Premium Members, your Premium Account just got a whole lot more powerful! My Flashcards now allows you to study the Japanese words you want by importing lists from audio and video lessons, your My WordBank and the Japanese Core Word Lists 2000. Here’s a quick rundown of the new features:

My Flashcards Dashboard: My Flashcards have a brand new interface. Import words from any audio and video lesson, My WordBank and the Core Word Lists. Create, edit and delete as many decks as you want!

Create a New Deck: How you want to study is completely up to you! You control what displays on the front and back of cards. Create new decks out of the existing words in My Flashcards. Simple pick the words, name your deck and you’re ready to study.

Front of Card Display: The new My Flashcards load fast and are easy to use. Test yourself with native audio recordings. When you’re ready for the answer, simply click on the card to flip it over.

Back of Card Display: Learning sometimes isn’t as simple as just Right or Wrong. Our smart spaced repetition system will evaluate your progress from the three answer choices so you test more of what you need. Get extra review with sample sentences and audio.

My Stats: We track your progress in My Stats. Don’t just learn new words – master them! This chart will keep you motivated to master all the words in your deck!

My Flashcards is still in beta mode, which means, we’re still working out some kinks. If you’re a Premium Member, head over to My Flashcards under My Tools to try them out. These flashcards are part of your Premium Subscription. Something not working? Send us a message at contactus@japanesepod101.com .

Not a Premium Member? For a limited time only, get 1-Month of Premium Access to JapanesePod101.com for only $5 – that’s even cheaper than our regular priced Basic 1-Month Plan! Use coupon code FLASHCARDS at checkout to get Premium for $5.00. Hurry! This offer ends on June 30th, 2011!

You may have noticed that Japanese sentences’ word order are different from English. Yet, although it may sound odd to say “I Marge am”, don’t be discouraged about it, it is just a matter of learning Japanese sentence structure and soon it will become second nature. Remember that to Nihon-jin our word order for “My name is Marge” must be strange too!

What is Nihon-jin? Nihon-jin is the way to say “Japanese person”.
in Japanese, to express nationality, you add the word for person, jin （ 人 ）to the name of a country. Let’s take a look at some examples.

日本 (Nihon)  +  人 (jin )= 日本人  “Japanese person”

in the same way:

ア メリカ (Amerika) +  人 (jin )=  アメリカ人 (Amerika-jin)  “American person”

イギリス (Igirisu)  + 人 (jin )=  イギリス人  (Igirisu-jin)   “English person”

in total, you can say:
（私は）アメリカ人です。
 (Watashi wa) amerika-jin desu.
 I’m American.

Note that when talking about yourself, it is not necessary to say “watashi wa”, as it is implied that you are talking about your own nationality in this case.

Easy enough? Talking Japanese step by step you will realize that although the grammar and structure might seem different, it makes sense in its own way.  now that you know some basic introduction and important ice-breaking introductions, go ahead and take that trip confidently! It only gets more interesting from here!

The concept of long and short vowel sounds is an important concept to understand when learning Japanese pronunciation. Vowels can be lengthened, and there is a very distinct difference between long and short vowels. Note that in this lesson, a macron (small horizontal line over a vowel) denotes a long vowel that we hold for twice as long as a regular vowel.

In many cases, whether the vowel is long or short will determine the meaning of the word. Let’s illustrate this with some examples:

in the case of kaado (“card”), we 持old the “a” 音ound for approximately twice as 長ong as the “a” 音ound in kado (“隅orner”). As you can see, the meaning is very different depending on whether the vowel is 長ong or 短hort! Let’s look at a 少ew more examples:

A slight change in how long you make the vowel sound will make all the difference!

Are your eyes failing you, or is that hiragana character tinier than the other one? In Japanese, since there is a limit of hiragana characters, there is the need for some combinations. There are in total, 33 combination sounds that are made using small ya, yu, and yo.

