iSSUE 2 Term 2: 6th June 2011

iJapanese Newsletter
Published by iJapanese Language & Culture School

Japanese summer festivals 日本の夏祭り

End of TermEvent!
Please come along and join us
for dinner at a Japaneserestaurant.
Let’s enjoy Japanese food andgames! All students are welcome to bring friends.
Date:
Time:
Place:
Cost:
RSVP:

Winter is upon us!
But on the other hand it’s almost summer in Japan.
Speaking of summer, it is Matsuri (festival) season in Japan.
There are countless local Matsuri and most festivals celebrate theshrine's deity or a seasonal / historical event.

Gion Matsuri, the festival of Yasaka
Shrine, is one of the most famous
festivals celebrated in Japan. This
traditional and brilliant festival event
has been held for over 1,000 years,and various events are staged
throughout the entire month of July.
It dates back to 869AD and it wasoriginally started to counteract theepidemic spreading across Japan atthe time. The highlight of the festival
is 32 beautifully decorated floats thatparades through the city on July 17th.
Traditional festivals in Japan involve
fireworks, Bon Odori (Bon dances), andEnnichi (community fairs) with eachregion celebrating every summer.

Bon dances were originally a religious
ceremony held to send off thesespirits, but they have become local
festivals for entertainment.
Ennichi is the festival day which isrelated to the Shinto shrine. People
are wearing yukata (summerkimono), dance to traditional musicand enjoy summer nights. In someplaces, people can also enjoy foodsuch as Wata Ame (cotton candy),
Takoyaki (octopus ball) and Yakisoba(fried noodle), and entertaining showssuch as goldfish scooping, haunted
house and shooting games.

Noriko’s Thoughts
Winter season is approaching, but which
season do you prefer, summer or winter?
Personally I definitely prefer summer, I hatewinter!
It was January of 2005 when I first arrived inMelbourne. Imagining Australia’s summer toImportant Information about Term 3 お知らせ
Our New Term 3 will commence from the 4th of July and run until the 17th ofSeptember.

be warm and sunny. However, to my disbelief
Melbourne was not, even though it wassummer, I still felt that the clothing I bought
was inadequate. So, I had to go shopping.

In order to plan our new term schedule we ask that you please confirm your nextterm scheduling with either Phillip or Noriko.
Contact Details: 0401 886 629 | info@ijapanese.com.au

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iJapanese Newsletter
Student’s Interview 生徒さんに聞く— Please Make Sure —Entrance Door
Due to security at the main
entrance door, we are sorry forthe inconvenience for somestudents but could you please
notify your teacher when you arerunning late.
We appreciate yourunderstanding in this matter.

Cancelation SystemIf you are unable to attend yourclass, we ask that you notify us
as soon as possible.
Private Lessons;48 hours notification is required
to reschedule lesson
within the same term.
Group lessons;
You will be able to rescheduleand join another group lesson orreschedule a private lesson at a
$15 rescheduling fee.
If you happen to cancel a catchup lesson, you are still required
to pay for it.

PROMOTION
Where offering YOU ourcurrent students a promotion !!
All you need to do is introduce
a friend & you both receive
1hour Bonus Lesson!
[Conditions Apply]

From Top left: Yuli, Ferry, Weifan, Irwan
From Bottom left: Reza, Gina, Felicia

We’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest group of student who have all justreturned from a trip to Japan. Some of them went to Japan after the country was stricken by
natural disasters.

Q: How was the trip to Japan?
A: Yuli - Trip to Japan, in feb, wasamazing. The whole experience
exceeded our expectations.

A: Gina - I was gobsmacked by the beauty

A:Reza - There are allocated spots for
smokers and people don't smoke while
walking on the street, especially inTokyo. Though we were also surprisedthat smoking inside a restaurant or cafeis still allowed.

of Kyoto and the Japanese
A: Yuli - Everywhere was clean!!! It wasculinary. With recent disaster that has
difficult to find rubbish bins on the street,
breaking everyone hearts, the people ofyet it was clean. And we were surprised
Japan are still held their head highhow people are very efficient and they
because they are believes thatmake full use of space and time.
tomorrow will be better. The people ofAnd, as a pastry chef, I'm surprised how
Japan are still smiling and kindly keen toamazing the patisserie work there! They
help us, the foreigner by taking us
all look so oiishi and beautiful!!!
directly to our destination withconsequences to reroute their own trip
Q: What do you like most about Japan, &or upset their pooch for distracting theWhy?
afternoon walk although we haveconfused them for not being able to
A: Reza & Yuli - We think we like thespeak Japanese but still asked for aadvanced public transport, especially indirection with our body language. OurTokyo, where the train network istrip to Japan was almost over a month
dauntingly complicated but it works
ago, but the memory is still well-pictured
really well! We could get to places
in my head as I write this.
easily and trains are frequent and ontime as well as the food!
Q: What surprised you the most about
Japan?
Q: What made you decide to learn Japanese?
A: Gina - The individual beauty of each city
A: Gina - The authenticity of Japanesethat we visited, the genuine hospitality ofhospitality, they were so keen to help us
Japanese people, the castles, thewith our broken Japanese.
shrines and the culinary.

iJapanese Newsletter

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Recommended websites お勧めウェブサイト
We would like to recommend some websites which might help your self learning.
Please browse them!

