Best friends with a person you’ve never met in real life?

The arrival of social networks and e-mail enabled cellphones brought a new phenomenon to Japan, the merutomo (e-mail friend). People find new friends, but sometimes you can even find your soulmate! Find out what kind of friendship is developing in this story!

We’re learning an important grammar point, both which involve the particle no being used as a nominalizer. We’ll take a look at how to nominalize Japanese verbs (similar to a gerund in English), and we’ll look at the construction noun + particle + no.

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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! You return from a wonderful trip to Japan, and coming home is as good as the trip. Isn’t that the way it always is. Travel is great, but coming home is even better. Especially when the trip was to see some of the best sights of Japan with your Japanese girlfriend. Can’t beat that. It’s also fun to talk about your Japanese adventure with your friends. They get to enjoy your trip to Japan vicariously. They ask in Japanese, “Tell us all about your trip. Where did you go? How was the weather?” Happily, you reply in Japanese, “Oh, we went all over the area where her parents live. It’s very scenic and the weather was very good.” You hear a question from behind you and you know who’s asking it before you turn around. Your friend asks in Japanese, “What did you eat…and did you bring everyone, um, souvenirs?” Yeah, he’s always interested in the food. He knows every food term in Japanese. Sometimes he forgets easy words, but never if it has to do with food. You explain in Japanese, “We had great Japanese food at several places. We had udon and tempura and this fabulous Ichiroku-tart I brought back with me. Everyone must try it.” Everyone chimes in as they grab a portion of the Japanese delicacy, “Thank you very much. I can’t wait. It is fabulous.” The wonders of Japanese food.

Learning Japanese with JapanesePod101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Japanese! This Japanese Newbie lesson is about the language of Japanese travel. Learn casual Japanese conversation words such as “weather,” “souvenir,” and “everyone.” Your friends, whether Japanese or not, will want to hear all about your Japanese travels. We will also review the adjectival te-form, i-adjectives, na-adjectives, and the polite past and non-past Japanese verbs. After this lesson, you will be ready to move on to our Japanese Beginner lessons! 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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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Apparently, in addition to Japanese beer, your Japanese girlfriend’s father is also a lover of udon and tempura. He stops at the udon shop most every week. So when you returned from your long walk up the stairs and lunch at the Japanese restaurant, he asked in Japanese, “Was the udon okay? Did you have the tempura, too?” STILL stuffed from the late lunch, you reply in Japanese, “No, I just ate my weight in udon.” Shocked, he replies in Japanese, “What do you mean you didn’t eat the tempura?! Oh, I guess you were just very hungry and starving…from what our daughter told us anyway. Some places are much better than others are. Since you didn’t eat any today, maybe you can get some next week.” Great! So now, the family thinks you’re a wimp. Nice. However, not able to imagine another day as mentally or physically exhausting as today (and trying to save face at the same time), you reply in Japanese, “The Japanese restaurant we ate at today was supposed to be very popular. The udon was very delicious. I wouldn’t mind going there again.” Your girlfriend’s father replies in Japanese, “That sounds fantastic! We’ll go tomorrow!” Oh, no…

Learning Japanese with JapanesePod101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Japanese! This Japanese Newbie lesson continues the previous lesson about the Japanese polite past tense. We’ll also learn how to make the past tense of Japanese i-adjectives. 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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Learn Japanese on Your Own Terms at JapanesePod101.com! We’re going on a date tonight! First it’s to the cafe to talk about Murakami Haruki books, then we’ll fast forward to next weekend for a samurai movie. Our grammar point is nara, used to offset topics and is a great way to make a suggestion to that special someone! After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!

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Learn Japanese on Your Own Terms at JapanesePod101.com! The year is 2028 and the children are having a class reunion when they remember the time capsule they buried. As they reminisce, they decide it’s time to go and find the time capsule. Today’s grammar point is -te miru, which means to try and do something for the first time or just for the sake of doing it. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!

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