Learn intermediate Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Don’t be spooked by the new lesson category - today we introduce the first Lower Intermediate level lesson! These lessons are geared toward those ready to move on from the beginner level, but not quite ready for lessons presented in all Japanese. Today’s lesson is a scary one in honor of Halloween! Tune in to find out about akaname, and then stop by JapanesePod101.com to leave us a post!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Lower Intermediate Lessons. 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.
33 Responses to “Lower Intermediate Lesson #1 - Scary Fairy Tale”
JapanesePod101.com says:
October 31st, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Mina-san,
Happy Halloween! 
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!
Nathan says:
October 31st, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Mina-san,
Here is a fun link! The author that is mentioned in the podcast (Mizuki Shigeru) is quite famous, and there is even a road in Japan that is lined with statues (83 I believe) of the 妖怪・ようかい・yōkai, or ghosts and monsters that appear in his stories. The road is in Sakaiminato City, Tottori Prefecture. You can see pictures of the statues here:
http://www.sakaiminato.net/main/map/mizuki.html
Enjoy! 
mikuji says:
October 31st, 2006 at 9:53 pm
子供いたら、あかなめのお話しを聞くからお風呂に入らないと思いますよう！ 
その話しは逆効果を生み出すでしょうか。。:???:
その中初心者のレッソンにありがとうございます。
大好きなものは：
１）長居会話
２）もっと日本語で話すことの意図
どんどん新しい日本語の表現を渡すことはとても便利です。
If I were a child, after hearing the story of the akaname monster I would not wish to enter a bath at all ! It rather has the opposite effect, I think!
I liked very much:
1) the longer dialogue
2) the intention to introduce more japanese in the explanation.
Gradual introduction of Japanese expressions is very useful.
Thank you very much for this intermediate-beginner lesson.
mikuji
Belton says:
October 31st, 2006 at 11:46 pm
Just for information.
I found I had to unsubscribe and resubscribe to get iTunes to download this episode.
looks like a great idea.
頑張って！
Liz21 says:
November 1st, 2006 at 12:47 am
Yoshi-san,
Great voices!! 
You sound like so many different people! But I always know it’s you!!! 
スウェーデンのヘンリック says:
November 1st, 2006 at 12:59 am
相変わらずすごいレッソンです。
Beginnerレッソンは大抵簡単すぎるけど、 Intermediateレッソンは難しすぎると思います。
私にはLower Intermediateレッソンがぴったりです。
Also, it was great to finally have 夏子様 back. Aside from her brief appearance in the iLove audio last week, it’s been almost two weeks since she was in a lesson. JapanesePod is just not the same without 夏子様.
毎日夏子様の素敵な声を聞くのを楽しみにしていますよ。
Anyway, keep up the good work. I hope we’ll see a lot more of these Lower Intermediate lessons in the future.
Matt says:
November 1st, 2006 at 1:08 am
I found a webpage with a picture of the あかなめ, if you are interested.
http://www.blu.m-net.ne.jp/~uma001/akaname.html
I love the new lessons. Absolutely perfect for me! What will be the schedule for the different podcasts now?
Alan says:
November 1st, 2006 at 3:12 am
I listened to this without the pdf and followed the plot quite well, although a few words were unknown. The longer and slightly faster story was great. I’m looking forward to more conditionals 
bakaneko says:
November 1st, 2006 at 4:42 am
My feedback: Wish you guys can go more into how some of the sentences were put together — in another word, some grammar discussions.
Stan says:
November 1st, 2006 at 8:29 am
I am always amaze at how you constantly try to improve Jpod101. The Lower Intermediate is a great idea. Now if you guys can do brain transfusions so I can absorb all the material, that would be really great!
Sean says:
November 1st, 2006 at 10:51 am
BRILLIANT idea, this new category! Thanks a million!!!
Sean
Benedict says:
November 1st, 2006 at 1:59 pm
I am so happy to see this lower intermediate lesson. Thanks for all the effort that Jpod101 put in.
Sylvie says:
November 1st, 2006 at 3:44 pm
While listening the lesson (very good one, by the way) I thought this monster was a new one, but in fact it is a very old one: Toriyama Sekien, 1712-1788, the famous ukiyo-e artist, draw it in one of his Hyakki Yakô series, a thorough study of the Japanese supernatural beings
here is a great site about yôkai: http://web.mac.com/tkeirste/iWeb/HistoryG300/Toriyama%20Sekien’s%20Myriad%20Monsters.html
Sylvie says:
November 1st, 2006 at 3:56 pm
the link seems to be unvalid, i don’t know why
i think this will work
http://web.mac.com/tkeirste/iWeb/HistoryG300/Welcome.html
and go to Pictures, then Myrias Monsters
Miranda says:
November 1st, 2006 at 4:49 pm
This level is terrific!
The content, vocab, grammar, and topic were presented well-perfect for Halloween. Just what I need. Thank you! Please keep it up!
Jean-Michel says:
November 1st, 2006 at 5:56 pm
It is amazing how many new ideas have been implemented on JPod101 recently. You guys are doing a terrific job!
