ahh great!!! i'm glad you've posted too pm, i missed the 1st one!

yeah, i've been procrastinating on Q3 too... amazing how easy it is to procrastinate difficult stuff well, i'll try to throw something together...

i liked your point about the house prices, i totally forgot about that!

IceCream Wrote:yeah, i've been procrastinating on Q3 too...

I might have to do a bit of research in advance, not sure I have much of an opinion off the top of my head about Japan's aging problems.

(Spike Japan does a good line in blog posts about some of the bits of Japan facing serious decline, though, eg Yubari and Kinugawa.)

I read a part of a text that ice cream posted and recorded my own voice...and...

...was so dissapointed＞＜

My pronunciation is so much worse than I thought. Especially bad is the word 私　
Well I use it very rarely, but still ...

Oh...maybe I should quit studying and concentrate on my pronunciation, really.

yeah, me neither, i could make some up i'm sure, but actually i was thinking of just doing a funny one cos i'm lazy

... we could always just move onto the 2nd chapter instead, whatdya prefer?

man, that blog's interesting!! All those photos made me want to go and explore Japan immediately!!! Why is broken down stuff so interesting... almost in an aesthetically pleasing way sometimes...

@jettyke: lol!! i know how you feel! until you've recorded yourself, you don't realise, do you?!? hahah feel free to post and embarass yourself...

IceCream Wrote:@jettyke: lol!! i know how you feel! until you've recorded yourself, you don't realise, do you?!? hahah feel free to post and embarass yourself...

Embarass myself??

Bad pronunciation is beautiful.

pm215

To tell the truth, you should definitely work hard to improve your pronunciation. Sounds gaijin-ish People might even sometimes find it hard to understand you.

Ice Cream.

Your pronunciation is rather good, but sometimes your U sounds like it's Estonian Ü...which is rather hard to describe by writing. I think Japanese U is something between English U and Estonian Ü. But it's only slightly, otherwise quite good.

Damn I don't have any motivation to improve my pronunciation!!! :/ :/ :/

jettyke Wrote:Damn I don't have any motivation to improve my pronunciation!!! :/ :/ :/

Do you sound like a native yet?

pudding cat Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:Damn I don't have any motivation to improve my pronunciation!!! :/ :/ :/

Do you sound like a native yet?

No.

Ask more!!!

jettyke Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:Damn I don't have any motivation to improve my pronunciation!!! :/ :/ :/

Do you sound like a native yet?

No.

Ask more!!!

Ummm... more questions about why you don't have any motivation to improve your pronunciation?

IceCream Wrote:yeah, me neither, i could make some up i'm sure, but actually i was thinking of just doing a funny one cos i'm lazy

... we could always just move onto the 2nd chapter instead, whatdya prefer?

man, that blog's interesting!! All those photos made me want to go and explore Japan immediately!!! Why is broken down stuff so interesting... almost in an aesthetically pleasing way sometimes...

@jettyke: lol!! i know how you feel! until you've recorded yourself, you don't realise, do you?!? hahah feel free to post and embarass yourself...

I'll try putting up some audio soon. Just need to see if the recorder quality is good.

jettyke Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:@jettyke: lol!! i know how you feel! until you've recorded yourself, you don't realise, do you?!? hahah feel free to post and embarass yourself...

Embarass myself??

Bad pronunciation is beautiful.

hahah i was only kidding. but since you analysed me and PM's accent, post away

... i wish i knew was an Estonian U is, cos i really have no idea what i'm doing T_T

i think my pronounciation is decent enough, but both my speed of speaking and thinking time is really poor, and i probably sound either really dumb or like a child because of that. Pm's speed and timing is pretty much perfect on the other hand...

EDIT: great ta12121!!! the more people the better

EDIT2: jettyke, is it possible to upload an estonian, english, and japanese U for me so i know what i'm doing?

anyone have any good monologues for me to do? (male voice of course)
preferably short as well. 1min or so.

why not try answering one of the questions? It's really much more challenging. If you're not happy with the results, try figuring out what you want to say beforehand, and record again. It's really hard (at least for me), but good practise!!! You can say as much or as little as you like...

IceCream Wrote:why not try answering one of the questions? It's really much more challenging. If you're not happy with the results, try figuring out what you want to say beforehand, and record again. It's really hard (at least for me), but good practise!!! You can say as much or as little as you like...

