Business has been quick to cash in by providing a wide range of products designed to alleviate symptoms. These include antihistamine tablets, face masks, nose sprays and goggles which account for 20 billion yen in annual sales.

Why does Japan have so much cedar?

Between the 50s and 70s, around 4.5 million hectares of cedar trees were planted in an attempt to meet the growing need for construction materials. However, it eventually became more economical to import lumber from abroad making the cedar plantations obsolete. Even today as the forests mature the amount of cedar produced increases as do the number of hay fever sufferers. Apparently, even the monkeys are suffering. The cedar looks as if it is here to stay as government plans to reduce the plantations are not ambitious or well funded.

In the mean time the only course open to most people is to by whatever is on offer at the pharmacy and check out the pollen maps of Japan. Weathernews.jp has an excellent pollen map of Japan updated in real time. I’ll definitely be referring to it in the coming months. Wish me luck and plenty of chainsaws…

Some useful links:

Tackling The Cedar Blight

General Facts on Hey Fever (Japan Times)

Hay Fever in Japan (What Japan Thinks)

Environmental Ministry Pollen Map

Related posts:

1. Hay fever in Tokyo 2009
2. #42 Hayfever in Japan
3. Health Insurance and Visa Renewal in Japan

The other day, NHK came, filmed around the office and followed Kelly the editor of the magazine on her rounds. I’m in the video for about 2 seconds trying and failing to not look like a complete idiot speaking Japanese.

Some of the Japanese in this isn’t too challenging so this might be good practice for you budding students of the language. NHK was also kind enough to provide subtitles for our interviews so there is some reading practice for you too.

Enjoy.

Related posts:

1. Tokyo Weekender Magazine
2. Hacker Spaces in Tokyo
3. Fun Friday: Absolutely Fabulous in Tokyo

Online Lessons/Tutorials:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/ – Easy to follow grammar lessons, some vocabulary. Nice for starters.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0002/ – The excellent Daily Yomiuri Online “Pera Pera Penguin” articles.
http://www.ichiban.narod.ru/nihongo/nihongo.html – Various tutorials and phrase books in Russian.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/ – Japanese lessons by NHK Radio available in 17 languages
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/japanese/cover.html – Teach yourself Japanese – Basic Japanese with a linguistics approach.
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/grammarpage.php – One hundred “watered-down, understandable, bite-sized grammar helps”.
http://jplang.tufs.ac.jp/account/login – JPLANG provides e-learning materials for learning Japanese, developed by a TUFS team.
http://www.trymango.com/language_program.php – for beginners, lots of audio, free but with a registration
http://www.basic-japanese.com/ – 34 free lessons and tools
http://www.manythings.org/japanese/ – free-to-use online study materials
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagod…/1jp/main.html – conversational topics and grammar references
http://www.japanese-online.com/ – Free lessons on particles and sentence structures: audio files available for conversation examples.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/i-yasu/bk-les.htm – 市川保子’s lessons by grammatical topics, compiled from Q&A: Japanese
http://homepage3.nifty.com/i-yasu/bk-les-e.htm – the English version of the above
http://www.pantomime.org/nihongo-tusin/note.html – frequently asked questions about Japanese: Japanese
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese – textbook project by Wiki volunteers
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~sg2h-ymst/yamatouta/intro/dousikatuyou.html – grammar of Classical Japanese: Japanese

Reading Material:
http://www.genpaku.org/ – Collaborative translation project. Usufruct granted by acknowledgement.
http://www3.cnet-ta.ne.jp/p/pddlib/ – Public domain documents including an encyclopaedia, a biographical dictionary and Japanese laws
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/ – Collection of copyright-free works. A lot of texts have phonetic guides in hiragana.
http://hukumusume.com/douwa/ – listen and read fairy-tales
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20683 – Oku no Hosomichi by Matsuo Bashō
http://eloise.cocolog-nifty.com/rodoku/ – Japanese classics in text and audio files
http://ikeda-hideo.hp.infoseek.co.jp/library_e.html – text and audio files of early modern Japanese literature
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/ja – Japanese reading materials in Project Gutenberg
http://www.esuj.gr.jp/cgi-local/Docu…d=list&lang=jp – Contemporary Japanese opinions with English translations
http://jpn.scripturetext.com/matthew/1.htm – Japanese Bible translation with cross references to other translations: courtesy 電網聖書

