I Speak Japanese

Hi guys,

I totally agree that it’s always important for any language learning to know what your goal is. For me, ultimate goal of learning language(in my case,”English”) was to be able to understand interviews of bands I was interested in.

Aw, your lucky Kevin lol. I can’t wait for that “mini serise” cause i myself want to go and visit and or move to japan when i get alittle bit older :). As i said can’t wait!!!

Congrats to you Kevin on your move! At my church we take in international students, help them out with whatever and make them feel welcome. Well its very rare that we get any from Japan(2). The international students are students at are local university. Well this year we got about 7 new international students and 2 are from Japan. SO happy! I asked them how things were coming along and everything and since I’ve lived where I haven’t known people I know it can be really hard. One of their tough parts are getting to know american friends. So I shot out the idea to have a party for the international students to meet people american people are age. They are happy and so am I. I want them to feel as welcome as possible. Sorry for the long post.

I’m sorry that the prime minister has changed a lot recently in Japan.lol
Anyway, Kevin Omedetou! How long are you going to stay here in Japan?
I’m really looking forward to watching ‘Kevin’s moving to Japan’ documentary.

I learned following words in this time:
‘without further ado’ —- nice, let me use it. hahaha-

Thx Aaron & Kevin,

おめでとう！Very cool you are moving to Japan, Kevin. Looking forward to the new ‘documentary’ series. Will you still do ‘happy hour’ vids… perhaps with split screen? Maybe you could get Asahi or Sapporo to sponsor it. Thanks again for Accelerator, guys. Still working through it… a great resource.

Best,
Mark

Kanpai Aaron & Kevin!

Have been sitting up whole night now watching your movies and been trying/study your ‘Free 5 day course’. Excellent!
Can’t find anything similar too the JET programme for Norwegian, but it’s 2-3 years before I gonna teach/study Japanese 100%.
Looking forward for the documentary and good luck Kevin.
08:08AM, time to sleep.

Greeting from Norway, Tom

Ahh! Ganbatte ne! I’ll miss seeing you guys together! Happy Hour Japan is super funny.
I like to watch it when I’m home sick (for Hawaii.) & well, whenever I’m bored & near my ipod really..
I watched you guys on the plane over to Portland. Can’t wait for the mini-series! Show us some
good Japanese eats!

Anway! Having a goal is such a good point to bring up when learning a language.
I like how Mariko wanted to read band interviews.
I just want to talk to Japanese people & family, but I think one of my big reasons for learning Kanji
would just be so that I can read the backs of tooth paste tubes & cereal boxes. I always read that
stuff in english when I’m eating cereal, or brushing my teeth.. & sometimes you can read super cute & funny engurish on someeee Japanese stuff, but I think knowing what those things said, & hearing the way
they endorse their product would help me feel apart of their culture. I feel like there are all these
inside jokes on packaging that I’m just not able to get at yet. & just being able to recognize something like
“Ramen” in hiragana on a package makes me so happy.

So yeah.. I hope you guys continue.. & take care!
j

ps: I’ve been showing you to my friends here in PDX & they love you guys.

Hey Kevin and Aaron,
I really like watching your videos and your happy hours. Seeing your love for the Japanese language is very heart-warming for me. Of course, I share a great love for this beautiful language, although my motives and methods are quite different.
I’m very tied down to my job and family on the east coast, so I propably won’t get many opportunities to darken the sun god’s doorstep (urayamashii desu). However, the world of manga/anime stretches to every part of the globe and is a multi-faceted jewel of Sci-fi/fantasy, crime drama/mystery and just plain old day to day life in the land of the rising sun. One of the things that make this art form such a strong draw for me is what I consider a very Buddhist premise with a strong, spiritual zest for life. A day will come when manga/anime will be offered as a serious study in college course curriculums.
One of the great challenges in learning this language is dealing with all the sino/japanese compounds. It makes for a lot of homina homina homina homonyms There must have been a time in the history of Japanese where they competed to see who could do the most Chinese peppering of their speech. It’s like you really have to learn two languages… Japanese Japanese and Chinese Japanese. Nowadays, they seem to be competing for the most hip, romaji acronyms. Actually, the sino-japanese dimension of the vocabulary provides a strong motivation for mastering kanji. it really helps out.
Anyway, gambatte and enjoy the beer, but please be careful.

Love Happy Hour Japan! Informative as well as humorous!
Maybe you guys should dress up in some outlandish costumes like the TV hosts in Japan do.
Kevin in a Power Ranger (http://www.rangercentral.com/) costume and
Aaron as Anpanman (http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.11/3.11pages/onoanpanman.php3)?
Nah! Like you just the way you are!
Keep up the fine work no matter which side of the Pond you are on!
Taro

So I watched this video months ago but I was just re-waching it and I wondered if either one of you has checked out the AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) method of learning the langauge. It pretty intense and I’d like your opinion on it.