I need help with translating something.

[Zelg]

こんにちは　

I recently found a language chat site in hopes to practice a little Japanese (what little I know) and I got a random message from a woman in Japan who's English is nearly as bad as my Japanese. We were able to say a few things and exchange skype info. So today I get a message on skype that says:

ニールさん　こんにちは　(I get this part )

仕事ですか？がんばって　ください

This second part is what gets me. I was able to us a translation site for しごとですか？ and from what I gather it roughly means "do you work/have a job?" but I wanted to clarify here.
The next part also confuses me as I was unable to find anything that made sense for　がんばって。　I have Rikaichan installed on firefox and it says "hold on; go for it". Doesn't make sense to me as far as the context of her question.

ください as I understand it is "please do for me".

So if I'm correct in the first and third parts she's asking if I work and then asking me to do something. Please help

[Dandrepellerin9931]

hey man what website is this that your using.

[Zelg]

For chatting? SharedTalk.com

Its not very busy. Ive been on a few times and at most there was 10 people on in the English-Japanese room. There are rooms for all sorts of languages and I believe theres a Japanese only room as well but thats way beyond my level. People there seem nice and willing to help as well. The site is a little clunky (I had trouble with being able to type in Japanese at first) but I suppose it gets the job done as far as allowing you to talk to people in another language

[mmmason8967]

So if I'm correct in the first and third parts she's asking if I work and then asking me to do something. Please help

I think that 「仕事ですか」 means "are you at work?"

がんばって means something like "go for it", "do your best", "work hard", "stick at it", etc, etc. It's a very common Japanese phrase of encouragement; you'll come across it over and over again. がんばってください is a more polite version of the same phrase.

マイケル

[Zelg]

So if I'm correct in the first and third parts she's asking if I work and then asking me to do something. Please help

I think that 「仕事ですか」 means "are you at work?"

がんばって means something like "go for it", "do your best", "work hard", "stick at it", etc, etc. It's a very common Japanese phrase of encouragement; you'll come across it over and over again. がんばってください is a more polite version of the same phrase.

マイケル

マイケルさｎ

Thanks a lot. It all makes sense now.

ニール

[community.japanese]

minasan, kon'nichiwa!
wow, chat site? It seems you all can enjoy studying there too! Good luck

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com