I find the beginner lessons helpful, but at about episode 45 I stopped understanding most of the conversation (and this is with 1 1/2 years of Japanese lessons a few years ago. The survival phrases get me up to speed much faster.

Season 2 could expand on topics already introduced. For example, I would like to know more phrases for hotels than “Chekku in o-negai shimasu”. How about things like: “Is breakfast included?”, “the toilet is broken”, “I’d like another pillow”, etc

Another example is emergencies. After calling for help I’d like to be able to explain something about the problem in Japanese, e.g. “I think I sprained my ankle”, “He is having an asthma attack”, “My wallet was stolen”, etc. I’d feel more confident about traveling in Japan if I knew stuff like this, just in case.

I can provide lots of other examples if you like.

I believe it would be beneficial and convenient if Jpod101 could continue producing practical survival Japanese episodes.

thanks

I have not read all the comments but I would like to add mine in support of the continuation of the survival phrase series.

The point is not so much that there is little Japanese in these type of lessons - that can be remedied by adding a little more Japanese through more repetitions through slightly different examples. It is that the survival phrases are aimed specifically at the skills of communicating needs and making requests in a practical context, something other lessons need not to be focused on. Also, they give a lot of information on what to expect in given situations- so there is a cultural knowledge aspect as well.

Remember Peter-san’s ’swiss army knife’ analogy? Still useful even if you are not a beginner!

So please keep the survival phrases going - maybe you can make them more fun for the more advanced listener by giving both simple phrases and more complex phrases and adding a little explanation on the way the language works in the examples (so we can use the words in other contexts, too).

…and please STOP picking on TAKASE_SAN! She gives a great contribution to the show.

Takase-san gambatte kudasai!

Yoroshikuonegaishimasu.

mikuji

I like the idea of raise and new series, too. Yeah, how about a new survival phrase series for surviving in the Jpod office with a new host?

Yoshi

Are you looking for a new host for NageSE ConnectionPod101? I may be free.

Takase

What a brilliant idea! I’d subscribe to that!

Additionally, it would be great if you had a way to cover simple sentence structures in lessons that newbies can review in summary form. Something without all the extra conversation your team enages in within the lesson. Don’t get me wrong I love all the banter, it’s a lot fun, but it would be great to have a bundle of phrases that one could take with them on the go and listen to on their iPod and see listed on their iPod in text forma too for drills and pure memorization.

Perhaps you could do a summary of all key Survial Phrases (sentences) to date in one or more audio files, without all the beginnings and endings to the phrases (e..g, exclude: Ohayo, Konnichiwa, arigato, domo, etc). So take the meat of the Survival Phrases and cut out the fat and serve up the meat… after “X” number of Survial Phrases are completed wrap them up in a summary audio/text file.

You all are doing great work! I’ve been listining for the last year and love how your content has evolved! Great stuff! I am planning to move to Japan in 2007 and this is a critical element in my language training for that move. Keep up the good work! Gambatte kudasai!

Richaado
San Francisco, CA