Is your language teacher "native"? Almost all of English teachers in Japan are Japanese, and there are few oppotunities for Japanese students to be taught by native English speakers or even talk with them. A lot of Japanese have to study English for 6 years from 7th grade to 12th grade but Japanese are not good at speaking English. I think being taught by natives or communicating with them is important when studying a foreign language. Is your language teaher native or not? Do you have a lot of oppotunities to use the language? I'm sorry if my English is too terrible to read. I hope you give me a lot of comments on this topic! Anything is fine :)

How to ask what I didn't understand in conversations I want to know natural and simple ways to ask people to say what thay have said. When talking with native English speaker, I often miss what they have said. In such a situation, how should I ask them back if they can repeat that words? "I didn't understand what you said. Please said that again" is too long and not natural when talking with friends. But "what?" seems rude, right? I often say "what was that?" but I'm not sure if it's natural or even makes sense. Please teach me as many natural words or ways as you come up with.

"So" or "Very"? I heard that guys tend to use "very" and girls use "so". For example, men usually say "it is very hot today" and women say "it is so hot today" Is there any tendency like that in terms of gender? And is there any other words that people use differently depending on their gender? I'm not sure but "fabulous" is a feminine word, right? Please notice that I'm not a sexist!! But I'm sorry if it sounds kind of like that because of my terrible English sentences. I'm just interested in such languages:) By the way, we, Japanese have different ways to say "I/me" and they can be different depending on gender. Actually we have more than 10 ways to say I/me haha. (usually used 4 or 5)

Is Ramen Japanese Food or Chinese food? I'm a university student workng at ramen restaurant in Japan. I recently heard that ramen is getting popular in foreign countries. I'm kind of glad to hear that because I want many people to know how good ramen is. But the problem is that I'm not sure that it is considered Japanese food or Chinese food. I'm not sure about its origin, either. In Japanese, ramen is written in katakana, and that indicates that it is from different country. One more thing. What kind of menu ramen restaurant in foreign countries serve other than ramen? The ramen restaurant that I'm working at serves gyoza (Japanese dumplings?) and fried rice. Do they serve such kind of things? If you recognized any mistakes I made, please correct them. Also give answers to my question above :) And If you are interested in Japanese culture or learning Japanese language, please massage me and become friends!!

Give me good example sentences using these phrases!! It's the same to me. It's the same for me. What's the difference between them? I think It's hard to answer without contexts, but I can't give them. Can you make sentences using these phrases? I hope you make hilarious and fabulaous sentences for me! :) Thank you!!

Terrible Day I woke up about at noon today. I thought I could be lazy because I though I had nothing to do after finals of his semester. But I knew one thing was left which I thought was one page long or something. the only thing I was sure was it's due today. I went to school cafeteria, ate OK food, and return to home. Then I checked the explanation of the assignment online. It said "write a 4-5 paper." Then I was like "what? What kind of Japanese is capable with it" But it couldn't be helped. All I have to do was just do it. I restarted reading the guidline of the paper. "Single space".... I died. The sky was so clear and blue. Birds are singing beautiful songs. Sorry I think I'm little bit drunk. Never mind. After I came back to life, I restarted reading the guideline. It said "you need to include interview." I couldn't help but smile. I didn't do it yet. After all, I managed to do it. I don't remenber how I did it, but anyway I submited the paper online. Now I'm free!! Yeah!! I tried to make it fun for you guys :) Please correct my notebook!

My first notebook :) This is my first notebook, so I hope you guys let me know my mistakes of grammar, spell, or whatever!! If you notice I should use different words or phrases, also feel free to let me know!! And If you like me, please follow me!! I'm ganna write about myself this time. My name is Toshiyuki Yamamoto, and I'm living in the Oregon, the U.S. now for study. I'm from Japan and am 100% Japanese haha~ I'm studying English so that I can be an English teacher in Japan in the future. One of my interesting facts is that I can balance a chair on my forehead :) I think you can't imagine that, but I just do it. I'm currently studying acroad, but I'm leaving here soon. I stayed a whole semester, and now it's the end of the second semester here. I'm feeling excited and sad at athe same time. I'm planning to come back to the U.S. again after I graduate from my Japanese university. I wanna join the program that send Japanese people to the U.S. colleges as Japanese teaching assistant. (It's hard to explain! Does it make sense?) I think it's gonna be good experience to learn and teach own language for the sake of being an language teacher. I don't have Skype, but I'll get it after I arrive at Japan for some reason. So if you wanna practice Japanese with me, follow me on italki and talk with me then! Thank you!

Change your voice?

Does the tone of your voice change when you speak different language?

 

I speak Japanese as a native language and English as a second language. I think when I speak Japanese my voice will be softer and kinda more clingy than when I speak English. When I speak English, my voice gets deeper, faster, and sometimes shaper. It's partly because of my proficiency and fluence of my English, but I think a lot of people change their voice depending on what language you speak.

 

I'm sorry if these sentences are hard to read, but it's really curious topic for me, so I hope you guys leave a lot of comments!!

 

Thank you :)

Your stereotypical image of Japannese?

What do you think about Japan or Japanese?

Some people says Japanese food is healthy and good. And some people says Japan is a creepy country. (People who wanna be Japanese are called weaboo in negative way, right?)

 

Please leave your comment about positive and negative aspect of Japan!! I'm glad to hear good opinion on Japan, but it's still OK that you hate us. I want to know how you feel about Japan :)

 

Thank you!!