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It is with excitement and sadness that I’ve made it through SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese and JapanesePod101.com survival phrases! I’m excited that I’ve completed all of the lessons and have learned a ton of Japanese in the process, yet I’m sad that this is the end of the line for my survival phrase blogs. It’s been a rapid pace, perhaps faster than what I would have done otherwise, but I was excited to get these blogs out to you, the readers, so I worked hard to learn and reflect, to help you out and keep you more informed. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading along as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing my experience with you. If nothing else, hopefully you learned something about Japanese culture that you hadn’t known before.

Jumping for joy, SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese and JapanesePod101.com survival phrases helped me navigate as a regular here in Tokyo! [Photo by Alex Montalvo]

Today, I completed lessons 51-60 in SurvivalPhrases.com and lesson 50 in JapanesePod101.com. The topics covered included talking about what you like and don’t like, a list of adjectives, talking about time for the opening and closing of businesses each day, saying congratulations, or “omedeto gozaimasu“, and more!

Instead of writing in response to these categories as I usually do, I thought I would instead address some of the key phrases and words taken from the lessons as a whole. In other words, these are the ones, in my opinion, that you absolutely must know before you get here! Hopefully this will be of good assistance to you.

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I’m nearing the end of my survival phrase Japanese training. Today I did lessons 46-50 on SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese, and 32 and 33 on JapanesePod101.com survival phrases. A lot of today’s lessons dealt with allergies and being sick. I can speak about a few things related to this.

These photos were taken at Tokyo Disney Sea. It poured all day! With weather like this, it’s important to try to keep from getting sick! [Photos courtesy of Alex Montalvo]

Fortunately, I have not been sick in Japan to the point that I have needed to take any drugs (prescription or over-the-counter), so I cannot tell you about any experiences spent in a doctor’s office or pharmacy. I can however say something that has interested me and the group I’ve traveled here with.

If you’ve been to Japan, you may already know about this, and if not, you may have seen it on TV, but not understood it. Often, walking around the streets of Tokyo, I see men and women wearing face masks, like the ones you see dentists wearing. At first I didn’t understand why, and thought maybe they didn’t want to be around the public catching things from other people. I thought it acted like a shield to stay healthy. I later found out that the opposite is true.

If you’ve been following the blog, I hope that I’ve done a good job thus far telling you just how polite and caring the Japanese people are, wearing the face mask is only an exemplification of this. The reverse is true in that the face masks are worn when the wearer is sick. Instead of spreading his or her sickness throughout, they try to keep it contained by wearing a cotton mask. While this isn’t necessarily related to sickness, it probably also helps that before every meal here in Tokyo, a warm hand towel is given to the diner to wipe his or her hands clean.

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Today I did lessons 44 and 45 from SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese and lessons 46 and 47 from JapanesePod101.com survival phrases. The JapanesePod101 lessons dealt mainly with currency exchange. Since, I’ve already written a blog talking about money here in Japan, instead I’m going to blog with reference to the SurvivalPhrases lessons. They dealt with eating habits.

This photo is of two guys in my group eating Korean food. In this setting, everything was cooked in the pot in front of them. This is one example of the many varieties of ways to eat the different foods here in Tokyo. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

In Japan, fish and meat are staple items in the diet. This is no different than in most countries, but in the US for example, many people are choosing to become vegetarians. This is virtually unknown here in Japan, making it difficult for a bejitarian, or vegetarian, to get around. It seems to me that a lot of Japanese don’t fully understand the concept of being a saishoku shugi sha, also vegetarian. If one were to order a vegetarian dish, he or she would likely still see something not appropriate for that lifestyle on their plate.

In today’s SurvivalPhrases lessons, I learned how to say things like, “niku wa tabemasen“, I don’t eat meat. I personally love meat, but I have friends on my trip here in Japan with me that do not eat it, so I can fortunately teach them how to communicate that at restaurants now. As more and more people are taking a vegetarian approach to dishes (or so it seems), this lesson has become increasingly relevant, and is a great one to check out if you’re a vegetarian!

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Today I did a bunch of lessons from JapanesePod101.com survival phrases and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese. Respectively, lessons covered 41-45 and lessons 39-43. The lessons while teaching new phrases and words, covered much of the same areas I’ve already blogged on (restaurants, shopping, etc.). One of the lessons that was different however was one about going to the movie theater.

