Start Learning Japanese at JapanesePod101.com! Ever since he was shot down by Mi Yeon, Shu’s been a little more depressed than usual. Today Fabrizio finds him and tells him about his plans to go to Shikoku for a crazy party. Today’s grammar is conjugation of the polite past of verbs (-mashita). We’ll also introduce the four cardinal directions (kita, minami, higashi, nishi) and talk about how to use word order to give sentences more nuance. This is an important one, so you don’t want to miss out. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Newbie 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.
Mina-san, if Shu-san was your friend, how would you cheer him up?
Fabrizio’s crazy party on Shikoku ? Be afraid…. Be VERY afraid… Though it would probably do Shu some good
I’d probably try to get him to up out for some coffee, or a drink in a nice bar, but he seems too far gone for that…
I’ve taken a new, belated new year resolution: I won’t ever sigh again !
Lovely, these small idiomatic excursions. However I sighed a lot before I found the exact expression in a dictionary:
溜め息を つくと 幸せが 逃げる (ためいきを つくと しあわせが にげる)
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
It would be of a great help if you could include some of the “conversational extra’s” in the pdf. Thanks in advance.
I believe saying “Bless you” goes back to the time when the Plague was rife, as sneezing was a symptom of catching the Plague which frequently frequently ended in death
Until a couple of years ago, I’d always thought people were saying ‘plesshu’ as some sort of set phrase, and I’m 22
I was even saying it myself, although not very often since it’s pretty annoying when people do that
Isn’t Shikoku EAST of Kyushu? Or is this why Shuu says “tabun,” because he’s not sure?
Hahaha, I just checked a map
![]()
I guess that IS why he said たぶん
Yeah, I just came to this page about that.
While listening to the lesson, I was like: “What the heck, this is wrong, Shikoky is east”.
But because the teachers didn’t say anything, I started to doubt myself. I was trying to visualize a map of Japan with Shikoko on the West in every position possible, but it didn’t work.
Well, it’s lucky they put a “Tabun!” at the end of the conversation, but the teachers should have corrected this wrong information in the comments…
>>Well, it’s lucky they put a “Tabun!”
it’s not just lucky. it was on purpose… ![]()
naomi sensei was trying to show the effectiveness of たぶん in a passive way, because it will come up in future newbie lessons!
四国は九州の西にありません。四国は九州の東にあります。
Shikoku wa Kyushu no nishi ni arimasen. Shikoku wa Kyushu no higashi ni arimasu.
>>the teachers should have corrected this wrong information in the comments…
Actually, レベッカ and I did make comments about the wrong information in the lesson, but that part was badly damaged and couldn’t use it. We have already retook that part and should be up by …I don’t know the exact date, but very soon.(depending on how busy Marky is)
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
I believe saying “Bless you” goes back to the time when the Plague was rife, as sneezing was a symptom of catching the Plague which frequently frequently ended in death
I always heard it was because when you sneeze your heart momentarily stops. I have no idea if that’s even true or if that’s the origin of “bless you.”
Category: Newbie Lessons |
Grammar: mashita, cardinal directions, conjugation | Function: describing location | Topic: Shikoku, word order | Politeness Level: Polite
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