Some of the things I’ve picked up from the katakana words I’ve seen are:

* Spell it like it sounds (if a word ends in an s, spell it with su or zu depending on how you pronounce it)

* Vowels followed by R drop the R and make the vowel long. For example, ARM becoms AAMU

* When you need a consonant use the “u” form (strong becomes su-to-ro-o-n-gu)

These are by no means hard and fast rules, but when in doubt, use the forums. There are a lot of people that will help you out more than I can. There’s even a topic for how you would write your name in Japanese.

Since I have a bit of experience typing エリック、 here are some tips:

-You get the little “tsu” in words by typing two of the same consonant in a row, ex. erikku = エリック　batta = バッタ (grasshopper)
-You can get the little tsu by itself with: xtu or xtsu = っ
-On a Mac, you can type straight to Katakana by holding “shift” while typing a word.

I’m glad you’re enjoying the lessons. Like Hiroko said, this is where you can get your questions answered, regardless of your subscription type. yoroshiku o-negai shimasu!

ありがとう　everyone!

エリツク　(haven’t quite figured out how to get the typing to do the little ツ character).

You are doing well. Technically speaking, it is arigatou (ありがとう) but Rikai-chan knows what you mean. Rikai-chan is probably the best web tool for reading Japanese you can get, and it’s free!

http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/

I assume that the last thing you were trying to do was type your name in Katakana?

エリク　(E-RI-KU) is probably the best way to write it, but a native speaker will be better to confirm that.

Fight on, Eric! Faito eriku-san! ファイトエリクさん！

Eventually things just start making more and more sense as you go on. The PDFs are invaluable learning tools, even if you only look at them for a little bit.

I really value the notes that I can read on my iPod touch as I listen — regular speed, slower, and in English. But I often wish that the basic vocab that’s covered (for instance, the months in this episode) were also included in the notes, so that I could see them in romaji and in hiragana or katakana. I’m a newbie, I’m JUST learning these kana symbols now and really need the reinforcement of both kinds of symbols. Kanji is just way beyond me. I’m not a premium member because I feel that it’s hard for me to dedicate the time to learning Japanese. I listen to the beginner and the newbie lessons that come in the feed, but the level of the newbie stuff is just right. I’m hoping to upgrade to the premium content, maybe as a Xmas present to myself. The fact that I’m actually learning stuff (I can COUNT TO 999 in Japanese!) amazes me; I think that the premium stuff will be worthwhile when I can afford it. The reason I can’t say the number to millions and billions is ’cause there were no notes about those higher numbers, and so the audio only just didn’t sink in.

My favourite season is Fall/autumn, but don’t ask me to remember what the vocab for that was! (not in the notes!)

ありがと　ございます　(arigato gozaimasu) — my first instance of typing hiragana on my mac! (or is it ありがとう? (not sure how I’ll ever remember when it’s a long vowel or not…)

Eric Armstrong

エリジュ　(I have no idea whether that’s right — I haven’t learned the Katakana yet! I guess one can trust your computer to translate romaji into kana???)

Eric is right!
今、11月です。10月じゃありません。
Ima, juuichi-gatsu desu. Juu-tatsu ja arimasen.

I’m sorry about the mistake.すみませんSumimasen

I like 冬(fuyu-winter) the best.

Charity san> 桜は本当にきれいですよね(Sakura wa hontou ni kirei desu yo ne)

Jacq san> 読書の秋ですね(dokusho no aki desu ne)　

バロンsan> Awww! Happy May 春が待ち遠しいですね！(Haru ga machidooshii desu ne!)