At the top is a photo of Mori Tower, the center structure of the Roppongi Hills development. Below is an area on the observation deck, floor 53, of Mori Tower. The seats are able to detect how close you’re sitting to the person next to you. The closer, the warmer the color. The further away, the cooler the color. They really are love seats. [Photos by Emily Carsch]

Here in Tokyo, going to the movies is very expensive. I have not been yet, but have heard it is around 2000 yen just for a ticket. When I’ve inquired about it with locals, many say that they rarely go to the theaters for this reason. I can’t imagine how much concessions cost if a ticket is already 2000 yen. Needless to say, I have yet to attend a movie here in Japan.

Last night I walked by the movie theater in Roppongi Hills and saw that most of the movies playing were ones produced in the US. One of the current large features playing is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls (2008). Its release date here in Tokyo was June 21st. It opened in the United States on May 30th. This movie, that has a lot of international recognition, was released a month later here than in the US.

Ironman (2008 ) on the other hand, another summer blockbuster that was released in the US in early May, is not opening here in Tokyo until the end of September. Most all of the movies to my knowledge are shown in English and are given Japanese subtitles. With that said, I’m not sure what the deal with international release dates is; there is clearly a discrepancy between these two examples.

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Welcome to summer! With the longest days upon us, it seems fitting to take a look at the character for “long”:

長 (CHŌ, naga(i): long)

This kanji can also mean “chief, head, leader,” but today, for the most part, I’m only interested in its length. I love how 長 elongates the following things in the most charming of ways:

穴   (ana: hole)		長穴   (naga-ana: slot)
円   (en or maru: circle)		長円   (chōen: ellipse, oval)
靴   (kutsu: shoes)		長靴   (nagagutsu: boots)
椅子   (isu: chair)		長椅子   (nagaisu: couch)

The compound 椅子 (isu: chair) breaks down as chair + noun suffix relating to objects such as furniture. Wow, that breakdown was long even without 長 there to elongate it!

Here’s my favorite 長 transformation:

芋     (imo: potato)

長芋             (nagaimo: yam)

Yes, that’s true! A yam is longer than a potato! I’d never thought about it before.
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Today’s title means, “clap your hands twice!” (thanks for your help with that Ben!) This is a reference to practices performed at a Buddhist jinja, or shrine. This should give you a hint for today’s topic.

At the top is a photo of one of the many shrines found in Ueno Park. Below is a photo of the Meiji Shrine. The Honden is visible just through the large entryway. [Photos by Emily Carsch]

I did quite a few podcasts this morning! Covered in JapanesePod101.com’s Survival Phrases were lessons 37-40 and in SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese I covered lessons 35-38. While these podcasts touched on many subjects, the one I’m going to address today is shrines.

Here in Tokyo, there are shrines and temples everywhere! On my first day in Japan, I went to Harajuku to see the Meiji-Jinga, or Meiji Shrine. It’s a huge area filled with gardens, walkways, streams, and areas for different activities and events.

Because it was already close to night, I didn’t have much time to spend, so I went straight to the shrine itself. It was really beautiful and looked exactly like it was from a Japanese postcard or travel book. We walked around the perimeter a bit before actually approaching the main building of the shrine, or the honden.

The small group I had gone with approached with me. We were all cautious, not really knowing what to do, as none of us are Buddhist, or so I thought. One of the girls in my program started whispering to us exactly what was going on with the clapping and bowing. She told us she was Buddhist and taught us the entire premise of the actions we saw happening before us.

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Today, I listened to podcasts 34 and 35 from JapanesePod101.com Survival Phrases. I followed it up with lessons 33 and 34 from SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese. In today’s blog, I’m going to touch on two different things, as the lessons were a bit scattered and touched on different things themselves.

The first thing to address is taking photographs. A couple weekends ago, I went to Ueno, an area of Tokyo full of museums, shrines, parks, and even a zoo. It’s more of a traditional area, but it’s lovely and a lot of fun. Walking along the sidewalk, there were huge hydrangeas in full bloom. It was gorgeous!

This is a photograph of the Hydrangeas I was talking about. How perfect are they?! [Photo by Emily Carsch]

I was there with one of the guys in the group that came to Japan with me. We wanted to take a picture of the two of us in front of the flowers, so we struggled to hold out our arms as far as we could and get a self-shot photo of the two of us. As you could guess, it really wasn’t working.

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Today, I’m doing something a little bit different than usual. I’ve made a Camtasia video instead of my usual written blogs. Just press play!

I should probably mention that this is not my best work. It was my first time ever playing around with the program, so I sound a bit stressed and stiff and I’m reading from a script (I promise I am more fun than how I sound in this example!). You can also probably hear all of the hustle and bustle of the JPod101 office in the background. As always, we are busy busy busy.

