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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! You picked up two Japanese boxed lunches on your way to work for yourself and your friend. When you picked up the lunches, you told the caterer in Japanese, “Just give me your best dishes.” You’ve always had good food from this place, so you figure it’s safe to offer to your Japanese friend. When you arrive at work, you join your friend in the conference room and tell him in Japanese, “Wait till you try this food! It’s always delicious.” Your friend opens the box and says in Japanese, “Well, I’m sure you’re right, but what is this?” You respond in Japanese, “What do you think it is?” Your colleague tells you in Japanese, “It looks like vegetables, but it smells like something else entirely. What do you have?” You reply in Japanese, “I don’t think I have the same thing…this looks entirely different. I guess we’ll have to try each other’s to find out what these things are and decide what tastes best.”

Learning Japanese with JapanesePod101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Japanese! This Japanese Newbie lesson will teach you how to ask what something is in informal Japanese. We’ll also teach you the proper responses in Japanese, including how to say whether something is good or bad. 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!

learn Japanese, discussing food


This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Newbie Season 5 . 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.

14 Responses to “Newbie Lesson S5 #5 - Whoa, What’s That in Your Japanese Lunchbox?”

JapanesePod101.com says:

みなさん、こんにちは!

Did this conversation (and picture!) make you hungry? ;) What kinds of food do you think are oishii/maa maa/imaichi?

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クリストフ says:

I don’t know ho many times you mentioned an email about reading the lesson notes while listening. I have a clear opinion on this topic. If you just want to be able to read Japanese than it is a good idea. But you won’t improve your listening capabilities this way. As a beginner or newbie your brain is much faster reading than listening so the spoken words are just an echo of what you already know. I think it’s a better idea to first listen without notes and than use the notes to see how much you got from just listening.

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J です says:

ケリストフ, if you’ll listen closely, it’s a recorded drop that they insert into the tape, they dont actually say it every time….
He may have a point, I listen while I work so I never read the notes at the same time (don’t want to get fired…) And I’ve noticed I can actually understand the newbie lessons and some of the beginner lessons the first time I hear them after listening to jpod for a year.

質問があります:I was told by someone who studied japanese in college and stayed in japan for a few years that if I say: まあまあ, I’ll sound like a 40 year old woman…But it’s in textbooks being said by guys too (jp 4 busy ppl).

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Naomi says:

J です-san
I bet the phrase your friend told you was a filler. まあ、まあ!(Pronunciation ま↓あ ま↓あ )
「まあ!」is an exclamation and it’s used to express the speaker’s surprise. When it’s doubled, as your friend mentioned it sounds feminine.
This まあまあ! can be translated as “Wow”.

The phrase we talked about in the lesson is totally different まあまあ( Pronunciation ま↑あま↓あ)
This まあまあ is basically an adverb (it could be a na-adjective) and means “so-so”. This can be used by both genders and all generation groups).

I hope this helps. :wink:

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Jason says:

こんばんは!
I can’t believe that this is the first time I’ve ever heard that there’s a word between まあまあ and まずい. What a wonderful discovery! There have definitely been times when I’ve wanted to say イマイチ, but I didn’t know it existed! And to discover this in a newbie lesson no less… Wow, maybe I should be a little embarrassed.
Anyway, thank you very much.

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J です says:

なおみ先生、おもしろいです。ありがとう。I’m going to make a note of that for later

Also, I like those arrows, but can’t figure out how to type them…..is there a shortcut for that (for Mac)? Or is it only on Japanese keyboards?

ありがとうございました

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Naomi says:

J です -san

I’m not a Mac user so I’m not sure if it works on Mac.
But this is how I usually do
1) Type やじるし (arrow) in Japanese.
2) Hit enter key
3) It will show ⇔ ↑ → ↓ ⇒ and so on. Choose the whatever the arrow you want.

I hope it helps. :wink:

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Dariat says:

(@ J-san: What Naomi-san described works on the Mac, too, but instead of pressing enter you have to press the spacebar twice in order to get the list of kanjis/symbols.)

I have a question: What’s the story behind 今一? How did “now” and “one” become “not very good”?

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Naomi says:

Dariatーsan
いまいち is a slag so I think it’s usually written in Hiragana or Katakana.
The original form is いま ひとつ なにかが たりない 
いま here is an adverb means “more” Maybe it’s similar to もう.
ひとつ is one
なにかがたりない is “something is missing”
So the phrase means いまひとつ なにかがたりない “One thing is missing”
and is used when something doesn’t meet the satisfaction of the speaker.
It’s usually shortened and said いまひとつ or いまいち

I hope this makes sense to you. :wink:

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Dariat says:

Thank you very much, Naomi-san. It makes perfect sense now. :smile:

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バレリイ says:

こんにちわ、
Naomi-san, I just wanted to say I’m really enjoying the new layout of the pdf. notes with questions. You all make it so easy. As for listening while reading the lesson notes, I’ve been trying to at least read the kanji before and not jump to romanji. I’m going to try listening first and see how that works out for me!

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Naomi says:

バレリイ-san
Thank you for the feedback!! :grin:
Guessing the reading and meaning of Kanji is what we(native speakers of Japanese) do, when we saw the Kanji we don’t know. :wink:
So trying to read Kanji before checking romaji is a really effective way for learning. :wink:

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Ruben says:

Hello,
Thanks for the lesson, lessons in japanesepod101 always have something new.

About the word いまいち,
could it be used for other things rather than food?
is it an adverb? for example we could say “まあまあすきです。” so can I use
いまいち in the same way?

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王凱 says:

山菜は何、
山の野菜。
へー、それは美味しい。
うん、、まあまあ、
ケントのは何、
カツカレー 、
それは美味しい。
いまいち。

それじあ。

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