Learn Japanese at JapanesePod101.com! In the spirit of O-Bon we reviving an old Japanese tradition of telling ghost stories. This is our first Premium Offering and we’ll be offering 2 more stories through the 3 days of O-Bon. Today’s tale of horror is about a couple who get their thrills visiting shinrei spotto (haunted places). But today’s trip to an abandoned school house turns out to be a little more frightening than had been expected. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Premium Lessons. 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 “Premium Lesson #1 - O-Bon Kaidan: The Abandoned School House”
JapanesePod101.com says:
August 13th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Mina-san,
If you have a nice pair of headphones or a really loud system hooked up to your computer, we recommend turning off the lights and listening at high volume. Believe me, working on this story late at night when everyone had left the office was not an easy task. But we definitely think it paid off.
We wanted to do something different to say thank you to all our Basic and Premium listeners. We thought this would be a fun way (and cultural way) to do it! Be sure to check the blog get the full scoop!
http://blogs.japanesepod101.com/blog/2007/08/13/806/
Also, today’s Newbie Lesson 7 is also available!
宜しくお願いしま～す！
JockZon (JZ) says:
August 13th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Although I didn’t understand at all, I got scared from all the sound effects haha 
Laura says:
August 13th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Wow, he has a very spooky storytelling style. I’m glad I listened to it in the morning.
Liz21 says:
August 13th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I am planning to follow the directions and listen at night with all the lights off. I will have it on my iPod. SPOOOOOKYYY! 
rigo says:
August 13th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
very good story , i also listened to it in the morning at work
sorrounded by people
still it was spooky
good job
kitty-chan says:
August 14th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Jesus Christ you guys scared the living $#!% out of me! 
I didn’t think it would ACTUALLY be scarey. 
WOW. Great job, JPod Team!!
Kitty-chan
Javizy says:
August 14th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Great job! The voice acting and narration was really convincing, and the sound effects really helped to visualise it -I especially liked the ‘iiiiiiiiii’ 
Very professh, I think Mr Inagawa will be pleased. I look forward to tomorrow’s
By the way, is there any sort of special greeting you say to friends on o-bon?
Peter says:
August 14th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Really great story!! I just listened now, and it was pretty scary! Not good to listen at night, but at least I wasn’t alone!
Vicky says:
August 14th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I can’t listen this….too scary to me I will have a nightmare if I listen this, so I will skip….. 
Steve says:
August 14th, 2007 at 11:25 am
すごい！
Wow, great story. I’m sooo impressed.
Yeah, it’s scary, too. My (Japanese) wife is going to love it!
And that little sound effect at the very end of the second part of the lesson
(just included in the translated part, not the original)…eewww!
Actually, both the original and the one with translation both ended in “eewww”
Great job! Challenging lesson. So creative!
Sindy シンディー says:
August 14th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
JP101 crew/listeners! 
I LOVE GHOST STORIES! 
Great audio, I agree with all mina-san!
Kitty-chan!
Jesus Christ you guys scared the living $#!% out of me too ahhhhhh! S_R_C
Jkeyz says:
August 14th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
scary story. I’m glad! I understood about 80% of it!
also in the vocabulary, the pdf says 目撃者 however in the roomaji column the sha got cut off (or forgotten maybe)
JapanesePod101.com says:
August 14th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
lol… hmmm… that’s odd that it didn’t convert the entire word. i’ll look into it. thanks for the heads up!
Bob1 says:
August 14th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Great ghost story, and lots of challenging vocabulary. Great voice acting too!
Bob1 says:
August 14th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Great ghost story, and lots of challenging vocabulary.
Great voice acting too!
Peter says:
August 14th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Bob1-san!!!!!!! 久々！We popped the cork on the sparkling wine you brought us last year in honor of KoreanClass101.com! You should come by sometime! 
Marymoore says:
August 15th, 2007 at 2:50 am
I got goose pimples from that one. 
Great sound effects, and scary narrator!
At the end, when Jun was banging on the door, the Japanese said that Miki は、窓を開けずに、ドアのしたを覗き込んでみろと. But the English says, “Miki was too scared to open the door, so she tried to peer through the window.” Shouldn’t it be more like “Miki was too scared to open the window, so she peered out, trying to see underneath the door.”? I was a little confused there.
Also, I can’t download the PDF lesson notes for some reason.
Thanks!
Marymoore
markystar says:
August 15th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
PDF is workin’ now!!
Marymooreさん、hahahaha, you’re right.
Bob1 says:
August 16th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Glad to hear that you enjoyed the Spanish Cava. I hope there will be many more occasions that call for it (and I am thinking of subscribing to your multilingual SurvivalPhrases.com, if I can dare to wrap my calcifying mind around any more languages).
By the way, my daughter is back from Spain, performing in the Saitoh Kinen orchestra this month. But just like the hapless character in one of your dialogs, I can’t get tickets either; anything directed by Seiji Ozawa gets sold out practically the same day tickets go on sale, which in this case was this past May.
D.J. says:
August 16th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Scared the crap outta me! Good work on the audio and special effect sounds! The voice talents did an excellent job!
kowai na
Shiroi Neko says:
August 16th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Err .. the lesson pdf is downloadable, but the Romaji transcript seems to be missing … 
Michael Cassidy says:
August 16th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Can the first ghost story be downloaded through Apple’s podcasts also?
The last two came through like a normal lesson the first could only be accessed through the www browser and saved.
These are fun.
Next SciFi!
JapanesePod101.com says:
August 16th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Michaelさん、
all 3 ghost stories should be downloadable through the Premium Feed (so available to all Basic and Premium subscribers). there was a glitch that let #2 and #3 come through by accident - so some people got lucky.
as for sci-fi, i’d love to cover that, maybe something a la “Stephen Colbert’s Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure.”
Shiroi Nekoさん、
the ghost stories are written full blown native level, so we made a decision (also based on popular demand) to skip the romaji. (it would be like a japanese person reading a native english ghost story in katakana instead of the alphabet).
if you’ve got Rikai-chan, you can use the Line By Line script in the Learning Center and get all the furigana plus definitions
marky
maxiewawa says:
August 18th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Nice one!
I liked how they picked a story in which a basic understanding of Japanese was needed, even for the translation (the similarity between ‘hoshii’ and ‘itai’).
Jason says:
August 21st, 2007 at 6:15 am
Wow! This was a great ghost story!! I’m looking forward to the other O-Bon stories, and maybe you’ll do more like this is October? =P
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Category: Premium Lessons |
Topic: ghost stories, o bon, school, school in Japan | Politeness Level: casual, Informal
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