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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Very often in every language, we have words that sound the same. Take for instance the following conversation: “Would you like a pear? I have two.” “Of course a pair is two. Or are you saying you have two pairs, which is four?” “No, I don’t have four, I only have two pears.” “But two pairs is four.” “Oh, forget it, I’m just going to get a knife and pare the pears.” “Why are you trying to match up pairs? Are they socks?” When words sound the same but have different meanings, things can get very confusing, as is the case in today’s dialogue when our speakers have a double Mac attack!! However, the more Japanese words you learn, the less you will find yourself in these confusing situations – so let’s get started, that is, unless you are having a REAL Japanese Mac attack – then we can wait.
Learning Japanese with JapanesePod101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Japanese! This Japanese Newbie lesson really brings it all together, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, particles, even the wily adverbs. Here you have a torrent of new words and constructions to make your Japanese take a big leap forward. Visit us at JapanesePod101.com where you will find many more fantastic Japanese lessons and learning resources! Leave us a message while you are there!

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Newbie 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.
53 Responses to “Newbie Lesson S2 #14 - Nihongo Dōjō - A Japanese Double Mac Attack”
at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, is マック cheap?
at 7:01 pm
Hahahahahaha, sounds like somebody’s a Mac hater!
That’s OK, I am too!
It’s all about the Commodore 64!!!!
at 9:10 pm
Come to think of it, I have a fried G5 dual sitting in a box (I ran it 24/7 set to maximum performance until it was medium rare).
at 11:44 pm
Where’s Fabrizio??

It just not the same without Fabrizio…
I can’t use Macs ’cause everything’s in the wrong place. But I don’t love PC either. I’m an equal opportunity hater.

That goes for you too, McDonald’s!!
But I
Fabrizio!!
Kitty-chan
at 12:30 am
I’ve never used a Mac, but I’ve used a few Apple applications and don’t exactly find them user-friendly. Don’t get me wrong, I hate windows with a passion, but I can’t imagine why people are all like ‘z0mg Mac pwnz PC yeh!1!!?’.
Kitty-chan, the Fabster is going out with Yuki according to the intro, but I couldn’t catch where
Good lesson anyway
at 5:44 am
So, what should be the affirmation version of “zenzen” then?
at 6:03 am
全く~!まったく can be used, as well as すっかり and まるで.
at 6:54 am
そうだねー。ありがとう、Javizyさん。
at 7:06 am
You should have mentioned the return of the メガマック! (http://mcdonalds.co.jp/sales/index.html#mega) It’s horrible, awesome, and also rather cheap (for the amount of food you get)
… of course it’s ぜんぜんヘルシーじゃない。
at 8:09 am
As soon as she said マックは安いhe should have realised that she couldn’t possibly be talking about Apple computers!
at 10:24 am
Javizyさん and Kitty-chanさん、
(spoiler alert!)
I believe Yuki is going out salsa dancing with Fabrizio.
marky
at 3:28 pm
I heard salsa too. Wow.
Looks like I had the wrong idea about あまり. 「あまり」は「ちょっと』のはんたいとおもいました。I thought it meant “not very X” rather than “very not X”.
at 9:50 pm
When I first heard this lesson (this morning), I thought “Let the flame wars begin!”
I must say the group here is quite civil, compared to other sites I frequent, or magazines I read. A couple months ago, in 2600, someone asked the editor’s preference in OS, and the response was “We don’t discuss religion here”. Also, I have seen many flamewars started on /. by a comment that could be interpreted negitively about a given OS. (Except MS, where it is positive comments that start the flamewar)
In response to the first comment, マックは高いです
If you remember my comment a few weeks ago,
マックもワークもリヌクスもいいです。
I hope I transliterated that right.
at 9:33 am
クリストファー・ハートさん、yeah, luckily everybody here is really nice.
and to be honest, in the office we’re split pretty evenly. so everybody uses both!
marky
at 10:44 pm
Marky -
I take it the third option I mentioned isn’t used in the office?
at 11:50 pm
at least not in tokyo. maybe the tech team uses it…
at 12:04 am
Help! I’m still stuck on あまり。
とても means very or extremely. Does that mean that あまり means very or extremely not?
If I say “あまりげんきじゃない” (amari genki ja nai), does it mean “I’m not feeling very well” (I feel a little bit sick), or “I’m feeling very not well” (I feel terrible)? If あまり is the negative equivalent of とても then it must mean the second, but I always thought it was the first.
at 2:31 am
Lauraさん、
i think of あまり as ‘not very’ ‘not much’ and (at its strongest) ‘not at all.’