The following are examples of these combinations:

example :
きゃく kyaku ( “customer” ), きゅう  kyuu  (“nine” )

example :
しゃかい  shakai  (“society” ) ; しゅみ  shumi  (“hobby” )

example :
ちゃいろ  chairo  (“brown” ) ;  ちゅんちゅん  chunchun  (“chirp chirp” )

example :
ぐにゃぐにゃ  gunyagunya  (“crooked” )

example :
ひゃく  hyaku  (“one hundred” )

example :
みゃく  myaku  (“pulse” ) ; みょうじ  myouji  (“family name”)

example :
りゃく  ryaku  (“abbreviation” );  みりょく  miryoku  (“charm” )

example :
きんぎょ  kingyo  (“goldfish”)

example :
ジャズ  jazu  (“jazz”)

example :
さんびゃく  san-byaku  (“three hundred”)

example :
はっぴゃく  ha-ppyaku ( “eight hundred”)

It is important to keep notice if the character is full size or half-width, as it can really change the pronunciation and meaning. Fore example, こんにゃく(con-nya-ku  “Kojnac”..a type of Japanese food ingredient) and こんやく ( con-ya-ku..”engagement” ) !

Because the range of syllables (spoken and written) in Japanese is limited, we cannot properly render many foreign sounds in Japanese. And as many more foreign words are used daily in Japanese, the solution was the addition of “new” katakana characters.

Here are a few of the more common ones:

example words:
ファイル fairu (“file” ) ; フィンランド Finrando (“Finland” ) ;　 サンタフェ Santa fe (“Santa Fe” ) ;  アイフォン aifon (“iPhone” )

example words:
ヴァイオリン vaiorin  ( “violin” ) ;  ヴィクトリア Vikutoria  (“Victoria” (name)) ;  デジャヴ deja vu (“déjà vu” ) ;  ラスヴェガス Rasu Vegasu (“Las Vegas” )

Pronounced in English as “tee” and “too.”

example word:
パーティー paatee ( “party” )

example word:
デュエット dyuetto (“duet” )
コメディー comedee (“comedy” )

Sometimes people find their own names to acquire a “funny” translation into Japanese sounds as a result of these similar, but not quite the same, approximations. However, it is awesome to see how the Japanese language finds a way to evolve and adapt despite its ancient origins.

This Japanese All About lesson will help you with your Japanese pronunciation skills. You’ll learn about the fourteen Japanese consonants and five vowels you’ll need to know and about how to handle words with multiple syllables-with no stress.

•  Sounds and Syllables
  • Compared with other languages, Japanese has a relatively small set of sounds, with only fourteen consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, and p) and five vowels (a, e, i, o, and u). Japanese is made up of syllables, which are made up of a consonant and a vowel. The only exceptions are the vowels and the n sound, which stand alone.
    

•  Stress
  • In Japanese, each syllable is held the same length of time and given equal stress. Stressing only certain syllables will sound unnatural, so keep this in mind when pronouncing Japanese.
  • Let’s take a look at a word in Japanese and compare how it is pronounced in both Japanese and English. Let’s take the word teriyaki, the name of a cooking technique where meat is marinated.
    • English pronunciation: [ ter-uh-YAH-kee ] Note how the third syllable is stressed.
    • Japanese pronunciation: [teh-ree-yah-kee ] In Japanese, each syllable receives the same amount of stress.

Some of us don’t get the opportunity to use what we learn in Japanesepod101.com lessons; Japanese speakers just aren’t everywhere. But there is one avenue that we can take advantage of, one which is often overlooked. Our teachers mention it in almost every podcast. It’s the message board.

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a separate message board for every individual lesson at the Japanesepod101.com website. It is where users can post anything.

Recently, I have made a conscious decision to post something every day. It wasn’t easy at first, but it’s getting easier and easier.

One of my first problems was not a language problem, but what to post. But once you get your creative side working, it gets easier gradually. Also, after each lesson, someone usually thoughtfully puts forth a question for everyone to mull over. This is usually a starting point for a post. Or sometimes someone else posts something which I feel that I can answer to.

