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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Ten-hut! In today’s lesson it’s supai vs. supai, but who’s watching who? In the final lesson of our ongoing series on the passive in Japanese, we visit the boundary of a battlefield to try to bring it all together. You don’t want to miss today’s lesson on one of the most difficult parts in Japanese grammar. If you stop by, be sure to leave us post!

Grammar: , | Topic: | Politeness Level: ,


This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner 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.

18 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #158 - Who’s watching who?”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Mina-san, As mentioned in the podcast, here is a link with information about the rankings of the Japanese armed forces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_ranks_and_insignia_of_the_Japan_Self-Defense_Forces And here is a site with comparative rankings of other forces around the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_military_ranks Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

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Francisco says:

Hi JPod101…

Well, the Usual Suspects will notice I’m new here - actually, I’m not really new, I’ve been going through the lessons for two months now, but I’m only up to lesson 106: dang it’s hard to catch up with the latest one! I figure if I keep trying to do two lessons every day I’ll catch up eventually and be able to participate in the daily forum, but it ain’t easy being behind. Sabishii, ne?

Anyway, I’m frantic. I sent an email to the Jpod101 main email a few weeks back, but I guess they’re snowed under with correspondence. Long story short, I have five months to learn to say a few things before I have to meet my in-laws. GAWD COULD ANYTHING BE MORE STRESSFUL?!?? My g-friend somehow convinced them I will be able to chew the fat all casual like around the dinner table with them when we meet. Trepidation trepidation trepidation. Why oh why didn’t I fall in love with a nice French girl, or something?

Hee hee. I shouldn’t complain. It’s fun, in a mind-altering kind of way, this language. Jpod101 makes it seem more fun than it really is, I think, which is both a compliment to Piita and co. and a reality check for the rest of us. This site makes it FEEL like it’s not impossible to do, though, and that I am very thankful for. So thanks!

Anyway, life really is lonely for those of us stuck 40 or 50 lessons back, so maybe I’ll start posting to the day’s forum now and again.

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Alan says:

Franciscoさん,
I first went to Japan after studying for only 6 months and managed to get about with hardly a word of English. The key thing to to is to anticipate the areas you need to be good in (mine were buying train tickets & hotels) and spend a bit more time researching key vocabulary and example sentences. That way, you can speak better than your true skill level in those areas. If your key conversations are at home, I would suggest you make sure you know the words for all the relatives (father, mother, aunt, uncle…) as it’s quite likely they will ask about all of them. They’ll also ask about your work, so make sure you have some vocab for that. Armed with that and some basic survival phrases, I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine. Don’t forget to learn how to ask people to speak more slowly :)

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bakaneko says:

I’m not sure why but today’s dialog was hilarious. The dialog was brilliant and the delivery was spot on. Thank you, everyone at jpod101. It was both very entertaining and informative. :grin:

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Vicky says:

Francisco-san, welcome to community! And, thanks for sharing with us. Jppod will reply soon if not, you can post here. There is tones of people will help you with yours concerns.

Alan-san, nice tip for the trip. As for me, I know I will be speechless….. :cry:
Just thinking about trip to Japan, it makes me nervous. :shock:

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Alan says:

Vickyさん、
I was very nervous too for the first couple of hours, but once I was safely on the Narita Express my confidence increased. The westerner behind me at ticket office queue looked a bit gutted as I left with my railpass, a Narita express ticket & an onward ticket to Kyoto. I guess he hadn’t prepared :twisted:

I’ved another trip planned for this autumn :) It was going to be this spring, but life is complicated at the moment. :smile:

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Francisco says:

Thanks Alan,

I guess I’ll have to bank on that bit about how foreigners speaking Japanese is just like dogs talking: it’s not that they do it well, it’s that they do it AT ALL!

In honesty, I find it all quite fun. One nice thing is that my in-laws are coming to Europe to meet us, so I have home court advantage!

One not so nice thing is that Kyushu dialect is…erm…peculiar, no?

Anyway, for now I wake up each morning looking forward to my time with Jpod101, so that’s a good thing.

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maxiewawa says:

The one military position that everyone should know is 将軍、(しょうぐん) and one military family of 将軍 in particular, the 徳川・とくがわ. The 徳川 ruled Japan for a time. Maybe a topic for Culture Class?

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Daniel Beck says:

Peterさん、

Boy, you dated yourself with the bit about using 了解(りょうかい) instead of having to write 分かりました in text messaging. I don’t have to write more than わ before the choices pop up for me and I scroll for it.

みなさん、

Have you been visiting the blog? It’s being updated several times a week. I hope you’ll read my “Samurai Theologian in Tokyo” series there and leave lots of comments. Please go there and check out my latest on Kua’Aina:
http://blogs.japanesepod101.com/blog/category/samurai-theologian/

さらば!

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Mark says:

Hi all,

Another great show today! I’ve finally caught up after being behind for months, thanks to the recent week’s break and the holiday episodes over Christmas. Phew!