Pronunciation:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showp…52&postcount=9 – IPA explanations and tools, compiled by WR’s own timpeac.
http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html – sound files for IPA symbols as revised in 1996
http://ipa4linguists.pbwiki.com/ – instructions for setting up your computer to display IPA symbols
http://www.siskiyous.edu/NCTA/Japane…iles/index.htm – sound files for Japanese syllabary and verb conjugations.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2151706_impr…unciation.html – Quick tips of phonemes (aimed at English speakers)
http://www.voiceblog.jp/ted606/ – Recitations including classic literature (texts may be found in Aozora Bunko)
http://www.voiceblog.jp/kiyo22/ – Recitations by a voice actor (texts may be found in Aozora Bunko)
http://www.env.kitakyu-u.ac.jp/corpus/texts/index.html – audio samples from very non-structured interviews

Web Services:
http://webcat.nii.ac.jp/webcat.html – Searches library catalogues in universities and research institutions.
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ – Searches journal articles by the title.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/ – Home page of National Diet Library.
http://www.google.co.jp/ – Google Japan with Web services in Japanese.
http://www.yahoo.co.jp/ – Yahoo’s Japanese portal.
http://podcastle.jp/ – Nascent technology for transcribing and searching podcasts.

Media:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/ – News from NHK, Japan’s public service broadcaster.
http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/ann/news/web/index.html – TV Asahi News is another good listening resource with transcripts. Enjoy!
http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl – Generates small vocabulary bubbles for Japanese news text.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/rj/index_j.html – live streaming of NHK Radio Japan
http://news.tbs.co.jp/ – News site of TBS, a commercial network.

Dictionaries:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi – Commonly known as Jim Breen’s dictionary, supports a verb conjugator.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1R – search for kanjis by combinations of stroke counts and radicals
http://www.jisho.org/ – WWWJDIC spin-off with more user-friendly interface
http://www.online-dictionary.biz/english/japanese/ – another WWWJDIC spin-off
http://dico.fj.free.fr/traduction/index.php – French-Japanese / Japanese-French dictionary.
http://www.alc.co.jp/ – A bidirectional English-Japanese database with a search box for looking up more natural expressions.
http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/ka…nPage?OpenForm – A bidirectional English-Japanese dictionary and kanji guides
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/ – Online dictionaries offered from Yahoo! Japan Dictionary. Includes Ja-En, En-Jp and Jp-Jp.
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/ – Online dictionaries offered from Goo, another Japanese search engine. Includes Ja-En, En-Jp and Jp-Jp.
http://www.excite.co.jp/dictionary/ – Online dictionaries offered from Excite. Includes En-Ja, Ja-En, Jp-Jp, Ch-Ja and Ja-Ch.
http://www.englishjapaneseonlinedictionary.com/ A Romaji English <> Japanese dictionary.
http://www.trussel.com/f_nih.htm – Jeffrey’s Jp<>En Dict. Kana and Romanji input. Display results in Romanji and Kanji
http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/search/kanjisearch.php – Kanji-English Dictionary
http://www.dictjuggler.net/tamatebako/index.html – 類語玉手箱 is an on-line Japanese thesaurus: Japanese
http://www.matsu-kaze.net/mk/kanji/ – Kanji (教育漢字)-English Dictionary by romaji input.
http://www.saiga-jp.com/kanji_dictionary.html – Kanji Dictionary, with stroke order, English meaning, On-yomi (phonetic reading), Kun-yomi (native Japanese reading), irregular pronunciations (e.g.一日 = ついたち), example sentences, and audio files.
http://www.languageguide.org/nihongo/ – thematic picture dictionary with audio
http://www.nihonjiten.com/ – Collection of numerous Japanese dictionaries
http://www.hikyaku.com/dico/onmyog.html – kanji dictionary and themed lists

