Hello again from all your friends at J-List!
My Japanese wife and I work hard to raise our children so that they’ll be bilingual in both English and Japanese. We only buy DVDs from the U.S., so if the kids want to watch something in our DVD collection, they have to watch it in English. Getting them to actually speak English at home can be difficult though, especially since the kids know that I understand Japanese. Pretending not to understand and asking them to repeat what they just said in English doesn’t work very well, so we try to come up with other ways to tackle English together. Sometimes when we play together, we play “American family” and speak only English. If they want anything from me, they know I won’t give it to them unless they ask in English. Also, my kids need extra practice making some of the sounds native English speakers make, such as voiced and unvoiced “th” (as in “this” and “thing” — these sounds are known as fricatives, in case anyone ever asks you). So we have a game: if they can pronounce the “th” in “Throw me!” properly, I will throw them onto the bed (a favorite game).
It’s common for bilingual speakers to switch between languages when they know the person they’re speaking to will understand either one; this is called “code switching.” Sometimes kids do it accidentally, because they haven’t learned which words go with which language. When my kids were younger, they often would use English words wth the teachers at their preschool, causing occasional confusion. I remember when my son Kazuki went to the local public bath with me, back when he was two years old or so. He told me that the cold-water bath was “cold-katta.” I didn’t understand what he meant, but then it hit me: he had mixed the English word cold with the past tense ending in Japanese (-katta). The Japanese for “it was cold” would have been “tsumeta-katta” (tsumetai meaning “cold to the touch”). With summer nearing, we’re making plans for our kids to spend time in our home in San Diego, so they can spend time in an English environment and recover the English they learned last summer, but have since stopped using.
There are certain changes that happen to Americans who live in Japan for a long time. For one, you get quite comfortable with the metric system, and start annoying your friends and family back home by referring to everything in centimeters and kilometers. My shoe size is 26.5 cm, but I’ve long forgotten what it is in inches, just as I’ve forgotten how much I weigh in pounds. But the Japanese don’t use the metric system for everything. When talking about the sizes of rooms in Japan, you never use square meters, but instead refer to the number of tatami mats the room contains (or would contain, if it were a tatami room). Tatami mats are standard-sized rectangular mats made of straw, that are supposed to be the correct space for one adult to sleep. A 6-jo room (“jo” is the Chinese pronunciation for the “tatami” character) is average sized; poor college students have to live in a 4-jo-han (or a small apartment that’s just 4 1/2 tatami mats in size). When you buy land, you measure it in “tsubo,” an area of measurement that’s conveniently equal to two tatami mats. Thus if you have 20 “tsubo” of land you can picture it as 40 tatami mats in size. When you’ve been in Japan as long as I have, it becomes quite easy to do.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for all fans of the Star Trek universe, we’ve got a very special series of Star Trek starships that will be released from Furuta June 23. The set includes ten different popular vehicles, including the Enterprise, the Reliant, Deep Space Nine, Kingon ships and more. Preorder yours today!
- Another great item from Japan is the limited edition Jelly Belly Bearbrick figures — they’re so limited, we’ve only got one full set in stock
- Japanese are fans of old things, and many people collect old tin toys — we’ve got a great set of ten different classic toy replicas made by Japanese toy sculptor Teruhisa Kitahara
- We’ve got great Japanese snacks, including delicious Lotte “Ghana” chocolate crisps, peach flavored gummi, and real dried Japanese “ume” plums
- Also, some cute furikake for your little one (or you) that features little Snoopy shapes that are fun to eat
- We love to stock fun Sanrio items, and have several new things for you, including a new Hello Kitty Japanese fairy tale book, a great Kitty and Shinkansen cup set for your little one, and a super fun item — Shinkansen Pachinko, a real pachinko machine that will amuse you for hours
- Also, enjoy wacky Japanese signs and stickers, like “Don’t let your dog poop here” and “W.C.”