Anyway, with that forewarning said, enjoy!

If you want to leave me any comments, please do.
Thanks.

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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These are some photos of the metro. Nothing too amazing by the looks of it, but incredible once inside. [Photos by Emily Carsch]

The Tokyo Metro system is like a living arterial network that zig zags and wraps itself across the entire area of what makes up Tokyo and beyond. It’s so weird to be walking through ancient shrines and beautiful gardens that have been in place since the 1600s, and think that there are probably three lines of trains at different depths passing underneath you all at once.

This is what makes Tokyo magnificent; its mix between tradition & history and high-tech modernity.

Here in Tokyo, there are 9 sen, or lines, each differentiated not only by name but also by color. (Click here for a link to the subway map and the names and colors that coincide with it. This link is part of the Tokyo Metro website.)

As a gaijin, or foreigner, I was excited to see that a new line, the Fukutoshin line, denoted by brown, opened just this week. We initially thought it’d be a big deal that there was a new line opening, but found that a lot of people didn’t even know about it. Clearly, new stops and lines are always being made to add to the convenience of public transportation in this city.

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Don’t wait until classes begin in Fall, start now and be ahead of the curve once school is back in session!!!

This limited time offer expires on Monday, June 30, 2008 at 11:59pm EST.

When you feel uneasy, where do you sense it in your body? Perhaps you feel “butterflies” deep in your belly. Maybe you become lightheaded. You could even get cold feet!

Two Japanese expressions about uneasiness make use of a kanji we’ve seen for two weeks running:

騒 (SŌ, sawa(gu): clamor, noise, disturbance; to make a fuss)

Both expressions locate uneasiness in the chest:

心騒ぎ (kokoro sawagi: uneasiness)     heart + disturbance

One could see this expression as referring to a disturbance in the heart. Or given the many meanings of 騒, one could interpret 心騒ぎ as noise in the heart! Not an ear-splitting noise, of course. Rather, it might be like the irritating static when a radio station isn’t coming in clearly.

胸騒ぎ (munasawagi: uneasiness)     chest + disturbance

The chest and the heart go hand in hand, you might say. So 胸騒ぎ essentially has the same meaning and breakdown as 心騒ぎ. In fact, the two breakdowns might be identical, in that 胸 can mean “heart” or “feelings,” just as 心 can.

A Guide to the Mind and Body …

Sample Sentence with 胸騒ぎ …

The Thing About Noise

For more unsettled feelings, we can look to the following compound:

物騒 (bussō: unsettled, troubled, dangerous)
     thing + disturbance

Sample Sentence with 物騒 …

In some words, 騒 seems to mean both “disturbance” and “noise.” Take 物騒 and add okurigana:

物騒がしい (monosawagashii: noisy, boisterous; turbulent)
     thing + noise

Now the yomi has completely changed (from on-on to kun-kun), and there’s more of an emphasis on noise. Still, the last meaning, “turbulent,” indicates a feeling of inquietude.

Thoughts on Inquietude …

These two kanji, 物 and 騒, combine in two more words:
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Our title today translates to, “how is the weather today?”

Fortunately, it’s been sunny, so I’ve been unable to snap one of my own umbrella photos, but this is one I found online. [Photo by: Kristen Joy Watts - http://www.kristenjoywattsphotography.com/japan%20narratives.html]

Today I listened to the following lessons:
SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese 29 & 30
JapanesePod101.com Survival Phrases 23, 24, & 25

The most important section in my opinion from today is about weather! As you may or may not know, it is the rainy season here in Japan this month, and it feels like it rains every day. I’ve been here for two weeks now, and there have only been three sunny days!

It gets depressing waking up every morning to a cloudy sky, but that is the only thing that seems to be truly consistent with the tenki, or weather, at this time of year. Sometimes it is pouring and others a mere drizzle. Yesterday, even though it rained, it was so hot outside I felt like I could hardly breathe. Today, it is raining, but it is cold outside. The temperature seems to constantly vary here despite the consistent overcast sky and precipitation.

One thing I have noticed about Tokyo is that everyone uses kasa, or umbrellas. Every place of business has umbrella racks, including the JapanesePod101.com HQ! It seems as if it is rude to bring an umbrella inside of buildings. Some places have plastic umbrella wrappers to put your wet umbrella in, so that it does not drip.

