Language exchange site

[Mushrooshi]

my strict advice to guys who go to japan for the first time is to make a few guy friends before talking to any girls.  go directly to the first tachinomiya you see.  absolutely refuse to talk to any girl until you have phone numbers and e-mail addresses for at least one koji, a tomo, a taro, a daisuke, a masanori and a kentaro. 

Tomo?

[Raevin]

[el_gringo]

nexusc, no stories in particular.  just having fun writing nonsense. 

many foreign guys have really good japanese (far better than mine), but they're either ultra-polite (which comes across as aloof and impersonal), or they sound like their (japanese) girlfriend.  another danger is sounding like an anime character*, or a samurai.  i guess it's good to aim for a wide repertoire.

my secret with other languages in college was to imitate a close friend, my dorm roommate, or a movie actor.  all safe bets.  in japan, i felt like i was always fine-tuning and ditching overly polite speech or expressions i learned from female friends that made me sound, shall we say, flamboyant.

having said that, i think being able to talk like ebichu** is my goal now.

*makiko has a good story about someone who fit the anime character category, complete with sound effects.
**http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n-lPCFMh_c
 

[coffeebot3000]

I remember one time some friends were over.  I had cooked dinner and when they said it tasted good I said arigato in waaay too feminine tone. 
The next day I rented all of Sonny Chiba's movies.

[Forum ninja]

Gringo's Japanese is definitely not flamboyant. He's a man's man when it comes to sports and speaking the Japanese lingua bond style. And he knows a thing or two about food, drink and how to order it in Japan. Not like my slightly stuck up and effeminate university Japanese like mine.

I can't comment about his collection of obscure 1970s Brazilian lounge records though.

Pass me my cocktail umbrella Caipirinha maestro.

[Fax]

Caipirinha.....Mmmmmm......

[el_gringo]

caipirinhas are served sans umbella, in a tumbler (but a plastic cup will do).

[coffeebot3000]

El Gringo, how to I prepare the perfect canape?

[el_gringo]

ha ha.  i like french fries with ketchup. 

rarely can i be bothered making little finger foods, unless it was back in the day, and i was trying to impress someone.  in that case, i would take great care in making a tuna spread with fresh garlic, onion and black pepper, and maybe some random secret ingredient like bits of blue cheese, green olives, a few shots of green tabasco or some wasabi (choose one, don't use all of them!).  then, lightly toast the bread (crackers will do), add the tuna stuff and top it off with melted mozzarella cheese.

to tell you the truth, i had to look up "canapé" in wikipedia, because i had a vague notion it meant "canopy" in some language, but i discovered it also means couch, in addition to hoover-doovers*, which i assume you're referring to...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canape

*(Al Bundy's pronunciation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Bundy )

[coffeebot3000]

You are an all around home-maker.  New Zealand really seems to be working for you.

And yes, I was referring to the horses duvre (as some friendly brits taught my wife when she was in England).

[el_gringo]

ah yes, the horse's duver...

what was this post about again?

[bboykrillin]

I found a good language exchange site here. Now you have no excuse not to practice Japanese with a native.

http://myhappyplanet.com/

Cheers for that link, i've set up a profile for myself, i'll let you guys know how well it goes

[ariel]

hi, i'm new to this site.
this site is really a community!

[Forum ninja]

Japanese people using Learn Japanese Pod to learn English!

http://learnjapanesepod.com/learn-english-at-learn-japanese-pod/

[Kimbalion]

I shall try out that website!
I could also recommend this site for japanese/other language exchange:
www.conversationexchange.com
There are not only women but also guys, and that's how I got to know some people. Weird, the one I'm regulary writing with is called Daisuke... XD But it's not very often as the "finding a job at university" task seems to take up a lot of time... :/