- We love DVD from Japan, and have a new Japanese film in stock for you, TOYD, a fantastic horror film about toys that can be controlled through their portable phones, which can also be used for murder (region 2)
- J-List carries authentic Japanese geta shoes made of wood, with many variations for men and women — because our Japanese shoes are so popular, we’d sold out of many styles, including nearly all our “zori” tatami shoes, but we’ve restocked them all now for you
- We always stock many useful Japanese items for your kitchen, including traditional Japanese bowls, disposable and printed chopsticks, bento boxes and more — we’ve gotten in stock of a handy rice scoop for scooping rice out of your rice cooker
- For fans of Japanese Race Queens, look for many items in stock, including more copies of the popular Race Queen Hundred Catalog
- Finally find super cute Japanese fanny pouches, the last Pocky stock we’ll get before summer, cute Japanese items with funny English on them, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of lovely Japanese AV stars, we’ve got the new issue of Bejean, the flagship adult magazine of the Eichi Publishing Company, filled with lovely gals for you!
- For amateur fans, we’ve got the new issue of Sasotte Ageru (“I’m going to ask you out”), featuring many lovely girls in love hotels, as well as an erotic “Bud Girl” magazine
- Then enjoy a special treat, a magazine dedicated to the erotic and lovely Ran Asakawa, which comes with a 120 minute DVD full of her erotic movies (region 2)
- Maiko Kazano is one of the most lovely nude models in Japan, and you can enjoy her lovely nude body in a new issue of Karami, dedicated entirely to this lovely girl
- We love the really sexy swimsuit and busty idols that are popular in Japan — enjoy a great hardcover photobook featuring Harumi Nemoto and four other lovely gals
- Also, look for freshly restocked photobooks, including Aoi Sora’s great hardcover photobook and fresh stock of Yuko Ogura’s dynamite “Loving Kindly”
- For fans of our hentai manga, which on sale this month during our “May Manga Sale,” we’ve got some great new offerings for you, including an all “Woman Teacher” hentai manga, and the very erotic “Twins” manga by
- We’ve also restocked several popular manga items, including Blue Eyes, Shake, Insult! and also, Pose File 2, a great book of nude poses for anyone trying to learn to draw like the Japanese do
- The erotic artwork of hentai illustrator Makura-E Dukushi is truly amazing — see his best illustrations in a new art book that should not be missed by any hentai fans
- For DVD collectors, we’ve got some great new products for you, starting with a wacky 4-hour DVD of late-night erotic TV from Japan, including many wacky scenes: nude English and Korean conversation segments, fishing with the female genitalia, car sex, nude newscasters, and more — and the price is great! (region free)
- Hitomi Hayasaka is one of the loveliest AV stars in Japan, a fabulous girl with a great Asian body — enjoy 4 hours of her best works in a new release from Million (region free)
- From Total Media Agency, enjoy another value-priced 4-hour DVD, featuring 4 hours of the very best lesbian sex in the company’s history (region free)
- Ran Asakawa performs a valuable service for you, assisting your solo sex in the new SOD title “Ran Asakawa will Assist your Masturbation” (region free)
- For fans of anal sex themes, enjoy the new Anal de Fuck Deluxe, featuring the first anal experiences of three lovely girls, by Deep’s (region free)
- In Japan, voice actresses, the girls who provide the voices in anime, are very popular — now enjoy some “Immoral Voice Actress Training” in a new erotic offering from Audaz, featuring the erotic sex of three real voice actresses (region 2)
- Finally, look for many restocked DVDs, including the super lesbian title “Stairway to Heaven, Highway to Hell,” Mirai Hoshizaki’s complete works, more bukkake from the Dream Shower series, and Riho Nanase’s great wet sex.
Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? Remember that J-List stocks all the excellent region 2 DVD releases for Studio Ghibli movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky Laputa, Princess Mononoke and his Lupin III classic, The Castle of Caliostro. These DVDs are released in Japan directly by the studio and include many features that make them great for collectors. All discs feature English subtitles and/or dubbed tracks and are great for fans who want the definitive versions of these anime classics overseen by Mr. Miyazaki himself. The only catch is, you need a region free DVD player to watch them — and J-List humbly recommends the three excellent units we currently sell.
Also, remember that J-List stocks many items for fans of “cosplay,” the Japanese hobby of dressing up like your favorite anime or other character. From actual items you can buy and wear (including the line of excellent high school uniforms from Nagoya’s Matsukameya, sold exclusively through J-List) to a full line of comics, DVDs and dating-sim games that cater to cosplay fans, we know we’ve got something for you. Just search for “cosplay” to see all the items we’ve got.
We found a great page for any anime fans who want to learn Japanese through their hobby. See the “100 most common word in anime” here: http://www.yale.edu/anime/glossary.html
