Cough. Maybe it’s just that it’s acting differently on the iPad, but that “Google Street View” link instead appears to be directions from someone’s house to IBM.

As in “I want the ramen”? Dunno if you’d use that in a restaurant – probably ラーメンをください (ramen, please) or ラーメンにします (I’ve decided on ramen).

In a department store, you might use ほしい or ～たい at the information counter – セーターがほしいです (I want a sweater) is less direct than “please tell me where the sweaters are”, even if it doesn’t seem like that in English. Or セーターを買いたいです (I’d like to buy a sweater).

Well, yeah. The whole JLPT is in Japanese. Even the application form, though that at least has an English translation.

I’ve got the official N5/N4 practice book, and I’m fairly confident I can do all the N4 written questions – only reason I haven’t done the actual test already is that I’m not at all confident about my listening ability…

Yeah, I kinda think “grammar nazi” gets thrown around way too easily these days.

And yeah, は/が is where he completely loses track of what he’s trying to talk about. は is the topic marker – it marks the topic of the sentence, which may or may not be the subject. が marks the subject, always. They’re not in any way the same thing.

Rule of thumb is the longer something takes to say, the more polite it is. =)

Motion as in “motion picture”? That’s just えいが – there’s no separate word for it.

For motion on its own, my dictionary also suggests 運動 (うんどう) and 運転 (うんてん), but those are motion in the sense of doing exercise and driving a vehicle, respectively. Motion in the sense of “I would like to move that the minutes be accepted” is 提言 (ていげん) or 動議 (どうぎ). The act of making a motion (such as signaling with your hands) is 動作 (どうさ). Motion in the sense of things moving – the motion of the stars – is 動き (うごき). But yeah, none of those are really movie-related, though the last one is in the right vein.

Of course, the danger of using a dictionary is that it gives you no idea of how common words actually are in regular usage. モーション is included in the list of results, though.

… You do remember how to count in Japanese, yes? Start with じゅっぷん and stick the number of tens on the front. にじゅっぷん = 20 minutes. Et cetera. There’s no weird exceptions in pronunciation besides じゅっぷん itself (and 1, 3, 6 and 8, but those won’t come up when you’re talking about multiples of ten).

In any case, all of the tens appear somewhere on that page. Except 40. Can’t seem to spot 40.

Edit: Wait… よんじゅうよっぷん? Huh?

• This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  Joel.

Welcome! What are you doing in Japan? Where in Tokyo? You been out to see the sights yet? =)