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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Extra Fun . 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.
13 Responses to “Premium Lesson #25 - Practicing Priestess”
Saturday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, have you been to a shrine? Where is your favorite one?
Saturday at 9:45 pm
Another great lesson! I went to Kotohira last year and made the climb to Konpira-san and also the Izutama Shrine at the very top. It was a wonderful experience and so peaceful, I wanted to sit there all day.
Is there a reason why shrines are painted with the bright orange (vermilion?) color.
Someone told me once but I can’t remember. Does anyone know?
Anyway, I recommend everyone visit Konpira-san. It’s worth every step!
Sunday at 12:33 am
bobさん
There are several theories that explain why shrines are painted with that color, but we still don’t have a definite one. One of the reasons is that this color was believed to have the power to keep off evil spirits.
This color is called 朱色(shu-iro) or 丹色(ni-iro). It’s yellowish red and in the old days only people of high rank were allowed to use. This is probably one of the reasons too.
Sunday at 4:54 am
I know it is a stupid question, I know it was mentioned in one of the lessons, but I couldn’t remember which one, can someone kindly tell me what だろう is again?
Sunday at 5:07 am
Nori-san
Thank you! Both theories sound like good ones. Very interesting. It makes me wonder if it was a color that was particularly hard to produce like from a rare mineral or something and only wealthy or high ranking individuals could afford it. Something like that, ya know? Also thanks for telling me the name, I never knew what to call it.
Sunday at 5:26 am
Waterman-san
It’s not stupid. I hope my answer is right. I’m kind of new at this but I think darou is the plain form of deshou and is used with a verb to express the idea that something will probably happen or not happen. As in “kuru darou” - will probably come or ” konai darou” - will probably not come etc. It can also be used to say things like “I guess so and so” or “I wonder so and so”.
Sunday at 6:13 am
Interesting lesson, like people have said before, I think these lessons are definitely suited to culture. Now that every lesson has a picture, maybe the S&S could have several extra ones available to subscribers or something. Like today you could have had pictures of the talismans and garments, and other areas of the shrine. If you pick a historical spot or somewhere with some cultural relevance like today’s choice, the pictures and the lesson content can help to teach us some interesting history or culture.
As Bob said, だろう is used to express conjecture, but it’s not limited to verbs. Some more examples:
学生だっただろう。
He was probably a student.
そのステーキは高いだろう。
That steak is probably expensive.
You can also use it with rising intonation as a tag question similar to ね, but a bit softer.
僕が好きだろう。
You like me, right?
Another use is to soften a question, which is common in very polite speech. It sort of adds a nuance of ‘I wonder’, rather than a direct question like ですか. You often hear Naomi use this construction.
お元気でしょうか。
How are you (I wonder)?
Oh, and the two expressions Bob mentioned are:
そうだろうね。
I guess so / that’s probably true.
どうだろうね。
I wonder.
Sunday at 8:30 am
I can’t thank Naomi-san enough for all the good mnemonics on kanji.
It usually helps me a lot remembering those. I was reading another PDF today and when I saw the word “okusan” I immediately remembered Naomi’s explanation about the kanji for tooth… with the rice stopped on the tooth.
Thank you again for the great lesson!
Monday at 1:11 am
僕は浅草神社と日枝神社だけ行きました。
Monday at 7:34 am
神社、 神宮、 大社、についての説明どうもありがとうございました。 勉強になりました。
今年の夏、平安神宮にも伏見稲荷大社にも、色々な神社に行くつもりですから楽しみにしています。
Monday at 1:38 pm
I’m getting several broken links for the podcast feed. This time it’s for the video file. Are any of you also encountering the same problem?
Monday at 3:38 pm
Mina-san
コメントありがとうございました。Thank you for all the comments!!
タネ-san
You are going to Heian-Shrine??? Wow….いいなぁ・・・。I love Kyoto!
あ、、、でも、京都の夏は暑いですよ!!Enjoy your trip!!
Tuesday at 6:08 pm
btw - video vocab for this lesson will be available in a few days!
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