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Learn Japanese at JapanesePod101.com. Today’s lesson takes place in a classroom. Our student is curious about what life is like in the sabaku (desert). But when learns about the harsh conditions there, she rethinks her postion. We’ll cover vocab for describing places, as well as colloquial use of tte and no da. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 2 . 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.
29 Responses to “Beginner Lesson S2 #36 - Desert”
Wednesday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, is the desert as bad as the teacher makes it out to be? And do you agree with Naomi and Peter’s idea of a ‘modern desert?’
Wednesday at 7:06 pm
Hey, if a reader sent you pictures of the Japanese desert, why don’t you let us see it?!
Wednesday at 10:46 pm
Mina-san, genki desu ka???
Sou desu ne, sabaku wa taihen to omoimasu kedo, LA wa tanoshisou desu yo ne! Ikitai n desu!
Kono kaiwa mo omoshirokute tanoshii desu ne!! Kono kankyou to chiri te-ma nado wa daisuki desu!
Mata ne!
Thursday at 12:28 am
Haha, has Naomi been watching Southpark by any chance? Good to hear more of her, I hope she’s here to stay.
I understood all but two words in this dialogue, so either I’m improving or the lessons are getting easier.
It would be nice if the the dialogues were a little longer though, as I feel more inclined to review them. I especially think this should be the case for the lower intermediate lessons. Other than that, it’s all good
Thursday at 1:20 am
I live in the desert know as Las Vegas.
As I listened to the lesson, I could hear thunder in the background. Right when Peter said, “I’ll see you next week.”, it started raining. It’s coming down pretty hard right now.
It’s been cloudy for more than a week now. Actually, I think this weather pattern started on July 23rd. FYI: That was the day I turned 30.
True story.
Thursday at 2:20 am
Javizy, a good point about the length of conversation: I usually want to have more.
But often here I find less is more. Though that always leaves me wanting more
Oh congrats it sounds like you’re intermediate
Great learning site eh?
Thursday at 3:38 am
I’m pretty sure someone must’ve asked this question before, but I’m still feeling confused about the small differences among the usages of ‘-sou’, ‘you ni’ and ‘mitai’.
Please enlighten me.
Thursday at 5:05 am
JP101 crew/listeners!
☆☆ Desserts are my favorite!
☆☆
Thank you JP101 for making this lesson about desserts. I love all kinds of desserts like a cake, flans, etc after a great dinner! I feel already hungry now.
Mark-san!
Here in NYC is very hot, right now is 90′ degress and there is more to come so I would be a frie french fries after this week passes. Anyone wants mcdonalds, burgerking or wendy’s?
S_R_C
Thursday at 10:27 am
Franciscoさん、
i wanna see a picture of a desert too!
Javizyさん
i don’t think naomi watches south park, because when i say ‘no, you’re a towel’ to her, she doesn’t get it.
javizyさん、henjinさん、

after the 10th a few things will be changing.
1) we’ll be adding the conversation at the end for review. so you’ll have 2 times the conversation!
2) we’ll be switching to cd quality audio!
3) if you’re a premium member, during o-Bon, we’ll release 3 ghost stories with only japanese and japanese/translation, so it’s a great opportunity to improve your listening and vocab! plus these stories are truly scarey
sindyさん、
dessertって!?
desertですよ!!!
marky
Thursday at 10:46 am
mark-san
informing us that your birthday is july 23rd, are you fishing for birthday wishes?
well, Happy Belated Birthday! i think 30 is a great age to be, you’re still young, but mature enough to have self confidence, with lots of insecurities put away.
gambatte ne!
Thursday at 12:16 pm
a modern desert ?
as long as there is a pool and beer , no problem
Thursday at 12:27 pm
Sindy-san,
Dessert and desert are two different things.
Are you trying to be funny?
Thursday at 12:58 pm
rigoさん、
i like the way you think
lizさん、
two entirely different things…
or are they?
Thursday at 1:27 pm
Markystar wrote:
if you’re a premium member, during o-Bon, we’ll release 3 ghost stories with only japanese and japanese/translation, so it’s a great opportunity to improve your listening and vocab! plus these stories are truly scarey
Cool! I am a premium member but as some of my Japanese friends at my local Izakaya go home during this time it will be apt. I’ll have some new vocab and stories to impress them. Ee my English is kaput.
looking forward to these ghost stories
Thursday at 7:30 pm
ナオミ先生はオーストラリアに住んでいたでしょう?たまにナオミ先生はオーストラリア人の話し方で話す。言ったらびっくり!
Thursday at 11:21 pm
Wow!! That’s a real desert dessert!!!
Only premium members can see the ghost stories?

