Miya

ルームメイト

ごま

薬（くすり）

Hey @Teira Eri, do you happen to have the audio files for the workbooks? For the listening activities?

スズメ

「る」は難しいよ！ ルール　

Mine is 一期一会 （いちごいちえ） "ichigo ichie" in Japanese. It means "once in a lifetime". I like the Kanji used in this and having "ichigo" in it sounds so cute

You don't HAVE to live in a foreign country to learn a language, but it'll speed up the process because you'll (probably) be using the language more. Plus, you'll be able to learn words and phrases that are not taught in textbooks or in a language class.

脳（のう）

君の負けだ！ じゃあ、もう一回しましょうか。私が始めましょう： 勝負（しょうぶ）

I teach English in Japan to Japanese middle schoolers and one of the biggest problems here is they don't teach phonics. It's one of the reasons why the kids can't speak English properly. I told my schools that I want to start teaching the 7th graders phonics from this school year (next week), but I'm not really sure where/how to start. I have a couple of CDs/worksheets available, but I reviewed them today and they don't seem to be very helpful. Does anyone have any ideas or can share with me how they learned phonics? The problem with teaching phonics to Japanese kids is there are sounds that don't exist in their language so they've literally NEVER heard the sound before. So even if I say the word 1000 times, they will still repeat it wrong. The "th" sound and the "L", "R", "B", and "V" sounds are especially hard for them. These kids are only 13 years old or so and they're just starting English so I don't want to do anything too complicated. What's the best way to teach kids phonics these days? Any help would be appreciated.

Teira Eri, thanks for the GENKI pdfs. I have a student studying Japanese and those books will be a big help!

ひさしぶりだけど、ゲーム続きたいです。 キュウリ (cucumber)

I've seen of this idiom before, but I didn't know the story. Thanks for sharing, it was really interesting.

This is really a case by case and it depends on the intentions of the person/the language you are learning. If the person actually meant what they say and it was a verbal attack, then no, that's not okay. But what we don't know (because we are not fluent in the language) is that there is slang in every language and "offensive" words to us might have a different meaning in that language. For example, we have words in Cantonese slang that literally mean "stupid" or "naive". But when used in slang, it means "clumsy" -- which is not derogatory. The word itself in the dictionary still has the meaning "stupid", but when used in context, it means something else. So yeah... it really depends on the person who's saying it.

I wouldn't call it mocking but some people laugh when I say words incorrectly. They mean no harm though...and they try to help me correct my pronunciation and speech afterwards. It'd be terrible to mock someone for their accents when speaking a foreign language. It's one of the reasons why people give up learning languages -- they don't want to be made fun of.

I've never heard of this textbook. When I was studying Japanese, I used the two "GENKI" books for beginner's level and "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" for the intermediate level. I also looked into the "Yokoso" textbooks for personal study.

Will check this out when I have time! Sounds like a fun idea and I'm looking forward to learning some things from you!

No problem. We are all learning There are two other phrases I want to add that also mean "love at first sight". They are "一见生情" (direct trans: as soon as I saw you, love started to grow) and "一见倾心" (as soon as I saw you, I adored you).

I remember having this problem when I first started learning Japanese. It's confusing and there's no reason for those characters to look so much alike XD If you look really carefully, you'll see the difference though. The long line for シ (shi) and ン (n) goes from bottom up so it's slightly more slanted. The long line for ツ (tsu) and ソ (so) goes from top to bottom so it's slightly more curved. Hope that helps.

Haha, this was really fun to watch. I'm Cantonese so I have most of the family members listed in that video... ..... and also I still get confused as to what to call my cousins' kids, lol

It wouldn't make sense because 钟情 is a verb -- to fall in love. "一见钟情" therefore directly translate to "As soon as I saw you, I fell in love" (love at first sight). 心中 is a noun. When I see "一见心中", I think it means "I see/saw your chest" or something like that.

If you want to remember the word and have it stick, then the best option is to manually do it one by one. I know it sucks, but it really helps. I do the same for Japanese... whenever I come across a word I don't know (or even a word I do know, but am shaky on it), I copy it down with the pronunciation and definition. Keeping a "vocabulary list" is a great way to track progress. I love mastering a word and then crossing it out on my list.

Maybe your friend is embarrassed. Believe it or not, even if you are fluent in a language, it's hard to teach it. Sure, you know how to speak fluently and you can read/write/comprehend fine in that language but when someone asks you a grammar question and you don't know how to answer it, it's embarrassing. Maybe instead of asking your friend to "teach" you, you can just converse with her freely? There'd be less pressure that way.

^I would actually recommend getting the "Genki 1" textbook. It's a great book and if you really work at it, you can easily get the basics down in 4 months. If you're looking for sites to help you learn though, then maybe you can check out EasyJapanese from NHK (a TV network in Japan). If I remember correctly, they have some pretty interesting lessons online that teach basic Japanese. Good luck.