Week 5

In this class we covered unit 6 , lessons 12 and 13.

Lesson 12 is about offering/ accepting/ refusing hospitality at someone's house which we have covered before. I also picked up on the adjectives and we studied adjectives in a bit more detail, in particular how to use more than one adjective at a time in a sentence. The grammar notes are on BB.
I also gave some extra vocab for describing patterns:
gara - pattern
hanagara - flowery
muji - plain
mizutama - spots

mizutama ga tsuite imasu - it has spots on it
hoshi ga tsuiteimasu - It has stars on it

We also practiced describing things (umbrellas mostly) in the lost property office. Again the sheet for this is on BB.

Lesson 13 was about giving compliments - Mr Smith was lost in admiration at Mr Takahashi's beautiful vase, after listening to this we practiced giving / accepting compliments.

As well as the phrases in the book I gave some extra vocabulary:
moraimono - it was given to me (literally: a received thing)
yasumono - a cheap thing

(Like in English, if someone admires your clothing or accessories, the polite thing is to say something self deprecating)

I have just been playing with this website for listening activities on the internet. http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/lal/japanesemain/ISLPR_listening/ISLPRlistening_frame.html
They are all real bits of spoken Japanese so it can be quite hard to catch what they are saying. The ones recorded in shops are all ultra polite so lots of use of "gozaimasu" and very polite phrases. Have a go and see how you get on. Even if you don't catch every word, see if you can get the gist or the main points.

Week 4

The topics for this lesson were:

• talking about past, (+mashita) as well as the future and habits using +masu form.
• describing where things are
• particles

We listened to the conversations for chapters 9,10,11 and practiced reading the conversations.

Some words for expressing frequency:

mainichi - every day

maishuu - every week

maiasa - every morning

maiban - every evening

maishuu no nichiyoubi - every Sunday

yoku - often

tokidoki - sometimes

zenzen + negative - never

amari + neg - not often

In a question you'd use "yoku" - terebi o yoku mimasu ka - do you watch TV often?

To reply - in Japanese it is normal to respond to a yes/ no question by repeating the VERB either in positive or negative form, rather than use hai or iie on its own.

eg. Jitensha ni mainichi norimasu ka - Do you ride a bike everyday?

(Hai ) Norimasu - Yes I do

(Iie*) Norimasen - No I don't

*Often iie is pronounced more like "ya"

Particles easily overlooked and easy to get wrong, but worth studying occasionally:

wa - topic marker

ga - subject marker

o - object marker

ni - to/ in the direction of also used with time phrases like 3ji ni/ nichiyoubi ni

e - to/ towards

kara - from as in 3ji kara. Also means because when at the end of a sentence. chokoreto ga suki desu. Oishii desu kara.

made - until

ka - question marker

mo - as well

to - with/ and

mo - also

ya - used like and but implying that the list has not finished. asagohan wa tosuto ya tamago o tabemasu - I eat toast and eggs and other things for breakfast

TASK FOR FEEDBACK

To write a paragraph about your family, your hobby, your everyday life, the everyday life of another person (fictional or real)

The purpose is to show off how much Japanese you know, so use as many different contructions and vocabulary as you can. Include kanji where possible. It does not have to be true!

Week 3

This week I skipped unit 3 (lessons 6 and 7) as I thought that they are mainly covering old ground and I didn't think they were very interesting. Please go over them in your own time and ensure that you have done the exercises and understand everything.

The main topics of the class were 1) verbs - describing regular activities, future activities and past activities. 2) talking about where things are/ what things there are in a town.

We listened to and practiced lesson 8 in the book, again ensure that you do the exercises. Talking about what there is in a town and also where things are. Next week we'll be looking at giving directions.

Any problems - get in touch with me.

Reminder: I have put some listening/ speaking activities on the langauge lab system for you to use. As the course progresses I'll add more activities. If you are unsure about using the language lab, Alison Hayes will be giving training sessions on 21st Oct (Weds) 4.30 - 5.30 and 3rd Nov (Tues) 4.30 - 5.30. She can show you how to record yourself onto a disc or something.

Don't forget the reading and writing support session on Tuesdays. If you have any grammar questions or problems with the content of the text book, come along and ask about that too.

Week 2

The topic of the class was shopping: unit 2 of Japanese for busy people.

We skimmed quickly over adjectives - for more about adjectives see http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa040101a.htm we will cover the topic again later in the course. We also had a quick intro to verbs, we will be doing more verb work next week talking about daily routines etc. More info on verbs here http://japanese.about.com/od/grammarlessons/a/031101a.htm

If you have any questions please ask either by email or during class. I will be on campus on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon each week so if you need to see me we can arrange a time then.

Have a look at the video on this page - it has a rather nice lesson on kanji you might see in the street.
http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php