I have to save some money before Obon. When is that?
Kitty-chan
Friday at 12:32 pm
Marky-san,
Haha! I see your point! Good one!
Did you make those treats just for me?
Friday at 12:48 pm
Marky/Liz!
Thank you for clearing things up, VIVA A MEXICO!
My cactus look beautiful, you don’t need to cover the one with the hat his mouth with Chocolate. The one with the cake was good enough!
Kitty-Chan!
What ghosts stories? I’m a premium member and I don’t see them. I want to see ghosts! those that have the power to see them are very lucky.
S_R_C
Friday at 7:12 pm
こんにちは。konnichiwa
なおみです。Naomi desu.
Javizyさん
サウスパークは観たことはありませんでしたが、マーキーとjavizyさんのコメントを読んだので、タオリーのエピソードを観ました。タオリーはとってもかわいいですね。
Southpark wa mitakoto ga arimasen deshita ga, Marky to Javizy-san no komento o yondanode, Towelie no episodo o mimashita. Towelie wa totemo kawaii desu ne.
I had never watched Southpark, but I watched Towelie’s episode after I read you and Marky’s comment. Towelie was sooooo cute.
maxiewawaさん
はい。オーストラリアに住んだことがあります。でも6ヶ月だけですが。
Hai Australia ni sunda kotoga arimasu. Demo 7kagetsu dake desu ga…
Yes, I used to live in Australia but only for 6 months.
bakaneko さん
It’s hard to answer the question without a context, but I’ll try.
Your question>>>but I’m still feeling confused about the small differences among the usages of ‘-sou’, ‘you ni’ and ‘mitai’.
I think you meant “-sou”,”-you”and “mitai” NOT “you ni” right? Because “you ni” means “as”, “like” or”so that” and has quite different form “mitai” or “-sou”.
1)Amega furu sou da.
2)Amega furu you da.
3)Amega furu mitai da.
According to “A Dictionary of Basic japanese grammer”,
“-sou da” expresses hearsay. That is, this pattern is used when the speaker conveys information obtained form some information source without altering it.
“you da” is an expression which is usually based on what the speaker sees or saw. And this expression involves the speaker’s reasoning process based on firsthand, reliable information and his knowledge. So, degree of certainty is quite high.
“mitai da” is the colloquial version of “you da”
After you heard the weather forecast, you say “amega furu sou da.”
You are looking at a weather map and say “amega furu you da.”
Friday at 7:15 pm
Sorry

The previous comment was from me, Naomi.
すみません。
Sunday at 2:06 am
Naomi-san!
I knew that it was a mistake error in the posting and that wasn’t Miki because there’s ALOT of difference between you and Miki-san.
S_R_C
Thursday at 5:25 pm
Kore wa watashi no hacimete mondai
Thank you for this lovely lesson. I have a question Kore wa watashi no hacimete mondai; ‘’Omoshiro so'’ is understood but how can we use the ‘’so'’ with -Na adjectives like kireina?
Thank you for help.
Ercan
Friday at 2:26 pm
Ercan-san,
You can say “kirei sō” just attaching -sō to the end of the stem of the na-adjective. Other examples: “benri sō”, “kantan sō”
Friday at 6:15 pm
Mayumi-San,
Domo arigatoo Gozaimasu
Saturday at 9:36 am
Hope someone can help (and I hope I’m not writing something bad!!!)…What does this mean? - wa totemo kawai desu ne
Monday at 4:42 pm
KW-san
___ wa totemo kawaii desu ne.
=___ is very cute, isn’t it?
I hope this helps!
Wednesday at 12:04 am
In Japanese class we were also taught the もしーもし pattern.
For example:
大変な所だぞ。暑いし、乾燥するし、雨もふらないし、夜も寒いし
Will this have the same meaning at the original line in today’s dialogue?
Jen
Wednesday at 12:11 am
Sorry.
Will this have the same meaning AS the original line in today’s dialogue?
Wednesday at 1:09 pm
jen-san
Great question!!
同じです!ニュアンスもほとんど同じだと思いますよ。
Yes. Your sentence has exactly the same meaning as the original line.
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