Mina-san, Have you ever been to Tokyo tower? If you haven’t, what’s the tallest building in your country?

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.

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.

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!

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

@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.

@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.

The advice is interesting and there are still many issues for further discussion. Anyway, if the melon is not sweet…