An idea BEB had which Alex and I went along with. I think she did a good job as director, camera person and editor! Her idea was to do a whole series of comparisons between "American and British English" including words, phrases, expressions, pronunciations and so on (there have been volumes published on this in Japan). We never got much further on it, partly because that's precisely what 2/3 of us did for work everyday back then. Lately, as a full-time chômeur, Alex has begun cooking up a homepage for Japanese people who are studying English via the series of tubes. This may be of interest to English speakers who are studying Japanese, I don't know. This one was recorded ages ago in Osaka, Japan!

Posted by Rob.

Tags: NFTOS, BEB, Alex Brooke, chômeurs, chômage, Rob a.k.a. El Gringo, Learn English, Japanese, Osaka, Talk Show, accents, water, agua, beber, acqua, aigua, H2O, boire, eau, wasser, 大阪, 日本語, 飲む, 英語

Alex writes: "It's always good go through old files and see which ones are being downloaded and which aren't. While going through the files I decided to make the top 10 most popular downloads from this site."

Here they are in reverse order:

10) Lesson #5 Asking someone out

9) Lesson #15 Wait a moment Mr Postman

8) Lesson #16 Movie Japanese

7) Lesson #4 Counting

In this lesson we learned to count with Waka sensei.

6) Lesson #14 Mukatsuku

This was my favorite show and has been popular ever since we released it.

5) Fun Friday Kansai Dialect

Recently all the Fun Friday episodes have been more popular than the normal lessons.

4) ALT RAP by Rob (a.k.a. El Gringo)

This rap about life as an English teacher was written by Rob and fellow Osaka ALT John Sanders, and the music was produced by Alex Brooke. This video has continued to be quite popular all over the net.

3) Lesson #2 Basic questions

2) Lesson #1 How are you ?

But wait for it. Drum roll please, the single most popular download on Learn Japanese was...

1) Days of the week Video

You can listen to the latest Learn Japanese podcasts here.

Posted by Alex.

I find it uplifting when entertainers challenge us to ponder the profound... Posted by Rob.

Makiko is making a kind of receptacle for vegetable scraps out of old newspaper. Posted by Rob.

...and alhtough Alex Brooke's Learn Japanese podcast is intended for more mature audiences (as is this homepage and its podcasts), they've used some of Alex's music available on the Podsafe Network. Check them out at Podkids Australia, and hear what Alex's music sounds like in a transcultural newscast! Cheers Podkids! I'm not a musician but it's always interesting to see who's playing our ALT Rap, or some of his solo stuff. Umbra from Japan played Alex on his #4 podcast. Awhile back I was quite impressed when Alex had his umeboshi mix used on Max's podcast about Judo on Radio Ayohui in Queretaro, Mexico. Now it might seem pretty common place, and I don't think he is too surprised anymore, but as you can tell I am! By the way, on this the 6th of June, 2006, we at NFTOS are by no way influenced by hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Flag borrowed from ANZAC Day website. Posted by Rob.

This is a "jikoshoukai" or self-introduction Makiko did in Japanese for Alex's language podcast Learn Japanese. Filmed and edited by Rob. -r

So you had too much to drink and got a tattoo ? Find out what the Chinese characters on your arm really mean here. All credit goes to artist and designer Stan Fairbank who is collaborating with Learn Japanese to make these great videos for learning Kanji. You can check out his excellent website at www.endless.com

Listen as Alex, BEB & myself tackle a new vocabulary word and its use on Alex's i日本語 (i-nihongo) / Learn Japanese podcast. It's always fun recording with these two! Recording and dragon doodle by Alex. This post by Rob.

Find out the strange words rattling around people's brains in Kansai. 一番好???言葉??ん??ょ?？??質?を関西?人???????。????