Video Skits!

[xmoonsirenx]

Dear Jpod team,

I am a beginner and I recently subscribed to JPOD101. I must thank the team whole heartedly for their hard work. It has been such a great tool for me as well as for thousands of other learners. I do have one suggestion/Idea ....I am definitely a visual learner and would greatly appreciate role play video lessons.

These video skits can be 5 or 10 minutes long. The JPOD team can cover so many scenarios..such as:

1. Buying groceries
2. Asking for directions
3. Riding the train
4. Asking where something is. Q: ( hon wa doko desu ka?) A: (koko desu.)
4. Counting objects
5. Thanking, greeting and apologizing to people in different circumstances.

The staff can get really creative with these skits. It would be great to see them in different spots in Japan teaching us useful phrases and putting them into action.

The videos of course should be a good mix between spoken Japanese and English with captions at the bottom to reinforce memorization. The videos can also contain a mini quiz at the end to test our understanding.


Please do consider this suggestion. I am sure everyone will find them useful , motivating and fun!


arigatou gozaimasu! ja, mata ne

[Jessi]

Hi xmoonsirenx!

I was excited to read about your request for role-play video lessons, because.. we have just completed a bunch!! There's a video series we have called Basic Japanese, and the last 8 lessons in the batch of 25 have role-play skits in them. We've just started putting out lessons from this series every Friday out onto the site. We actually also plan to release the Basic Japanese video series as a DVD set, so I'll let you know more details about that (like when it will come out) once I know!

[yaroujidai]

Hello to everyone.

I like xmoonsirenx's idea of video skits.

NHK Japanese and Let's Learn Japanese are quite good but old.

Both of them are like stories told to teach about daily life but are old and are not accurate anymore. Times have changed and Japanese language has changed a lot since then.

We [learners] want something fresh, maybe not another tv drama with embedded lesson but short video skits would be good enough.

What we need is practical Japanese. xmoonsirenx mentioned most common examples but there are many other aspects of daily life. DO and DON'Ts are very important, national holidays should be properly explained as well. A picture is worth a thousand of words and a good vocal explanation makes a video even better.

what JPOD101 lack is how to behave in certain circumstances, when visiting a shrine, temple or not so close friends, how to talk to neighbors and other customs. Japanese people give various items on many occasions. What to give, who receive it and when, what kind of packaging is the best, how to operate devices from vending machines to ticket machines, etc. the list is endless.

I know that it is not easy, many cities have different types of transport too, Osaka relies on trains while Kobe on Buses. What happens when we go out of major cities? How to read a bus timetable on a bus stop in a rural area when there is no one around to ask? Sometimes there are multiple train operators and one ticket is not valid on the entire journey. Sometimes you have to put two different tickets at once into the reader (Tsuruhashi-eki staff in Osaka explained this to me). What are and how to use Prepaid Cards or passes [Kyoto- traffica, city bus; Kobe- city bus & subway, Osaka- joint 1-day train pass] etc. everything that makes life easier is good. Recent survival phrases, Riding the Rails are not enough.

Tokyo is not the only city in Japan but the only city where you can go around without language knowledge. Books, movies, drama, anime, everything is all about Tokyo.

there are people who learn japanese in schools and study japanese in Japan but there are people like me who stay in japan for other reasons. In opposition to others I like when people switch to and speak english to me. My whole stay in japan is a big everyday language drill. My brain needs a rest too.

I like your podcasts, there are interesting and funny, informative and easy to understand. Sometimes while listening to your podcasts I just can't concentrate on other things. They are so good. I believe in JPOD101. I hope you will make the skits.