Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! You’re on your way to meet your new host family in Japan, and you’re nervous about meeting them. In fact, you’re fidgeting so much your taxi driver asks you in Japanese, “Are you feeling okay?” You assure him in Japanese, “Yes, I’m fine, just let me decompress from my travels,” but really, your mind is going a million miles a minute. You’ve heard other positive stories about staying in Japan from your friends who have done it before, and they all tell you they learned a ton of Japanese and made some great Japanese friends. You’re definitely looking forward to those two things-especially since your Japanese grade could use a little bit of help. However, you’re also worried about some cultural differences with the Japanese. You’re wondering whether your host family is going to take you to one of the Japanese public baths. It’s not like anything you’ve ever been to back home and the idea kind of creeps you out even though you know the Japanese are very meticulous and polite people. Oh well, you’re here at your Japanese host family’s house! You pay the cab driver, spring out of the cab, and knock on the front door…
Learning Japanese with JapanesePod101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Japanese! This Japanese Lower Intermediate lesson will describe several ways you can construct causative sentences in Japanese. We’ll also give you tips on which Japanese particle you should use depending on the sentence construction. Visit us at JapanesePod101.com where you will find many more fantastic Japanese lessons and learning resources! Leave us a message while you are there!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Lower Intermediate 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.
28 Responses to “Lower Intermediate Lesson S4 #25 - International Student Exchange in Japan”
Wednesday at 6:30 pm
みなさん,
Have you ever been an exchange student, in Japan or elsewhere? (Or even hosted an exchange student?)
Wednesday at 10:31 pm
I was an exchange student when I was 15. We went to holland for 3 weeks to learn about their culture and some of the language. It was interesting when we got back to school. We could all speak Dutch and we were all very into the dutch manners. Yes it was very interesting.
Wednesday at 11:18 pm
No never have would have been great though.
Thankfully theres student exchange. my Japanese friend
here in America was the first Nihonjin ive met.
we became good friends & he taught me some Japanese
in 1991. i asked him how do you say Hello in Japanese?
Konnichiwa “I can teach you Japanese”
he said. Glad he did i can at least say
I knew about 25-30 words in 1991. it was my introduction to the
Japanese Language
Thursday at 1:14 am
On page 8 of the notes for this lesson, in the Examples of +もらう
#1 uses もらう, whereas #3 uses もらえる
What’s the difference in meaning and why is #3 different?
Thursday at 3:35 am
Thanks for another great lesson!
Also, if you have extra time to send me the picture from the video testimonial, please send!
Thursday at 6:39 am
In fact I am planning on doing a full year exchange next year! I have been starting to study Japanese through multiple programs so it’s nice to see how the first meeting can be handled. Because I am kind of nervous! Well I hope I will learn a lot!
Thursday at 7:31 am
@Kaylee You learned to remember to not leave your bags/luggage in the taxi
Thursday at 10:24 am
皆さん、はじめまして。JapanesePod101.comの新しいスタッフのキャットです!これからよろしくお願いします(’-'*)♪!
sallyさん: Wow, The Netherlands! Dutch is one of the only European languages that has defeated my every effort to learn it… Good for you!
Raymasakiさん: So maybe you could say, if asked, that meeting your Japanese friend was the きっかけ (catalyst or reason) for you beginning to learn Japanese in earnest?
Steveさん: ありがとうございます! We’ll see about that picture!
Kayleeさん: おー、楽しみですね! Exchange is bar-none the BEST way to get fluent in a foreign language fast. Take it from me, you’ll love it! ♡
Ianさん: Ah, good question. The example you mentioned: 「店員に、好きな包装紙を選ばせてもらえる。」 actually uses the potential form (which expresses the meaning ‘can’ or ‘be able to’) of the verb もらう. So もらう→もらえる, literally ‘can receive’. I’m sorry, I’m new, so I’m not sure if you’ve studied this yet or not…? If you’d like to study the potential form of verbs in more detail, please have a look at the Grammar Bank page for it here: http://www.japanesepod101.com/learningcenter/reference/grammar/427.
In the example sentence, which is translated to ‘The store clerk lets me choose the wrapping paper’, its literal meaning is actually ‘You can be allowed to choose the wrapping paper you like by the store clerk”.
-させてもらえる therefore basically means ‘be allowed to do’ or, more formally, ‘be given the privilege of doing’. In a restaurant or shop, you will often hear the waitress/clerk using this construction with いただく in the place of もらう; there it’s almost a 敬語 (けいご, respect language) version of する. For example 「10%オフさせていただきます。」 which means literally ‘I’m given the privilege of taking 10% off [your bill etc].’
I hope that made things a bit clearer? Do let me know if you’d like a further explanation of anything else!
Friday at 12:43 am
yeah.i was an exchange student when i was in age 16 (2009).
that was so great.my dream become true because i was been choosen to japan.that what i want!!there’re a lot exciting moment till now playing around my mind.the most is when my host family was taking me to one of the Japanese public baths.
that was disgusting for those not use with that.but for me,the culture i thougt not all country got the same.in malaysia we are not allowed to done as i had done there.