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Thanks for coming back and checking out blog #9! Today I continued my studies of survival Japanese with SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese lessons 26, 27, and 28, and JapanesePod101.com survival phrase lessons 20, 21, and 22.

The lessons covered mainly directions and how to get different places. One Survival Phrase lesson however, expanded upon convenience stores, which is quite an adventure in itself. I thought I would blog a little bit about them today, since I have yet to try my hand at asking someone how to get somewhere (at this point, I think that it’s more fun to get lost in Tokyo, since there’s so many hidden treasures in this city).

Though it’s a plain photo, this is a picture of a common convenience store here in Tokyo. I was lucky to get a woman dressed in Kimono walking out! [Photo by Emily Carsch]

Kon-bini, or convenience stores are all over the place. Recognizable to Americans are the 7-11s, but there is also a chain called Sunkus, and other places with signs written in Kanji that I cannot understand. The stores here, are much like any convenience store in any country. There are some basic grooming items and packaged snacks, refrigerators for a cool beverage, and current magazines and newspapers. It is the food and beverage offered that makes these stores interesting to a foreigner.

Right now, I’m drinking a carbonated pineapple drink made by Sapporo that I picked up earlier. Because I saw the name Sapporo on it, I realized that I was taking a risk. Was it a soda or an alcoholic beverage? Fortunately, it’s just a soft drink. What I’ve learned however is that Japanese beer companies like Sapporo and Kirin Ichiban have other products than just beer. This is not the case in America. I can’t imagine drinking a juice made by Heineken.

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This is an example of one of the buses that stops right in front of the JPod101 HQ! It’s so fun and colorful! [Photo by Emily Carsch]

The first thing I want to touch on and reiterate is to not be worried about your safety in Japan. One of the lessons dealt with thieves and muggers. This is rare! I know I mentioned it in my last blog and will say it again; Japan is very safe, and I have yet to feel uncomfortable at all. I venture to say that the only reason you would need to make an emergency call to 110 would be if someone got hurt, not because someone was endangered by another.

Another lesson dealt with bus stops. I have yet to use the bus! Undoubtedly, the trains are the way to go around here, and I don’t foresee myself ever needing to use the bus here around Tokyo. The only bus I rode was from Narita Airport, or Japanese, “kokou“, into the city.

Narita is located just over an hour’s drive away from central Tokyo. It can be difficult taking the crowded trains into Tokyo if you have a lot of luggage, and a taxi is very expensive. I was told to take a basu, or bus. As soon as you walk out of customs, there are bus counters. We walked up to one and told them where we needed to be. The woman at the counter smiled and printed our kippu, or tickets. I believe it cost $30 USD, or 3,000 JPY.

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Today I finished up lessons 15 and 16 in JapanesePod101.com’s Survival Phrases. I also did lessons 17, 18, and 19 in SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese. The lessons focused on banking and shopping/using prices here in Tokyo.

This is an example of a weekend crowd in Harajuku taken this past weekend. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

In case you missed it in the podcast, the easiest way to think about the “kokan reto“, exchange rate, to date between American dollars and Japanese yen is 1:100. If something costs 600 yen, it’s equivalent to $6 USD. 2500 JPY is $25 USD. You can just think about it by knocking off the two back numbers (usually zeros) put on the yen to get the dollar amount.

Because I will be in Tokyo for two months, I opened a Citibank account, since it is the only American ginko, bank, that is all over Tokyo. There is actually a Citibank right across from JapanesePod101.com, so it’s really easy to run over to the ATM and pull out some cash when I’m on the go. If you’re going to be here for an extended amount of time, I suggest you look into doing the same thing. It’s much easier than trying to find the “yubinkyoku“, post office, and hoping your card is one of the ones accepted there.

A really important note worth mentioning, if you don’t already know this about Tokyo, the entire city is very reliant on “genkin“, cash. In America, most people use credit and debit cards consistently. This is not the case in Tokyo. I have found that places like McDonalds do not even take credit cards. Cash is a necessity and it is safe to carry several hundred dollars in your wallet if that is what you end up doing. To function in this city, have cash on you at all times.

My apologies to those readers not from America for making my banking comparison comments specific to the United States. It’s what I know to make comparisons to.

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The title means, “your order please”.

Today I completed JapanesePod101.com Survival Phrases lessons 12, 13, & 14, and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese lessons 11 & 16. The bulk of the material was about fast food, which is what I want to expand upon today.

So far, the fasuto fudo (fast food) I have been to just happen to both be American chains; Subway and McDonalds.

