Japanese Pimsleur Progress Report

[Fantt]

Seven lessons into Pimsleur Japanese I

I'm actually learning things! I doubt that people in Japan always speak so politely, but I feel like I'm getting a solid foundation on the language.

I have also learned to say, "Would you like to have a drink at my place?"

Heh.

Only 83 more lessons to go.

[blessed]

hehe, well done.

I just got it as well, but its really annoying, cause I'vew done japanese for a year, and I get most of the conversation on the last lessons, but sometimes don't get it on level 5. good program though.

[thereisnospoon]

I remember the first few lessons, about inviting someone out for a drink, then also how to understand their rejection :lol

[Fantt]

いいえ　けっこです。。。あとで

:d

[Sy-l]

Hi new here *Waves to everyone" I just started these lessons aswell. Nice to know other ppl are using pimsleurs lessons.

[Fantt]

Welcome! I'm awfully new here myself. I'm mainly using Pimsleur because a friend of mine is doing the Russian one and he was telling me how great they were.

[Fantt]

Does anyone have or know where to get the transcripts for these? I've seen posts with people talking about having the transcripts... where my best chance to find them?

Thanks!

[Sy-l]

I havnt seen any of them around but would be good if they were available. Well anyways ive completed the first units But only thing thats bothering me is that whenever i speak/listen to someone ill be thinking in romanji which aint good.

[PaulTB]

Originally Posted by Sy-l

But only thing thats bothering me is that whenever i speak/listen to someone ill be thinking in romanji which aint good.

Quite right.

You should be thinking in romaji.

[Sy-l]

Nahnot really when i speak in cantonese i think in chinese. :s When i speak english then i think in romanji aswell. Maybe its cuz i dont know katikana/harigana. Kanji some of the words i reckognise in chinese.

[Fantt]

I'm beginning to think in both romaji AND kana when I'm listening to Pimsleur. Kind of a hybridized bastardization of the two. Probably not too good, but I'm slowly leaning towards kana, which may be ok.

Just finished lesson 15 last night. Doing 1 lesson a night seems to be working very well.

I've learned how to harass women, how to order beer and sake and how to beg for money.

[Sy-l]

Originally Posted by Fantt

I've learned how to harass women, how to order beer and sake and how to beg for money.

lol nice way to put what you learnt in to mind

[Fantt]

Some things Pimsleur has taught me to say in Japanese:

Goof afternoon! Would you like to have a drink back at my place?

Would you like to have dinner with me tonight? At 7 o'clock or 8? Ok, how about 10? Now?

Do you have any yen? Please give me 15 yen. Please give me 10 dollars. I have no dollars. Please give me dollars. I have no yen. Good evening! Please give me yen.

Good morning! I'd like 13 beers, please!

[Sy-l]

lol

Anybody happen to know the harigana/katakana/kanji for the phrases they teach you in pimsleurs?

arigatou
domo
konnichiwa
etc

[Glenn]

Check out Teach Yourself Japanese for writing basic greetings in hiragana. By the way, the are mostly written in hiragana. It's a bit more unusual to see them in kanji.

[Sy-l]

ちりか゜と　is that arigatou? or am i totally off?

[Glenn]

Somewhat close. It's ありがとう. Colloquially it's often abbreviated to just ありがと, though.

[msfi]

I've stopped using Pimsleur. I just can't learn without knowing how the words are spelled or what they mean. For example, in the second lesson you learn eigo-ga wa karimasu ka? (apologies for the romaji, I am having IME issues!) But when I heard it I thought it was 'agogo karimaska' or something. Icky. I'm not a strong auditory learner anyway.

So I'm going to stick with my textbook (Japanese for Everyone, which I really like) and it's tapes, watching NHK news etc. Works better for me.

I'll be in Japan in one month! Just for four days though

[Fantt]

Are you watching NHK news online? If so, can you share the link?

Thanks!

[David Hallgren]

Here are a few great links if you want to listen to or watch Japanese media, enjoy!

http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/ann/news/w...531204415_300k
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/japanese/tvnews_j.html
http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/
http://www.japanese-kanji.org/module...p?articleid=49

[msfi]

Not NHK online, the local TV station carries the nightly broadcast at 5:30am, so I tape it and watch it at a more reasonable hour

[Elizabeth]

http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/

I've been able to get this one to work exactly twice, the vast majority of the tries there's either an unable to find the specified file message or nothing.
I love reading and listening to Japanese news, so it would be great if something could get it to happen more consistently.

[Fantt]

Thanks for the links! Elizabeth, I got that link to work the first time I tried it. Well, I got one of the links on that page to start playing audio...

[PaulTB]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth

I love reading and listening to Japanese news, so it would be great if something could get it to happen more consistently.

FNN-NEWS always works for me.

What player do you use for the
http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/
link?
It worked first time with Windows Media Player 9

[Fantt]

More of an update now:

I finished Lesson 18 last night. If you look on the Learning Japanese topic, I have a post there about some frustrations I've begun running into. Basically, I don't want to parrot Pimsleur - I want to more or less understand what they're saying and why. For the most part, my limited knowledge of Japanese is serving me well here, but some of the stuff I just have no clue on the why part.

The more I think about it, the more I feel I may just forge ahead and not worry too much about fully understanding the why part. I think it will come in time and the more that I can expose myself to now, the better off I will be in the long run. I think that as long as I continue to study outside of Pimsleur, I'll be ok.

Only 72 more lessons to go!