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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com!In today’s lesson, we’ll go to a honya-san - or book store. There’s a customer who was very moved by classic Japanese fairytale, Momotarō, maybe a little too moved.

In this newbie Japanese lesson, we’ll also look at the ko-so-a-do series of demonstrative adjectives, which indicate the position of an item relative to location of the speaker. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!

 



This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Newbie 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.

36 Responses to “Newbie Lesson #21 - Where It’s At!”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Mina-san, hope you all had a great weekend! Do you know the story of Momotarō? How about any other classic Japanese fairytales?

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Marcela says:

Oh my! Aren’t you great, guys.

I am part of this lovely family since last December, and geez am I enjoying it! (Though I still have to catch up.) I have a Premium subscription and I have to say it has been the best-spent money in my own private Japanese ordeal!

You are doing a fab job. Peter-san, where do you get your energies! Tell me only if it is legal :wink:

And what can I say about the girls? Natsuko-san, Sakura-san, Miki-chan, Hatsumi-chan… You are wonderful, cute and fun! And for the rest of the team too (including tech staff of course): monosugoi!

I run a website directory about Japan ( http://www.conocerjapon.com ) and although it is in Spanish, many links are to websites in English. I hope you find it interesting. Some links I added lately come from your podcast, so thanks a-plenty!

Regarding Japanese tales, I have always been interested in cranes in Japanese mythology. I also loved Urashima Tarou tale. It seems to be very important in Japanese folklore too.

Keep it up!

Greetings from Spain,
Marcela

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Jordi says:

私はももたろうのお話は大好きですよ.浦島太郎のお話も好きです.も一お話がありますけど名前が忘れます.小さい侍があります.英語の名前は The Rice-Bowl Samurai です. 皆さん日本語の名前は知りますか?

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bakaneko says:

すみません。一つの問題はあります。桃太郎の物語に感動はどこあるか?

*Not sure if this is how you say it. Feel free to correct my Japanese.*

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João Paulo says:

このコメントがいっぱい漢字とかなですね!これは本当 newbie レッソンですか?
ももたろうはとてもおもしろいですね!いっぱいお話はわかりません。あの子供は本当に泣っていましたか?JPOD の人はすごいですね!
またね! :mrgreen:

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Liz21 says:

Japanesepod101.com,
I loved this podcast so much! Take-san- what a great job you did with kandoteki na koe!

Peter-san with Sakura-san! What a great combination! (Isn’t Sakura-san the Alpha Female?)

Peter-san, did I hear you say “synapsis” instead of “synopsis”? hahaha :grin: We all know what you meant. :wink:

Check out the story of Urashima Taro here: http://woz.commtechlab.msu.edu/courses/theses/urashimataro/main.html

THANKS, AGAIN, FOR MAKING OUR LEARNING SO ENJOYABLE!!

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kingyo says:

Jordi-san,

I wonder that another fairytale could be 一寸法師(いっすんぼうし).

I forgot the details of the story, but it’s about a tiny-sized boy. He gets married a princess when he becomes normal size.

I don’t know… Sorry if it’s not the one :sad:

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Marcela says:

Kingyo-san, please check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issun-b%C5%8Dshi for the story of Issun-bōshi.

Liz21-san, that flash story is great! I have a children’s book with the story in English and Japanese which comes with a CD with the story narrated in both languages, but this cartoon is fabulous, with subtitles and all. Thanks a lot!

Mata ne,
M.

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Peter says:

Marcela-san, thank you for the encouraging words!! Really great to have you with us! :grin: Thank you for sharing the site with us. :grin:
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

Jordi-san, アリガトウゴザイマス!なかなかいい日本語ですね!

Bakaneko! 久しぶりです!Yes, I think we’ll have to ask Take about this. :wink:

João-san,そうですね。ぎりぎりかな. :wink:

Liz-san, 毎度ありがとう!It was my NY accent. :wink:

Kingyo- welcome back!

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lulu_chan says:

totemo omoshirokatadesu

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Jordi says:

Peter先生  私の日本語はお蔭様でいいですけどありがとうございます。
Kingyoさん ありがとう but that’s actually not it, although the   一寸法師 story is interesting, the one I was asking about is about this little samurai who has a rice-bowl for a boat and a toothpick as a かたな and goes around killing monsters and such, I don’t remember where I read it but I’m still looking, If I find it, I’ll post it here

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Jordi says:

しみません! I messed up with the 日本語 in my previous post :oops: I meant to say:

Peter先生  私の日本語はお蔭様でいいですありがとうございます。

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alex says:

Great lesson! Thanks! I would like to know what is the difference between kandouteki (des) and kandounan (des)? thanx

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Katie says:

I have a question:

When I was listening to the dialogue and explanations about “wo”, I noticed in the PDF that there is no “wo” written! Instead, there’s: ”あつ、ティッシュどうぞ”

Can I write “ティッシュをどうぞ” in Japanese? (Or, is it “ィッシュォどうぞ”?)