These are photos of a McDonalds located next to the JPod101 HQ. Can you understand the Kanji on the banner? [Photo by Emily Carsch]

Subway was fantastic! In America, we “eat fresh” with tuna, turkey, ham, and roast beef; just to name the staple items. At the restaurant here in Japan, you can order egg salad, shrimp and avocado, and veggie dogs for example. Instead of your standard condiments like mayonnaise and mustard, Subway offers toppings like basil, wasabi, and pepper sauce.

Want a combo meal? Here, instead of chips, you get potato wedges and you choose which flavor you want; regular, cheese, basil, or BBQ. As far as the beverage is concerned, that too is different than in the US. It seems that “free refills” is virtually unknown here. Want diet cola or a lemon-lime soft drink? You won’t find that here. The options at the Subway I went to were limited to Coke, Ginger Ale, tea, and “Melon Pop”.

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How odd it is that “She’s a riot!” means someone’s funny. English speakers even say that something’s “riotously funny.” I’ve never been to a riot, but from the photos I’ve seen, nothing amusing happens at such events.

Riot After an Election
Photo Credit: Daniel Meyer

In Japanese, too, there seems to be a fine line between riots and merrymaking. Take this word, for instance:

騒乱 (sōran: riot, disturbance)     clamor + disorder

Last week we saw how 騒 (SŌ, sawa(gu): clamor, noise, disturbance; to make a fuss) plays a part in 大騒ぎ (ōsawagi), which means “shocking events.” Now we see that in 騒乱, the same kanji helps to cause a riot.

If you flip 騒乱 and add a “foolish spirit” to it, your riot turns into a party:

乱痴気騒ぎ (ranchiki sawagi: boisterous merrymaking)
     disorder + foolish + spirit + clamor

And if you’d like to “make merry” in a different way, here’s another option:

底抜け騒ぎ (sokonuke sawagi: boisterous merrymaking)
     bottom + to remove + clamor

Ah, 底抜け (sokonuke) breaks down as bottom + to remove and means “bottomless”! And no, even though there’s boisterous merrymaking at hand, we’re not talking about bottomless pants (a la David Lee Roth).

Further Notes on Bottomlessness …

Boisterous merrymaking is one thing, but what about when the fun becomes disorderly? Then you have this situation:

悪騒ぎ (warusawagi: disorderly merrymaking; making a fuss without considering the annoyance it causes others)     bad + clamor

Disorderly merrymaking? Not allowed! First, you need to clean off your desk and get your files in order, aligning your stapler just so and disentangling your paper clips. Only then is it OK to have fun!

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I hadn’t until I starting reading up on Tokyo, and was reminded of it again this week in JapanesePod101.com’s Survival Phrase lessons 9, 10, and 11 and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese lessons 9 and 10.

This is a photograph of the entrance to where I’m staying. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

Kapuseru hoteru, or capsule hotel, is not like any hotel people are used to in America and many other western cultures. While I have yet to stay in one, I hear they’re quite the experience and am looking forward to the day I get to try it out.

Here in Tokyo, the metro system stops at midnight and starts again at five in the morning. Taxis are usually very expensive making the metro the overall transportation of choice here. Often, it is easy to find yourself out in one of the fun districts of Tokyo past the stroke of twelve. This is where a capsule hotel comes in.

Looking for a place to stay until the wee hours of the morning? Renting a capsule might be what you are looking for. I hear it’s merely a bed and television, and that there is not even enough room to stand, but it’s a place to hang your hat until the trains start again in the morning.

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I’ve just finished lessons 6, 7, and 8 from both JapanesePod101.com’s Survival Phrases and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese. The main focus of my day’s lessons were how to ask, “do you speak English?” and “how do you say this in English?” Respectively, these phrases are “Eigo ga hanasemasuka?” and “Kore wa eigo de nanto iimasuka?”

This is just a quick photo of an escalator in the subway that I mention. Notice the people standing on the left and scaling on the right. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

A lot of the talk was about the Japanese people’s ability to speak English, though they shy away from doing it. I, for one, did not realize just how much the Japanese are required to study English in school. I was shocked that most study English for at least six years.

In my teachings in the United States, I took at least six years of Spanish, or “supeingo”, and really feel today like I have a fairly good grasp of the language. With this said, it seems to me that the Japanese people would have at least some understanding of English like my experience with Spanish.

I have found that there are two types of people here in Japan when it comes to speaking English. There are the Japanese who are excited to practice their skills in English and will often start a conversation in English with you out of their own will. The second type of person is the one we heard about in the podcasts; the ones that are shy and a bit too intimidated to try their hand at English with a native English speaker.