Specialised Vocabulary and Phrase Books:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Japanese_phrasebook – Survival Japanese for Travellers.
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SilkRoad-…ei/jinmei.html – list of typical nanori; special kanji pronunciations for personal names
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~suzakihp/index40.html – Japanese family names; click on 1.苗字検索 in the left pane.
http://yubin.senmon.net/ – A database of Japanese place names, searchable in kanji and hiragana.
http://gogen-allguide.com/ – etymology dictionary: Japanese
http://coe21.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/djvuchar – Chinese characters from Tang inscriptions; search by CJK allomorphs/scripts [説明書]
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ax2s-kmtn/ref/old_chara.html – Tables to match old and new kanji forms.
http://homepage2.nifty.com/TAB01645/ohara/ – Dictionary of Japan-made kanjis. Entries are provided as image files. Japanese
http://hougen.atok.com/ – User-driven database for regional dialects
http://ryukyu-lang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/ – The Ryukuan language phonetic database; Nakijin, Shuri-Naha, Amami, Miyako dialects
http://sanabo.com/words/?=index – Yojijukugo (four-charactered idioms) with definitions, usages and English translations.
http://nihongoup.com/blog/japanese-color-names/ – Japanese colour names cheat sheet
http://hiramatu-hifuka.com/onyak/onyindx.html – Pronunciation dictionaries compiled by topics.
http://www.saglasie.com/tr/chemical/ – Names of chemical substances in Japanese and English; database
http://www.ffcr.or.jp/Zaidan/mhwinfo…25684600083647 – list of aromatic bases: Japanese and English
http://www.tradmedicine.com/term/syoyaku-db.html – list of crude drugs: Japanese and scientific names
http://zokugo-dict.com/ – Slang with definition and usage.
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_htsrv_tdy – Glossary of colloquial expressions
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_sit_browse – Themed list of conversational phrases
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=1 – Glossary of loan words and Japanese English
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=2 – Glossary of yojijukugo or four-character expressions
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=3 – Glossary of proverbs and clichés
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=4 – Glossary of onomatopoeias and mimetic words
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/s_kaydic?ctg_in=5 – Glossary of Japanese culture and news
http://www.geocities.jp/tomomi965/index.html – Proverbs and clichés with synonymous and antonymous expressions.
http://crlao.ehess.fr/japonais-coree…eDesIndex.html – Dictionnaire terminologique de linguistique japonaise/日本語言語学専門用語和仏辞典
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/etymdict.html – Mandarin, Middle Chinese and Japanese pronunciations; PDF
http://www.schei.com/dictionary/ – English/Japanese Japanese/English Aviation Dictionary 和英・英和航空学辞典
http://e-words.jp/ – Dictionary of information technology terms: Japanese
http://www.geocities.jp/ps_dictionary/a.htm – 英語－日本語電気専門用語辞書
http://www5.synapse.ne.jp/sio/siof1/…dic_E_top.html – Financial Dictionary (EN <> JP)
http://engeinavi.jp/fen/ – 園芸ナビ　花の園芸用語辞典 (JP <> EN)
http://www.e-bridge.jp/eb/tcontents/…edic.php?job=0 – 橋梁の英和・和英辞典 (JP <> EN)

Grammar:
http://www.jgram.org/ – Very useful web page when studying grammar for the JLPT (from 4kyū to 1kyū).
http://www.nihongoresources.com A rather successful all-in-one Japanese site. From very basic dictionary, to grammar through particles. Noteworthy: giongo (which are onomatopoeia but there’s more to it!).
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html#contents – Japanese grammar reference by constructions.
http://books.google.com/books?id=l_f3b7J2zjcC – constructions compendium offered as a Google search service
http://www.jpf.go.jp/j/urawa/j_rsorc…_04_02_04.html – teaching materials by the Japanese-Language Institute
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g…ummary_r&cad=0 – Japanese by Iwasaki is a reference in a theoretical framework

Particles:
http://www.timwerx.net/language/particles.htm – Particles overview.
http://japanese.about.com/blparticles.htm – Basic particles overview at about.com.
http://home.inter.net/kenbutler/particlehome.html – A guide to the functions of structural particles in Japanese.
http://www.geocities.jp/nihongoguide/particles2.html – Verb related particles.
http://www.maedera.com/home/jgrammar…r/jgr_part.htm – Particles from a linguistic point of view.