Namiko's Blog Lessons

Japanesepod101

You can find this blog in ‘about.com’.
The blog presents many interesting topics
about Japan, such as current news andcustomaries. It’s written in English,
Japanese and Roma-ji, there are also
some useful phases, so you can understandthe articles easily.

This website can be used by people with awide range of needs from beginners toadvanced learners wishing to study
themselves.
There are lots of materials such as JLPT,Kanji and vocabulary.
All you need to do is choose your level,
topic and listen to audio which will help
you to check your grammar points andvocabulary.

http://japanese.about.com/od/
namikosbloglessons/Namikos_Blog_Lessons.htm

http://www.japanesepod101.com/

Please tell us yourrecommendations!
We need your help…..
We appreciate if you would
tell us any good restaurants or
websites.
Also if you wish to participate
in ‘Student’s Interview’, please
let us know.
info@ijapanese.com.au

From Phillip フィルよりJapan is recognized for its love of motor sports and have produced some
iconic sports cars like the Nisan Skyline, Mazda RX8, Toyota Supra,
Subaru WRX STI and Mitsubishi EVO just to name a few. I must say I wasa little disappointed with the lack of Japanese sports cars in Japan when
I visited earlier this year.
In recent years the Japanese car industry
has moved away from manufacturing
powerful sports cars to smaller, more fuelefficient cars. Due to smaller roads,
cheaper registration and Insurance, thesetypes of almost van like or cube looking
vehicles have become quite popular inJapanese lifestyles. Even though
Japanese people don’t embrace sports
cars like they used too, car manufactures
still produces them to satisfy the rest of
the lead foots.

NissanNow there’s a new trend
emerging from Japan, but
is it the local market or global market
demand? I’d like to think it’s the peopleof Japan missing their spots cars over theyears. With the release of the Nissan GT-Rin 2007 and now the Lexus LFA.
Japanese supercars are making their debuton the streets of Japan with a touch ofrenaissances.

Try this simple
Japanese Quiz.
Hello Kitty & Doraemon
are well-known Japanesecharacters throughout
the world.
They must get along witheach other, Right ?
BUT!
Why can’t Hello Kitty &Doraemon communicate
with each other?

CubeAnswer on Page 4

iJapanese Newsletter

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From Noriko のりこよりQuestionnaire
Along with this Newsletter you
will be given a Questionnaire!
We strongly ask that if you wish
to participate please fill in andreturn to us.
Any feedback, Positive or
Negative will be grateful andwill help us to build a betterand more enjoyable school forthe future.

iJapanese free service
for students!
Write a diary in Japanese!
日本語で日記を書こう！
And Noriko will check yourwriting anytime for free!
The best way to improve yourJapanese is to use it on a daily
basis.
We recommend writing a diaryin Japanese. It would help yourJapanese skill not only writing
but also speaking, listening andreading.
We are happy to help you
improvement your Japanese!

Quiz Answer
Because Hello Kitty doesn't havea mouth and Deraemon doesn't
have ears!

I always seem to ask students’ aboutthemselves in class, but I have probably
never told them much about myself…… So
now it’s my turn, if you are interested inknowing.
I was born in Fukuoka, I grew up inFukuoka, went to school in Fukuoka,
worked in Fukuoka.
I first started working at a construction
company as a bookkeeper/administrator.
It was a bit of a boring job. So one day,off the top my head I wanted to learnsomething new! So I thought to myself“OK, let’s do it”
Next step, What to learn? I actually didn’t
really know what to learn. I just wanted
to learn something new. I started looking
in the local newspapers for new ideas. AsI glanced over the paper I found English
learning classes, going to gym and Aloha
dancing classes but none of these reallycaught my eye until I turned the page to“a course for becoming a Japaneseteacher”.
The next day I visited the school andsigned up straight away. It was a very
interesting course because of the way inwhich it made me look at Japanese, it
was like the fish scales had fallen frommy eyes!

Two year later I had an
opportunity to returnto Melbourne, so I
jumped at theopportunity and now I
have been teaching forover 6 years and havehelped to start a
successful business.
I really enjoy teaching and always laughwith my students. No sooner did I startteaching that I realized teaching people
is also about learning from them.
I have learnt a lot of differences between
Japan and other countries, such as
custom, culture and thinking about life.
Which I had not thought of before
becoming a teacher.
I learn something new every day fromstudents. Just the other day when I wasteaching a 7 year old girl, she was looking
at the map of Japan and said ‘Japan looks
like a seahorse!’ Yeah, that’s right. I havelearnt something new today too!

After the course I decided to quit my joband go to Melbourne for a internship inteaching Japanese as a volunteer.
After completing the internship I
returned to Fukuoka and taught at a local
Japanese school. It was amazing
experience in Melbourne and I missed it
greatly.

Thanksご挨拶
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our students for learning with us atiJapanese Language & Culture School and we hope you have enjoyed learning Japanesewith us.
We are pleased to announce an increase in students and we are currently expanding ourresources so that we can make sure that our school continues to be the best inMelbourne.
We are looking forward to seeing all of you during the new term!

iJapanese Language & Culture School
488 Bourke Street Melbourne 3000
Phone: 0401 886 629
E-Mail: Info@ijapanese.com.au
Website: www.ijapanese.com.au