Younha Songs -teen's collection-

I know this blog is mostly reserved for news on the Japanese culture, but, like most others, I'm a music lover and the artist here do speak Japanese, so...

In any case, I'm talking about Younha, a rather famous J-Pop singer from, yes, Korea who debuted in 2004 at an age of only 16 (she's only one year older than me!). But besides being famous in Korea, she's also famous in Japan. In the past few years, she has even been compared with BoA, who's another famous Korean/Japanese artist even though there's a huge difference in their style and type of music.

Younha's latest album Younha Songs -teen's collection- was released March 26th 2008 and contains a mix of both new and old songs. This album also contains the opening song Scratch on the Heart from the anime Maplestory. You can find the list of songs below, as well as a link to the download. Enjoy-su!

1. Yubikiri -Japanese Ver.-


2. Houkiboshi


3. Motto Futari de


4. Touch


5. Yume no Tsudzuki


6. My Lover


7. Te wo Tsunaide


8. Ima ga Daisuki


9. Inori


10. Hakanaku Tsuyoku


11. Scratch on the Heart


12. Kono Kokoro


13. Password 486 -Japanese Ver.-


14. Yubikiri

Download it! [Megaupload]

Korean's rule!

Whilst browsing around on Google, I suddenly came across one of the more interesting things to be found on the internet. It's flashy, fan-made and belongs to one of the best anime series to this date. That's right. I'm talking about a Lucky Star dress-up game, created by a fellow Korean blogger.

Did you know, that some companies will pay you more than $6000 for making them a dress-up game? Have fun!

Lesson 1 - Greetings

Most Japanese people bow to each other when they first meet. Bow in Japanese is ojigi. The lower the bow, the more you are honoring the person. Friends usually don’t bow too deep. Even though bowing is a way to respect one another, it can also be a way to insult the other. If you bow too deep or don’t bow enough, it could be considered mocking or insulting them.

In the morning, before 10:30 AM, you would say ohayou gozaimasu, which translates to “good morning”. In modern day Japan, you don’t pronounce the “u” at the end; you just let it hang on the s. It would sound like “gozaimass”. For less formal situations, you can merely say ohayou.

From 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM (during the day) you would say konnichi wa, which translate to “good afternoon” or just plain “hello”.

After 5:00 PM, you would greet others by saying konban wa, which translates to “good evening”.

Before you go to sleep, you would tell others oyasumi nasai, which translates to “sleep well” or “good night”. A more informal way of saying this would be oyasumi.

Another phrase, though it is not much of a greeting, is one you say when you enter a house. You would call out tadaima, which is basically an “I’m home” type of greeting. Anyone in the house would respond to you. It is disrespectful to enter a house and not say tadaima.

Vocabulary review

お辞儀 ojigi - bow
おはようございます ohayou gozaimasu - good morning
こんにちは konnichi wa - good afternoon
こんばんは konban wa - good evening
おやすみなさい oyasumi nasai - good night
ただいま tadaima - I'm home