Interviewing Japanese people

[maxiewawa]

I'm trying to piece together a series of simple interviews of Japanese people, using various grammar points taught in lessons. The latest one I've done is on 'o-konomi no ____ ha nan desuka' (what kind of ____ do you like).

I've run into a problem: all the Japanese people I know have left town for the summer, and I have no one to help me!

I need your help. I'd like to get recordings of Japanese people answering a series of simple questions. And by simple I mean simple to them, but useful to Japanese learners like you and I.

I'd like all interested parties to interview friends/family/whoever, encode the results to mp3, and send them to me. I'll stick them all together into one long 'lesson' and we can all learn from the fruits of our collective efforts.

Interviews need not be long. For example, the last interview I did consisted of:

Okonomi no hon ha nan desuka.
(What kind of book do you like)

Okonomi no nomimono ha nan desuka.
(What kind of drink do you like)

Okonomi no tabemono ha nan desuka.
(What kind of food do you like)

Okonomi no ra-men ha nan desuka.
(What kind of noodle do you like)

Okonomi no terebi bangumi ha nan desuka.
(What kind of TV show do you like)

And lasted under 2 minutes. It would probably have been shorter if I hadn't tried to do some Peter-esque banter in between questions.

Another 'interview' was only 2 questions:

Nani wo kite imasuka
(What are you wearing?) (On your torso)
Nani wo haite imasuka.
(What are you wearing?) (On your lower limbs)

Here's some I have made before:
http://www.mp3.com.au/track.asp?id=143905

It's close to what I was hoping to make, but not quite. I was hoping to make something much longer. My Japanese isn't good enough to kinda... have a chat with people about what they are wearing either.

So if anyone could help by asking these short questions to their teacher/anyone Japanese that they know and record the results, I'll be happy to edit all recordings, paste them together, and post them somewhere for everyone to listen to.

If anyone has trouble encoding mp3s, I can do that for you too.

If aren't sure how to record on your computer, I can help if you have Skype.

If there are any Japanese speakers who use Skype, I'd like to interview you.

日本語できる方は面接をしていただけませんか。

よろしくおねがいします。

[Liz21]

Max-san,
Thanks for this splendid idea! It's helping me to try to interact with a Japanese speaker. I need much more practice with this. Thanks for providing this opportunity!

Here is my humble contribution. I recorded it on Skype, with permission from my language partner in Chiba, Japan, a lady about my age. We enjoy each other a lot!!

http://www.box.net/shared/54lguhy9ih

[maxiewawa]

できた！
http://www.mp3.com.au/track.asp?id=145765

Congratulations to both interviewers (Lizさん & I) and thanks to all interviewees.

I had originally planned on editing out all our mistakes, but I decided to leave them in. I feel really great having done these interviews. Lots of mistakes and the music gets a bit annoying, but I really feel like I speak Japanese now. The interviews were recorded in the order they are shown here, and I think there is definitely improvement between the two interviews, in both lizさん and I.

Stay tuned for the next assignment!