ありがとうございます!

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Katie says:

I also found something interesting to share with you….

A Flash interactive version of ももたろ!
http://www.pref.okayama.jp/kikaku/kokusai/momo/e/momotarou/index.html

It then follows with the regions in the area of Japan that coordinate with the tale!

かっこいよ、根? :cool:

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Peter says:

Not so great lesson for me.

Introduction of no/n desu entirely without explanation.

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JapanesePod101.com says:

peterさん、
no da is a rather complex grammar point (jlpt level 3), and this is a newbie lesson, so we thought it better to not try to bog newbies with it. but we kept the no da in the conversation because we wanted to keep it natural.
(actually no da appears a 2 more newbie lessons, and i believe there was an explanation. tho, as i said it’s a bit of tricky one and probably doesn’t belong in a newbie lesson). :hachimaki:

there is a nice explanation of no da in the grammar bank along with links to lessons that give examples of it. :wink:

marky

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peter says:

markysan,

The trouble is that you end up -at least in my case -with total confusion.

You introduce something without any explanation. I then have no idea if it is something new or something that I have missed from a previous lesson. In either event it simply adds to my frustration.

It may be that this is avoided after lesson 30 which I think becomes newbie series 2 and I also think that you suggest starting with newbie 2 in your guide.

BTW there was a double whammy in this lesson.

Apart from the “ii n desu “etc there was also the “na n desu” as in kandou nan desu referred to above by Alex.

Asking around I understand this to be a phonetic/grammatical change
making da=na before n/no desu. Could not a simple line of explanation have been provided?

Some on here do not appear to be genuine beginners but for those that are, the complexity at lesson 21 seems a trifle excessive.

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markystar says:

i totally know what you’re saying and i agree it could have been addressed. but well… this is an old lesson and we’ve changed how we do things since then. and, honestly, that’s why we recommend starting from the Nihongo Dojo series, it’s much more controlled and doesn’t introduce grammar that is outside of the level.

that said, it seems you already have a good idea of what’s going on with “no da” :wink:
but like i said, check out the grammar bank, there’s a nice basic definition of the structure and links to many lessons that feature it. there will be more coming up in the future. i’ve already proposed a “no da expose” lesson that really gets into it. :mrgreen:

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一 (ハジメ) says:

Peter さん -

There are many elements in the newbie lessons that are more advanced than “newbie”. I value that the newbie lessons are not “dumbed down” and artificial like so many Japanese texts. I think it is important not to get too bogged down in elements that one does not yet understand. It will come in time. :smile:

Along with the Shadowing book, this is the best Japanese language resource I have ever used. I have hundreds of dollars invested in books and エレクトロニック 辞書. Premium subscription is the best money I have spent so far.

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Mihara-chan says:

JapanesePod101 is simply amazing. I just loved this lesson and hope to enjoy many more on my way to fluently speaking Japanese! :mrgreen:

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Mayumi says:

Mihara-chan

I’m sure you can enjoy many more interesting and useful lessons at our site!
がんばってください! :wink:

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JKid says:

Mihara-chan,
It’s always great to read the feedback from users about how JPOD has helped them and indeed, how it continues to help me! :)

がんばってください! :)

Kale Nagasaki says:

Well, I’ve been following these newbie lessons from the beginning, so I’m not very far xD.

But I don’t think these lessons are confusing. I just think you guys leave a lot of words and parts of sentences unexplained. But I’ve learned that everything in this series is basically “beyond the scope of this lesson” [lol], so if a true newbie, like me, just focuses on what the point of the lesson is and not on the excess things, then no confusion will come.

I love JPod. End of story ^_^ You guys rockkkkkkkk at what you do. :D

:kokoro:

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nazuri says:

just one phrase for this podcast : TWO THUMBS UP!!! :dogeza:

IROIRO ARIGATOU GOZAIMASHITA NE !!! :smile:

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Kobukuro says:

Hello :smile: !

