Aguro

In a jpod101 teacher’s conversation, I found a new and very useful expression: ある意味. It means “in a sense”. (literally it means “a certain meaning”)

Here’s the relevant conversation from episode 331 (Second Honeymoon):

And here are more examples from around the web:

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japanesepod101.com - Beginner Season 2 Episode 21 - Pasta a Plenty

It’s about Italian food! They mentioned Napolitan which I knew already from Buono’s song “Café Buono!“. However they brought up ボンゴレ (vongolle) and its ingredient 浅蜊 (asari, a clam) which I didn’t know. Also, they mentioned that the person’s name 田淵 (tabuchi) contains difficult kanji. Indeed difficult, but one I know :).

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japanesepod101.com - Beginner Season 2 Episode 20 - Bad Cold

There are some interesting points of the episode I listened to today. First of all is the usage of さん for shops ending in 屋, such as ケーキ屋さん (keekiya-san, cake shop) and 薬屋さん (kusuriya-san, pharmacy). Natsuko-sensei said that this usage is more of a female speech. No wonder I first found it on Morning Musume’s single, Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari.

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