Conversational Japanese

I recently discovered the podcasts put out by Japanesepod101. They offer a roughly 10-minute lesson each day, and you can access a year’s worth of archives via the iTunes music store. And it’s all free! I’ve taken to listening to a lesson each morning while doing my stretching exercises. It passes the time and I learn a little tidbit of Japanese each day.

I’m starting with their Beginner archives. I’ve studied Japanese off and on, but it’s been a while, so this is a great refresher. A lot of the basic material they’ve covered so far has, in fact, been familiar (mostly greetings). However, here are a couple of new things I learned (or re-learned). I’m posting hiragana versions of some of the words because a) I can (the Mac rocks!) and b) it helps me practice recognizing hiragana (boy, am I rusty).

  • Another way to respond to “[o] genki desu ka?” is “zekouchou desu” (ぜこうちょう です) = “I’m on top of the world!”
  • Another way to respond to “hajimemashite” is “kochirakoso” (こちらこそ) = “Same here.”
  • The pronouns: watashi (I), anata (you), kare/kanojo (he/she), watashitachi (we), anatatachi (you plural), karera/kanojora (they)
  • Some useful adjectives: isogashii (いそがしい) = busy, samui (さむい) = cold, omoshiroi (おもしろい) = fun/interesting, tanoshii (たのしい) = fun