My 37th.

I haven’t had my birthday yet this yet. Its August 3rd, so you can put it in your diaries

Mayoko-san, In my last job we brought cakes into work on our birthday and treated our colleagues. It sounds the wrong way round, but over the year, we got to eat lots of cake.

I went to Barcelona from Edinburgh cos my good friend lives there and we both have the exact same birthday, same age .We had a barbecue together at his house with friends looking over to the city of Barcelona.

とても楽しかったです。

When he says, “今日はお忙しいですよ。” is the 「お」just a part of 敬語? I spent my last birthday in Japan! 楽しかったよ！

Mayuko-san,

anata no o namae wa kanari suteki desu ne.

It’s nice to hear these newbie lessons to review the knowledge you already got

Myself, I’m turning 18 next thursday Ureshii na

/JZ

Like Peter-san said… is this a newbie lesson??
Dou iu kaze no fukimawashi!!!
Full of information, lots of novelties and yet simple. How can you guys do it?

My last bday, well… from what I remember I simply worked. At night, some friends of mine invited me out for a pizza and I didn’t have to pay anything. That was nice from them.
We had a good time 2gether.

Mata

桜さんーおそくなりましたがおめでっとう！
PeterさんーYour birthday is one day after mine! september 29! ahh, fellow libran. ^____~

Alansan- my dad’s birthday is the 3rd of August too. CAn’t forget yours now. ^__~

Hi guys,
may be i am wrong but I hear the otto in the dialogue of this lesson saying: Watashi GA tsukurimas yo but on the PDF I read Watashi WA tsukurimas yo. Please which one is right?

Alex,

I think you’re right. It’s “watashi GA” in the audio. The PDF and Learning Center says it’s WA, but in this case GA is correct.

Team JPod ~~ come and take care of this typo, please

sorry wrong translation for the first example sentence.
” I didn’t do it ” —> ” I did it. ” or ” It’s me who did it. ”

:D Anyway, I hope you get this idea.

Alex-san,

Thank you for letting us know the mistake in the PDF.
I fixed it.

Mayumi

一さん、

You are almost right! 　It should be “いつもと同じだよ.”　
Mayumi

Mihara-chan

Thank you so much for your feedback!

Denice,

the “-do” at the end of “mo ichido” means a time… not like minutes and seconds but like an instance or event. Like in English saying “I want to go one more time.” So in “Mo ichido onegaishimasu” you have:

Mo = again
ichido = one time
onegaishimasu = please / request

for “kondo wa”, the “kon-” prefix means “this one”… meaning this as opposed to last or next. This week is “konshuu”. This month is “kongetsu”. Kondo therefore means “this time”, and the “wa” is the object marking particle.

Kondo wa yukkuri onegaishimasu = this time, slowly please

Sasquatchua-san,

Thanks so much for explaining the phrase to me. Now I can write it down in my notes and practice it along with the others!

Thanks again for the wonderful japanese lessons!

Denice

Beki-san,
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the lessons. Just keep on chugging along.

Leon-san,

Konnichiwa!
As in “hon o yomu (to read a book)” or “terebi o miru (to watch a TV),” “o” is used to mark an object. So you can use like “[something] + o + [transitive verb].”
Gambattekudasai!!

Leon-san,

The object marking particle “o” is written in hiragana as “を.” To separate を and お, を is written in romaji as “wo.” But, when we speak を in a sentence, the pronunciation is the same as “o.” So, in our lessons, we use “o” for the object marking particle を.

Hi, I have a question,
in the conversation, romaji in the PDF,

line 8,
“gogo no ichi-ji ni..”, there’s a “no”,

and line 9,
“yoru shichi-ji ni…” there isn’t a “no”,

so.. must it be “gogo NO ichi-ji” and “yoru shichi-ji” ??
can i say “gogo ichi-ji” or “yoru no shichi-ji”?

thank u!

Konbanwa mina-san!

Great and useful lesson, you guys really make japanese interesting and fun to study!! But I agree with Mihara-chan, there is a little too much info in this one (this was my facual expression at the end of the lesson: ) … That much info has raised a few questions:

1) So gozaimasu is a politer form of desu - got it. But what’s the de-particle (the phrase is “ku-ji yonjuugo-fun de gozaimasu”)? I know it can be used to indicate the place of something and to say “in”, like in the phrase “eigo de nan to iimasu ka?”. But what does it do here?

