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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Newbie Season 4 . 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.
20 Responses to “Newbie Lesson S4 #15 - Counting on You”
Saturday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, Have you ever been to Tokyo tower? If you haven’t, what’s the tallest building in your country?
Saturday at 10:23 pm
What happened to the video vocabulary??? Has it been discontinued? Will it be coming back?
In Canada the tallest building is the CN Tower. In Kyoto, the tallest building is Kyoto Tower, I mention that as it is where I live now.
Sunday at 1:05 am
I have been to Tokyo tower. In the U.S. I have been to the Empire State Building in New York City and the Sears tower in Chicago. I believe the Sears Tower is the tallest building in the U.s.
Sunday at 2:33 am
Phil-san,
The video vocab is still a premium content feature. Apologies for the delay.
Regarding Tokyo Tower, I went there just a few weeks ago. It was really a nice view, especially for the price (free).
Sunday at 12:34 pm
I swear I thought the empire state building is the tallest although since I am a californian I might be off. The sears tower, if I remember correctly, has the most floors, 102 of them to be exact.
Monday at 5:22 am
aggressive numbers. 1.2.3.4.5
Monday at 8:53 am
I haven’t been to the Tokyo Tower yet! In Brazil, the tallest building is called Mirante do Vale. You can take a look here: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirante_do_Vale It’s residential and commercial!
Monday at 2:12 pm
Tokyo Tower is really impressive at night when it’s lit up, but I’m excited about the new tower: Tokyo Sky Tree. It’s going to be roppyaku-juu me-toru high, and according to computer models of it, it will look pretty slick and futuristic.
http://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Sky_Tree
Have any of you been to the Petronas Twin Towers or Taipei 101?
Monday at 6:36 pm
こんにちわ みなさん
in germany its quite common that people name their 6-digit telephone numbers as two groups of 3-digit numbers.
so, 123456 would be read as onehundredtwenbtythree - fourhundredfiftysix.
do you do that as well in japanese?
regards
トマス
Tuesday at 12:22 am
The Eiffel Tower is much more impressive, being much older than the Tokyo Tower (and the Tokyo Tower is just the Eiffel Tower paint in red).
Tuesday at 11:39 am
@Thomas- Japanese phone numbers are pretty tricky. A usual phone number in Japan is made of a regional code, a local code, and the customer number. Usually, you read a phone number in groups of each code (as individual digits, not in hundreds, like in Germany). The problem is that regional codes vary in length:
90, 80, 70 - mobile phones
3 - Tokyo (23 wards)
1655 - some places in Hokkaido
etc.
For landlines, the rule is that regional code + local code equals 5 digits. So a phone number in tokyo would be written/read as 03-1234-5678 (you’re supposed put a zero in the beginning for all domestic calls). A number in some places in Hokkaido could be 01655-1-2345. Like I said, tricky. It’s best to see how they write numbers where you live and go along with that.
@Venom- Yeah, I used to think that Tokyo Tower was just a knockoff of the Eiffel Tower, and although in some ways it is, it’s still breathtaking to see something so huge in such a cramped city.
Wednesday at 8:12 am
Eric-san
Do you have any tips on pronouncing rolling “r’s” in Japanese? I find certain sounds difficult to differentiate when I try the voice recording — yo and ryo, ro and do, ra and da, re and de etc. I look forward to traveling to Japan next month. Ooto-ya de tabete mitai desu.
Arigatou gozaimasu,
Steve from St. Louis
Thursday at 12:52 am
@stlsamurai- Steve-san, this is a great question for the Q&A bonus episode Naomi-sensei and I are planning for the end of the season. But since that episode is about two months away, I’ll try explain as best I could right here. There is a ton of linguistics jargon related to pronunciation, but I’ll try to explain it in plain English. The difference between ら・れ・ろ(ra,re,ro) and だ・で・ど(da,de,do) is is in the tip of your tongue; you put the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth when saying the r’s, and you broadly flatten your tongue against the roof of your mouth for the d’s. That’s the gist of it. I’ll go into super detail on how to do this in the next paragraph.
Now, very slowly, say “doe” out loud. I want you to notice where your tongue is when you say it (should be against the roof of your mouth near the front). Now say “low.” Your tongue should be further back. To say the Japanese ろ(ro), position your tongue right in between the “doe” and “low” positions, and with just the tip, try to say a really light “doe”, minus the heavy thump for the “D” sound, and minus the final “u” sound that creeps in to the hard English “O.” Your tongue should gently flick forward as you say it. That’s ろ(ro). For ど(do), use the standard “doe” tongue position (roof of mouth / front) and give it a nice “D” thump, but not as big as if you were saying an English “D.” Your D-thump should sound like a mix between ‘doe’ and ‘toe.’
Once you have this down. you should be able to say ら(ra) and だ(da)without a problem. れ(re) and で(de)are tough though. The tongue does the same thing, but it’s probably the vowel sound that throws off English speakers. Try connecting your D-thumps and R-thumps to the soft ‘e’ sound from “breakfast” or “egg” as practice. For りょ(ryo) and りゅ(ryu), follow your thumps by a very very short “yo” or “you,” respectively.
Practice these in front of a mirror, and then test yourself again on the recording tool. Let me know how it goes Steve.
For those of you who are interested in studying Japanese pronunciation even deeper, I recommend this fantastic book called 「日本語の発音教室:Introduction to Japanese Pronunciation - Theory and Practice」published by Kurosio. It’s only in Japanese, but you’ll be able to read it if you’re at an intermediate level. Not to worry if your reading is not there yet, listening closely to Naomi-sensei is just as good a substitute.
Friday at 9:33 am
Eric-san,
That was a very helpful explanation. I’ll practice those tips.
Arigato gozaimasu,
Steve from St. Louis
Sunday at 12:23 pm
The advice is interesting and there are still many issues for further discussion. Anyway, if the melon is not sweet…
Friday at 11:03 am
Muzukashii desu! Three digit numbers are hard.
Does anyone know when the Tokyo Sky Tree will be finished?
Sunday at 2:34 pm
I cannot find the bonus track that they mentioned. I also wish that the content quizzes were in Romanji, as at this level we are really learning listening comprehension and basic speaking, not reading skills.
Friday at 5:36 am
水きさん、あれはなんですか。
どれですか。
あれです。
あれは東京とわいです、三百三十三メートルです。
へい。あれは何ですか。
あれはサンサイン六十です。
また明日。
Tuesday at 2:47 pm
Hi,everyone!
Could anyone, please, explain me what is Sunshine 60 from the dialogue? Thanks~~~
Wednesday at 10:59 am
mashita -san
Here’s the information about Sunshine 60.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_60
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