Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Traveling is always so confusing. Going places is fun, but it’s so easy to get lost. And with all the confusion, hustle, and bustle going on around you - it’s enough to drive one to distraction. You ask a clerk at the airport in Tokyo in Japanese, “Where can I find my gate?” However, as you make your way through the crowd, you’ve already forgotten the new Japanese words the Japanese clerk said about the gate. Did he say the clock “is” the gate in Japanese? Or did he say the clock is to the “left of the gate” in Japanese? Maybe he said it is to the “right of the gate” in Japanese. You’ve got to find the correct gate because you’ve already given the clerk your luggage; your luggage will get on board, but that’s no good if you’re not. Is there time to go back and ask directions again? Will the clerk think you’re a fool for asking directions after he told you already? What to do? What to do? Wait, there’s a sign for your gate. Whew! That’s a relief. You might just be able to do this traveling thing after all.
Learning Japanese with JapanesePod101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Japanese! This Japanese Newbie lesson is all about placement. You have to be able to tell others where things are in Japanese and understand others when they tell you where things are in Japanese as well. That’s why you’ll want to check out this Japanese lesson that will help you with those tricky Japanese constructions for “above” and “below,” “in” and “out,” “left and right,” and more. 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!
Review
|
Play
|
Popup
Dialog
|
Play
|
Popup
Video Vocab | Watch
Premium Learning Center
Premium Lesson Checklist
Audio
|
Play
|
Popup
Lesson Notes
Kanji Close-Up
Lesson Notes Lite
Basic Lesson Checklist












This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Newbie Season 3 . 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.
30 Responses to “Newbie Lesson S3 #7 - Nihongo Dōjō - Are You in Just the Right Place in Japan?”
Monday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, Shikoku is the home of old the feudal domain of Tosa. Many samurai who played important roles in the last days of the Shogunate. The most famous of whom are Sakamoto Ryoma, Takechi Hanpeita and Yamanouchi Toyoshige. Sakamoto Ryoma is particularly loved in Japan for his vision and patriotism.
Monday at 7:02 pm
Mina-san, there is a temporary glitch and the PDF’s won’t open correctly in iTunes. We’re working on this and should have the problem resolved soon. You can still download them or view directly from the site with no problem. Sorry for any inconvenience!
Monday at 8:35 pm
The Kitty-chan Yakuza guys are back? I didn’t see that coming! As Marky says “aw yeah!”
Monday at 8:35 pm
… and I thought we were going to find out the secret of the over-staffed ramen-ya
Monday at 11:57 pm
thanks for the historical comment on Shikoku !
And maybe the ramen-ya is over-staffed because all the customers fled to Shikoku ? Or they are stuck at the airport ?
Tuesday at 1:23 am
Wow, it’s been a long time. おひさしぶりですね。。私は韓国語を勉強しているから忙しかった。 ちょっと大変だったね。でも、japanesepod が大好きなので帰りなくちゃいけません
Tuesday at 1:38 am
The audio track number is not right. It is 62, not 63. May someone correct it. Thanks
Tuesday at 1:54 am
I realized something funny about the background sound of the dialog. At the end of the dialog, something seems to break…and then someone seems to get “angry”….just guessing only. Wonder if anyone notice that?
Tuesday at 2:06 am
According to Wiki it’s called southpaw because (baseball) batters face east, so a left-handed pitcher’s arm will be aiming south as he winds up to throw. I’ve never heard it used in a baseball game (although I’ve only seen 20 or so), it seems to have been taken over by boxing. You hear it all the time, both about lefties, and righties who switch stance ‘fighting southpaw’. I always thought it was because the usually leading (right) hand is down low in a lefty stance.
I commented on Naomi’s pronunciation before when she said すごい with a hard ご. I read that it was a Tokyo dialect thing, I didn’t know people just chose how they wanted to say it. I try to do it the nasal way, since I sound a bit more natural doing it like that. I picked it up from Sachiko and Yoshikai. If anybody else prefers this way, the rule is が-row sounds *within* a word and the particle が itself. You still use a hard sound for starting syllables.
Tuesday at 2:51 am
I noticed a small error in the lesson’s pdf. On page 4, under positional word examples it says 椅子の上, and next to that is says in hiragana いすのした and the english translation says under the chair. The kanji should read: 椅子の下。
Otherwise, another great lesson.
Tuesday at 4:56 am
watermanさん、
I’m sure Marky was counting on you noticing that.
ジャービジさん、
While boxing adopted southpaw, it is definitely still used for baseball. In fact, with boxing’s decline in popularity, I’m sure it’s used more often in baseball settings.