玉子はあまり好きじゃない
i don’t like eggs very much; i don’t much care for eggs. i don’t like eggs at all (can be understand but i think it’s used to soften the expression)
お風呂にあまり入らない。
i don’t take many baths; i don’t bathe so much. i don’t bathe at all (can be understood but it’s used to soften the expression)
i don’t think it’s the exact opposite of とても, it’s its own word. just as in English we don’t have an exact opposite of “very.”
in the case of 元気, it’s not the exact opposite of とても but it’s usually used.
i’ve never heard とても元気じゃない
but always here あまり元気じゃない
it’s just the natural way to say that.
anyone else want to add something to this?
marky
at 10:57 am
とても、あまり
とても is always in affirmative sentences and あまり is always in negative sentences.
But とても has nuance of “very” “really” etc etc.. , emphasizing adjectives so much.
「この寿司はとてもおいしいですねー。」 “This sushi is very very good!!”
あまり stays with ない. This word has nuance of “not really” “rarely” etc.. This phraseあまり~ない is not direct way to mention something.
「この寿司はあまりおいしくないですねー」 “This sushi is…. not really good”
「お寿司屋にはあまり行きません」 “I rarely go to sushi shop”
at 5:24 am
this lesson was とても便利 as usual; however, i missed the review option. i noticed it is also missing in the latest beginner lesson S2. will it be back next time?
at 9:42 am
it will be back… have no fear!
at 7:34 pm
うれしい
at 2:50 am
Hi everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for all these pod casts, finding audio tools for learning Japanese is very difficult, especially that go beyond the basic usage level. These lessons are very helpful and informative. I like that you take the time to point out the literal meaning of words, something many books and tapes leave out. The slow run through of the dialoue is also very useful, the words can really blend together sometimes when spoken. Your efforts to maintain the qualty of this site our impressive, thank you.
If I may, could I ask how it is that so many users are responding using Kanji compound words? To write multiple kanji words in complete sentences hardly seems newbie at all?
lol, you guys are flashing me back to my first Japanese class with my frozen expression of horror and Hiroko-sensei glaring over my shoulder like a eagle ready to strike.
Japanese is easy she wold say, and I would think, sure, it just has more letters in its alphabet then English has words. Arrgh, ganbatte, ganbatte.
at 7:15 am
There are some missing words in page 5 of the PDF.
at 11:59 am
watermen さん
Thank you for pointing out. We have fixed them.
Nicholas L. さん
Thank you very much for your feed back.
at 4:11 pm
Thank you for the あまり help. I think I get it now.
at 8:02 pm
what i learned is that:
よくmeans often
よく魚を食べます。i eat fish often
あまりmeans NOT often
あまり魚は食べません。i do not eat fish often
since amali means NOT often. the sentence will be in negative form/and the paticle will be wa.
時々means sometime
時々魚を食べます。i sometimes eat fish
since there isn’t any “NOT” so it will be in positive form and teh particle is WA.
全然means NOT at all
全然魚は食べません。i eat fish NOT at all(direct translation, which is: i never eat fish)
there is NOT, so the sentence is negative and the particle is WA
hope this will be better
at 11:45 pm
Nicholas L
I have asked the question previously. There does not seem to be an answer.
What people who are capable of writing kanji are doing with basic lessons is beyond me.
Maybe Norman who posted just above can let us know.
at 2:40 am
I think a lot of people listen to every level.
Plus they use Rikai-chan to help them read in Firefox.
Check here:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3030
at 8:53 am
On a grammar point the PDF totally fails to explain how to use a negative na adjective in front of a noun.
It gives as an example kore wa kantan desu -kore wa kantan ja nai desu but only gives kono hon wa kantan na hon desu.
There is no mention of what happens to na and you might think that it stays in place.
at 10:28 am
That’s probably because “nai” works like an I adjective which you already know, right?
at 5:35 pm
CB,
No I didn’t- so thanks for that.
But that still doesn’t make it clear that na should be dropped.
To labour the point it’s not clear whether it is:
kantan na ja nai hon desu or kantan ja nai hon desu
It is a hole in the grammatical explanation.
at 7:07 pm
おは~!
peterさん、
the pdf has been uploaded and you can re-download it now.
kore wa kantan ja nai hon desu is grammatically possible.
so it would not be a mistake to say it,
however, it’s not natural.
the natural way to make a na adjective negative is to use it as a predicate, so:
kono hon wa kantan ja nai desu.
that would be the best choice when dealing with -na adjectives.
hope this helps!
at 8:48 am
Yes it does. Thanks a lot for the clarification.
at 3:39 pm
First time Peter didn’t use the question “what did you think?”.
Pretty good!!!
at 1:36 am
Hi guys - I am a bit lost on the negative forms. I am making a few assumptions here, please correct me if I am wrong.
