Free Daily Lessons to Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Next week, our new seasons begin! The office is closed for the New Year’s holiday, but we’re so excited about 2008 that we wanted to tell everyone a little bit about what to expect. Next week we’ll be starting all new seasons and launching a new level, Upper Intermediate. Also, we have lots of goodies for Premium members around the corner. Everybody here is so excited we can hardly contain ourselves! After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under News. 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.
32 Responses to “News #54 - New Seasons for the New Year”
JapanesePod101.com says:
December 21st, 2007 at 7:33 pm
New 2008 Schedule
月・Newbie
火・Beginner Season 2
水・Miki’s Blog, Japanese Culture Class, Wildcard Lessons, News
木・Lower Intermediate
金・Upper Intermediate！
Christopher Thien says:
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Looking forward to 2008 from Melbourne Australia
JockZon (JZ) says:
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Oh boy, another season of japanese ;D I hope I will get time for this.
デボン says:
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Upper Intermediate?! Is that the same level as Intermediate now that we don’t have that or could it be higher?!?!?! 
the dude says:
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
What do you mean Intermediate that we don’t have? My head spins every Friday, cuz your Japanese is better than mine. Sounds like it’s going to be harder though if they say Upper.
Alain says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 am
Wildcard lessons? I can’t wait for that! What could it be?
Upper intermediate instead of intermediate? We’ll see!
Perhaps can you also write some jlpt practice tests for 2kyuu? And some more for people preparing for 4 and 3 kyu, as there was no new since long.
rigo says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 am
wow upper intermediate and business japanese
scary
looks like i’ll have to study harder in order to catch up
looking forward to it
デボン says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:51 am
oops! 
I meant to say “Intermediate lessons that we DO have.” I have a horrible problem with never double checking things I type…
I actually posted that comment before even listening to the podcast 
! I was just so excited to hear all the new developments I guess. Upper is definitely going to be harder…
Mina san, Upper Intermediate, Ganbarimashou!
asahiNYsurf says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 am
Sounds Like A Plan, I can’t wait for the great lessons to come this year!
Ｓｉｎｄｙシンディー says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 am
Mina-sama! 
Congratulations!!! bring it on. 
月火水木金
I also can’t wait for the vocab videos! 
S_R_C
João Paulo says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:23 am
I believe Beginner Lessons are already some Intermediate.
俺も新しいレッスンを楽しみしてます！ 
皆さん、頑張りましょう！
kitty-chan says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I always do that too デボン! 
It always gets me into trouble 
Wow, the anticipation is $&@?￥% killing me!!! 
Can’t wiat!! 
_petiteclaire_ says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I’m looking forward to upper intermediate… But what aboutアグネスちゃん? I was listening again to the very first Tokyo Travelblogue lesson some days ago , and I thought there was supposed to be 30 lessons for her first month in Tokyo… And besides, some of the other ( i.e monkey) lessons were incredible…maybe we could have intermediate one week, and upper-intermediate the other week… I’m very happy that there will be higher-level, even more challenging material, but aren’t you afraid that business Japanese every week is going to be a bit tedious? One of the greatest thing about Jpod is that it’s fun!
マーキースター says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
don’t worry about the business japanese!
as peter said in the newscast, the beauty of the new seasons is this:
we’ll be working on series. so instead of 1 story here and unrelated story there, we’re going to slow things down a little bit. you’ll see more interesting characters over the next 6 months, but also having 3-5 stories grouped together gives us a chance to really focus on certain functions and certain grammar.
the business japanese reference doesn’t mean Upper Intermediate is only business, cuz, yeah, that would bore everyone to tears. the great thing about the first 4 UI lessons isn’t the business focus (tho, that truly is useful), but is the use of humble and honorific language. it’s a great way to set the pace for the new level. but trust me, the next 2 series after that are non-business!
expect to see loads of interesting characters and crazy situations over he next 6 months. some really good stuff is just getting started!!!
よろしくお願いします！
マーキー
Peter says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Mina-san, Happy New Year again!
We’re looking forward to another
exciting year of teaching Japanese!
In addition to this, we have some really nice
things coming up!
To address a few of the questions.
Business Japanese will rock. I am really enjoying them
as I am learning a lot about doing business in Japan, which
quite convenient as I am doing business in Japan. (hehe)
Upper intermediate is very, very hard. This will definitely
be challenging! 頑張ってください。
Our levels our a bit misleading as intermediate has always
blurred into advanced. With this seperation we try to make
lower intermediate a little less intimidating and upper a lot
more.:)
Upper will have lots of polite Japanese, that we have to
check again and again before releasing.:)
However, you’ll be surprised how much contact you’ve already
had with this material!
楽しみ！
More JLPT material noted!
Think Marky got the rest.
マーキースター says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
and about the jlpt practice tests. we’ve already had a chat about this before the break. i personally would like to use those tests!
NickT says:
January 4th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Can anyone explain the phrase used in the podcast, that Peter translated as “Just do it” ? I think it was something like:
始めてよければ全てよし
I have never heard よし used in a sentance before, only as a standalone exclamation. Naomi’s seemed quite suprised at Peter’s translation… is that really what it means?
MexicanHat says:
January 4th, 2008 at 6:33 am
私も楽しみにしてます
Upper Intermediate will be good Keigo does not get enough exposure. Even my teacher said young Japanese these days do not know it 
Abrassart says:
January 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
It’s gonna be strange to not have Peter-san in the Newbie lesson anymore (I know, I know, my actual level is lower intermediate, but I still listen to Newbie because those lessons are so funny. I’m a big fan of Fabrizio )… 
katakanadian says:
January 25th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I love the idea of video vocab. I’d like to see it done in a more interesting/informative way than white text on a black background. You could photos of objects and places to show people who have never been to Japan what the Japanese versions look like. Kanji from labels and street scenes could be other sources. A basic example might be if there was a lesson on colours then you could show those that are typical of Japan such as the red used on torii, the jewel-like purple seen in shrines, the indigo used for tie-dye, the range of colour indicated by 青 (traffic lights, apples, trees), etc.
よろしく！
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Category: News |
Topic: 2008, new seasons | Politeness Level: wacky
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