Software:
http://abctajpu.mozdev.org/ – A Firefox add-on to enable easy input of Unicode characters: includes kana shortcuts.
http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/ – For Firefox users: Rikaichan is a pop-up dictionary – reads Japanese web-pages.
http://members.lycos.co.uk/szunvukung/kk/ – Kanji flashcard system by Peter Salvi. Uses Tcl/Tk.
http://wakan.manga.cz/ – freeware that parses Japanese text in English and Furigana and Romanji (Hepburn)
http://wakan.manga.cz/files/wakan_full_167.exe – complete download
http://nihongo.j-talk.com/parser/ – converts both Kanji and Kana into Romaji (select “Kanji to Romaji” option)
http://www.furiganizer.com/ – provides furigana to Japanese texts
http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx – parses Japanese sites and provides pop-up vocabulary. Also in Chinese and Korean.
http://www.freewebs.com/horazio/freeware.htm – Pazuru Alfabet is a learning tool that helps to recognize kanas.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/…s/tradkan0.htm – Converts between Chinese and Japanese kanjis, old and new varieties.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/…s/readkan0.htm – kaňon (漢音), goon (呉音), MSC and Hanja pronunciations output
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/…s/zen2hanz.htm – Converts between fullwidth and halfwidth forms.
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html – Japanese word processor, with a built-in IME for kana input and kanji conversion. Also supports dictionaries.
http://ajaxime.chasen.org/ – Online Web-based Japanese Input Method
http://japan.adventuresoftim.com/flash.asp – vocabulary flash cards
http://www.tagaini.net/ – Tagaini Jisho is a free, open-source Japanese dictionary and kanji lookup tool.
http://www.byki.com/ – a flashcard style system, the tool contains set lists of basic phrases for certain situations
http://nihongoup.com/ – Japanese educational game and reviewing tool (kana, JLPT kanji, vocabulary and particles)

About Japanese:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language – Wikipedia’s general account of the Japanese language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations – Comprehensive tables for Japanese verb conjugations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology – Basic topics of Japanese phonology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_grammar – An account of Japanese grammar with emphasis on morphology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_particle – particles galore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics – Japanese honorifics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes…ntracted_words – Japanese abbreviated and contracted words
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_sound_symbolism – Japanese sound symbolism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes…raphic_symbols – typographic symbols
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_punctuation – punctuation marks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_…poken_Japanese – gender differences in Japanese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word – list of Japanese counters and phonological alterations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb – conjugation paradigms of verbs and adjectives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambun – Kambun is the traditional conventions for translating Classical Chinese texts.
http://users.tmok.com/~tumble/qadgtj.html – Titled “A quick and dirty guide to Japanese”.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/kanaqadgtj.html – The quick and dirty guide to Japanese. (kana version)
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ – Blog, lessons and method of learning Japanese
http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewey…nime/japanese/ – tips for common but difficult expressions
http://www.kanji.org/kanji/japanese/writing/outline.htm – Outline of the Japanese Writing System
http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/index.html – fundamental differences of Japanese from European languages
http://www.classical-japanese.net/ – Translations and grammar for Classical Japanese
http://nihon5ch.net/contents/ch5/dai…08-3-part2.pdf – list of transitive and intransitive verb pairs: PDF file
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/conditional.html – concise article on Japanese conditionals
http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/GettingRig…conundrum.html – an essay on different systems for Latin transcription
http://homepage3.nifty.com/park/aspect.htm – A Study of “V-te iru” in Japanese by Taeko Tomioka

Links:
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/m.rowley/resources.html – Melita Rowley’s Japanese learning resources.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html – Once again Jim Breen’s. This time his Japanese related web page. Ugly, but every link in that page is worth gold.