2) In the previous newbie lesson, Making the Grade, you mentioned the word for hard, muzukashii, and the word for easy, yasashii. But in this lesson, yasashii means “nice”! Does it have two meanings or am I missing an important point?

3) What exactly does the ni particle mean? I already think I know the answer, but I just wanted to make sure that I got it right; “gogo no ichi-ji ni” means “AT one o’clock in the afternoon”?

4) I don’t fully understand the inferences in the last two sentences. The husband says: “Kyou wa o-isogashii desu yo.” Peter-san and Sakura-san explained that the subject inferred here was the wife. How come it’s not the day (=today is going to be a busy day)? (I just cheked the transcript, and it actually does say a busy day…) At the wife’s last sentence it’s the same: “Kyou wa yasashii ne!” Again, I’d say that’s about the day - “today is going to be nice”, but Peter-san and Sakura-san say that the husband acts as the inferred subject - making the sentence mean “you’re (going to be) nice today”. Are both ways of interpreting possible? And if so, is it completely impossible to know which one is the right one?

I hope you don’t mind me asking so many (stupid?) questions! And I hope someone will be able to answer!

Doumo arigatou gozaimasu in advance!

//Maria

Jessi-san,
Thank you so much for the quick reply!

1) Okay, I see.

2) That makes sense. Got it!

3) I think I understand… so when you use ni after for exapmle a year, for instance 2007-nen ni, it means “in 2007″?

4) Okay, great explanation! But… at first I thought the first sentence (”kyou wa o-isogashii desu yo”) might have an inferred “we”, making it mean “today is a busy day (for us)”; but because of the honorific o- it’s absolutely certain that it refers to the wife, because the husband wouldn’t use it to refer to himself (even when refering to himself AND the wife)? Just want to make 100% sure that I understand it correctly!
“Kyou wa yasashii ne” is perfectly clear now.

Once again, doumo arigatou gozaimasu in advance!!
//Maria

I cannot download the lesson notes, it keeps coming up blank

Peter-san
おそく　なりましたけぢ　お誕生日　ありがとう　ございます

みなさん　
　　　今年の　誕生日　は　とくべつな　誕生日　でした。　けっこん　した　あと　はじめての　誕生日　でした。　家族　で　みんさん　と　パーティー を　しました。　”The Monk who sold his Ferari” 本は　いもうとに　もらいました。　まだ　よんでない。　ケーキ も　うち　で　きて　たべました
たのしかった　です
よろしく
Ｓｉｖａ

I just received a “Lesson Not Found” message when I went to the learning centre. Also the PDF file for the lesson review just showed up as a blank template. Anyone else with this problem?

Thanks very much… I did try with a different computer and the latest version of Adobe and the regular Lesson Notes worked ok. But for my computer at home the Lesson Notes Lite are much appreciated!

Iwakuraさん

1. The construction ‘o-yasashii’ does exist in very formal Japanese, but a (modern-day) wife would not use it to her husband. ‘Yasashii’ cannot be used to describe a day; as Jessi mentioned above, however, with different kanji it can be used to describe exams or tests (’easy’). The use or exclusion of honorific prefix o- and the fact that ‘yasashii’ cannot be used to describe a day have nothing to do with each other.

2. ‘Dou iu kaze no fukimawashi’ is an idiom (and is really not beginner level - I think Sensei was having some fun throwing it in here ) meaning ‘What’s got into you?’ or literally ‘What kind of wind is blowing?’ As with idioms in any language, breaking it down into its separate parts is not going to help you very much. You’re right that ‘dou iu’ means broadly ‘what’ or ‘what kind’. This function of ‘iu’ is intermediate level, so if possible I would really recommend that you not worry about it right now at your current stage… but you’re right that it equates to something like ‘be called’ in English. Your translation is right: “What is this unexpected direction of the wind?” Idioms are of course the last thing one masters in a foreign language, so don’t worry too much about them at the moment.

I tried to catch the belated birthday phrase. Can you tell me if this is correct:
遅くなりましたがけどお誕生日おめでとうございます.
Thank you

And man that is a fast lesson. Normally I don’t have any problems understanding the native speed but this time. oh my! The husband’s parts anyway. Japanese women seem to speak more clearly then man.

Than you for your fast reply.
So it’s either 遅くなりましたがお誕生日おめでとうございます or 遅くなりましたけどお誕生日おめでとうございます.
Is there a difference in the usage?

And here I suspected the opposite XD

Thank you again. This helps a lot