JapanesePod101.com Blog

Daniel here. Reporting for JapanesePod101.com.

In the dialog and explanation for Beginner Lesson Season 2 #10 - Morning Coffee, they discussed あんパン (anpan), which was described as a bun filled with sweet bean paste. Also, they discussed 木村屋 (Kimuraya), the bakery in Ginza, Tokyo, that is most famous for it. So, I headed down to Ginza to get a closer look. But, first, a look at the origin of anpan.

Yasubei Kimura was a samurai in latter part of the 19th Century who, like many others, lost his job during the Meiji Era. He took on the role of baker and moved his business to Ginza. He was unsatisfied with taste of the bread at the time, and came up with anpan as a bread that was more to the liking of the Japanese palate. He knew he made it big when one of his customers introduced his delicacy to the Emperor and the Emperor requested to have it brought to him daily. The word got out. And as we say, the rest is history.

The easiest way to access the store is to ride the subway (either the Ginza line or the Marunouchi Line) and get off at the A9 exit, which comes out right in front of the store (and only a block away from the Apple Store!). Ginza is the famous shopping district in downtown Tokyo, and is one of the few places in crowded Tokyo with wide sidewalks.

There were many people walking by in both directions shopping at the expensive boutiques and stores. Kimuraya has a glass front, and there is an accompanying restaurant occupying the immediate floors above the store, with the actual bakery above the restaurant.

There are many baked goods sold at Kimuraya, but anpan is their signature product. So, as you enter the store, the anpan is on display near the door and can be bought directly from the sales people who bag your choice of anpan and other types of buns (I noticed cheese buns, sesame buns, chestnut buns and jam buns in addition to four types of anpan). For the sake of our investigation , I picked up the original style anpan, the signature style anpan (anpan with a small pickled piece of sakura), and shiro-anpan (the white bean paste mentioned in the podcast).

After performing a very scientific test at the JapanesePod101.com labs, the consensus was that the shiro-anpan was the best. However, I found all three varieties to be excellent.

If you would like to download the enhanced version (podcast file with photos, urls and/or chapter marks) of this audio, visit my Samurai Theologian Podcast page. Consider subscribing to receive future enhanced podcasts. You can also these photos in an online slide show from my site.

Daniel

We have successfully rolled out version 2.0 of the Learning Center. Many thanks to our community whose fabulous suggestions and feedback helped shape the new design, which features a new look & feel, improved user interface, and superior site organization. For some screen shots and a partial list of features please visit the V2.0 Learning Center announcement page.

We encourage everyone who has previously signed up for an account with JapanesePod101.com (Free, Basic, or Premium) to check out the new Learning Center and for those of you new to JapanesePod101.com, to sign up for a 7-Day Free Trial. Please note that while the Learning Center can be accessed by ALL active and expired subscribers, only active Premium subscribers can use the Premium features of the Learning Center.

Please let us know of any issues you encounter by posting a comment here or by sending an email to support@japanesepod101.com.

We apologize for the brief downtime encountered during the upgrade process and thank you for your patience as we work out any lingering bugs over the next few days.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

JapanesePod101.com

On Saturday, January 27th, 2007 from 12am to 3am EST, we will be releasing version 2.0 of the Premium Learning Center. During this time, the JapanesePod101.com will not be available!

The next generation Learning Center will feature an entirely new layout, an improved user interface, and superior site organization.

For questions concerning this upcoming release, please contact us by email at support@japanesepod101.com or post a comment here.

We appreciate your understanding as we continue to improve the JapanesePod101.com site.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Eran

Well, here I am.

Thrice I said that I would post my next entry, and today will make it thrice that I have fallen short of fulfilling that promise. On the upside, I’ve spent that time helping to make sure that you get your daily lessons! However, today, instead of simply telling you that I might post my entry next week, I will give you something a little different (that should be a much quicker writeup).

As I mentioned previously, I have recently started attending a Japanese language school here in Tokyo. Whether it’s been one or two weeks since I started, I can’t quite remember. Nonetheless, I know this topic may be of interest to some of you, so I will intertwine updates about this experience with my kanji learning entries from time to time. Today will be the first update.