I will be posting something in Japanese after every lesson and invite other students of all levels to do the same. Posts need not be very interesting, witty, inciteful, or even gramatically correct, but the most important thing is to write something every day.

I’m sure everyone can do it! Even if you’re not sure, just put something, anything down. In a recent post, 美樹先生 asked us about what we mail order. I answered:

僕は、たまにeBayで買い物をします。探しにくい物をeBayで買うことができます。クレジットカード必要ですけどね。
でもeBayと言うのは通信販売じゃないかもしりませんね。
Boku ha, tamani eBay de kaimono wo shimasu. sagashinikui mono wo ebay de kaukoto ga dekimasu. kurejitto kaado hitsuyou desu kedo ne.
I sometimes buy things using eBay. You can buy things that are hard to find at eBay. You need a credit card though.

Even one sentence would do. A recent lesson mentioned Yakult. I posted:

子供の時に、ヤクルトは大好きでした。
Kodomo no toki ni, Yakuruto wa dai-suki deshita.
When I was a child, I liked Yakult very much.

Maybe if you can think of an interesting question that the jPod might enjoy posting about, you might also post that. In a recent post, I wrote:

私はブBulldogsの大ファンです。
watashi ha Bulldogs no dai-fan desu.
I’m a huge fan of the Bulldogs.

Subsitute ‘Bulldogs’ for another sporting team to show your support for your local side.

This prompted others to show their support for their teams, and introduced us non-Americans to Red Socks, White Socks (something to do with teams’ uniforms I think), and a celebrity listener.

Posting not only helps you writing but helps you find mistakes you don’t realise you have made. In a recent post, Akihiro先生 helped a student who introduced himself with the polite suffix ‘san’. Akihiro先生 mentioned that:

自分の名前に「さん」はつけないので、気をつけて下さいね。
Jibun no namae ni ‘san’ wa tsukenainode, ki wo tsukete kudasai ne.
Don’t attach ‘san’ to your own name, so please be careful.

…in very polite Japanese.

Finally, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to Bloglines.com . It’s an RF reader, which means that it automatically compiles posts/articles from any site you specify, so that you don’t have to visit them yourself. It means that to read every new post on all 500 or so JapanesePod101.com lessons instead of having to click on every message board, scroll down and check by hand, you can have them all automatically compiled for you. With the help of Bloglines.com, I am able to read every post on JapanesePod101.com, almost as soon as it is written.

That’s going to do it for today!

I was just 5 minutes ago talking to someone on MSN about one of my vocab memorization techniques. The conversation started, as one usually does on MSN, as ‘what are you doing’. It took me a while to explain, but my friend thought it was a good idea. He’s learning English, but the principle is the same. I do it whenever I’m trying to memorize a lot of words. Maybe it’ll work for you!

Step 1: Open a search engine. For Chinese, I use 百度, for Japanese, one might try google.co.jp.

Step 2: Click on the ‘images’ tab (remember it probably won’t be in English though!) and write in the word. Let’s take something from today’s lesson; おめでとう meaning ‘congratulations’.

Step 3: Feast your eyes on all the lovely pictures. Each one has something to do with おめでとう. I found a chubby bride in a wedding dress, a pair of geeky looking girls with medals around their necks, two offical guys in suits smiling and shaking each others’ hands, and a birthday cake with ‘congratulations’ on it. In each one of these photos, the person with the camera has probably said 「おめでとう」 right before he/she took the photo.

You might even try it without the ‘images’ tab, and read through articles if you don’t find any pictures that help. Useful when the word isn’t something that is easily represented visually. I entered 「どういう風の吹き回し」 and even though I couldn’t read most of the articles, just the fact that I saw the phrase repeated in so many different places reinforced both it and its meaning in my brain.

It works for me! It seems a little bit longwinded, but I usually go to extreme lengths to avoid memorizing something by rote. I find the ‘Google-search’ method very helpful in reinforcing vocabulary. Instead of getting a dry boring example sentence out of a dictionary, you’re getting a real use of the word.