Makes sense, I'll see what I can do

Hm.. Strange. I assume both pm and IceCream are native English/American speakers, but such a huge difference! It seems to me like the German vowel sounds ("u" especially) are just the same in Japanese. So I will give it a try. My best, soon. Yes, embarrassing myself

Edit: I wonder. You spoke freely, I assume. What's about grammar? I can imagine I can't speak freely without making tedious and basic mistakes like, starting off with "ha" or "ga" or which tense to use when forming easy sentence, structured with "toki ni..."
Edit: Fell in love with IceCream's voice. Wow.. this voice sounds like it was made for synchronising movies. Seriously. @pm: You sound like the dad of my girlfriend (he's about 70 years old. Sorry man XD)

Tori-kun Wrote:It seems to me like the German vowel sounds ("u" especially) are just the same in Japanese.

yeah yeah! like in "Natürlich". But the Japanese one is slightly <- note *slightly* more like the usual "U" in my opinion.

Ice cream, are the questions in the book?
Because I don't see any suitable ones in this thread.

FE, This one doesn't seem like a suitable one.
アメリカでは、子供はテレビやコンピューターゲームの影響で外で遊ばなくなり、想像力も衰えているということが話題になっています。日本の場合はいかがでしょうか。

jettyke Wrote:

Tori-kun Wrote:It seems to me like the German vowel sounds ("u" especially) are just the same in Japanese.

yeah yeah! like in "Natürlich". But the Japanese one is slightly <- note *slightly* more like the usual "U" in my opinion.

Didn't know you know German? Cool. My aunt is having her luxurious wellness-beauty vacations in Estonia (what's your currency btw? lol euro?). Seems to be cheap and good I wonder.. did you learn Russian in school, jettyke?

Tori-kun Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:

Tori-kun Wrote:It seems to me like the German vowel sounds ("u" especially) are just the same in Japanese.

yeah yeah! like in "Natürlich". But the Japanese one is slightly <- note *slightly* more like the usual "U" in my opinion.

Didn't know you know German? Cool. My aunt is having her luxurious wellness-beauty vacations in Estonia (what's your currency btw? lol euro?). Seems to be cheap and good I wonder.. did you learn Russian in school, jettyke?

Yeah I did, I can speak Russian and basic German ( porbably? Not sure just finished my 3rd year, 3 lessons per week)

My aunt is having her luxurious wellness-beauty vacations in Estonia (what's your currency btw? lol euro?)

Mudbaths? Yeah it's Euro since January.

ok I know I don't have a microphone, but I know this laptop can record audio. Just need to find where to speak into(using audacity)

Cool! I can understand Russian fluently (100% listening comprehension.. Every crap that's running on TV basically and my parents are watching, reading only basic, easy things and speaking.. well, i survived a whole week in Bulgaria at my host family's household talking in something that sounded like Russian to her parents, who learnt it in soviet times back then. Don't ask me about writing Russian. Understandable, but full with typos I haven't learnt it seriously. Russian grammar is hell, so I never started learning it and was just glad my parents "implanted" into my brain when I was a child. Forcefully ), English more or less and German, well, my mother tongue. I thought Japanese would be cool to know and Latin, ok, that does not count. Already 6 years at school..

I also can't read and write very well.
I never bothered because I've never liked Russian

And yeah...understanding every crap on tv...it really is crap

Oh, manー Japanese slap-stick crap is NOTHING against Russian XD Colloquial Russian is the best language on earth. I mean, just the word "garshok"? (Do you know it? *offtopic*)

jettyke Wrote:Ice cream, are the questions in the book?
Because I don't see any suitable ones in this thread.

FE, This one doesn't seem like a suitable one.
アメリカでは、子供はテレビやコンピューターゲームの影響で外で遊ばなくなり、想像力も衰えているということが話題になっています。日本の場合はいかがでしょうか。

The questions for chapter 1 are in this post:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid138046

Since i feel like i'll be stuck on Q3 forever right now, i'm actually gonna move onto chapter 2 now, and come back to that one one day when i've learnt more about it.

The questions for chapter 2 are:

１．） 自分の住まいを紹介しましょう

２．）　職場と住居とが一緒になっているのは、農家以外にどのような職業があるでしょうか。具体例をあげてください。

３．）　家を建てる、あるいは家を買う時、どのような場所を選びますか。また土地、眺め、気候、隣人などの環境面、さらには建築物の設計や材料、さらには冷暖房、庭、家族構成などを考慮に入れたとき、どの条件を一番大切にしたいですか。