JapanesePod101.com Blog

Moshi Moshi!

Today I did lessons 48 and 49 from JapanesePod101.com’s survival phrases and lessons 31 and 32 from SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese. The focus was all about cell phones.

These photos are of a typical cell phone here in Japan. Notice this one’s screen turns horizontally for the owner to watch TV. The little charms hanging on the side are very popular for both men and women. [Photos by Emily Carsch]

I have a cell phone here in Tokyo. It is a puripeido keitai denwa, or prepaid cell phone, from Soft Bank, one of the cell phone carriers here in Japan. It is a standard flip phone that has photo and video capabilities. For a prepaid phone, it’s actually pretty neat.

On my first day here, I went to Soft Bank to get it and they charged me for the phone and my first terehon kado, or prepaid telephone card, that was a gosen en kado, 5,000 yen card. 300 of those 5,000 yen were spent on unlimited text messaging service to last the entire month. Three US dollars for unlimited text messaging?! It was a steal!

I believe that of the remaining 4,700 yen, making calls costs 90 yen a minute; incoming calls are free. I paid a total of $110 USD for the keitai denwa and terehon kado. The phone comes with a charger, headphone/speaker, computer connection cable, manual, and screen cleaning charm. It was a bargain! I’m sure other companies also have deals like this, but if you don’t want to search them, this option is a good one.

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