Friday at 2:01 pm
fritz-san,
Did you like the Japanese public baths?
Saturday at 1:09 pm
You really have a very educational website.This is a very great opportunity to learn Japanese culture especially to me bex\cause im a japanese language teacher.Hope to receive more lessons from you.Thank you very much
Saturday at 3:27 pm
Mayumi san,
thanks for a good lesson.I want to become an exchange student of japanese language. Could I get a chance for exchange student programme. I have cleared sankyu level but for nikyu it was quite difficult for me to clear or pass the same level. But now i am trying to clear it by 2010. Or can i get some practive of talking japanese with some native japanese person so i think it will make a good practi ce. For listening japanese pod101 is a good site.
Please advise me reg exchange student programe.
Thanks
Ranjana
Thursday at 4:41 am
I hosted a really, really nice guy named Yuki. He is going to school at Tokyo International University right now, but studied abroad at the University of Arizona last spring and he stayed at my house. I would tell anybody who can host a Japanese student to do it. You will learn SOOOO much and it’s kind of funny what you have to do sometimes to get across what you’re trying to say. lol.
Monday at 9:05 pm
Hello everybody!
Thanks to this website and a premium account I’m enjoying and improving my japanese !
This lesson surprised me… cause I’m actually looking for a host family in Tokyo ^^
I’m now working in Paris for a big japanese company in Finance and soon coming back to tokyo to study at university…
Please feel free to contact me if you know some host families
Thank you ! ^^
Tuesday at 2:32 pm
sebusiness-san,
Glad to know that you are enjoying our lessons! I hope that you’ll find great host families soon!
Wednesday at 4:32 pm
Thank you ^^
Monday at 11:39 pm
Also I really like this lesson, especially Yuuich sensei was talking about the milk after bath, make me feel like to try once now! I like Yuuich sensei a lot, his pronunciation is really great and clear!
Tuesday at 2:55 pm
Nickさん
コメントありがとうございます!ぜひ、お風呂のあとの冷たい牛乳を試してくださいね
おいしいですよ☆
Thursday at 10:49 am
I was an exchange student when I was 15. I stayed with a family in Atami for two weeks. That same year, we hosted a girl from Tokyo at our house. This second girl and I are still in touch! She practices her English with me, and I practice my Japanese with her. I say “girl”…. this was in 1971, so we are both obasans now!
YEARS later, our family did a direct exchange with a boy from Hokkaido. He stayed at our place, and the following year, our son stayed at his place (both for about 8-10 days). It was a great experience, and brought back many memories from when I was a teenager.
Thursday at 1:18 pm
タネ-san
いいですね~。いいホストファミリーに出会えると、ホームステイは最高ですよね。
Wednesday at 1:02 am
I did a one-year exchange in Kagoshima and just came back in September last year.
It was awesome! The fact that I went to Kagoshima helped me even more because most of the locals do not speak English so I had to make myself understood in Japanese. I went there 10 points away from passing JLPT 3 and I left with a JLPT 2 certificate!
I used to struggle with lower intermediate lessons, and now I can pretty much understand upper intermediate and the audio blogs
For those interested, you can visit my blog for stories regarding my one-year stay in Kagoshima:
http://kagojen.blogspot.com/
Wednesday at 7:50 am
I want to comment on the question near the beginning of the podcast: “Do you read the notes while you listen?” In addition to being a student of Japanese, I teach ESL and I have a pretty strong opinion on this: It’s NOT a good idea.
Reading and listening are two very different modalities (how’s that for lingo?). Reading is generally easier than listening, because the reader can set the pace, go back and reread parts, and so on. A lot of students have much better reading than listening skills, so if you do both at the same time, the listening becomes more background noise than anything. If you are able to listen and read at the same time, then either you have an unusual skill set, or the lesson is really too easy for you.
I do often recommend reading the lesson first, as this will prepare you for what’s to come, and you’ll be more likely to be able to follow the whole conversation and not get lost half way. Then, listen without reading. Then read again, to confirm that you understood everything (or, at least most of it; or, at least, the points you want to focus on). Then listen again, and again, and again. Then, repeat the whole thing.
This is not just my opinion, by the way, as it’s supported by a fair bit of research. Don’t ask me for citations though - it’s too long ago that I was studying this stuff and I don’t have time to look it all up again.
Wednesday at 8:11 pm
Great lesson. I went on exchange to japan for 3 months in 2008 when i was 16. It was amazing. I made great friends and loved it so much i went back to the same school again in 2009. i love it there. I learnt so much!
Wednesday at 8:13 pm
Oh yeh, and i find i don’t like reading at the same time because I struggle with some kanjis and tend to focus too much on them rather than what is being said. Just my opinion.
Friday at 11:48 pm
Thanx for a great lesson! I think I’d prefer some ice tea after my bath though.
Sunday at 5:18 am
質問ー 日本人は「ユーモアのかんかく」と言いますか? ちがう言葉がもっといいですか?
(In other words, how do I say ’sense of humor’ in Japanese
Monday at 10:13 am
lisbet-san
Sense of humorは 「ユーモアのセンス」です。
Monday at 11:37 am
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