My first class. The first class that I was placed in was about fifteen Chinese people and myself. Well, to be fair, one is from Taiwan. I’ve always heard that Chinese people have a large advantage over westerners when learning Japanese because they already use kanji daily. The largest discovery while attending my first class was probably that I don’t believe this to be true anymore. While they probably have a better idea of the meanings, the manner of writing many of the kanji is different, especially for those who use simplified Chinese. And although the onyomi is supposed to be the Chinese pronunciation, the difference is large enough that many times the Chinese are unsure. Of course, for a complete beginner, anyone from a country that uses kanji will have some kind of advantage over someone from a country that does not use kanji. However, I feel that we all have to study kanji diligently, no matter where we’re from.

Now, you may be wondering why I said my “first” class. Two days ago, I switched classes. I moved up one level because the class I started in was a bit too easy. My new class has a little bit more variety. I’m told that the statistics are as follows: 1 Myanmar, 1 Indian, 5 Koreans, and about 8 or so Chinese. This class is a bit more lively because the students feel confident enough to make jokes every now and then, and understand enough to laugh at them. My first class had two male teachers, but my current class has two female teachers. Both sets consist of one fairly young, and then one slightly older (let’s be nice here).

Having only spent a short time in school, and an even shorter time in my new class, I can’t tell you a whole lot more. Over all, though, I am enjoying my time there so far. I will try to make more updates as time moves on. And now I must go. (I stayed late just for you!) Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next week (I think).

Nathan

My apologies.

I just began attending a Japanese language school here in Tokyo this week. Due to this, I have unfortunately been too busy to write my new entry that I had promised on the 11th. (Peter’s PDF promises seem to have rubbed off on me in some way.) So let’s move my promise forward one week.

If you’re interested, school is fun so far!
Thank you again for your patience and understanding!

Until next week (hopefully),
Nathan

爱香 and I were on the outskirts of 上海, looking for a comic called ‘乱馬1/2′. I had bought an English copy of 乱馬1/2 in Sydney, but now needed the Japanese version, so I could study it.. We had gone up and down 福州路, which is where the major concentration of bookshops are in 上海, but had no luck finding the original Japanese version. Our last chance to find 乱馬1/2 was to head out to 古北区, where the biggest concentration of Japanese expats and shops are.
After reading a tiny ad in a Japanese magazine, we had gone up and down the same road three times, into an apartment block, back out the same apartment block, to the security guard at the front of the apartment block, and finally to a スーパー　across the road.

As soon as we entered, I had a bad feeling. It looked just like a normal スーパー; vegetables, cereal, fruit… a lot of edible stuff but no 漫画. We wandered through, and were pleasantly surprised to find 4 shelves full of books. Only one small shelf was 漫画 though, but only a small proportion of that was understandable to me, and not a single copy of 乱馬1/2. 爱香 was interested of course, and started looking through the grown-up books. I picked up a copy of クレヨンしんちゃん, a comic about about a rude little boy who loves exposing his penis, and started working my way through it.

After a while I heard 爱香’s voice talking to someone else. Her voice had that high twittery sound and her verbs all had ‘ます’ on the end of them, which usually means she’s talking to someone she hasn’t met before. I kept reading.

After finishing another クレヨンしんちゃん story, I wandered over to where 爱香 was. She was talking to another lady, and they were looking over a map. The map was printed on a plastic bag, and they were pointing to it. The other lady seemed to be giving directions, 爱香 would say ‘はい’　every now and then. The other lady had some some friends too; two other well dressed ladies were listening intently. Every now and then the other lady would ask her friends to clarify something 「。。。ですね、。。。」　and the others would frown hard, as if they were deep in thought and give a long 「うん。。。。」

I had a peek over 爱香’s shoulder to look at the map. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and the Japanese was so fast and at such a high pitch that I didn’t get it at all. I wandered back to the 漫画 section, put クレヨンしんちゃん back, and picked the next book in the series.
I got a little way through it, with 爱香 and her new friends still twittering behind me. Eventually I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see 爱香, grinning. Clutched in her hands was the same plastic bag, filled with magazines.
「これもらった！」 she said, still smiling.
I froze. “I know this,” i thought. What did Peter先生’s say about giving/receiving verbs? I did a mental calculation… ‘これ＝this… もらった＝received…put the verb first… means… ‘I received this!’
“Really?” I said. “They gave you that? Who were they?”