Anyway, regarding the military ranks, I use this as a reference to them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Military_characters_of_the_Fullmetal_Alchemist_anime#Military_Ranks

It’s written for a particular anime (and a very good one at that), but also has the romaji for each of the ranks. The one difference, as the text says, is that they don’t have Captain before Major.

But then you know Captain (taii) anyway from the dialogue :razz:

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Dusty says:

ryoukai is often translated as roger in anime.

I think in the military sense, it means understanding and compliance.

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mikuji says:

Jpod team,

Strictly speaking, should the title not be: ‘’who is watching whom?’

Francisco-san,

Here are my suggestions for building a personalised phrase book, building on the other excellent other suggestions already given above:

step 0:
learn hiragana! it can be done in a weekend and it is absolutely essential!

step 1:
make a list of WORDS and EXPRESSIONS you think you are going to need, in ENGLISH

step 2:
go on www.alc.co.jp and put them WHOLE or SIMPLIFIED phrase into the search field and press the search button [the search field is obvious from the way the page is laid out]

step 3:
see what comes up and ask you girlfriend to point out the phrase/s which sound more natural out of those that look simple enough to remember(or pick the ones that feel more natura to you).

NOTE: you can also cut an paste a JAPANESE phrase you find and get the alc search to retranslate it back to you, so you get a feel for the level of formality and also obtain more literal translation

step4:
use rikaichan or popsyo to reveal the kana equivalent of the phrases so you can learn the pronunciation.

step5 (last but not least!):
browse the relevant japanesepod101.com lessons in the survival, beginner and season 2 beginner series. and listen to those that are most suitable - this gives you listening practice. I do not recall any on the subject of ‘meet the inlaws’ though!

You can go a long way with the above procedure.

If you wish to know how the the language works a bit more in detail you can do what I did the couple of months before touring japan [admittedly only for one week] with no help from any native speaker.

I used the Oxford Take off in Japanese course (see link below), which is a bit more compact that the Japanesepod101.com material but uses similar ideas(soap opera to help).

http://www.amazon.ca/Oxford-Take-Off-Japanese-Cassettes/dp/0198602782

Let us know how it goes! and don’t forget to let the JPOD team know if approaching their lessons from a such a specific stand point yielded useful material.

Cheers!

mikuji

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mikuji says:

sumimasen ga..

is there a problem with posting? I had just posted a reply on this page but it is not showing up.

Is this because thereis a lag while waiting for moderation? It does not seem to apply to other parts of the site (e.g. blog).

Please advice

mikuji

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mikuji says:

oops!

just gone through - maybe it was my computer.
yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

mikuji

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tim t. says:

another “lesson notes lite” please - thanks!

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亀井 says:

Howdy, just thought I’d do the public service piece.  Taii is actually a World War Ii - and prior - designation for captain, the 大 portion being rather self-explanatory and the 尉 portion having to do with the division known as company grade officers in the US forces. Company grade being the first three ranks of officers, generally speaking all of those with fewer than 10 years of seniority. 

Another observation is that Japan does not have an Army as such. It is the Japan Self-Defense Ground Force with missions and capabilities commensurate to defending the homeland, domestic civil relief,  and international peace cooperation and having no power projection capabilities (http://www.mod.go.jp/gsdf/). This is a result of the conclusion of World War II. By the same token, there is neither a Navy nor Air Force but rather a Maritime Self Defense Force and an Air Self Defense Force (http://www.mod.go.jp/msdf/ & http://www.mod.go.jp/asdf/).

Finally, the particulars on the modern rank structure. A JGSDF captain is now 一等 陸尉 which seems to transliterate to first class land officer. The next rank is 三等 陸佐 or major, which seems to transliterate to third-class land assistant. It is interesting that the election has been for a numerically-based 三等、二等、一等 system to replace the old 少、中、大 system.  More egalitarian and less bellicose, I suppose.  (http://www.uniforminsignia.org/).  Other than this and the interposition of 陸 between this and 尉 or 佐, as appropriate, it is exactly the same as past practice. Oh, and the rank immediately below is 二等 陸尉 or first lieutenant. I am aware that this looks counter- intuitive.  The number in Japanese is two and I have used the term first, implying a one. For the Japanese rank, the two speaks for the second rank amongst junior officers. The term first lieutenant implies the senior- most lieutenant in the command, or at least one with some seniority.  There is a historical basis for this but I’ll only bore you to death…

If the discussion had to do with the JMSDF, then just replace 陸 with 海, land for ocean. It is all perfectly logical…

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ミンシャルイ says:

PDFに間違いがあるのかもしれないです。『席に戻って下さい。』の中『席』の訳は『sheet』じゃなくて『seat』がでしょ。

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says:

大尉、命令を待っています。敵をそのまま見張ってください。はい、了解。ね、大尉、敵に見られてですけど、どうします。じゃ、見返せば。あれ、大尉は見ないんですか。あー、どうしよう。今、麻雀で忙しいから、後で。大尉、大変です。今、敵に見られています。命令を、ちょっと待って。今、見てる方あるいは見られている方。両方です。どういうこと。敵を見ているけど、敵に見られています。まだ、わからない。戻る直接説明しろう。

また、明日。

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