Blogs

Hi Mariquita!

My name is Miggs, a volunteer board member for the Bloomington-Izumi Sister City Organization. I wanted to reach out to you to let you know that the organization is hosting a cultural exchange student delegation for high school and college students to visit Bloomington's sister city of Izumi, Osaka, Japan this summer. While the organization usually hosts student delegations bi-annually, this year marks the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that we have been able to open up applications for students to visit Izumi City.

Program Background

The JACL has been helping students achieve their educational dreams with the National Scholarship and Awards Program since 1946. The program currently offers over 30 awards, with an annual total of over $70,000 in scholarships to qualified students nationwide.

The National Scholarship and Awards Program offers scholarships to students who are entering freshman, undergraduate, graduate, law, in the creative & performing arts, and those with financial need. All scholarships are one-time awards.

The Japan-America Society of Minnesota (JASM) will be holding their annual Japanese quiz event on February 11, 2024, 10am-2pm CST. Since this is an online event, anyone in the world may participate. They especially would like as many people as possible to participate in J-Quiz, especially those who live outside of the Twin Cities.

質問

I am a Minnesotan who fell in love with a Japanese woman. She speaks amazing English, but I want her to feel as good as I do by speaking Japanese with her. I am going to Japan in xxx to visit her and meet her family in xxx. I understand I won't be fluent in any way by then but I sincerely want to learn and speak with them and her as a sign of appreciation and respect. I want to become fluent in time.

ミネソタ州では新しい日本の図書館はカノンフォールズ町にあります。ニュースをもらうなら、このフェイスブックのページをライクした方がいいです。

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554690405849

2024年 1月 3日

• Next Sunday the N5 Japanese Study Group will work on the Listening Comprehension exercises of Lesson 10 in the Genki I workbook.
• N3の月曜日の勉強会は「上級へのとびら」という教科書で第一課の文法の勉強が終わったので、読み物を始めました。
• N3の木曜日の勉強会は「とびら」の第9課を勉強し始めました。
• N2以上の読書会はこの作文、https://yomujp.com/n1_bias/、を読み上げています。
• 最後の日本語会話の集まりでクイズボウルの参加者は賞品を選びました。

Here's Edgar San's correction to the blog entry posted on Oct 11, 2023.

From Edgar San on Oct 11, 2023:

It's not じゅう, but ちゅう
中二, abbreviation for student of second year of middle school, 中(学校の)二(年生)

エドガーさん、いつもありがとうございます。本当に感謝しています。

質問

Hello,

Thank you for providing all this wonderful info! Do you know of any in person group language classes for kids in the Twin Cities area? Our daughter is 12 and very keen to learn in a group.

I also wonder if the Concordia Language Villages summer camp program is something you recommend. Many thanks for your time.

返事

You're very welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying our website.

質問

Hello. I’m interested in learning conversational Japanese. I’m a beginner but have taught myself hiragana and katakana and some vocabulary. Starting kanji now but am hoping to speak with people that know Japanese and some English. Let me know if this is something I could do here. Domo arigatou gozaimasu!!!!

質問

Kind of a random question. Now I know this isn't an anime group and I don't know if this is the place to ask. I'm watching Sailor Moon in Japanese with English subtitles. When Usagi introduces herself at the beginning of each episode she says she is じゅうに which is 12. However the subtitles say she's 14 and EVERYTHING I'm seeing online says she's 14. Is there something I'm missing? I've already heard/read some very obvious translation errors but this one is messing with me.

私の返事

Is this the introduction to which you're referring?

最近、もっと質問をもらいました。だから、他の人が手伝うために、このブログで高騰することにしました。

(I've been receiving more questions recently so I'm going to post them to this blog in order to help others.)

質問

Your organization seems intended for English speakers who want to achieve Japanese fluency. Is there a group that teaches rudimentary Japanese in the Twin Cities area?  I would like to learn rudimentary Japanese before I tour Japan for approximately three weeks in 2024.

返事

初めまして。マリキタです。連絡してありがとうございました。宜しくお願いします。

If we take the 〜て form of a verb and add 〜みる to it, we're saying that "we're going to try to [verb]."

例
勉強してみます。/ 勉強してみる。
→ I'm going to try to study. / I'll try to study.

This grammar point can be used on its own but it's more often used with an additional conjugation. The most common conjugation added to this grammar point is 〜たい. Recall from Lesson 11 of Genki I that adding 〜たい to the stem form of a verb adds the phrase, "I want to [verb]" to the meaning of the verb.

