Mina-san, we would love as much feedback as you can provide on the new series. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Mina-san,
Our Vicky-san’s company (Helen of Troy) is featured in Business Week online. It seems that their subsidiary, OXO, is creating products especially for Japan!! Vicky-san says, “Now I have even more of a reason to learn Japanese!!” The article is interesting because it talks about how Japanese housewives use kitchen tools in a different way!

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2006/id20061208_609236.htm?chan=globalbiz_asia_more+of+today%27s+top+stories

Here is something I found in the PDF.
In the last paragraph of the grammar
“yoroshii is it’s in adverbial form”
perhaps should be
“yoroshii is in its adverbial form”

Ah! Another series?! You guys must really be pushing yourselves to keep up…

Vicky-san blah blah blah blah blah blah
Right? Daniel-san!

Wrong.

wow all these series are great, but how do you all do it

Peter-san,

Totemo daiji desu!!!

I think it was a nice way of cotinuing with “survival phrases”, but with a different name.

I really liked the explanation about yoroshiku, now I finally understood where the meaning of this word came from.

Thank you JPOD101 for another great lesson

To all the other beginners out there:
I’m enjoying the Beginner series and won’t go pass lesson four until I get it down pat! I love Mina-zan voice as well as Peter-san. They are both very easy to listen to and I’m able to repeat what they say in Japanese. Today, I was able to say to both my larger English classes, “Are you busy? ” They all were thrilled for me! But I do have one question. The lesson regarding “he, she, they…” most of my Japanese friends here in Japan tell me they don’t use the “Kare-la” form to speak just to read and write. Should this be noted in a boardcast?
Thanks, An American living in Japan

Forgive me, but I am finding all these new categories confusing. Beginner and Newbie are very similar.

Konbanwa, minna-san.

はじめまして。ななかです。どうぞよろしく。

Just subscribed today, although I have been lurking for quite a while. Yay!

I really enjoy learning Japanese from JapanesePod, so much fun, so much information. I can always learn things other learning material hardly provide, such as ‘Kaiten Sushi’, ‘negau’. Keep up the good work, guys!

btw, nanaka is my Japanese name. I chose that name when I was watching animation ‘Nanaka 6/17′ a few years ago.

No one answered Franks question, and I too have a question in regards to which should I do first. The beginner lesson or the newbie lesson?

Thanks, and I have really enjoyed the beginner series so far.

-Manny

[…] Newbie Lesson 1 is an introduction to both Japanese and the JapanesePod 101, and as such includes a few minutes of introduction to the language and some of its features (namely, that さん is a polite suffix added to people’s names) as well as the way that the lessons are delivered. […]

I found it surprising to learn that “desu” is, well, spelt “desu” instead of “des”, as it seems to always be pronounced. I found http://www.learn-japanese.info/pronunciation.html helpful; does japanesepod101.com have a pronounciation guide somewhere?

-Robin

Hello,
I am just starting and this is all great. One question though: The review questions for Newbie #1 don’t play any sound (on PC or iPod. Am I missing something?
It would also be nice to have the romaji for the kanji review. Thanks
Michael.

michael van waesさん、
welcome, welcome, welcome! please enjoy JapanesePod101.com with all of us!
i just checked the audio questions and yeah… they don’t work.
申し訳ございません！ sorry for the inconvenience. there are a few content questions here and there that currently have broken links. i’m actually in the process of making a list and then in january, i’ll be systematically going thru them and fixing any of the missing ones.

amandaさん、
first, welcome to JapanesePod101.com!! i hope you’ll have as much fun here as we do!

i just played this lesson in the pop-up and downloaded it. both played just a little over 15 minutes. so i’m not sure why you had a problem. i’m pretty sure that without a subscription, you can listen to the whole lesson.
did you try re-downloading it? or the “play in pop up” option?

if you continue to have the same problem please e-mail us as contactus@japanesepod101.com.

宜しくお願いします！
yoroshiku onegai shimasu

marky

ps: oh, i almost forgot, please be sure to check out the Forum, guys! it’s a great way to interact with the community and have fun!!!
speak soon!

firt time user. just wnated to comment on one of the japenese guy’s accent.
not to be rude or anything but, i believe has a short tongue. a lisp. so it kind of interfere’s when i try to folllow, with hearing and pronouncing the language correctly. anyways thankyou,i really appreciate this guide.

I am new to Japanese. I have been studying thru self-study for about 1 month. Initially, I focused on learning Hiragana/Katakana. After reading a thread on a forum somewhere, I decided it’s pretty much impossible to learn (to understand) spoken Japanese by studying the written word only. I think this resource is very good and is just what I’m looking for.