Also, I think you’re safe going with なおみさん’s pronunciation.
Tuesday at 6:18 am
i’ve always had difficulties undertanding the intros but today’s bonus sounded like , im sorry to say this
gibberish can someone really understand that ?
Tuesday at 9:38 am
I could understand 50% or more of it. Sounded very yakuza to me. BTW - they are writing the intro scripts in the PDF these days. I think it’s great, the intros really challenge me hurry up and progress so one day I don’t have to read the PDF. Still have a little bit of work to do!
Tuesday at 10:48 am
track numbering has been updated
Tuesday at 12:34 pm
みなさん こんにちは Mina-san Konnichi wa.
みなさんは、右ききですか? 左ききですか?
Mina-san wa migi-kiki desu ka? Hidari kiki desu ka?
Are you right-handed or left-handed?
ジョン-san
Thank you so much for pointing out!!!
The mistake in the PDF has been corrected.
Thursday at 7:28 am
私は左利きです。でも、金然に左利きじゃありません。書く事とか食べる事など左手を使いますが、右手で使う事もかなりありますよ。例えば、マウスを持つ事とか、ギーターを弾く事とか。ちょっと変ですよね。ま、私は全然構いません。自然に使える手を使えばいいんですから。
左利きバンザイ!
Friday at 4:04 am
Sunday at 2:26 pm
Southpaw (paw = hand as the “paw” of an animal) was originally ascribed to left-handed pitchers only, for the reason already indicated; “batter facing East, pitcher throwing with the arm / hand that faces South. Over the years the expression has mutated to mean almost any left-handed activity and / or left-handed person. This explanation of Southpaw was given to me over 60 years ago as a youngster, an extremely avid baseball fan.
Sunday at 2:34 pm
PS to my above comments: During my youth “Southpaw” was used exclusively to mean a Left-Handed baseball pitcher (or person); it was seldom used to describe any other Left-Handed activity until the relatively recent past. This should be taken with a ” grain of salt”. The reporter is relying on a memory that now exceeds 77 years.
Monday at 3:06 pm
Oh… why doesn’t the Video-Vocab appear in the learning center? I am entering new lessons there and just right now I have found this item by a coincidence
.
And I am wondering what you mean with “intros”. I have read the passages in the pdf’s, but where are they on the audio-tracks
?
Tuesday at 10:07 am
Kobukuro-san,
Sorry for the inconvenience about the Video-vocab.
I’ll see if we can have it appear in the learning center. Also, we don’t have “intro” audio-tracks any more. Sorry again for confusing you.
Tuesday at 3:22 pm
Mayumi-san,
thank yo u for your reply
! The Video-vocab in the learning center would be great
!
I am a little bit sad because of the missing intro’s, but I am looking forward to great new lessons
!
Thursday at 10:39 am
“Southpaw” is a boxing term. But in general it could also be used to describe anyone who is left-handed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southpaw_stance
Tuesday at 4:08 pm
what’s different between these sentence
Thing + は + place + に + ある
Person/Place + (に)は + thing + が + ある
Wednesday at 11:24 am
weal5300
I’d say there’s no major difference in the meaning.
It’s just that the thing the speaker wants to put a focus on becomes a subject and followed by wa or ga.
Tuesday at 11:08 pm
次のお客様。こちらへどうぞ。チケットをお願いします。荷物はいくつですか。
一つです。
出発はゲートBです。あそこに大きい時計があります。
あの大きい時計の後ろにゲートBがあります。
どうも。
じゃ、後で。
Monday at 1:05 pm
直美先生、
It depends: いつ私は食べます、右ききです。でも、いつ投げます、左ききです。
When I eat, I am right handed. But when I throw, I am left handed.
I write left handed too now that I think about it. も、私は右きき書きます。
Monday at 3:57 pm
マイ-san
ありがとうございます。
マイさんは「両きき」ですね!*Ryou-kiki=both handed.
“when” as in “at the time when” is “とき ;toki” in Japanese and unlike English, it follows the clause.
ex)食べるとき、右ききです。[taberu toki migikiki desu ] When I eat, I’m right-handed.
投げるとき、左ききです。[ nageru toki hidari kiki desu ] When I throw, I’m left-handed.
The usage of “toki” is covered in beginner series season 5 lesson 12. Please also check that lesson.
Monday at 10:09 pm
Naomi-san,
あ〜、そうですね! I was wondering about that!
Somehow, what I typed just didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know how else to go about it.
ありがとうございました!!!
Monday at 10:46 pm
すみません。I meant, 直美先生。I realized after I submitted it.
ありがとうございました。
Leave a Reply