例
勉強してみたいです。/ 勉強してみたい。
→ I want to try to study.

If we take the 〜て form of a verb and add 〜もいいですか to it or add 〜もいい while asking about something with rising intonation, we're asking whether it's okay to [verb].

例

窓を開けてもいいですか。/ 窓を開けてもいい？
→　Is it okay if I open the window?

If we drop the question marker か or say the sentence without rising intonation which a question would use, the sentence becomes a statement and we're letting people know that it's okay to [verb].

例

はい、開けてもいいです。 / ええ、開けてもいい。
→ Yes, it's okay to open it. / Yeah, it's okay to open it.

日本の音楽はあまり知りません。もっと詳しく知るために、2年前日本のプレイリストを作りました。（https://twincitiesjapaneseconversation.com/content/music-august-11-2020）

今年の7月の下旬、Apple Musicから私の「Library」に新しい日本語の曲が25曲入っていました。曲に慣れるために、八月に日本語のサークルのディスコードのサーバで1日に一曲を投稿しようと思っていました。

八月全部でも、25曲は不十分でした。それに、色々なジャンルの代表が欲しかったです。だから、Apple Music、ネット、日本の「Billboard」などで調べていました。日本のアーティストが多くて、何百曲も聞いて、結局、疲れてきましたが、「31日だけだ。頑張る」と思っていました。しかし、いい曲が多いので、31だけを選ぶのは大変になってきました。

I sometimes get asked about how one should study Japanese with Genki and I think I usually give some vague off the cuff answer like, “attack your weaknesses.” This time, however, I decided to write a more concrete answer.

First, there are four parts to the Genki textbook and workbook:

• The first half of the Genki textbook

In the old days before portable computer devices, some of us used to read or write or type lists of vocabulary or terminology to memorize. Others would create decks of index cards to practice memorizing their homework. Once we thought we had it down, we rarely looked at the lists or cards again or did when we came across something we knew we were supposed to know but couldn’t quite formulate what exactly it was.

We added another study group! The Monday Marugoto N5 group started yesterday. Here's the new schedule.

TCJC Schedule as of March 22, 2022

Sundays, 9-10:30am CT: N5 Study Group
Genki I, Lesson 3

Mondays, 1-2pm CT: N5 Study Group, Marugoto A1-1

Mondays, 7:30-8:30pm CT: N4 Study Group
Genki II, Review of Lessons 13-14

水曜日の午後7時ー午後8時 CT: 会話

Our Quiz Bowl Fundraiser was a success! On December 10, 2021, Japanese language learners living in five different US States competed for the title of winner of the first ever TCJC Quiz Bowl.

The winner is 紅葉!

Today is the Quiz Bowl Fundraiser! Japanese language learners living in five different US States will compete for the title of winner of the first TCJC Quiz Bowl fundraiser. Everyone will get a prize courtesy of 冨田さん.

Our quiz bowl host will be チャンさん who will be joining us from Osaka. 冨田さん will be our judge. Quiz Bowl questions were created by マリアさん and me and were reviewed by 冨田さん and チャンさん.

A lot has happened in the past two months:

Someone in our Upper Beginners group is also in what we call a hardcore Spanish-Japanese group. Before going on to Minna 2, everyone has to pass the JLPT N5 simulation exam. He asked if I could help.

We had a little less than three weeks of N5 prep before both Upper Beginners decided to take the simulation of the N5 exam. They passed and I’m really proud of them.

This coming December, Twin Cities Japanese Conversation will have a fundraiser to help defray the cost of our meetup listing. The total Meetup.com cost over the past year was $197.88.

The fundraiser will be in the style of a classic College Bowl quiz show format.

 - 20 mins Toss Up and Bonus Questions
 - 5 mins Lightning Round

皆さん、こんOOは。

アダンさんもアンドリューさんもJLPTのN5のシミュレーションの試験を合格しました。おめでとうございます！

Both Adan San and Andrew San passed the simulation of the JLPT N5 exam after three weeks or less of N5 preparation. Congratulations, Adan San and Andrew San!

メンバーの二人は「げんきI」と言う教科書が終わった、おめでとうございます!　お疲れ様でした！

N5の準備を続けています。それから、「げんきII」と言う教科書を始めるつもりです。

皆さん、こんOOは。

There’s interest in forming a new Beginners study group. Their preferred meeting times are in the morning. If you’re interested, please contact me.