Let me tell you about my experiences with each…

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With these lessons under my belt, paired with the earlier JapanesePod101.com Survival Phrase lesson number 3, I was feeling confident enough to test my skills out in the real world (not to mention, Peter wanted to test me some too!) So off we went for lunch into a traditional Japanese cuisine restaurant.

Sorry for the poor quality; the photo is from a cell phone, but I wanted to get a picture to show you what negitoro-don looked like! The pink part is the tuna. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

Just as mentioned in the SurvivalPhrases.com podcast, the Japanese hostess said, “irasshaimase, nan mei sama desuka?” upon our entering. Of course, I knew that meant, “welcome! How many people are in your party?” I responded with, “yon mei“, there are four people. The woman pointed to where we were to be seated while welcoming us in.

Immediately, we were given small glasses of water and a menu. So far, I have found that unlike in America where everyone receives a menu, instead, only one is given here in Tokyo and the table shares it. We ordered a dish called “negitoro-don“.

Only minutes later, each of us received two trays. On the first was a dish of cold, thin noodles with a small dish of wasabi and onion, and a small bowl of soy-tasting, cold broth. We put the wasabi and onion in the broth and mixed it. Then I was told to put mouthfuls of noodles into the broth at a time and slurp them up.

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Emily here, and I’ve just made it through lesson five in both JapanesePod101.com’s survival phrases and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese podcasts and PDF files. I learned about Japanese restaurant phrases, Japanese basic greetings, and about the magical “wa”.

This is an example of one of the high-tech toilets I have seen. In this case, the operating system is on the wall. This one was neat in that the toilet lid opens automatically when a sensor catches you coming in. It also makes the sound of running water to help you out. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

Perhaps the most interesting was the overlap between the lessons. In basic greetings, we learned how to say good morning, afternoon, and goodnight in Japanese. In the Magical “Wa” we learned that adding the Japanese suffix, “wa“, to a word is like putting a question mark to the end of the phrase.

Notice that good afternoon in Japanese is “konnichi wa“. Konnichi, meaning afternoon, and the magical wa at the end is almost like saying, “how is your afternoon?”, or “how is it going this afternoon?” and thus, “good afternoon”, “konnichi wa“. The same goes for goodnight, or “konban wa“.

Another interesting point made in the SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese lesson #4 was that Ohayou Gozaimasu, meaning good morning, can also be used at any time of the day when first meeting someone. Today, on day six in Tokyo, after having met several people, I have found this fact to be true, and did not understand it until having listened to this podcast.

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Shibuya Crossing at Night [photo by Emily Carsch]

It is easy to get distracted by all of the lights, sounds, colors, and people at this large intersection. This photo gives you a good idea of the beginning of my Tokyo Adventure!

Hello JapanesePod101.com listeners!

My name is Emily, and I’ll be interning at JapanesePod101.com’s Headquarters in downtown Tokyo for two months. I will be visiting and staying in Japan for the first time. While I’m so happy to be here, I have a big problem…

I don’t speak Japanese!

Now, while it may seem like I’m in trouble, I’ve already come up with a solution. I’m going to learn survival Japanese using JapanesePod101.com’s Survival Phrases and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese. As I’m only here for 2 months, I need Japanese basics, and I need them fast! Plus, this will be a great way for me to see if these courses live up to the hype. (I hope my boss doesn’t see this!)

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Here’s a quiz for you. If you combine a horse and an insect, what do you get?

A fly on a horse?

Flies
Photo credit: Erin Tyner

A fly’s view of a horse?

View of an Approaching Fly
Photo credit: Bill Adams, HawaiiToday.com

A horsefly?

Horsefly
Photo credit: Mike Keeling

A horse that flies?

Actually, it’s none of those. I was just playing with you. Horsing around, you could say. OK, let me rephrase the question and give you slightly more legitimate choices. If you combine a horse and an insect, what new animal do you get?

1. a bird
2. a wolf
3. a rabbit
4. a cow

With most quizzes, I give the instant gratification of an answer. This time, you’ll have to wait a bit, while I assemble the various components of an explanation.

For now, I can show you how a horse (馬) and an insect (虫) mate, producing the following kanji:

騒 (SŌ, sawa(gu): clamor, noise, disturbance; to make a fuss)

On the Etymology of 騒 …

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Recently, when I logged onto JapanesePod101.com to listen to some podcasts, a photo with big, bold, striking kanji stopped me in my tracks.