I have to say, that I really appreciate the natural usage of the language even in the Newbie-Lessons. I studied Japanese intensively for one year with a teacher with “normal” textbooks. I thought, that I was well prepared for my trip to Japan…

I wasn’t… And now I have found JPOD and I thought, that THIS is the kind of language I was confrontrated with in Japan and not the Japanese I had to learn with the textbooks. Now I am pretty sure that my next stay in Japan would be great after studying with JPOD!

Even if a Newbie doesn’t really understand what’s behind the “n da”, you can catch the sound and rhythm of these lines and of course, you have the translations. It’s a kind of context-learning and I like it very much. And I am sure, that the “no da” will be much more easily understood when it is time for the grammatical explanation.

Sorry for my bad English. But I guess with JPOD I am able to refresh it too :mrgreen: !

Greetings from Germany,
Kobu

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Kyle says:

Why is the file name of the audio file ‘NB20′? Shouldn’t it have been NB21?

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Mayumi says:

Kyle-san,
Sorry for the mistake! We’ll fix it as soon as possible! Thank you for your patience. :dogeza:

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Don says:

I was hoping that someone could tell me what the difference is between すすり泣く。
(sobbing) and  泣きながら (which I couldn’t find in any dictionary :sad: )

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Teskal says:

Same as Don said wrote.
I’m missing some Vocabs in the Vocabulary List:
すすり泣く声
泣きながら
どうしたん
いかなぁ

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Mayumi says:

Don-san and Teskal-san,

すすり泣く声 and 泣きながら is originally for the purpose of the directions for voice acting. We are sorry for making you confused. すすり泣く声 means “sobbing,” and 泣きながら means “in tears.”
どうしたんですか means “what’s wrong” or “what’s the matter.”
いいかなぁ can be divided into いい meaning “good”, か which is a question marker and なぁ which is an ending particle indicating emotion. So, it means “I wonder which one would be good.” :wink:

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Iwakura says:

I have to agree with Peter here (not Peter-sensei): all this talk about “no da” and “nan n desu”, plus the introduction of n, without any sort of explanation, frustrates a bit. The problem with the “We’ll get to that later” mantra, if I may put it so irreverently, is that the negative impact accumulates: you just wind up with extra stuff you don’t know. I mean, much as I love the banter about peach-boy and such, would it really kill the team to explain things just a little bit?

Sumimasen, that came out a bit harsher than I meant. Demo, hontou ni, grammar is not a plague which should be avoided at all cost! And I know people have suggested I just skip to Season 2 for the grammar. But being a true beginner — unlike, indeed, many others here — it seems like skipping half the newbie Season will undoubtedly introduce a whole different batch of problems. So I’m kinda reluctant to do so.

markystar said: “… this is an old lesson and we’ve changed how we do things since then. and, honestly, that’s why we recommend starting from the Nihongo Dojo series, it’s much more controlled and doesn’t introduce grammar that is outside of the level.”

Kore wa nan desu ka?! So, what have I been doing all previous lessons for then? A bit disheartened now.

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Jessi says:

Iwakuraさん,
As time goes on, we have changed how we make lessons based on feedback and experience, but it doesn’t mean that the lessons you have been doing up until now are bad or incorrect in any way :smile: I can tell that you are studying very hard and really picking up a lot from the lessons at a fast pace, so please keep it up ;) I’m pretty sure that by the time you start listening to the Nihongo Dojo series, you will already know a great deal of the material!

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Iwakura says:

Jess-san,

Thanks. I feel a lot better about things now. :) But I wouldn’t leave this course, regardless. As Peter-sensei so often says in the emails we get from him, the simple key to success is to set goals and to stick to them. So, I’ll just go on following these lessons diligently. I said ‘diligently’, not ‘blindly.’ Because I really DO sense the intelligence behind these lessons. They’re actually built-up pretty cleverly (insofar as I am able to tell, of course). So I firmly believe in this method, even though the lack of grammar frustrates me a bit at times. But I would also like it on record that I truly do believe that your podcasts are the best thing I ever encountered! :)

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王凱 says:

いらしゃいませ。どの本がいいかなあ。あれ、すみません、大丈夫ですか。
どうしたんですか。この本は感動的です。テエシュをどうぞ。
お優しいです.お礼にこの本をどうぞ。
良いんですか。
桃太郎。
はい、感動なんです。

また明日ね。

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Kaycee says:

i looked back at some of the first few lessons, i listened to the audio’s I realized far i’ve come with my japanese! i understood every word! Arigato Gozaimasu!^^ :mrgreen: I love japanesepod101.com! :wink:

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