What is the most popular national holiday in your country?

Hi Anna nguyen,

Thank you for sharing your story!

I haven't heard of Tet before. It must be a good time to reunite family members👍 like Bon vacation in Japan.

And tangyuan sounds delicious! Do you cook the one at home?

Keep studying with JapanesePod101.com

Cheers,

Miki(美希)

Team JapanesePod101.com

In Vietnam, the most important holiday(and yet most well known) is Tet. It starts from the midst of Ferbuary, and ends in the beginning of march. It is the occassion for members of family to reunion to see each other after a year of hard working. And from my chinese parent, I found out that 冬（don't know how to translate this holiday but it basically means winter) it far more important than Tet(chinese have their own Tet too). In this holiday, we will eat tangyuan（汤圆). It is a cake looks like mochi but have skinless green peas in the inside. It is soaked with ginger syrup to have to sweettaste.

That is some of my holiday Igrew up with.

Hi Savannah,

Thank you for your comment and sorry we didn't reply earlier.

That's interesting that many places close on Christmas in Canada as Christmas is one of the busiest period for restaurants in Japan.

Christmas in Canada might be like New Year's days in Japan.

Keep studying with JapanesePod101.com

Cheers,

Miki(美希)

Team JapanesePod101.com

In North America, by far the most popular holiday is Christmas. In Canada, it's one of five nationwide statutory holidays, so employers are required to either give the day off with regular pay, provide another day off in lieu of that, or pay a higher rate (such as time and a half) for working that day. Many places close, but not all. For example, most fast food places are open every day of the year (which sucks for the employees, and is part of why fast food jobs are considered degrading).

Kale　さん、

こんにちは。

That should be　やくにたつごい (vocabulary) or　やくにたつことば (word). :smile:

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

A random question, what would "useful vocabulary" be in Japanese? Is it 重要ボキャブラリー?

Thank you!

Marina-san,

konnichiwa:smile:

You can learn kanji at your own pace; no pressure! :wink:

Of course, you can use Lesson Note's script to learn some kanji from the lesson

dialogues too, but this is completely optional. It'd benefit you because you'll learn

kanji in context, so it's highly recommended. You just need to focus on what you can

remember, as you don't have to remember all the kanjis you see.

Good luck! :innocent:

Natsuko (奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

Hello dear teachers!

I am absolutely beginner from Azerbaijan

I enjoyed Season 1 and Season 2, it was fun to do my daily things listening what happened to Tailor, to Masato san, and others! But I bumped into a problem. Kanji...I want to listen next course, I understand it, I can read and write hiragana and Katakana, and I learn Kanji too. But step by step. Now I studying Kanji level 1 for children... Should I learn writing the words that I met in your lessons in Kanji? Or I can go further in listening and learn Kanji with pace I can remember them...? My son told me that I should try to remember new word in Kanji writing, even maybe not to be able to write this Kanji but just be able to recognize it?

Sorry for my English,

And thank you for your wonderful course!

With respect Marina

Dear Natsuko san,

Thank you very much for your instruction:wink:

So, would you have suggest for me to find this dictionary for Children ( I think it is interesting and easy to learn) via website. If look for books in bookstore, it may be difficult to find out the exact I want.

Thank you very much in advance.:heart:

Hoa-san,

"kenkoku kinen" is written as 建国記念 and, yes, 国 means country:smile::thumbsup:

We don't actually show the stroke order of kanji in this series, but we have some lessons and study

material for that (which I think you already know).

There are many more kanji out there, and if you can find a good kanji dictionary, it'd show the stroke orders too:wink:

For first 1,000-1,500 kanjis, maybe kanji dictionary for children would be helpful.

Good luck:wink:

Natsuko (奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

Hi,

Thank you very much for your interesting lesson!

I have a question. The 1st holiday "kenko ku kinen no hi" in Kanji, are there 4 Kanji letters?

I look up in Kanji table in section " Learn Kanji" in section " Japanese Resources" in this site, I just find out the 2 nd Kanji letter whose meanning is country to check how to spell. I can not find out the other 3 Kanji letters in this table.

Are there 103 Kanji letters in total?

Please teach me how to find out how to spell each Kanji in this interesting series of lessons.

Thank you very much for your help!

Michael-san,

That's quite true :lol:

New Year's Day is the most important day. This is for celebration, but

most holidays are more for consideration.

Natsuko(奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

Public Holidays that Japanese mostly don't treat as special. Maybe listing the non-public/public holidays that they do treat as special- Valentines Day, White Day, Christmas and New Years Day

ジェフさん、

we're very sorry if it was challenging :sad:

These lessons ("cultural lesson") are designed "for" absolute beginners

and it's not really focusing on nor based on grammar.

It's a introduction to Japanese culture and, yes, vocabulary might sound

difficult. If you find these words difficult to remember, you can

simply enjoy lessons to learn about Japanese culture without memorising it:wink:

We're trying to provide comprehensive course covering grammar, vocabulary,

writings and culture so that listeners can learn something extra related to Japan and Japanese :smile: Introduction to Japanese culture should be

made for beginner level learners instead of upper level for many reasons. That's

why we listed this cultural lessons under "absolute beginner".

Hope you can enjoy these lessons just as "extra information" :wink:

Natsuko(奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

I have to agree with どあんさん these lessons are a little advanced for an absolute beginner level. They could be a lot more easily digested if, perhaps they were broken down into just a couple holidays per lesson.

Something that might have made this an "absolute beginner" level is If the vocabulary used had been broken down and explained. The lesson could have also taken advantage of explaining how these holidays are observed. i.e. is it just a day off or are there customs traditionally observed. New vocabulary was introduced in this lesson that was not present in any of the other absolute beginner lessons. This lesson had more of an intermediate/advanced audio blog feel to it.. just with shorter sentences. Just some of my thoughts. :wink:

ベアトリーチェさん、

thank you very much for a lovely message to your colleague! :grin:

Hope Nathaniel-san has read your message!

We don't have ボクシングデー in Japan :sad:

A holiday for shopping? It sounds brilliant! :mrgreen:

Natsuko(奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

クリスマス！

It's still really popular.

ボクシングヂー

The most popular holiday for shopping in Canada, it's right after Christmas day.

ハロウィン

It's not a national holiday but it's so popular.

イースター

I think only Christians really celebrate this. So maybe in the east it is really important, but not really here. But there's lots of chocolate.

Nathaniel,

I like to speak a loud and repeat words when they are spoken in audio. Also, whenever I see Japanese I try my best to read it out loud.

People learn differently so try lots of different things and don't give up!

Nathaniel-san,

it's totally natural that it takes time to acquire certain things: just be patient! :smile:

What I usually try is to force myself to use words and grammar points that

I cannot really remember, when I compose sentences at any time.

Keep using is always good. If it helps, please feel free to try making some

sentences and post here; we're happy to help you!:wink:

If you think out loud some time, try saying that in Japanese; it actually helps

knowing what you know and what you don't know:mrgreen::wink:

Hope this helps!

Natsuko(奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

I need some tips on how to commit words and grammar to my long term memory, I try to do stuff like take notes and I do flashcards and listen to the pod cast more than once but it's like I cannot commit them to my memory no matter how hard I try. Help please!:neutral: