







Learn Japanese at JapanesePod101.com! One of the most delicious foods in Japan is unagi (sometimes called freshwater eel in English). They begin their life in the sea and migrate to Japan to hang out in the rivers and lakes. In today’s two young unagi are discussing their plans after graduation. Our grammar point is using the -masu stem plus hajimeru/hajimaru and oeru/owaru to indicate starting and finishing actions, respectively. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Lessons (S3) . 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.
27 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #178 - B3: Unagi Road Trip 1”
Tuesday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, seems like these unagi will get off to a nice start. Japan is far away from where they are now, but soon they’ll get there. But what will the unagi do when they arrive? Hang out in Shibuya? Go snowboarding in Niigata? Rave out in Izu? Get factory jobs in Nagoya? Oh the future is looking good for our 2 little unagi friends!
Tuesday at 7:26 pm
Unagi are great……………………………………………….. for eating!
As for your question, if these unagi are like the staff of JapanesePod, they’ll probably go hang out at a maid cafe and say 萌え a lot.
Great story idea!
Tuesday at 8:09 pm
That’s surely an option sTeVe-san!!
Knowing the way plots in JPOD turn out, it’s gonna be something really interesting. I liked the idea of making a “unagi” conversation!!
Tuesday at 9:15 pm
I love unagi too !!! It’s delicious ! That’s why I’m a bit worried about Unakichi’s family: they all went to Japan, but did they ever come back ???
Maybe they found jobs at a sushi restaurant …
Tuesday at 9:35 pm
Japanese Culture Classの鰻弁の第一課ですか.
Tuesday at 11:01 pm
They better not come to Hiroshima, or I will eat them
Maybe the unagi will do some ナンパ、and japanese 101.com can give us a ナンパ lesson 
去年の10月に聞き始めた。でも、最初から、beginner lessonをしています。まだ120番ぐらいできました。
Tuesday at 11:27 pm
I’ve had unagi before - too fatty. But, I’m afraid that these unagi-tachi won’t last long in Japan once they’re discovered. Unagi-don!
Wednesday at 1:57 am
Peter upgraded to sensei? That conversation is so hilarious.
Wednesday at 1:59 am
By the way, where is the audio book you all talked about?
Wednesday at 2:13 am
It sounded like you really put the voice actors under water!
I never tried unagi before, but they sound so cute, I don’t think I can eat them now.
Wednesday at 4:18 am
Well, they can already speak Japanese, so maybe going to Japan will work out okay for them. They might be disappointed that they’re a couple of hundred years too late to see a samurai though
おじさん/おばさん can be used about middle-aged men/women in general as well. I’ve heard a more offensive version which you get by taking out the さ to make おじん/おばん which is like old geezer/old hag
Wednesday at 6:52 am
hello there , funny lesson today
i wonder what a male unagi thinks when he sees a very succulent unagi female
oishisoo ?
Wednesday at 7:27 am
Two unagi backpackers on the way to Asia?

I’m sure they’re gonna have a great time.
Sounds like Kyoto would be their thing? Maybe they
can catch some nice festival too.
クレア, I sure hope their family made it back safely.
Sounds like they keep telling those Japan stories to
their children (sitting around their little underwater campfires).
Just stay clear of onsen, guys …:???:
Wednesday at 2:10 pm
I don’t like the commercials in 2 places in the podcast. I like to listen to Jpod while I’m out and about, but if I have to start fiddling around in the middle to fast forward over a 2nd commercial, I’ll just stop putting the podcasts on my ipod.
It’s bad enough that there’s no way to avoid the advertisements on the main page and that new people don’t know there’s anything else hiding behind the ads, but two ads for some annoying other company is bad.
Wednesday at 3:12 pm
at the end of the week that ad will disappear from the podcast and you can re-download an ad-free version
Wednesday at 10:08 pm
From the very beginning I enjoyed almost every lesson of japanesepod101, but I must agree with “frustrated”. Please let it not become a habit. Commercials in the middle of a lesson are very disturbing if you want to replay a passage.
Thursday at 2:42 am
don’t worry, it’s not a habit.
and you can re-download the file next after 7 days without the ad in it.
we stay basically 99.9% ad free all the time.
but your irritation is noted and will be considered, we don’t want to annoy our listeners.
that said… UNAGI!!!!!!!!!
i wanna eat one
Thursday at 2:42 am
Thanks for the lovely song “medaka no gakkou”.
I found the lyrics somewhere on the web.
It would be nice if someone could translate it or even better if japanesepod could do a (culture) lesson on japanese children songs.
めだかの学校 (A school of killifish)
めだかの学校は 川の中
そっとのぞいて みてごらん
そっとのぞいて みてごらん
みんなでおゆうぎ しているよ
めだかの学校の めだかたち
だれがせいとか せんせいか
だれがせいとか せんせいか
みんなで元気に 遊んでる
めだかの学校は うれしそう
みずに流れて つーいつい
みずに流れて つーいつい
みんながそろって つーいつい
Thursday at 3:21 am
>>>if japanesepod could do a (culture) lesson on japanese children songs.
tomorrow we’re recording sakura-san singing childrens songs…
i feel like we just mind melted…
Thursday at 4:22 pm
Thank you for the reply and the information, Japanesepod101 person. It saves me from having to try to edit the file in Garageband.
For the record, I never minded the sponsor announcements for Airclarin (or however it was spelled) in the early days. You need to make money and something brief and tasteful is understandable. It’s just that other annoying company has ruined many podcasts by insisting (apparently based on the empiric evidence) that their long winded sponsorships appear at the beginning and in the middle of podcasts.
I have stopped subscribing to some podcasts because of the intrusive “sponsorship announcements” by that company.
Although I’m not a paid member just now I have recommended this podcast and Spanishpod101 to many people. I have all episodes from the very beginning. I hope to keep listening. Thanks.
Thursday at 4:51 pm
うなぎもおいしいですが、「うなぎパイ」というお菓子も美味しいですよ。
Unagi mo oishii desu ga, “Unagi-pai” to iu okashi mo oishii desu yo.
I love Unagi(as food). There’s a snack called Unagi-pie. It’s yummy.
Thursday at 5:59 pm
Seems to me if you’re not a paid subscriber, you can’t really complain too much about an ad. I mean, it’s not like you’re paying to support their hard work.
But I’m definitely glad to hear the ad is not permanent because you are right about the ad in the middle of the lesson… that was annoying.
Thursday at 8:50 pm
Well, with audiobook, they don’t have much choice. They must have something in the middle of the podcast.
Meybe it could be a little bit shorter. Like one line.
Or make comments about books talking about Japan an Japanese inside the audiobook library.
Friday at 4:18 am
I agree with Steve that freeloaders hardly have the right to complain, and the fact that his first contribution to the site is about something like this speaks volumes
Putting advertisements mid-lesson is only going to frustrate people, which probably makes the lessons less effective, so maybe this company should rethink its marketing strategy. The short messages at the start and end of the lessons before were much more tasteful and to the point.
Friday at 1:19 pm
I hope our heroes don’t end up on a dinner plate.
Maybe it’ll be a finding nemo kind of a deal…
Thursday at 8:01 am
Unagi daisuki desu! tabe dasu!
Wednesday at 7:56 pm
Tsugi no Nihon ryouko, Unagi ga tabetai desu.
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