his verbs ended in ‘-u’ (plain form)

Most of the others sat very straight in their chairs, and listened intently when bucho was speaking. They filled my glass with a small pitcher of sake when it was empty. Most of their verbs ended in -masu, and when speaking to me, EVERY verb was something-masu, and spoken in a lower voice.

The most interesting guy there hardly said anything. He was at the farthest position away from me. He rarely contributed to the conversation. He was whispering conversation to another person. Occasionally someone would call out his name and show them the empty pitcher. He’d always seem to make out like he’d made some mistake, “oh… su… sumimasen…’, nod profusely, and pour the water. He was the ‘buka’ or subordinate.

Anyway, after we all finished our meal, and quite a lot of alcohol was drunk, we left. We walked down the street, with Buka trailing behind us, when he sprinted up ahead. He quickly flagged down 5 taxis (we only needed 3 though). He frantically opened each door for us, so we could take our pick as to which dingy Shanghai taxi we could take, and bowed deeply, looking at his shoelaces as we climbed in.

Ok, I’m getting to the relevant part. It even relates to one of this week’s lessons.

We arrived at a small noodle shop, and I heard buka speak one of the only sentences I picked up from him during the whole night. He asked something of one of the (female) superiors. (Actually everyone there was his superior)

“Kono mise ni kita koto ga gozaimasuka.” (Have You Been To This Shop Before? )

All of a sudden it all made sense. The hierachy was clear, and its relation to the language all fell into place. If you had been able to see the body language that buka showed when asking the question (the eyes looking down, the nervous voice) and the nervous nodding/bowing when he listened to the other person’s answer, you’d understand all of this honorific stuff sensei-tachi are telling us about.

Hope you enjoyed the story! Hope it helps!

I’ve had some problems with the feature you mention, Jasonさん. It worked perfectly well before I started my subscription, but now I have to log in every time.

Maxさん: There is a link on the upper right side of the forum to a list of new posts since your last visit. But - unfortunately - after I started subscribing, there sometimes seems to be a double log-in, and this list is reset, if you know what I mean.

I think these problems are what caused me to move back to the comments section instead, but also the fact that you can feel more free to write what you want without looking for the proper heading for it. I’ve made so many good friends thanks to the comments section, and I’ve experienced that it is very inclusive, new people are welcomed in a very nice way. But yeah, I can imagine how it is to stand on the side and watch, but it’s sometimes hard to remember that there are “invisible” people on this site as well (sorry if that word offended anybody, I was trying to come up with a good translation of a Norwegian phrase I had in mind, but then I forgot the phrase… ).

Usually I only listen to the beginner lessons, but today listened to the intermediate lesson and to my surprise understood a fair bit. Suzuki-san’s polite phrasing was most enjoyable. The intermediate lesson’s are still a bit hard for me, but maybe it’s time ‘to take my japanese to the next level’™

I’m sorry that Usagi-san feels that the Mojo’s been lost (although I’m not convinced that Austin Powers had any in the first place ). For myself, the audio podcasts are great and my listening comprehension has improved considerably, just over the last couple of months. I’m even understanding some (actually still not much yet) of the Fuji News Network internet news casts, which previously was impossible for me.

Perhaps the loss of Mojo relates to the video. iLove was certainly fun (and I can’t wait to see how you tie the listener submissions in to the next episode; surely a scriptwriting challenge given the material seen so far), but perhaps covering topics such as food would be more useful. I’m still working on correctly identifying japanese food dishes. Just mentioning food is making me hungry. おなかがすく。寿司を食べたいです。

Maxさん,
Thank you for the story.
みんな　さん
I am not sure what to say about the personal discussions here.
On the one hand, the personal discussions are a bit of a distraction for people looking for comments on the lesson. I have often felt this way about the comments.
On the other hand, clearly some members enjoy this type of communications. There seem to be more people interested in general chat than in lesson related discussions.
Being a firm believer in free speech, I think the solution here is “more speech”. For those people that want more lesson related discussions, please write them. This can shift the balance.
As always, I think tolerance of others desires is important and I think we need to stay clear of negative discussions. Negative discussions are a real turn-off.
We can all learn from Peter. His high energy and positive attitude makes JPOD what it is. Also note, Peter keeps the lessons as a mixture of banter and education. So the same should probably apply here.
Sorry if this sounds to stern.
Thanks
John C. Briggs

P.S. For anyone interested in more focused discussions, please check out the forums. These definately have less personal banter.

Sølviさん, have you tried deleting all your cookies and temp internet files? If not, try that. And then try logging directly into the forum first (http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/login.php). Don’t log into the subscriber’s part of the site yet. Close your browser, and come back to the forum and see if you’re still logged in. I have a feeling there’s an issue between the forum’s autologin feature and the fact that logging into the subscriber’s section logs you into the forum too. Because when I was logging into the subscriber section a lot, I would get logged out of the forums even though I set it to autologin. Since I haven’t logged into the subscriber’s section for a while now, I’ve stayed logged into the forum just fine.

Like Johnさん said, if you want to see more lesson related posts in the comments section, try posting about it yourself. If we don’t have anything particular to say about the lesson at the time, we just chatter amongst ourselves until someone does. There have been some really good lesson related discussion in the comments section in the past. But after the forums were introduced, those shifted mostly to the forums. But nothing’s stopping anyone from posting a great, lesson relevant quetsion or comment in the comments section. It’s just that no one seems to have had one here in a while. Or if they did, they posted it in the forums, the link to which I might add is at the top of every jpod101 page.

Jasonさん, yeah, I’ve noticed that it helps to not log in to the subscriber features. I think I’ll try deleting the cookies and stuff like you said; school has just started, and my time for in-depth study of the pdfs will be limited, at least on weekdays. I guess this is the best solution for now.

I also want to say that I agree on what you say in your comment about the comments section.

Wow, Eranさん, you’re great! Thanks a lot for everything you do for this site! But shouldn’t you be spending some quality time with your wife instead of hanging out in the comments section?

That is right Claytonian-san…

This is a Japanese learning environment, and learning (and remembering) to attach the appropriate honorific suffix to someone’s name is very important. Even if you’re not talking to a Japanese person or in Japanese at all, it’s still good practice. I hardly think it “borders on the offensive.” If anyone’s been offended, no one’s mentioned anything all this time. I’m sorry it annoys you, but I think you’re making a much bigger deal over this than it actually is.

Molehill -> mountain

I agree with David c finally they just post for group that has more time than us and leave the new and little time here people behind and I think that’s not fare! S_R_C

david c. says:
August 19th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Daniel B,

You realize this sometimes means scrolling down over 80 posts, right? The community feel is certainly a good thing but don´t forget there are paying customers out there who do not post but come here to learn.

Anyhow, I have taken yr. *you can always scroll* advice to heart.
Yes, as a customer I do have choices, so not only will I scroll but I have unsubscribed now , not that it makes any difference. In a few days no-one will remember this post anyways and I don´t want to rain on yr. parade so I´ll just leave it at that.

Daniel Beck-san ( ) Your face

I finally see your pic and who are you! So you read my comments ehh and you say you were going to ignore them because they were not interest but since you being here in NYC or born in New York City don’t know well I will forgive you all because your a protestant and you roll over alot I understand you! S_R_C