The lesson was about 過労死 (karōshi), “death by overworking,” but none of those kanji appeared in the photo. I knew 残業 (to remain + work) as zangyō, “overtime.” And I knew 風 (FU-, kaze) in several ways, often having to do with wind. But how did 風 factor into overtime? And what was 呂敷?

What Does サービス Mean Here? …

Because the characters appeared in a photo, I couldn’t copy and paste them into Breen, and somehow all other methods of kanji investigation failed me. What would the radical of 呂 be? It couldn’t be 口, could it? (Yes, it could and it is.) I refused to think that was possible, so I didn’t even try looking it up that way, instead preferring (why???) to flail around with utterly ineffective alternative methods. I got nowhere.

Searching for 敷 in Breen finally did the trick, but only after a loooong time, because I had assumed that this character would be a Jōyō kanji, which is true, only Breen hadn’t classified it as such, which hampered my search.

Anyway, I eventually deciphered 風呂敷 as furoshiki, which means “wrapping cloth” or “cloth wrapper,” which is what the ever-so-practical people on the resource-limited Japanese islands have used to wrap presents, purchases, and whatever else might need carrying.

Shibori Omiyage
Credit: Glennis Dolce
Shibori artist Glennis Dolce makes incredible silk shibori cloths for
a variety of applications, including furoshiki.
The kanji for shibori is 絞り.

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One might think of a jumble as a negative thing: a massive ball of knotted string that takes forever to untangle, a scrambled mind that keeps nothing straight, a mess of feelings and problems that you can’t sort out, a messy house where you can’t locate what you need.

But there are also positive jumbles, and for some reason (hunger?!), I can mostly think of examples related to food: an appetizer sampler plate, variety packs of candy bars for Halloween, a stew. In fact, when you cook and mix things together, a jumble is often the goal.

Hence the Term “Jambalaya”? …

Chaos of Color, the Big Hodgepodge
Photo credit: © John W. Hammond

Kun-kun 混 combinations formed with the yomi ma(zeru) often have to do with jumbles. They even sound like jumbles. Take, for instance, this word:

混ぜこぜ (mazekoze: jumble (of two or several things); mix)

Japanese usually write this word in hiragana.

The consonants z and k in mazekoze create the impression of chaos, just as the ateji term mechakucha (目茶苦茶: disorder, confusion) has the onomatopoetic feel of disorganization. Why should this be, when the repetition of syllables (ze in mazekoze, cha in mechakucha) create some semblance of order?

More on Mechakucha …

Loopy Glass Jungle
Photo credit: © John W. Hammond

With the yomi of ma(zeru), 混 plays into at least one compound with a pejorative sense, bringing us back to the downside of jumbles:

混ぜ返す (mazekaesu: to banter, make fun of (what a person says), jeer at; to stir up)     to toss + to repeat

Ma(zeru) can also mean “to toss.” Given the breakdown, I suppose 混ぜ返す is like throwing words back in someone’s face.

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This week’s animation is titled Speak!

Do you think of Old Japan as an orderly or disorderly place? My gut reaction is to think of orderliness: the constant cleaning of already spotless houses, the exquisite presentation of shōjin ryōri (精進料理: vegetarian Buddhist food served at temples, meticulous + to offer + cuisine (last 2 chars.)), the dainty washi wrapped around purchases, and the minute attention to detail in the tea ceremony.

And yet kanji calligraphy tends toward chaos! Only highly trained practitioners can read the flowing lines. And there’s the matter of twisting, narrow roads in Tokyo and how easy it is to get lost there, with the unclear or nonexistent indication of streets and building numbers. As Donald Richie wrote so beautifully in A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan, plots of land follow natural topography, rather than grid lines:

One … sees this from the air, a good introduction to the patterns of a country. Cultivated Japan is all paddies winding in free-form serpentine between the mountains, a quilt of checks and triangles on the lowlands—very different from the neat squares of Germany, or that vast and regular checkerboard of the United States. The Japanese pattern is drawn from nature. The paddy fields assume their shape because mountains are observed and valleys followed, because this is the country where the house was once made to fit into the curve of the landscape and where the farmer used to cut a hole in the roof rather than cut down the tree. (19–20)

I can only conclude that Japan, old and new, presents an enticing combination of order and disorder. The following picture (which reminds me of a circuit board) is of Tokyo. On Flickr, the photographer’s caption says, “Japanese have a way of making even disorder neat, somehow.”

