Japanese Lessons A blog about each week’s Japanese lessons

Tonight brought us into the fascinatingly decorated studios of Chelsea’s workplace, Double Wide Media! Thanks for hosting, Chelsea! That was a fabulous place–I hope we get to study there again.

We kicked off the lesson with a quiz on all the ひらがな and a lot of the vocabulary from Genki lessons 1 and 2. You can see the quiz here.

We then went over the homework that I assigned last time (various worksheets). Your answers were very creative; I’m so happy. I’m also happy with your sentences for the ～は～です、～も～です constructions!

Chewy: チェルシーさんはわたしのともだちです。ナットさんもわたしのともだちです。
Chelsea: ナットさんはかっこいいです。チューイーさんもかっこいいです。

Very sweet (and kind!) sentences, guys…

We then read through the Genki 2 dialogues (good acting; sorry you had to sell your pens, Chelsea). And then we reviewed our カタカナ with a markerboard game- nice swordplay. And then we practiced a bit more by reading various カタカナ animal names. I got rid of the sheet of paper but here are the ones I can recall:

タコ (octopus)
イカ (squid)
キツネ (fox)
タヌキ (raccoon-dog)
イヌ (dog)
ネコ (cat)
ウシ (cow)
ヘビ (snake)

Memorize these!

Finally, we went over grammar points–it seems like you guys are pretty solid on this stuff. Remember that in casual form, ～じゃありません can be replaced by ～じゃない, ～ですか can be replaced by ～なの, and plain ol’ ～です can be replaced by ～だ. If ～ですか or plain ol’ ～です follow an adjective, they can be dropped entirely, as the adjective can stand alone at the end of the sentence and cannot be followed by ～だ. We’ll learn more about adjectives later.

Hence:
－にほんじんなの？
－いいえ、にほんじんじゃない。かんこくじんだ。
－ああ、そうなの？すごいね。

The same conversation in formal speech:

－にほんじんですか？
－いいえ、にほんじんじゃありません。かんこくじんです。
－ああ、そうですか？すごいですね。

You probably already know this, but すごい is a multipurpose adjective meaning “fantastic,” “impressive,” and “amazing,” among other things.

Finally, we learned the expression ラブラブ (mushy, lovey-docey) to describe チューイーさん　and her かれし, ニックさん.

♥　ラブラブだね～　♥