Hey Peter-san, where did you eat in Fukui? I lived there for 16 months before I came back to London. And great idea for the video and audio tours.

Nick

Regarding the guidelines for submissions:

With the exception of crude or tasteless images or language, everything is acceptable. Entries are not limited to residents of Japan, as we’d like to know about your experiences during you stay in Japan and/or Japan related things where you live! For example, the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C., a great sushi restaurant nearby, etc.

Audio files can be sent in wav or mp3 format. Editing of your own work is preferable, and we do reserve the right to select pieces of the audio clip to insert into our podcasts. The files in their entirety will be shared on our site.

Smaller files could be sent to contactus@japanesepod101.com, or for larger files please use one of the following:

• http://www.yousendit.com/ (up to 1GB!)
• http://www.transferbigfiles.com/Default.aspx
• Uploaded to a server from which we can download

Video - same rules apply
Prizes

• 6-month premium for best restaurant review audio clip
• 6-month premium for best dialect introduction
• 6-month premium for best video (open)

We’re looking forward to hearing from you soon!
宜しくお願いします！

Peter-san wonderful idea.
I have learned a lot since I discovered Japanesepod101.I visit this website almost everyday and have downloaded almost all of your lessons.
Thank you.

What if we’re not in Japan? Can we make a video in Japanese about where we live?

maxiewawaさん、

If you read the 4th post from the top it says:

Entries are not limited to residents of Japan, as we’d like to know about your experiences during you stay in Japan and/or Japan related things where you live! For example, the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C., a great sushi restaurant nearby, etc.

Loved the ideas here, guys! A few comments, questions:

The thing I’ve most wanted to recommend is different introductions to the podcasts in the same way that The Sound of Young America does—that is, having folks send it an introduction listing where they’re from along with the usual and loved “presented by ErkLaren…” and such. Listen to that website to understand what I’m talking about. I find it keeps things fresh.

Also, with the introduction, I’d like to see the music change a bit….and I’d love to submit a few clips! I have some powerful audio software (FL Studio Producer XXL, Native Instruments) at my hands and would love to be given ideas for audio clips for the site, maybe as break music between sections of the show. And I’m not trying to oversell any ability I may or may not have by saying that I need to be the one to send things in; I think all the musical folks should! We already know a few of us are good with music from seeing the entry videos last time around!

You’ll be shortly receiving an interview with every Japanese person I know, on any subject I can get them to talk about.

Danielさん、
Has Ben’s cafe really been there for 10 years?
I went to Waseda from 1998-1999 and I’m almost positive that we would have discovered it had it been there then. We used to go all the way over to Shibuya or Shinjuku for 1 of the 3 Starbucks in Tokyo because there was no decent coffee anywhere else…. and it’s sad that I consider Starbucks decent coffee.

Very cool idea! Count with me, I never travel to Japan yet but I can tell some of my experiences related to japanese culture for example
Two question about audio and video files: can send more what one file? maximun time extension of the files?

OK, I’m planning to do an audio file on Kansai-ben. Apologies in advance to Kinki residents. There’s a lot to get through so I hope it’s Ok if I supply a pdf to go along with it. I’m aiming for a typical lesson length of around 15 minutes, although there’s so much grammar to get through, a lot will have to go in the pdf. Writing my own example conversation will be the difficult bit (I wonder if I can find anyone to proof read it). Hope this is Ok. When does it have to be sent in by?

Alan

賞自由な切符からの少なくとも弾力性についてすべてが付いている日本へ行くことは含んでいた。

それは堅い犠牲のための大きい賞である! もし私の3 つの選択を考慮すれば、あらゆる傾聴者が私を含んでいかに加わるか見る! S_R_C

Thank you, Mr. Briggs.

And yes, I love that JPOD never overdoes it. I’m not familiar with “Yes Japan”, but JPOD is all about the dialogue, which is why we’re all here : )

I hope the folks over in Japan take my request into consideration.

今日は先生たち。
Just sent off an entry!
I recorded it on my casio (日本製！） camera and haven’t edited it.
A question for everyone: what are you using to edit your video? I’m looking avariciously at one of those new Apple computers with the huge screens; I’m a PC man actually, but I’m considering converting.

Maxiewawaさん,
There are a lot of good editing packages for the PC. If you want something easy and cheap, try Windows Movie Maker. This is free from Microsoft and is quite easy to use.
On the other extreme end is Adobe Premiere. This is an expensive, difficult to use, but very capable piece of software.
There are many other pieces of software that are frequently included with DVD burning software. I think that Nero has one as well as Roxio. These packages run about $70.
Thanks
ジョン

Re: Maxiewawa
“I’m a PC man actually, but I’m considering converting.”

Don’t say your a PC man, when you’ll turn into a Mac! Only true PC people (willingly) would never even consider it at all! S_R_C

Oh, you poor people that don’t have Macs!! All that stuff is soooo easy for us Mac users with iMovie, Garage Band, etc. hehehehe

maxiewawa: you finished already?? I said: you rock!!! Guess I was right!

As to background music going continuously through a podcast, I couldn’t agree more!! It’s such a baaaaad idea.

As to background music going continuously through a podcast, I couldn’t agree more!! It’s such a baaaaad idea.

Uh, Lizさん, are you trying to say something about my podcast?

Daniel-san
Oooh, so sorry about that! I really haven’t listened much to your podcasts; usually I look at your interesting Blogs, maybe because I already know how to speak English. Well, I listened to one of your podcasts, learning the “v” sound, and the music wasn’t too bad, especially since the volume varied and became softer or non-existent during the speaking parts. It may be a matter of taste,however: I prefer no music myself. Ganbatte!

But, I am serious. I don’t need to go out and buy a video editing program because Windows Movie Maker 2 is already on my PC:).

こんいちわ, JapanesePod101.com!

Couple questions for you, for videos what formats are good? Is .avi ok? Also, what length do you prefer? 30 seconds - 2 minutes? I am planning an izakaya tour of Tokyo and Osaka soon, and think this will be an excellent way to chronicle my trip.

By the way, I noticed that the upload link filesize limits are a little ちがいます。 I think yousendit is 100mb, and sendbigfiles was 1gb.

cheers, どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

Todd

Toddさん,
Perhaps you intended,
こんにちは
rather than
こんいちわ
ジョン

Great…one MORE fattening place to visit on my monthly visits to Tokyo…thanks a LOT!

Sean-san,
Become a bike rider like Beck-san and you can eat all you want at Ben’s Cafe!

Briggs-san,

Yes, ありがとう。

Todd