いやな天気 昨日雪が降っていました。寒いですので、マフラーをして、帽子をかぶらなければなりませんでした。 しかし天気予報によると明日気温は6度に上がるので、明日は雨になるでしょう。傘をさしていなければなりません。 １１月と１2月は嫌いです。会社へ行っても外は暗いです。 憂鬱です。

The biggest mistake in textbooks：あなた minasan konnichiwa! watashi wa internet ni kono kiji wo mitsukemashita. omoshiroi ne! Please let me know your opinion about this.. ------------------------------- One of the first few words you can learn from beginner’s Japanese textbooks is あなた, which is always explained as the counterpart of English ‘you’. Well. We can’t say that this explanation is wrong. All dictionaries explain it the same way. All examples in beginner’s course use this word to mean ‘you’. And usually beginners are not taught how to say ‘you’ other than using あなた. So after the beginner’s course, it is very likely that learners may think あなた is equal to English ‘you’, which, unfortunately, is the biggest mistake you can learn from textbooks. あなた is the biggest mistake you learn from textbooks Before explaining, I need to emphasize that you cannot learn a language without learning the culture. It’s because the culture influences the way people use the language. English only has one ‘you’ because it is the central value of the English speaking world that everyone is born equal. When you speak English, you don’t need to take into consideration if the people you’re speaking to are of higher or lower social status. However, when you speak Japanese, you will surely get yourself into troubles if you speak it with an English mindset. It is because in a Japanese society, social status strongly influences the language. Japanese people must bear in mind the social status of the people they are speaking to, e.g. assistant manager or manager, associate professor or professor, so that they can choose the right set of nouns and verbs to use. あなた is one of the many words one needs to choose when to use or when not to use. It is surprising that most textbooks do not tell learners that we can’t use あなた when we are talking to our parents, teachers, supervisors, people older than you and people you should pay respect. And of course they don’t teach learners the alternatives. So learners are destined to make mistakes by using あなた to the wrong people. And in Japan, this kind of mistake is much more serious than grammatical mistake. It is more serious than grammatical mistakes. .... ------------------- It's not a whole text, but I don't know - can I add hyperlink here.. ps. Photo is made near St-Petersburg after storm.. just for.. ))))

Tenki ga.. minasan konnichiwa. watashi wa St-Petersburg ni sundeimasu. kotoshi no natsu wa tenki ga totemo atsui desu. kanzenna shichi-gatsu ni kion wa +35 desu. kono koto ga ichidomo dewa nai! zenkai moku-youbi no yoru wa hidoi arashi ga atta, totemo ki ga taoremashita. ima tenki wa ii desu, +28.. haha.. sukoshi suzushii desu ne )))

First notebook entry: Introducing myself Watashi wa nihongo ga daisuki desu ))))