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Learn intermediate Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Agnes Murakami is back with Day 6 of her diary detailing her move to Tokyo and the development of her new life there. In today’s entry, the furniture that she previously ordered at IKEA finally arrives, but there’s a twist! (Agnes must have never been to IKEA!) Agnes also gets a call from an old tomodachi - tune in and then stop by JapanesePod101.com after listening to leave us a post!

Grammar: | Function: | Politeness Level: ,

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Intermediate Season 1 . 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.

35 Responses to “Intermediate Lesson #44 - My Tokyo Traveblogue - Day 6”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Mina-san, Have a great weekend! Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

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Matt says:

What was the twist? Of couse she went to IKEA.

—————
In today’s entry, the furniture that she previously ordered at IKEA finally arrives, but there’s a twist! (Agnes must have never been to IKEA!)
—————–

Can someone explain that to me?

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Matt says:

I meant “course” not “couse”. Sorry!!

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annie says:

The twist was that she didn’t realize that the furniture came unassembled.

I used to live in Nakano- great area of Tokyo.

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Carlo says:

Hi everyone, JP101 people!!!(お久しぶりですね) :grin:

Definitely another very interesting and useful Intermediate Lesson!!!
I find it great whenever you use Japanese to comment the lesson dialogue, to explain the vocab & grammar and I think the example sentences are invaluable! :razz:

Just a request: could you please fix the PDF file, as it deals with a grammar point different from “まま”? よろしくお願いします! :wink:

カルロ :cool:

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John C. Briggs says:

ピーター先生,
Another great lesson. Definitely some new vocab in here and reinforcement of grammar points that had slipped from my brain.

However, you really slipped from the script regarding the vocab and grammar points. About half of the vocab in the PodCast are not in the PDF, and about half of the vocab in the PDF are not in the Podcast. Also the PodCast grammar point was まま and the PDF grammar points were ~ないといけない and ~てはいけない。

Also, the English definition of くみたてる also contain “kumitateru”  This will be bad for anyone trying to use this as a quiz.

For the female doing the English translation, great voice but you need to get your energy up a little here. Show a little excitement. But I am very grateful for your efforts in the PodCast and I shouldn’t complain. Thanks for you help.
じゃ また
ジョン

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Liz21 says:

Megumi-san’s voice was very American-sounding, very “laid back” in contrast to Natsuko’s enchanting delivery with so much expression!! Peter-san has led us to expect that “high energy” kind of speech. Ganbatte! :grin:

However, another point: it points out the difference between how females speak in Japan and how females speak in the U.S. I would have to try very hard to sound like Natsuko-san because I am used to speaking in a very boring way. :mrgreen:

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Matt says:

There was a little bit in the lesson description which said that perhaps Agnes didn’t go to IKEA. What did that mean? Of course she did!

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Matt says:

There was a little bit in the lesson description which said that perhaps Agnes didn’t go to IKEA. What did that mean? Of course she did!

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MarzGurl says:

Out of curiousity, isn’t this actually Intermediate Lesson #44 instead? There was already a lesson #43, and it was on the 19th.

Sorry for being picky. I save all of the audio files, and I’m trying to name them appropriately. :lol:

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Daniel Beck says:

Personally, I think Megumiさん rocks! :cool:

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Alain says:

I think I become accustomed to american speaking since I heard to Peter’s podcast now one year long. Nevertheless I had some difficulties with words with glottal R, like “furniture”.
Don’t forget the non-english speaking listener cannot always understand too fast or too glottal american english.

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carrol says:

I prefer Scottish English :twisted:

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Hugo says:

:mrgreen: Great work as always! Very useful vocabs and grammar points! :grin: Keep going! :grin: Greetings to all in this great community!

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kamui says:

Dear Peter,
I am new here but I find your work genial!!! My name is Gabriele and I am italian. I will probably move in Japan next year to work in Osaka, that is why I need an intensive japanese course to be able to have a life there!!:) I usually listen to your audio contents when I am on the way to the work with the bus!!! Natsuko and Yoshi are fantastic too. You can visit my website at web.mac.com/gabrielecologne/iWeb/Sito/Benvenuto.html CIAO from Italy :) :mrgreen:

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Liz21 says:

kamui-san,
ようこそ!!

it was fun to see your web site with all your beautiful photos of Japan!! Being Italian, you already know the Japanese vowel sounds, right? :twisted:

Ganbatte!

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Sindy says:

Carrol-san RE:I prefer Scottish English!

Please how can you say that? :neutral: :lol: when English comes from England (UK) and Americans improve it! :twisted:

Scottish english is terrible! People don’t understand them at all so its weird! :roll:

Liz-san is right! :cool: Kamui welcome to the site, great webiste! :wink:

Daniel-san is right Megumi-san rules! so don’t bother like you do with Peter-san accent! :wink:

Hugo-san Welcome back we miss you! :wink:

Matt-san :???: what are you talking about? :shock:

Has for me I prefer both females speak in the U.S., females speak in Japan! They all sound beautiful WOW! :mrgreen: :wink: S_R_C

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ミシェル says:

When the delivery man arrived, I thought to myself (and I’m not certain whether or not this has already been done)–perhaps ordering and receiving food might make a good lesson topic. Though, of course, it’s much more expensive to order pizza in Tokyo than the US.

Anyhow, since this is the second Ikea-related podcast, I was trying to think of what to do… and decided on Muji (無印), a well-known Japanese store with a few branches overseas. You might be able to figure out its basic premise by looking at its name, but if you’d like some intermediate-level (or at least a little easier than newspapers) reading practice, you can check out part of the company’s corporate site here: http://ryohin-keikaku.jp/ryohin/ .

If you’ve been listening to the intermediate level podcasts but still feel somewhat intimidated by vernacular websites, I’ll give a few hints that helped me when first trying to tackle blocks of Japanese text. From the above URL, heres’ the first sentence: 「わけあって、安い」をキャッチフレーズとし、安くて良い品として開発された無印良品。 First, I’d recommend just glancing at the kanji and taking mental note of which ones you know and which ones you don’t. 「安い」「良い」「品」「開発」「無印」「良品」 Nothing too challenging this time around, though maybe かいはつ (development) and りょうひん (superior good) are new. I personally, didn’t know わけあって, so I used rikai-chan to learn that it’s the verb 分け合う, meaning to share. If you encounter a lot of unfamiliar words, the katakana phrases can give big clues sentences’ overall meanings. Here, 「キャッチフレーズ」 is a take-off of the English, “catchphrase,” so you know that what’s quoted in front of this word must be what Muji is calling a catchphrase. Even if you don’t understand all the grammar, you can sometimes string the words you do know together to get the gist of the meaning. Can you get the general meaning of the whole first paragraph?

Back on the main Muji homepage, you can find some interesting things. For example, here’s instructions on 「大型家具の搬入」, or “the bringing in of large furniture.” It shows how to make the proper measurements to see if a crate will go into your house. Muji sells all kinds of things–from dishes to candy, from clothes to furniture, from bikes to complete houses. I particularly like their little notebooks: http://www.muji.net/store/cmdty/detail/4548076768128 . Very simple but very practical and great for carrying around to jot down new words and phrases!

And as for something completely unrelated, This video clip definitely brings back memories… there’s something about Tokyo trains that I really like. It’s really hard to describe. “http://mirror.video.blip.tv/Tokyocalling-tc_vlog_002912.mp4

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Alain says:

Yes, Sindy, I don’t bother with Peter’s or Megumi’s accents, but imagine you listen to a japanesepod where all the comments are in french, or german, or swedish, or any langage you learned at school (all but spanish that you understand, I think). :smile:
That would mean you learn japanese but you also have to understand the grammar explanations, the exemple’s traductions in that foreign langage, spoken with different accents and very quickly, with jokes and cultural references you don’t know.
Also: most of europeans learned Cambridge english at school, and what you feel natural is sometimes difficult to understand for us.

For exemple, I often push the return button to undertand the translation of the reibun in the vocabulary section.

But japanesepod is always the best japanese course in the world and I’ aware that Peter makes a wonderful work! :grin:

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Sølvi says:

Haven’t listened to the lesson yet, but Scottish English? I love it!

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Alan says:

Wasn’t mama covered in Intermediate #22. :twisted: :wink:
Regarding regional accents. I like them all. :razz:

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John C. Briggs says:

Looks like they have updated the PDF to reflect the correct grammar points that they covered in the PodCast.

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Sindy says:

:wink: Alain-san! :wink:

I got your point, its fine! Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t understand Scottish English specially Scottish Guys with Skirt ehhh! :lol: :wink:

Solvi-san! :wink:

Welcome back we miss you too! :wink:

To JP101 Crew! :wink:

Where is my Miki-san Audio Blog? :shock: :???:

Please NO!! don’t take it away like you did with the Survival Phases or I’ll go on depression! *feels down goes and gets her medicine* :sad: :cry: S_R_C

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maxiewawa says:

The best example for ‘さっそく’ occurs in the intro to nearly ever intermediate lesson when 夏子先生 says 「さっそく、聞いて見ましょう」。

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Hugo C says:

This might be a silly question, but can someone translate exactly what Natsuko-san is saying before each lesson? (something along the lines of…”Intermediate lesson…this program is brought to you by…”):???:

ありがとうございます

みんな - がんべってね! :mrgreen:

-Hugo

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annie says:

Hugoさん、
You hear this sort of thing at the beginning of all sorts of tv shows.

中級レッスン 。この番組はErklarenの提供で送りしています。.
Intermediate Lesson.
This program is being brought to you through the sponsorship of Erklaren.

or something like that… 送り is actually more of “to send”

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John C. Briggs says:

Hugoさん,
Thank you for asking the question. I too have been wondering about thisl. I didn’t know the word 提供 (ていきょう) and I have been surprised by the use of the verb (to send) in this context.
Annieさん,
Thanks for the information.
ジョン

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Hugo C says:

Annieさん,

Thanks for the info! Like most of the intermediate lessons, I can pick up most of the key words and get a general idea of what they’re saying, but I need to get everything else in between!

Johnさん, glad I could help.

ヒューゴ

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annie says:

I suppose that if you wanted a more literal translation, it might be something like: “This program is being sent to you by (the sponsorship of) Erklaren”

Though, growing up watching PBS in the States, regardless of what the words are in Japanese, they’re still going to come out in my head as “Sesame Street is brought to you by…”

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John C. Briggs says:

Sesame Street was brought to you today by the letters “B” and “J” and the number “7″.

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Yuka says:

matt san…

The twist of this story is, Agnes didn’t know the furniture she previously ordered at IKEA would arrive in a box and it needs assembling by herself. It is probably because she has never bought a thing at IKEA ever..
I hope you get my idea.
I can answer your question better in Japanese:
アグネスさんは今までIKEAで家具を買ったことがなかったので、家具がダンボールで届いて、その中の部品を自分で組み立てないといけないことを知らなかったのです。

btw.. I have never heard of the furniture shop named IKEA.. does it really exist in Tokyo or somewhere in Kanto area? … just wondering..

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Yuka says:

oops sorry..

annie san already answered that. lol

sumimasen deshita. *bows*

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Sumiko says:

I believe that there is a small mistake in the japanese in this lesson. In the kanjiban
it says 窓際、madogiwa, and in the hiragana, it says shinpin, and in the english neither word is translated. This table near the window vs. This brand new table…..

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Sivasakthivel says:

JPODさま
  わたしの だいすきな ことば  あいかわらず ぜっこちょう です。 ぺーたさんも すきです
わたしは かたかな もじ を  する ことが できない ですから ぺーたさんの なまえわ ひらがなで かいます。 もじわけ あらいません。

むらかみさん きこしゅ しました。  かぎを かいました . つぎ なですか

よろしく
Siva

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Mayumi says:

Sivasakthivel-san,

にほんごでこめんと、ありがとうございます! :dogeza:
むらかみアグネスは、ひっこししてから、なにがおきるでしょうか?!たのしみにきいてくださいね! :wink:

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