Neat Disorder
Photo credit: Poagao

We saw last week that 混 (KON, ma(jiru), ma(zeru), ma(zaru)) can mean “to confuse” and “to mix.” As ma(jiru), “to be mixed or blended,” 混 shows up in several terms that remind me of cooking, seeming to contain a dash of this word, and a dash of that word—true mixes! Take, for example, this word:

混じり気 (majirike: a dash of (something), impurity, mixture)
     to mix + a trace

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This week’s animation is titled Gate!

When I came upon the compound 混沌 (konton: confusion, chaos, disorder), I couldn’t fathom why this word had taken on so much water (). I wondered whether the moisture had anything to do with the “swirling waters of confusion” to which English speakers refer. As it turns out, yes! Check out some of the meanings of these kanji (the second of which happens to be rare):

混: confused
沌: swirling water, to be blocked, primeval chaos

Primeval chaos?! Burbling bodies of water must have terrified some early people!

Swirl
Photo credit: Ray Byrne

Henshall says that 混 originally referred to water rushing and swirling with no fixed course, as in a flood. Then “confused waters” came to mean “confused” in a broader sense. He also says the 昆 inside 混 means “multitude” and acts phonetically here to express “to spin, swirl.” The element 昆 even lends its own idea of confusion, because people in a crowd mill around chaotically.

Swirling Waters
Photo credit: eatzycath

If this sounds entirely negative, never fear. The kanji 混 also means “to mix.” This associated meaning came about because impure elements often find their way into the swirling waters of confusion. This idea of “mixing” is not inherently negative. Just consider these appealing mixes:

雨混じりの雪 (ame majiri no yuki: snow mingled with rain)     rain + to mix + snow

混合酒 (kongōshu: cocktail, mixed drink, blended liquor)
     to mix + to join + alcohol

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This week’s animation is titled What Box!

In English, “tail of the yak” and “tale of the yak” both make sense but mean very different things. This is nothing compared with the profusion of Japanese homonyms. When you type YAKU in hiragana and convert it to kanji, any of the following characters could pop up, as all have the on-yomi of YAKU:

約 (to promise, shrink, about)
訳 (to translate)
薬 (medicine)
役 (service, serviceability)
厄 (misfortune)
躍 (to leap)
疫 (epidemic)
益 (benefit, profit)　

This leads to a plethora of homophonous YAKU compounds.

There are three more types of yaku:

焼く (to burn, roast, grill, bake)

In this case, ya(ku) is the kun-yomi. Some compounds include the kun-yomi of this kanji, but the form is always yaki or yake. This kanji therefore doesn’t factor into the YAKU homonym confusion.

妬く (to become jealous)

This kun-yomi is uncommon and seems to play no part in any homonym problem.

ヤク (yak)

I believe this word also causes no compound confusion.

Yak Near the Sacred Yundrok Yumtso Lake, Tibet
Photo credit: Dennis Jarvis

Yakity Yak
Photo credit: Valerie Abbott

Yet Another YAKU …

YAKU Words with Great Internal Rhymes …

Kanji with Both EKI and YAKU as On-Yomi …

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When we first started JapanesePod101.com, we only had a few lessons and a few levels, so it was very easy to figure out how to use the site. But now with over 700 lessons and many different levels and series, a lot of people have asked us “Where should I start?” While there are many ways to use the site, we definitely have a few recommendations!

We grouped the lessons in 4 categories Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Miscellaneous. Also we designated each level linear or non-linear. Then we listed descriptions of the each course and included the first and last lesson so you can better gauge which levels are perfect for you!

Check out the page here:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/help-center/the-courses/

Also, since it’s Golden Week, we’re running a special Promo to save you 33% on any Basic or Premium Subscription! Woo-hoo!

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This week’s animation is titled Eyes!

Last week we saw how the 約 in 約束 (yakusoku: promise, promise + to bind) can imply a binding contract. I don’t usually associate contracts with any sense of contracting, which is to say “shrinking.” But just as “contract” has these two meanings, so does 約, strangely enough.

“Contract” in English (and Latin) …

In fact, Halpern says that “shortening” is the original meaning of 約. When does 約 convey a sense of shrinking? I can think of no better example than this one:

括約筋 (katsuyakukin: sphincter)
     to constrict + to shrink + muscle

Oh, come now. There are several sphincters in the body!

What’s With the Breakdown of 括?! …

Whereas 括約筋 conveys a drawing together, other 約 words are more about condensing something long:

要約 (yōyaku: summary, abridged statement)
     important + to shrink

約言 (yakugen: co