Corpora:
http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/ – searchable record of proceedings of the Diet
http://teikokugikai-i.ndl.go.jp/ – searchable record of proceedings of the Imperial Parliament

Related posts:

1. Japan Website Links
2. JLPT resources (Featured Forum Posts)
3. Featured forum posts ( Kanji study resources )

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Last August I hung out at the Solar Cafe. It is part of the Earth Embassy, an organic farm and learning center for sustainable living located in Yamanashi prefecture. I was helping my friend Jake out on the farm as part of my attempt to escape the madness of Tokyo and relax over the summer holidays.

During my stay I met Hugo and Adam who climbed Mount Fuji. I shot this interview with them and asked them about their experiences. They also give some good advice about climbing Mount Fuji, what to do and what to avoid. I think the moral of the story is be prepared and don’t underestimate Fuji, it can be more challenging that you think.

Map of the video

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Related posts:

1. Learn Japanese Pod Update
2. How to climb Mt. Fuji
3. Mt. Fuji in winter

Related posts:

1. Japanese Language Learning Links and Resources
2. Japan Website Links
3. Health Insurance and Visa Renewal in Japan

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/jslang10.mp3[/podcast]

ドン引き

donbiki = to creep people out, to make people feel awkward or turned off

彼が痴漢で逮捕されたんだって。どんびきだよね。

kare ga chikan de taihou saretan datte. donbiki da yo ne.

They say he was arrested for molesting women. That’s so creepy. (It leaves me cold)

Donbiki is a phrase that refers to when people get creeped out or turned off by something. It’s used when something happens or someone says something that makes people feel uncomfortable and don’t know how to react.

彼が寒い冗談を言ったら皆がドン引きされていた。

kare ga samui joudan wo ittara mina ga donbiki sareteita.

When he told that terrible joke everyone was left cold.

Related posts:

1. J-Slang 09: Futoppara
2. J-Slang 03: Samu!
3. J-Slang 01: Bakappuru

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Today, Karamoon and myself sat around in Yoyogi park watching Japan enjoy it’s Friday afternoon. Karamoon explained the latest developments as well as the basics of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Listen to the podcast to find out more about the test.

Related posts:

1. Fun Friday: Yoyogi Park, Harajuku and Omotesando
2. Fun Friday: Hanging with Wes
3. Fun Friday for 2nd October 2009

“The Free Choice Foundation has obtained a copy of an ‘internal’ Immigration Bureau document that seems to provide a measure of clarification on the issue of foreigners’ enrollment in Japan ‘s social health care system as a prerequisite for visa application approval. A DPJ Lower House lawmaker, after questioning Justice Minister Chiba about Guideline Number 8, was sent the document via fax from Immigration. The lawmaker then forwarded the document to a Free Choice supporter.

Although the overall language of the document continues to be somewhat vague (in keeping with the tone of the Guidelines themselves), one very interesting declaration was made in no uncertain terms:

“Accordingly, if a health insurance ID card is not presented (to an immigration officer), that alone cannot be sufficient reason for rejection or denial of a (visa) application.”

This passage makes it very clear that not being enrolled in one of Japan’s public health insurance plans cannot of itself be sufficient cause for declining a foreigner’s application for visa renewal or change of status. It can only be used as one possibly influencing factor when taking into consideration the applicant’s individual circumstances, along with the other seven guidelines. So, if you’re an honest, hard-working foreign resident who just happens to prefer private insurance, not being enrolled in social insurance will not result in your visa application being denied.