In my case, however, it seems it will still take me some time before I can jump into all those advanced features — let me first complete the Beginner cycle !…
By the way, I think that, as the number of options available keeps increasing, it might be useful to have some kind of road map of the whole studying program explaining how/when one is supposed to switch from one level to the next. This point was discussed earlier in connection with the second season of Beginner’s cycle and the same question now arises with this “lower intermediate stuff. For me, it is enough to tackle 3 Beginner’s lessons a week, with the vocab, grammar and everything, in addition to my other Japanese course. So, since it look like this Beginner’s cycle will be going on forever (and I am still learning a lot there), I might never get a chance to move on to the something else: so frustrating !!! Any hint ?
Several people have already reported the “Beginner Lessons (S2)” broken link. Is this on purpose — I mean, just to keep the suspense ?
Again, thanks a lot for all your efforts.
Jean-Michel
NickT says:
November 1st, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Great idea. As someone said earlier, for me, Lower intermediate is a “perfect fit”. Beginners is sometimes too easy (not always), and intermediate (after lesson 15 or so) is a little hard.
My only comment regarding the format would be that I miss the romaji transcript. I usually listen to the Japanese while reading the English, and when I do this it is helpful to be able to flick across to the romaji if a word is used that I don’t know, or I don’t quite catch something.
It doesn’t have to be romaji, I can read hiragana fine (and at this level everyone should), the important thing is that it is on the same page so I can flick across to it when needed. I realise the conventional wisdom is to stop using romaji as soon as possible, but in this instance I find it quite useful to be able to process the conversation in real time.
Keep up the good work
ディウィッド・リー says:
November 1st, 2006 at 7:21 pm
初めまして、マレーシアからのディウィッドです、よろしくお願いします。最近いつもJapanesePodをきいて、色々な勉強になった。ここからJapanesePod101のみんなさんに、どうもありがとうございます。 JapanesePod101は最高です！！
このビデオの中に、眼鏡かける人は本当にヨシさんですか？
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kme4C8yYA
がんばってね〜
maxiewawa says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:59 am
The audio content questions for this lesson are the wrong way around.
The monster has poison in his spit, not dirty stuff. And he eats dirty stuff, not poison!
JapanesePod101.com says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:30 am
Maxiewawa-san,
Thank you for pointing that out. The issue has been corrected.
ありがとうございます！
Laura says:
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:14 am
Great lesson! I agree with the others it’s the perfect level. I really like the way you tell us what Yoshi-san and Natsuko-san say in their conversation after without translating it directly. A smidge more Japanese in the explanation section would be ok too.
Laura says:
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:33 am
This is how I imagined the Akaname. Look at the Weeper at the bottom. You can’t see it in this pic, but it has a super-long tongue that it attacks with.
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/promathia/enemies/enemies_01.html
This is how it actually looks (according to one artist). It has a red color, which must be a visual pun on 「あか」.
Todd says:
November 3rd, 2006 at 9:30 am
Fascinating stuff guys! As a creature buff, I am humbled that I am learning something new. Benkyoo ni narimashita. There is a famous monster in the Resident Evil series called “the Licker”, which sounds exactly like this. Yikes! Too scary!
Eaglefire says:
November 4th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
This lesson is good as. The beginner lessons are too easy and the intermediate lessons are too hard. I always wanted a lesson in between the both and this lower intermediate lesson just did the thing. Thanks a lot. Keep on your great work. Thank you
gillian says:
November 5th, 2006 at 5:03 am
I absolutely agree with what NickT says about the despised romanji for precisely the same reasons. Another point why can you only get grammar points in the basic download?
Dean says:
November 9th, 2006 at 12:41 am
I think this podcast is awesome, very professional. But honestly, I don’t see where this Lower Intermediate level is all that much different from the Beginner level. How about focusing in on the vocab and grammar necessary to progress to Intermediate? And leave the conversations to the Beginner and Intermediate levels. Well maybe that’s too boring, but it would be cool to see something that helps to bridge the gap instead of just adding another level.
Zenkai :D says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 am
there is a problem in the pdf, I think… because it does not have the romaji transcript, it’s intentional? I need the romajiiiiiiiiiiiii! …it’s too much for me to read kana… 
Valle says:
March 6th, 2008 at 1:49 am
hello, im a new user of japanesepod101 and directly started with this lesson.
Can someone explain to me, why in yoshi’s second phrase “Akaname” is transformed to a verb (or is akanamette/あかなめって) not a verb?! Or can someone give me a hint, in which lesson I can look to find an answer.
Thank you for your help!
Matt Kempke says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Hi, I’m a new user, too. I’m studying Japanese in my 4th year at university. unfortunately we learned it like latin, so my motivation and listening comprehension are on low level. (And I forgot the Kanji, too) This is the very first japanese learning session that I actually enjoyed!!!!
Thanks so much!!! I’m also studying linguistics and from a scientifc viewpoint this is perfect to learn the language!!!
By the way, I had the same question as Valle above …
Take Care, your new fan (and premium subscriber ) Matt
JapanesePod101.com says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 pm
that って means という so it means something like “The Akaname you were talking about”
you may have to search for that grammar point (in romaji), but i think it was covered recently in this lesson:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/2008/02/23/premium-lesson-12-which-way-to-meiji-jingu/
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