It looks like to me that negating a sentence (with an adjective) usually has two ways - negating the adjective itself, or negating the copula:
kono hon wa muzukashii desu -> kono hon wa muzukashiku nai desu OR kono hon wa muzukashii dewa nai
kore wa muzukashii hon desu -> kore wa muzukashiku nai hon desu OR kore wa muzukashii hon dewa nai.
kore wa kantan na hon desu -> kore wa kantan ja nai hon desu OR kore wa kantan na hon dewa nai
BUT
kono hon wa kantan desu -> kono hon wa kantan ja nai ONLY.
(I know some of them is not too natural - just counting the possibilities)
In addition to this, various politeness levels of the copula can be used (da/desu/de arimasu and ja nai/dewa nai/dewa arimasen/…?), so there are 6 or 3 possibilities of negating the above sentences.
Is that right?
at 9:45 am
Tamasさん,
You are partly correct!
When creating the negative form of i-adjectives, you must conjugate the adjective it itself. So muzukashii –> muzukashiku nai desu (or muzukashiku arimasen) is correct, but muzukashii dewa nai is NOT correct.
Your other examples are all correct! Subarashii
Keep it up!
at 6:46 pm
こんにちは
at 6:36 pm
すみません、東さんは忙しいですか。マックのコンピュターは難しいですよ。
これは、どうぞ。
東さんはすごいですね。
イェイェ、全然すごくないですね。まっくは簡単ですよ。
マックは便利です。ろれから、とても安いです。ハンバーがは百円です。でもあまりヘルシーじゃないです。
じゃ、ね。
at 9:14 am
Thanks for this lesson. I will have to go back and do the lessons associated with the adjectives that are suggested in the grammar section of the notes. I often hear あまり、ぜんぜん、and とても being used when I hear spoken Japanese, but I never really noticed if the sentences were positive or negative. When using ぜんぜん should it always be used in a negative sentence unless you are just among friends having a casual conversation? Like if you were job hunting or in a school setting would it best to not use it that way? Would it be like the English equivalent of using slang in a professional setting?
thank you.
at 12:18 pm
Danielle-san,
ぜんぜん and あまり grammatically needs a negative ending in a sentences. But it can be omitted in casual conversation because ぜんぜん and あまり imply negative ending by themselves.
ex) Watashi wa sakana o zenzen tabemasen.
“I don’t eat fish at all”
Sakana o tabemasu ka? “Do you eat fish?”
Amari… “Not really..”
In formal occasion, it would be appropriate to speak in formal manners.
It is not rude to use ぜんぜん in such an occasion but you need to put negative ending together.
I hope this helps
at 10:50 pm
Thank you. That does help a lot.
at 9:30 pm
マックドナルドもアップルのマックも高いだと思います。でも、マクドナルドの食べ物はヘルシーではないですがアップルのマックはとてもいいのコンピューターだと思います。
at 12:16 pm
トーマスさん
高いと思いますか。日本ではマクドナルドは「安い」でゆうめいです。
アップルのマックはいいコンピューターですね
at 12:08 pm
If you have a job to do, instead learn from it.
at 5:33 pm
> alif-san,
Brilliant way of thinking
at 6:40 am
Very interesting lesson, but I think I have to listen to it a few more times to get it all
But for now I’m wondering about the difference between “yasashii” and “kantan”? Can someone help please?
at 8:01 pm
socro-san,
Thank you for your comments
We’re glad you enjoyed the lesson!
The difference between “yasashii” (when written 易しい, as “yasashii” when written with a different kanji means “kind” and “kantan”: they are both translated as “easy”. For example: “yasashii mondai” and “kantan na mondai” both mean “an easy question”.
However, “kantan” also has the possible meaning of “simple”/”basic”/”uncomplicated”, which “yasashii” does not have. For example, “kantan ni setsumei shite” means “explain simply [with few details/in brief]”), while “yasashiku setsumei shite” means “explain so that it is easy to understand [perhaps in detail or at length]”.
So in short they’re not that different, but there’s a slight difference in nuance. I hope this helps!
at 6:42 am
此れ PDF わ 難しい です よ !
at 3:28 pm
シモンさん、
難しかったですか。なにか分からないことがあったら、なんでも聞いてください!
Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com
at 8:14 am
In the lesson notes, it says “tanoshii” is “peasant” I think that’s supposed to be pleasant.
at 10:18 am
BoyKagome-san,
you’re right; thank you very much for letting us know!
We’ll fix the Lesson Notes soon
Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com
at 10:13 am
BoyKagome-san kon’nichiwa.
I’ve fixed the typo right now.
Please have a look at it.
If you find any other mistakes, please let us know!
Arigato gozaimashita,
Motoko
Team JapanesePod101.com