The last picture looks like your average galvanic cell, and not anything at all like a cicada.

It’s not that 出る is an exception, but that を can mean “through” or “from” with movement verbs. For example:

公園に歩く = Walk to the park
公園を歩く = Walk through the park

That seems a fairly comprehensive list – not sure I could suggest anything to add to it, unless you wanted to talk about hobbies, say, or things you like. Just a few observations, though:

How are you? Ogenki desuka? お元気ですか？

For the love of all that’s good and polite, don’t ask this unless you know them very well. In English, “how are you?” is a small talk “I’m alive and I can see you’re alive too” type question, but in Japanese, it’s very personal.

Good bye! Sayonara! さようなら！

This is fairly formal and/or a long-term goodbye, so I wouldn’t really use it with someone you know well.

I’m (twenty, thirty…) years old. Watshi wa (20, 30) sai desu. 私は（２０，３０）才です。

Fun fact: ２０歳 (= twenty years old) is not read as にじゅうさい but as はたち. It’s one of Japanese’s weird freaky off-the-wall counter exceptions. There’s some historical reason for that (to do with the fact that 20 is the age of adulthood in Japan) but I don’t know the specifics.

Good luck! Ganbatte ne! がんばってね！

Actually, this means “keep it up!” You don’t wish people “good luck” in Japanese, you wish them “word hard”.

Bless you (when sneezing) Odaiji ni. お大事に。

This means something like “take care of yourself”. You’d also use it when someone tells you of something that’s ailing them (after first making appropriate sympathetic comments, of course).

I bought membership during a sale. I think I’ve easily been here long enough to have gotten my money’s worth. =)

It’s full of errors, but here’s my attempt. Had to make some guesses at the kanji for words I’ve not encountered before. Some lines here and there that I couldn’t quite make out. I’m especially unsure of things towards the end, when she starts moving around and clattering things. I thought of marking lines I was particularly unsure of, but then I’d be marking almost all of the last third. =P

Was so sorely tempted to just give up and nitpick at Michael’s version when he posted it. =)

な？ふしぎやろ

＜すやすや＞
＜起きる！＞
あれ？
私寝ちゃってた？
ヤバ～イ
まだ勉強の途中だったのに
もう、何で起こしてくれなかった？
＜いいえ＞
へ？まだ３０分しか寝てないの
アヤ！どうしよう．．．まだ寝たいな～
＜はい＞
そうやんな。もうちょっとだけ寝た方が、頭の変えてもいいもの
じゃあ、また３０分足してくれる？
＜はい＞
じゃあ、寝るわ
＜寝る！＞
＜起きる！＞
あ！こら！
ちょっと、今、チューしようとしたやろ
＜いいえ＞
嘘や！絶対チューしようとしたや
だっても顔がキュ～～ってなでったね
あ～。もうそんなことするから目覚めちゃったや
へ？それなら、あれ見せててどう言うこと、そんな我が儘すぎるわ
＜いいえ＞
そっちの方が勉強(？？？？？)そんな屁理屈や
もう、仕方ないな
＜トレイ、ゲット！＞
ジャーン。ここに、いっぱいせいにつ(？)とってる、電子じゃなくて墨があります
じゃあ、モーターがあるので、すないて(？)みます
＜ブ～～＞
ワ！すごい！モーターが回ってます！
ワ、涼しい
な？ふしぎやろ？

墨インクと酸素は、アルミの電子とくつくんですね

Ouch. My course, fortunately, is not like that. The hiragana (and the kanji since then) is taught by the “here it is, now go learn it” method.

I’m up to Advanced B now – the last session before I graduate. The typical pattern for classes is we learn some aspect of Japanese culture or language for the first hour (last week was supersitions, this week was onomatopoeia), then the second hour is spent running through that week’s grammar points, a brief rundown of the kanji, then we work in small groups on kanji worksheets that each of us make ourselves on a roster. This session, we’ve also been getting karaoke performances from one student per week (as part of our session-long self-study project).

To be fair, though, you need to learn the handwritten versions of kana and kanji, so (at the very least) you can read them when you see them. And so people don’t think you’re a robot. =P

Not really expecting you to learn full-on cursive, though. =)

マーク・ウェーバー wrote:

屎尿 →　し尿

Oh, I see. I kinda saw that coming, though I had some hopes it might be something grammatical. =P

微生物の力でし尿を分解するバイオトイレの増設や、ごみの処理、登山道の安全確保、珍しい動物や植物の保護など必要な対策はさらに増える。

Talking about measures to be taken on Mount Fuji to reduce the impact caused by climbers. But that’s not the issue here. The question is: what function is that し playing, in 力でし? I’ve got the meaning of the sentence (By the power of Greyskull microbes!) but that し is bugging me…