Would you like some Japanese penfriends?

[loveskyliemole]

Originally Posted by student95

Hello, I'd love to talk to one of your students too!

Yes, join us !

Can you leave your messages to:

Kanon: loves hip hop dancing, she is the oldest and the kids' leader,11 years old in 2 months.
Yuna: loves playing tennis and basketball 10 years old
Sakura: loves drawing, and playing piano. started learning English about 6 months ago, but studies very hard to catch up with Yuna and Kanon

Reiki: loves cars! he wants to talk about it. He also loves games, like Nintendo stuff... and he has many bayblade? (sorry I don't know about it much) He is 9 in a few months.

Yuzuki:loves Star Wars, loves soccer. He has lived in the USA.

Myself have lived in Australia
Where in Aust do you live?

[Diogo]

Originally Posted by loveskyliemole

Yuzuki has lived in the USA for 3 years and came back to Japan about a year ago. He is 8 years old now.
His favourite is Star Wars, if you can talk about it, he will be very happy.

About his message... he didn't mean to be rude but it's Friday evening, so he WAS really tired and sleepy, he could type more but he wanted to sit down and read some books.

thanks for trying!

hope to chat with you next week

Ok, but they haven't their own e-mails? Its more cool than talk only 3 times a week.

[loveskyliemole]

Originally Posted by Diogo

Ok, but they haven't their own e-mails? Its more cool than talk only 3 times a week.

I know, but their parents don't want their kids to use the internet at home for security reasons.
Some of them don't have the internet access at home!!

The kids also have lots of things to do at my school... like drawing, reading books, games...and many type of crafts... we sing and dance and do a lot of things, so we only have limited time to do this interest thing for the moment.

I want them to get used to the internet thingy little by little... but their parents think that is too early. so once week is just good for them.

I might have a bit older students like your age in the future, then they will love to do more by themselves at home.(If their parents let them)

In your country, the kids like 8 - 11 years old are using the net very often??

[Diogo]

Originally Posted by loveskyliemole

In your country, the kids like 8 - 11 years old are using the net very often??

Not much...

[student95]

I live in Sydney. Whereabouts did you live when you came here?
Do I choose someone specific to talk to? Or can I talk to all of them?

[loveskyliemole]

Originally Posted by student95

I live in Sydney. Whereabouts did you live when you came here?
Do I choose someone specific to talk to? Or can I talk to all of them?

G'day mate
Sydney? I was in Sydney!
(but could be before you were born??? it was 1994-1996)
I lived in... New Town,Earlwood and around that area.
I used to go to a business college in the city.

It's up to you! choose one to write or choose a few or just write to all !
Except Yuzuki, the kids only can read simple English

Maybe you can tell them a little bit about Aussie English?

have a good weekend

[student95]

Hello, Sakura. What do you like drawing the most? Do you play the piano? That's amazing. When did you start playing? Do you love playing the piano?

To all the kids:
How are you finding English? Do you dream of living in a foreign country? What do you think Australia is like?


Aussie English is pretty much the same as British English, although it is generally said that we speak really fast and that our words are slurred together.

[loveskyliemole]

Originally Posted by student95

Aussie English is pretty much the same as British English, although it is generally said that we speak really fast and that our words are slurred together.

right, slurred...

How about some words like....
fair dinkum?
Oh, and I noticed that you guys like making words shorter and shorter!
such as BBQ...barbee(?), kindergarten...kindy? chocolate...chokie?
kangaroo...roo!? just like that!
Maybe young kids don't use fairdinkum anymore???
I'm not sure. Tell us about some slang you use at school??

At a secondary college in Melbourne,some kids said "dude" to me... and I had no idea what it meant...(I was helping my friend/Japanese teacher from England).

Oh, I have a question!
What do you say when you need to go to the toilet!!!???
You know what? My friends from north america, they didn't like me say
"I've got to go to the toilet", they told me I should say "the bathroom" instead of the toilet. I told them that there wasn't any "bath" things there!
And they said to me "call it restroom then", but there wasn't any.... you know.
Actually I used to say "gotta go to the loo", but I stopped it, cos some one told me that sounds too childish.

Since I came back from Australia, I meet many people from north America, so I didn't want to be rude... so I stopped saying "toilet" so now I call it "bathroom"...

Oops, sorry my toilet story's becoming too long...

oh, I have one more question.