“I didn’t know them,” 爱香 replied.

It turns out that 爱香 had just asked a passer-by if she knew of any good bookshops. She had asked her friends, who had a plastic bag with a map on it. She had given 爱香 the bag, and taken about 10 minutes of her time to explain the directions to the bookshop on it. Then, she had called her friends over to help out. There were many other recommended bookshops which didn’t have directions on the bag, so one of the ladies had left the store, gone across the street, found a magazine with a map in it, and brought it back. After taking more time to explain the way to the bookshop and give 爱香 some recommendations on good books, she had given the magazine to 爱香, along with the bag, and other various magazines she had also brought from across the street, just in case we got bored on the way. I couldn’t believe it. As 爱香 explained all of this to me on the way to the next bookshop, I felt bad that the only thanks I gave her was a mumbled ‘アリガトウ’ and a clumsy bow.
爱香 often asks me why I like Japan so much. I don’t think I have ever given her a satisfactory answer. I use words like ‘friendliness’ and ‘diligence’ and ‘ニンテンド’　but I don’t think she gets it yet. It’s not that people from other cultures wouldn’t help you, it’s just the diligence in which Japanese people will fall over each other to help out a complete stranger. It’s not the only time it’s happened either.

But that’s another story, maybe for another post!

Mina San,

We have just added a great new plugin from Alex King called “Share This” that allows you to save, catalog, and share posts and lessons that you find interesting on our site with others via social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg, Del.icio.us, blink, furl, etc.) or by email. You can find the “Share This” link at the bottom of each post below the tag list (or category if no tags are available).

We hope that you enjoy this convenient way to share our content and encourage you to do so.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

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Dimitri-san has done it again! This time he emerged from his secret programming laboratory with a JapanesePod101.com Widget (see image below)! This incredible widget allows you to listen to any lesson on the feed; furthermore, it even allows you to see lesson specific notes for each lesson by clicking the italic i in lower right corner! Dimitri’s diabolic creation has been added to Mac’s Dashboard Widgets and can also be downloaded from Dimitri’s website.

Please direct all technical questions, issues, and feedback to Dimitri at dimitri008@mac.com (please indicate [Widget] in the subject line of your email). We too at JapanesePod101.com would love to hear your feedback about the widget.On behalf of eveyone here at JapanesePod101.com, we would like to thank Dimitri for all his hard work in putting together this extraordinary widget.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Dimitri-san, a young and talented programmer from Los Angeles, has just launched Version 1.0 of his incredible JapanesePod101.com application (see screenshot below). Using our RSS feed, his incredible application enables end users to quickly browse, search, sort, listen, and watch our daily podcasts and videocasts using one convenient tool. You can even see the romaji and transcripts as you hear each lesson!
Version 1.0 includes the following upgrades and improvements:

• powerful control over managing all the episodes, as they can be filtered by name, date time — you name it!
• instant search built in
• easy to use controller for playing episodes
• plays video episodes, along with audio ones
• next button goes up the list, selecting the newer episode, unlike iTunes
• integrated built in JapanesePod101.com web site support for instant access to the learning center, episode comments, and PDFs
• ability to print out your own customised Kana practice sheets
• Kanji/Kana Close-Up available when you click a Japanese Character in the episode’s transcript
• easily viewable episode transcripts
• saves episodes to your disk for those rainy days without internet
• allows you to play episodes before they downloaded for those slow internet connections
• short typing tutorial for those wanting to practice typing Japanese

Thank you Dimitri-san!

Please direct all technical questions, issues, bugs, and feedback to Dimitri at dimitri008@mac.com (please indicate [Version 1.0] in the subject line of your email). We too at JapanesePod101.com would love to hear your feedback about the application.
On behalf of eveyone here at JapanesePod101.com, I would like to thank Dimitri for all his hard work in putting together this extraordinary application.

Dimitri-san also provides a newsletter for the application and a FAQ section.
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.