Mina-san, Merry Christmas!
What do you think about this couple’s romantic get away? Definitely not traditional by Western standards, but not a bad way to spend the holiday, don’t you think?

Happy X-mas JPOD101

Peter it is lesson 56 not 55.
皆さん、メリークリスマス！

Merry crimbins everyone. I usually have a couple of hours to kill before I go round my nan’s on Christmas Day, so I had a chance to listen to the lesson.

I find the Japanese R is closer to a softly pronounced D than an L or R. Your tongue is in the right position, so it’s a good way to start, you just need to learn to roll it a little bit. Making the right shape with your mouth is necessary too, although I only realised this recently. Check out http://www.hellonavi.com/foldera/html/hassei/hassei03.html (somebody posted this on the forum too).

I’d like to see Yoshikai do a lesson on how to do the macho style tongue roll, I can’t seem to do it I had a Welsh business teacher who did it as well, it’s always cracked me up. うりゃっ！

Merry XMRadio!!!! I mean X-Mas!!
It just gets better and better!

Happy Boxing day! And Merry Christmas to everyone in the Western Hemisphere.

It’s not a word. It’s a sound.

If you look up ‘huh’ or ‘erm’ or ‘ack’ in the dictionary you might not find them either.

Merry christmas

To everyone at JapanesePod101, Happy New Year and thank you.

I have been using your web-site for a few weeks now, ever since someone I ran into told me about it. I started to learn Japanese at the end of September, this year. I am an American from Philadelphia and I speak only English; but I am determined to learn Japanese. I find it exciting to learn another language and I’m fascinated by the Japanese language and culture. The more I learn, the more I want to know.

Your lessons are so well done and so helpful, particularly with helping me hear and speak Japanese correctly. I also benefit from the comments from other fans of JapanesePod101. So my questions are directed to anyone kind enough to offer their opinions.

I began with Beginner Lessons, covering about three lessons per day. At some point, I began doing the Survival Lessons and the Newbie Lessons. I found that the pace of three Beginner lessons was a bit much. I have now settled into one Survival Lesson plus one Newbie Lesson plus one Beginner Lesson each day. I find that the Newbie and Survival lessons serve as a kind of review and reinforce what I have learned while introducing something new, as well. I am at Beginner Lesson 41 of 170. I expect to complete all the Beginner Lessons by the beginning of May. I should have completed all the Newbie and Survival lessons by that date, also. Then I plan to move through the Beginner (Season 2) lessons as quickly as possible as an overall review of the beginner course. The next step is to continue with the Pre-Intermediate lessons and ultimately to the Intermediate course.

In addition, I try to learn a minimum of 15 Kanji per week, using a text for that purpose. I have already learned to read and write Kana. I also have a native Japanese tutor that I see for one hour each week. I’m also looking to find other Japanese-speaking people in my vicinity to practice with.

My goal is to acquire as much skill with the language as possible before January, 2009, at which time I am planning an extended visit to Japan. I am 66 years old and semi-retired; so I have a good bit of time to devote to this pursuit. I wonder if I’m not the oldest person to use this site.In any case, through learning this wonderful language, I feel that I’ve begun a whole new chapter in my life.

For those of you with experience in learning Japanese. Do you think my plan for learning is reasonable? Do you have any comments or suggestions?

Thanks again for the great service you provide. Monosugoi.

I should add, it may be sufficient to just repeat listening to the conversation and not the entire lesson commentary, and this is for the later beginner and S2 lessons, I don’t know if re-listening to the survival phrases would be worthwhile or not, probably better just to add the phrases to your flash card set.

co’ ai la` nguoi vn ko nhi?

so, is this really the last Season 2 episode?

Sivasakthivelさん,

The translation of もったいない might change depending on the context, but basically it means “it’s a waste”. So in this case, the boyfriend is saying that it’s kind of a waste to go on a trip for only one night and two days.