Any of your girl friends say "oopsie" ?(not sure how it spelled)
just oops? or any other way to explain oopsie situations?

Sorry about all the silly questions

have a good day

[student95]

No, I haven't heard anyone use fair dinkums before other than in Australian novels. Although I'm pretty sure that it is still used by some people - just not the people I am acquainted with.

Haha, have you found out what 'dude' is? It's a very common slang for: you, guy, person. i.e. 'Hey dude!' roughly means 'Hey you!'
I found your message very entertaining.
It brought to light how much of my daily life I take for given. I always thought that the slang I spoke was universal English slang ^^. I actually needed quite some time to think of what I use that is labelled 'slang'...I use it without thinking! It's become the normal English to me.

Some slang:
It was hectic/awesome = It was cool; Ace = very good; That was mad! = that was great!; Aussie = English; AZN = asian; break wind (this is not very appropriate for purposes of ithis message but it is used so I put it in anyway) = to fart
Wacko = crazy/crazy person
Brekkie = Breakfast >> Yes we do make a lot of words shorter!
BBQ = Barbie
Chocolate = Choc
Kindergarten = Kindy
Mcdonalds = Maccas

>> We have our own personal preferences. Some people say 'toilet', others say 'restroom', 'bathroom' and 'loo'. We are generally very direct in our language so we mostly use 'toilet'.
I once asked my teacher if 'I could go to the bathroom', but he corrected me by saying that there was not bath there! There's no better phrase, I think it all comes down to personal opinions. =D

>> Yes we use oopsie (you've spelt it right), whoops and oops. I've heard some guys use it too. Its most basic use (and the only one I can think of) is when we notice a clumsy mistake e.g. I spelt a word wrong and automatially say 'oops' or any of its other alternatives.
There's also 'whoopsie daisy' which is used in the same way.

I really enjoyed your questions! C ya

[loveskyliemole]

Originally Posted by student95

Haha, have you found out what 'dude' is? It's a very common slang for: you, guy, person. i.e. 'Hey dude!' roughly means 'Hey you!'

thank you
It was back in 1992~3, when the boys said to me "dude" and I didn't hear any girls said "dude", but do they do ?
Don't you guys use "mate" anymore?

I found your message very entertaining.
It brought to light how much of my daily life I take for given. I always thought that the slang I spoke was universal English slang ^^. I actually needed quite some time to think of what I use that is labelled 'slang'...I use it without thinking! It's become the normal English to me.

It's fun, isn't it? to "stop and think"(I don't know a good verb for this) about our native language.
I really enjoyed teaching Aussie kids Japanese, cos I had to "stop and think" how I use Japanese... and it actually helped me to understand English better.

Some slang:
It was hectic/awesome = It was cool; Ace = very good; That was mad! = that was great!; Aussie = English; AZN = asian; break wind (this is not very appropriate for purposes of ithis message but it is used so I put it in anyway) = to fart
Wacko = crazy/crazy person
Brekkie = Breakfast >> Yes we do make a lot of words shorter!
BBQ = Barbie
Chocolate = Choc
Kindergarten = Kindy
Mcdonalds = Maccas

Thank you! Interesting!

How about "Hungry Jacks"?

an old friend of mine from Melbourne, he used to call it HJ.
and some other called McDonald's Mackie Dee or something.

How do you say AZN? like...eizeden?
(first, I didn't read it properly and thought you were talking about the bank!)

I once asked my teacher if 'I could go to the bathroom', but he corrected me by saying that there was not bath there! There's no better phrase, I think it all comes down to personal opinions. =D

At English school, when I told my teacher "May I go to toilet."
She didn't let me, cos I forgot to say "the" !

>> Yes we use oopsie (you've spelt it right), whoops and oops. I've heard some guys use it too. Its most basic use (and the only one I can think of) is when we notice a clumsy mistake e.g. I spelt a word wrong and automatially say 'oops' or any of its other alternatives.
There's also 'whoopsie daisy' which is used in the same way.

I heard that, whoppsie daisy!
daisy is a flower right?

I really enjoyed your questions! C ya

Im happy to hear that


So you picked Sakura, she will be happy to be your friend

Sakura will use another forum for kids (one of the members from this Japan Forum created for us), but she will be here with me next Thursday.

Please write your message in Japanese too!
Sakura will be happy to help you!