Nihongojouzu

"Japanese Vocab" Mac App

I checked out VersionTracker for new Japanese related apps and found "Japanese Vocab", a simple Mac OS X programme for testing.......you guessed it, vocab! 2500 words, easy to use and free. The developer's site is not available but you can download it at VersionTracker.

Problem Japanese

My Japanese teachers smiled as they passed me a copy of a book called 問題な日本語 (Problem Japanese). Published by Taishukan and edited by a bunch of university lecturers the books is a simple treatise on the "incorrect" Japanese which older Japanese people have been complaining about lately. I was amused to see my pet hate "何何になります” featured on the cover. It was about 4 years ago at a dinner put on by Oxford University Press at an Osaka restaurant that EFL author Setsuko Toyama railed about this point to me and everyone else within earshot.

"になります”　means "will become" but it is often erroneously  used by waitstaff as a polite construction, so  instead of the simpler and more intuitive "ビールです”or"ビールでございます”(this is beer) I am used to being told  "ビールになります” (lit. "this will become beer")

I always want to say "when?" but bite my tongue in deference to social harmony. Given that language is by default what people say this is one everyone is just going to have to get used to.

JETRO Business Japanese Test

I ordered the official guide to the JETRO Business Japanese Proficiency Test from the JETRO online bookshop and it arrived today. 120 pages and 1238yen, it explains the JLRT (Listening and Reading Comprehension Test) and JOCT (Oral Communication Test) components and has a practise JLRT paper complete with scripts and CD. Next step is to do the practice test......