Comments on the site in general:
“Lesson Notes” - It’s great to have these.
“Kanji Close-up” - This is too hard for me to learn. Do I need to be able to understand these if I am new to Japanese? It’s quite a bit to remember: For each Kanji, I need to learn On reading, Kun reading, and meanings and there can be more than one of all of those. Is it worth it? Where should I start learning written Japanese? I know all of the Hiragana and am working on the Katakana. How do you begin to learn Kanji and do I need to start now?
“Line-by-line transcript”-Not really needed for this lesson. I looked at lesson 2 and there were some harder ones there. Definitely good to have this. It would be nice if you had “slow audio” as seen in the podcast in there as well.
“Kanji List”- Not too useful for me b/c I don’t know how to learn Kanji. The sheets do not have stroke order on them. Is it important to learn stroke order?
“Vocab List”- Good for a quick review.
“Kanji Flashcards”- Need some help getting started learning Kanji…
“Vocab Flashcards”- Very useful. I always use the “Kana to meaning” option because I do not know any Kanji.
“Contest Questions” for this lesson- I click on the audio link and nothing happens.
“Content/Grammar/Vocab Questions”- These questions contain Kanji. They are out of reach for me.

Questions on this lesson:
I have just one question. Both people say “douzo yoroshiku” (lit. “please kindly”) I am right in thinking this is a set phrase? The copola is implied here, and so is “me.”

konnichi wa!~
minna, arigatou gozaimashita…
btw, i benefit-ed from this website alots…! love this website… gonna be my daily visit…
ganbarimasu yo…~

p/s: peter san, u are like a dj… a sexy dj … and cheeky… lol… the one only… ganbatte…

Welcome, Yakuriaさん！

Really entertaining!

Some remarks:
1. I am missing the romaji in the Learning Center’s practice questions.
2. Had problems with the pronunciation of desu as des’ but “spelled” as de s u not explained.
3. You may consider to add Mouichidou and Yukuri mentioned at 3:03 in the lesson to the transcript.

p.s. I have started with the Newbie and Survival lessons because they seem to be more polished than the Beginners lessons.

Konnicha wa Minna-san,
I have signed up as a member and am throughly enjoying the lessons so far. I have done the Survival series and am looking now at the Newbie series. My question is - is there anyway to download all of one series ( say the Newbie Series) at one time to my Itunes? Or do i have to do it one-by-one?

Kind Regards
Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu
Reed from New Zealand

Thanks for that Marky,

I will look into that. I can imagine its a very requested feature and i will keep a look out in the future
Awesome site, keep up the great work! I’m sure when i move to Tokyo in a fortnight alot of this information will put me in good stead with my time there.
Thanks once again.
Reed

Hello JapanesePod Crew!

I’m very interested in learning this language! I just want to take a sidestep and say thank-you for making the newbie lessons so easy to find among the other levels! I am very newbie and hearing this podcast (newbie lesson 1) was great for me! I get the joy of a native English-speaker and a native Japanese-speaker, which makes translation and explaination easy as well as the language itself. I appreciate the way the lessons and phrases are all broken down and even include some cultural information. This is also very entergetic, and that makes things interesting and stick. Thank you again! ^_^ I’m very impressed with the podcast!

Love the podcast. I’m not a newbie but it’s always good to review the basics. And I’m also learning new things along with the review.

I don’t know if someone has already posted a comment on this but I believe the correct pronunciation for conveyor belt sushi is “kaitenzushi” and not “kaitensushi”.

Keep up the great work!

Konichuwa mina-san

i think this website is going to be very useful, demo do i have to pay inorder to become a member and use all the options available?

Arigato

Arigato Christmas

but i can still listen to all the lessons, right?

A little story about how I became interested in learning Japanese:
I was watching some anime online, but I could only find them translated in Spanish. Because my Spanish is minimal, I was very frustrated most of the time for not completely understanding the story. This made me wish I knew the language and I started looking around for sites that would teach me some. When I found this site and tried it, I became so enthusiastic about the language, that I decided that I want to learn the language well. I love this site and the way the lessons are put together. They make me excited about the language every time I listen to them, and are very effective in my opinion.
Thanks for the hard work.

Emmaさん、

thanks for the kind words! you’ll find a lot of other users on the site who are interested in japanese for the same reason! if you chat them up in the forum, i’m sure you’ll find many of them!

Reubenさん、

glad to hear you like the site! we’re working very hard to keep japanese fun and not intimidating (as its reputation seems to be).

if you subscribe to the basic or premium feed, you can download all the lessons directly to your pc!
http://www.japanesepod101.com/basic-premium-podcast-feed/

better yet, if you have a premium subscription you can subscribe to the My Feed, and download only the lessons or media you want.
http://www.japanesepod101.com/downloads/#myfeed

marky

Meien-san,

We have Hiragana or Katakana Charts with Audio/Video in the “Learning Center”. So you can learn how to pronounce and how to write. Please check it out.

Deano-san desu.

I am Mr Parker.

Is that right?

At least I tried

This is repeat of what I posted in the first lesson of the Survival Phrases, but it still applies.
Japan and her culture have become a hobby of mine recently and I hope to be able to understand her better by learning her language. I was looking at getting Rosetta Stone when I came across this site and listened to this lesson. Very useful! While I consider two very different languages as my native tongues, English and Greek, I’m a total novice from the US Midwest when it comes to the Japanese language . I hope this resource can help me become at least coherent to a Nihonjin.

Dozo Yoroshiku Onegai Shimasu!!

i accsidently skipped this and went through newbiew lesson 2-10 then relised i missed…came back and i understood the whole conversation native speed and i was like yaaaay i know japanese….even thoughits sooo basic! =)

Harry-san, Sarah-san
Ganbattekudasai! Enjoy learning Japanese with us!

sam-san,
It means that you improved your Japanese with our 10 NB lessons! We are really glad to know that!

Tom-san,
Thank you for your wonderful message that would really encourage us!

Mac-san,

Keep learning step by step!
Ganbattekudasai!

Daro-san,
Thanks for the question.

When は is used as a particle it is pronounced as “wa”. I’m sure there is extensive reasoning behind it but I haven’t really looked into the history of it. So I am not exactly sure why but that’s just how it is.

Coincidently, when you write hello in Japanese it should be written こんいちは as the “wa” sound in the phrase is actually the particle.

I hope I didn’t confuse you too much. Keep listening

Daro-san,
No need to apologise! I had hoped that I’d answered your question above. Or am I misunderstanding it?

How do say sorry or excuse me in japanese? I didn’t quite catch it in the lesson and I’d like to see it in writing.

Thanks,
ella

I have been listening to these for years and planning on going to Japan soon so im starting from beginning again but I like Peter-San and Mina-San because both of there voices are so easily understandable Great Job and Keep Going

I finally am starting this course let’s hope I do not give up

so would anyone know how my name would be if it’s in japanese?

thank you Hiroko

lachandra-san,
See: http://tinyurl.com/5jcbaz

Julie-san,
Welcome! Glad you’re finding the site helpful.

Uwaa! minna san wa sugoi desu yo!

I’m still not amazing in japanese,

benkyo desu! nihongo wa ganbarimasu!

arigatou~

Wolvina-san,
Welcome. I’m glad to hear you are enjoying Japanesepod101. Just so you know if you subscribe to the Japanesepod101.com iTunes feed you can get all the new lessons as they come out for free.

Jessie-san,
Welcome to JapnesePod101.com! Please enjoy learning Japanese with us! We look forward to your more comments on our lessons!

hye-sung-san,

Thank you for your warm comments! Yoroshiku onegai shimasu

Little Ninnie-sanm
Thank you for the nice comment! We have had more new hosts in our team! We hope you can enjoy our lessons with our many hosts!

“dozo,yoroshiku,onegai shimasu” literally means “please be kind to me.” But, it is used as a set phrase in the context of meeting someone for the first time.

The polite form of “mata ne” would be “mata aimashou!(see you again)”

I hope that would be of any help!

Little Ninnie-san,

For the usage of “onegaishimasu”, can you check out Newbie Season4 #14?
http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php?p=1199&cat=18

Can you check this lesson for the personal pronoun?
http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php?p=7&cat=1

Thank you!!

The male native speakers pronounces an S as an F. It is very odd to have a language teacher with a lisp.

Ravey-san,

Enjoy learning Japanese with us, and come to Japan next summer!

Whoa so many good comments xD Can tell this is gonna be good~
I’ve been interested in Japan for …6 years? xD
I know bits and pieces x__x but I might as well start at the beginner/newbie thing xD
Wish me luck~

はじめあして・わたしはFychaでう・よろしくおねがいします・Thanks for Lessons^^

thank you

I liked it

QuickFixさん,
Thank you for pointing all of those out! It’s a big help. We’re glad you enjoyed the first lesson We hope you enjoy the lessons to come and continue to use the Fluency Checklist!

Kikiさん,
Good job on the Japanese!!
The last phrase, though, should be like this:
どうぞよろしくおねがいします

Abbyさん,
Welcome to the site!
We think you’ll learn a lot from us Let us know if you have any questions!!

Fantastic lessons - many thanks!

And I am glad someone explained ‘mata ne’ in the comments, as I was wondering what this meant

These lessond ROCK!!!! Ive been trying to learn Japanese for several Years but nothing worked now Im well on my way to fluency. I actually use what I learn at home, restaurants and today at the school my 12yr old daughter is attending with one of her teachers.

Georgeさん,
Thank you for your nice comment

Davidさん,
Your name would be デイビッド (Deibiddo) in Japanese

Mike -san
Hajimemashite.

Thank you for the kind comment and we’re so glad that you liked our site.

Ganbatte kudasai. Good luck!

jake-san,

Can you take a look at the technical information page below?
http://www.japanesepod101.com/help-center/technical-questions/
I hope that will be of any help for you.

Dipterixさん,
はじめまして！よろしくおねがいします

……..so much…..kinda had to remember[probobly wont by morning]

おはよう、
I have decided that I am going to start from scratch and work my way up to intermediate. Going over the newbie lessons with premium content, I discovered that there was still aspects of the language I didn’t know. If that was the case I was still a newbie in some regards, so I going to take it slow, and fully understand everything. Can’t bluff your way through a language like you can so many other areas. You know it or you don’t.