Also;

Yesterday representatives from ASIJ, ISSH, NIS and St. Mary’s visited the Nyukan Kyokai (immigration bureau consulting organization)  This membership organization is made up of former immigration officials and is established to give advice on immigration issues to member organizations.  In yesterday’s meeting we asked for their advice in answering three questions:

1.      The purpose of the new immigration guideline?
2.      Would the new immigration guideline be implemented in April 2010?
3.      What would be the best way to express our organizations concerns regarding the new guideline to immigration officials?

The answers we received were as follows:

1.      The purpose of the new guideline is to encourage all citizens to join a national health scheme.
2.      The new immigration guideline would definitely NOT be a factor in processing visa applications from April of 2010.  Until the guideline becomes a law the immigration office will not actively use the guideline as a criteria to accept or deny visa applications.  The immigration office may recommend to applicants not enrolled in a national health plan that they enroll, but they will not use the lack of enrollment as a criteria for denying or approving visas.
3.      Both the immigration office and Ministry of Justice have already received numerous concerns from large organizations, including Keidanren, regarding the implementation of the new health certificate guideline therefore it is very likely the DPJ and the Ministry of Justice will review the guideline prior to making any further recommendations as to how it should be implemented or whether it should become a law.”

Related posts:

1. Hay Fever in Japan “花粉症” (Kafunshō)
2. #15 At the post office in Japan
3. Tokyo Weekender on NHK

Noun/Verb/Adjective (Plain Form/Polite Past Form) +っけ
何だっけ。 What is it again…
新宿だったっけ。 Was it Shinjuku?  I can’t remember.
病気でしたっけ。 He was sick, right?  I forgot.
買ったっけ・買いましたっけ。 Did he buy it?  I forgot.
行くんだっけ。 He’s going, right?  I forgot.
行ったんだっけ。 He went, didn’t he?  I forgot.
行くんだったっけ・行くんでしたっけ。 He was going, wasn’t he?
冷たかったっけ。 It was cold, right?

注意：イ Adjectives don’t ever use the Past Polite form (～かったです) with っけ since it can’t attach to です.  Also, it’s not recommended to use the Present Tense for Verbs or イ Adjectives.  It’s generally unnatural (even in English) to forget something that didn’t happen yet.

This form is only used to express something you did know, but forgot.  If you remember た・だ + っけ, you’ll be ok.

Grammar Note: Plain Form
Verb: 行く ・ 行かない ・ 行った ・　行かなかった
イ Adjective: さむい　・　さむくない　・　さむかった　・　さむくなかった
ナ Adjective: 元気だ　・　元気じゃない　・　元気たった　・　元気じゃなかった
Noun: 雨だ　・　雨じゃない　・　雨だった　・　雨じゃなかった

Related posts:

1. Aodh’s Grammar Point [01] やすい・にくい (Easy to/Hard to)
2. Too much and Not enough
3. Aodh’s Grammar Point [03] ていく・てくる (Change/Process/Transition)

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Today’s Podcast Location

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This week’s podcast was recorded by the fountains in Yoyogi park in Tokyo with Karamoon and myself. Here are some of the topics we talked about with some useful links.

1) The Learn Japanese Pod Facebook group, Mixi community, Twitter and the Forums.

2) Useful websites and blogs about Tokyo: Tokyo Heels which can be found at Tokyo Weekender

3) Tame goes wild

4) Tokyo Marathon

5) Japanese Pod Get Together.

This is a great chance to meet new people, learn some Japanese and hear some traditional Japanese music for free. This event is being held in conjunction with The Japanese Lounge at The Pink Cow on 7th December from 7pm.

6) Baird Beers Tap Room

This is a micro brew pub with some awesome little beers just off Takeshita Dori in Harajuku. The “Yabai yabai” beer is excellent.

7) Oriental Bazaar

8) Kiddy Land

9) Japanese Language Proficiency Test

Other topics included were
Yoyogi Park, Harajuku and Omotesando.

Related posts:

1. Fun Friday: Namaste India Festival in Yoyogi Park
2. Fun Friday for 2nd October 2009
3. Fun Friday at the A to Z Cafe in Omotesando