JapanesePod101.com Blog

Robert Belton is one of our most active users, currently tuning in from London, England.

How did you find JapanesePod101.com?
Through the iTunes store. I was browsing for Japanese language podcasts.

What made you stay?
The people. In the long term that is what has kept me there. Vicky-san and Liz-san were very welcoming and we started chatting on Skype. The general tone of the forums is pleasant and friendly. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the unpleasantness I’ve seen in other Internet forums. The level of conversation is intelligent, there’s no spam, people are well behaved. My contacts with Peter-san have been friendly and I admire his boundless enthusiasm and energy. And it’s nice to have contact with Miki-san on her blog. And everyone at JapanesePod101 seems so dedicated to what they’re doing.

In the short term. The bait on the hook if you like. It was the quality
and quantity of the podcasts. I can’t exactly remember when I joined but it was after the slightly rougher early podcasts (笑）But even those had interesting things for me to listen to.
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One month ago, I stepped off the plane at Narita Airport armed with 2 semesters of Japanese language instruction, a handful of Japanese guidebooks/dictionaries, and a naïve confidence of my communication abilities. Although I realized that I was far from fluent, I was sure that I could easily get in a cab, check into my apartment, and get dinner, at the very least. I was wrong.

The Taxi Ride
Nearly sideswiped by the automatic doors of the taxi, I hopped into the taxi with a map, pointed and stated “Tokyo Weekly Mansions Onegaishimasu.” He then stared at the map blankly, obviously not understanding where to go. After he said a string of incredibly fast Japanese (much faster than the audio recordings played for me in my college classroom), I gave up understanding and repeatedly jabbed at my map saying “Koko! Koko!” It took an hour for him to find my apartment complex, which I later discovered to be a 5-minute walk from where I called the cab.

The Apartment
After running into the automatic sliding doors (a rough way to figure out that they open up slower than the ones in America), I reached the lobby of the apartment complex and tried to check in. Emphasis on tried. I thought the payment had been worked out before I came. I was staying for 2 months and my college was taking care of all the major finances. There was an obvious miscommunication when they asked for a 5-figure deposit when I had little else but a few coins with holes in it. (It took me a week to figure out that they were 5 yen). I was never taught the vocabulary necessary to communicate the fact that the rent was supposed to have been taken care of before I arrived, and that I didn’t have enough money on me yet. Eventually after 5-6 phone calls to various people, the situation worked itself out.

The Dinner
At this point, I was starving and craving notoriously delicious Japanese cuisine. I walked around Akasaka overwhelmed by the numerous restaurant choices. Eventually I settled on a decent looking place that ended up being a Yakitori restaurant. I strolled in, was greeted by a loud “Irrashaimase!”, and took a seat at the counter. Ready to put into practice a phrase I knew I’d use countless times, I asked,
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