しあわせ

In the basement of Mitsukoshi Department Store on Lower Regent Street is JP Books which is probably the biggest Japanese bookstore in London if not the UK or possibly Europe!
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One of my fellow students, アリソン後輩、at the Big Headed Man Club has started quite a nice Japanese themed blog, Haikugirl’s Japan. I think we might all recognise this obsession with Japan in ourselves.

She got interested in Japanese through Haiku hence the name. I hope to see some haiku on the blog some day, maybe some haiku advice.

The other thing I’m looking forward to is haikugirl’s adventures in Japan as she is making the huge step to go and live in Japan. うらやましいよ!

In the meantime the weekly blog about Japanese class is interesting.

Give her a little support and encourage this blogger! よろしくおねがいします。

I was even inspired to try a haiku. (or one of my faux haiku 非俳句 at any rate, no cutting word, no kigo)

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　無
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　辺
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　空
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　ス
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　ズ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　メ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　い
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　そ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　い
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　そ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　天
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　涯
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　へ

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　驢
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　馬
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　跡

にほんごをまなぼう　Lets Study Japanese is an interactive site based around school activities made by the Japanese Ministry of Education.

It is almost completely in Japanese. There are some English explanations of what to do, but otherwise it’s an immersive program. You click on pictures and you get a dialogue or a description written in kana and spoken to you in Japanese at the same time.

Both polite Japanese, the masu desu form, and casual plain Japanese is provided. The children mainly speaking plain form and adults polite form.

It sems to be mainly a teachers resource but I’m sure most students would be able to navigate it by themselves and learn new things. You might need to know your kana, but even then you could read along with the audio to improve your kana and there are learning kana screens as well.

sections include
15. じかんわり（jikanwari - timetable) for telling the time and dates
4. からだのなまえ（parts of the body)
3. トイレ (toilet)
10. きゅうしょく (school lunch)
11. そうじ (cleaning)

There’s a lot of vocabulary here presented in an interesting manner, it’s worth a look. I’ve learnt some new words already.

It needs shockwave and java I think. On my setup some of the voicerecording modules don’t seem to load, but you might have more luck. Also some directories seem to be missing. It also uses frames as well as shockwave which makes it hard to bookmark sections unfortunately. The last update was Heisei13 which I think is 2002 so it’s a bit dormant perhaps.

JapanesePod101 has started up another enterprise in it’s ever expanding on-line language empire. This time teaching English to Japanese, using the same sort of formula as is successful on jPod101, to a potentially bigger audience I’d say.
For advanced Japanese learners you can listen to natural speed Japanese, and boy does Sachiko-san speak quickly. If you have Japanese friends I’d certainly recommend they give EnglishPod a try.

I have some slight reservations.

It’s AmericanPod really.
Their banner is a big clue; the accents, the type of English is American. I have no doubt that the culture and dialogues will also be American. As such I don’t fully identify with it as I speak “British” English or Hiberno-English. American is not my preference or experience. And any Japanese deciding to travel or work in the UK, Ireland or Australia would need to know the differences perhaps.

And indeed after browsing their site a bit more I see they intend to do this. I wonder if they’ll want an Irish perspective. Although one of the jPod team used to live in Ireland.

Initially focusing on American English, EnglishPod101.com aims to cover British English, Australian English as well as all English spoken by non-native speakers.

But like it or not American is the world language since the 1940s. It’s what Japanese probably want to speak. (And if you go around London most kids want to speak like American gangstaz as well). If you feel strongly about Received English you can always head to the BBC.

The topic for day one was professions and political correctness (when what they were probably trying to do was point out inclusive language.)
Straying into a contentious area so early is either brave or foolhardy.
And maybe more than a language learner might need. “lies to children”; give them what they need and don’t muddy the water with more difficult concepts.
(interestingly when I looked up PC on wikipedia there was a headlink to kotobagari, the equivalent endeavour in Japanese.)

I dislike the term “political correctness” and even more the contortions the ideology imposes on writing and language at times. In the UK policeman, policewoman; fireman, firewoman; stewardess, steward are acceptable terms, people come in both sexes afterall. Housewife might not be so acceptable but Homemaker would be a bit pretentious. (Actually in most couples both would work, only the very well off can afford for one person, still usually the wife, not to be bringing in a wage.)

My own preference would be a description that didn’t use “person” and still be gender neutral and not be contrived. I also like the singular use of they which would annoy a lot of academics I know. At least they didn’t try to explain the academic monstrosity “he/she” or “(s)he”.

How anyone wants to describe themselves is up to them. People are much more than just their job, race, sex, whatever…
As far as the answer to “what do you do?” is concerned I prefer the answer by DH Lawrence in his poem:

What is he?
A man, of course.
Yes, but what does he do?
He lives and is a man.

But these are all minor prejudices in how the English language is used. It’s an incredibly rich, diverse, constantly changing and colourful language and what is correct, if anything is, is the language used by the people around you so you can communicate. Good Luck and Ganbatte to anyone trying to learn English; I’m glad I never had to learn it as a second language.

Day 2 is much more familiar territory almost like a negative image of JapanesePod101 podcasts!

I wish everyone at EnglishPod101 Good Luck too and I’m sure it’ll be as successful and valuable a site as JapanesePod101.

(It’s a bit embarrassing that at the time of editing this I rank higher in Google rankings than either jPod or ePod themselves on a search of EnglishPod101! I’m sure that’ll soon change…)

In the run-up to JLPT JapanesePod101.com is offering 30% off any 1 month subscription until the end of November. (follow the link above for the coupon code). As they charge in US dollars if your money is UK£ or Euros, and maybe even yen or Canadian Dollars, you get an excellent exchange rate as well.
The offer is doubly good as you’ll also have access to the back catalog of pdfs and exclusive sound files (I think).
I’m constantly amazed at the amount of material these guys generate. They’re a small operation running out of a small office working very long and hard Japanese hours. The output is top quality too. And they give most of it away! They deserve support for their efforts. Try a subscription today!