I have listed some useful expression extracted from this lesson so you can enjoy explanations when given in Japanese.

Please refer to the forum All about Japanese for the post.

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu

mikuji

I have provided a transcript of the conversations appearing in Lesson 28 Intermediate in the ‘All about Japanese’ Forum.

TheJPODteam use many really useful expressions on how to talk about words which I hope to precis in a separate post.

As I suspected there is loads we could learn from such expressions if only they could be presented clearly once. Remember the first intermediate lesson where we learned ‘kugitte kudasai’ and the like ? It was a good start and I am sorry it stopped at that.

Being able to talk about subjects and language is very important if we are to eventually learn to ask the natives directly - that will mean ultimate emancipation from just doing Japanese in a school setting.

JPOD101 team, any chance of a class dedicated to such expressions?

Cheers

mikuji

Alainさん、you’re 100% correct! It is #1 on our to do list. We’re hoping to standardize things by next few weeks, as we have something big in store for iPod users.

ズベルと申します
去年３月、インドからきました。
Recently , i got introduced to this fantastic website and such a vibrant community of japanese language enthusiasts . I hope to learn a lot from you all.

これから宜しくお願いします

I think it would be nice for the people arriving at jpod101 (especially for total beginners) to find all the Pdf lessons with the same design, to have an uniform presentation and also to save ink.

Lessons 9,10, 23 to 40, 43, 44, 45, 49 are yet with the old design, as also old intermediate lessons.

New lessons are perfect, but think of the total newbie who discovers japanese and jpod101: he will look at first at these first lessons, not at the 115th where he doesn’t understand anything..

The first lessons are actually your portal, not old things to forget.

I gave it a bit more thought and figured out I’ve always been using とき or ところ to express “when”. I’ll keep my ears open to try and identify when people chose to use たら, instead.

2. This is really just a simple statement of time. It doesn’t really empahsize either part. I guess because of that actually, it doesn’t “steal” any of the attenion from the next clause. So it indirectly adds a very slight emphasis to the next clause. Or rather it allows the next clause be more of the focus of the sentence. “After I entered the cafeteria…”

3. てから is used to express from what point in time some action or state started and *continues or continued over a period of time.* For example, you wouldn’t say, 食堂に入ってから、ご飯を食べた. In English it’s similar to “since” or “ever since.”

大学院に入ってから、すごく忙しくなった。

While this literally says “since I entered graduate school, I became very busy”, it implies that the 2nd clause is still true. So what this sentence really means is “Ever since I entered grad school, I’ve been very busy (and still am).”

Graphically:

1. When X->Y
2. After X, Y.
3. Since X, |———-Y———-|

I realised that I’ve never used たら when expressing ‘after’. Can someone explain the nuance between the following three sentences?

1.食堂に入ったら・・・
2.食堂に入った後・・・
3.食堂に入って（から）・・・

I assume the first one is expressing the feeling of ‘when’, whereas the second is a literal ‘after’. I suppose the third one is giving equal weight to the action before and after. Am I on the right track?