[StripMahjong]

Originally Posted by loveskyliemole

Oh, I always make that mistake! "stuff" isn't countable right?

I've never thought about it like that before, but yes, I suppose that's true. For example, you couldn't say something like "I have seven stuff", but you could say "I have seven things."

Since you can read and write hiragana katakana plus Kanji a lot, maybe a Japanese-Japanese dictionary (which I meant a reguler dictionary for Japanese) can be usuful and helpful for you, I think.Especially the ones for children are great because they have very nice and simple explanations on each words and sometimes it comes with the pictures!

"Since you can read and write a lot of hiragana, katakana and kanji, I think a Japanese-Japanese dictionary (by which I mean a regular dictionary for Japanese) could be useful for you (or "...could be helpful to you." Putting both "useful" and "helpful" together sounds repetitive). The ones for children are especially great because they have very nice, simple explanations for each word and sometimes even have pictures!"

For the most part the only problems with that paragraph were the placement of the words in each sentence. Very well done, considering how long it was!

I haven't ever considered getting a Japanese-Japanese dictionary before. I'll definitely think about it. Thank you for the links!

You know what? I had that corn (we call it yaki-toumorokoshi or Yaki-Morokoshi) last night and that was yummy!

"...last night and it was yummy!"

haha
I don't know much about noodles anyway because
we have wide(?) varieties here in Japan.

To use "wide" here, I would say, "...have a wide variety..."
Or, you could say, "...have many varieties..."

You know ラーメン　right? (did you like it?)
In my area (around Tokyo -- I am originally from Yokohama), we call it
「ラーメン」but some people in the Osaka area call it 「中華そば」.
My friends from Wakayama were surprised when I said
「中華そば？おいしそう！たべてみたい！」 .
I didn't think that meant ラーメン。 (or you could say "I didn't know that means ラーメン")
I thought it was something different!

Just a few minor corrections, which I put in bold in the quote.

Yes, I had ラーメン a few times in Japan, as well as once here in the United States in a Japanese restaurant. I like it a lot. It took me a little while to learn how to properly slurp the noodles, though. The way I used to do it would send broth flying all over the place. Fortunately, I don't have that problem any more.

Yeah, I also want to save up enough money to travel overseas! My last overseas trip was in 1999 to Australia for a month to see my friends.

At that time, Japan's economy wasn't so bad.
But, it's not good anymore and the plane tickets (or you could say "airfare") are (if you said "air fare" instead, "are" would have to be "is" here) expensive because of the price of oil.

I really hope there will be a great substitute for oil
which is friendly to the environment
and to our purse!　
(It doesn't make sense in English does it? we say おさいふにやさしい for economy prices）.

Actually, it does make sense to say "...friendly to the environment and to our purse!" Well done!

I also hope for that type of substitute to oil... A lot of people keep wondering how we can get more oil to help solve the energy crises, but I don't think the problem will go away until we find something else that replaces oil. We'll have to think of something eventually, since oil is a limited resource.

「カツカレー」ですね！

夫と私は「牛・豚・鶏　肉」を食べないので、シーフー ドやきのこをたくさん入れます。

あ、そうそう！　カツカレーです。　名前が覚えられて いませんでした。　カツカレーは僕の一番好きな和食で す。

まゆみ先生と旦那はベジタリアンですか？

「日本人の女」というより　「日本人女性」　「日本の 女性」　のほうが
丁寧です。

すみません。　

I think I have a regular colour for an Asian!

He wanted to say 「にんぎょう」！

「あなたはわたしの人形」

Do guys usually say " you are my doll?"

I don't think so. なんか気持ち悪いってかんじでしょう？

I told him that it didn't make sense in Japanese
and I don't want him to think I am his doll anyway!
NO!
Well, that wasn't the reason why we broke up, but
I said "Let's just be friends" about 3 months later.

Probably a smart move! It doesn't make very much sense in English, either.

It has been ages since the last time I thought of this guy!

I was 22 and he was 21. oh It was a loooong time ago now.
We were in Melbourne, and he was very happy to have an oriental girlfriend,because いろいろな人にひやかされたり、うらやましがられたり しました　(I don't know how to put it in English).

うわ、難しかった！　でも、訳せたかもしれません。　 "He enjoyed doing things like bantering other people and making them feel jealous." どうですか？　そういう意味ですか？

I thought I liked this guy cos we had a lot of fun times together with other friends, but when we started dating I realized that he enjoyed "showing off". I got disappointed and thought he wasn't a guy I could respect.

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's a Japanese girl thing, but I don't like guys saying "you are beautiful", "you are MY DOLL" or even " I love you" often. I get goosebumps!

I think this might be a cultural thing, actually. From studying the Japanese language, it seems to me that Japanese people don't like being very direct about anything unless they have to be. So, you might not like hearing those types of things because they are too direct. Even the example sentence you gave before (ずっとxxxさんの事をかわいいと思っていました。) is very indirect. I've also heard that you should generally use 「ｘｘｘのことが好き」 instead of 「愛してる」 when telling someone you like them, since it isn't as strong and is less direct. But, I could be wrong.

それとも、まゆみ先生はにんじんだから、そういう思い 方があるかもしれません。　

After this guy, I fell in love with an Aussie guy who treated me like I was just one of his good mates! He was a guy who didn't say those things to me and only once said that I was cute and I was genuinely happy, but it didn't work out. Then I moved to Sydney and met a Japanese guy who became my husband 10 years later!

So what I was trying to say is...
things between girls and boys are not easy! haha

でしょう？　

Oopsie, I spent over 1 hour writing this. I don't know why I ended up talking about my ex!

Hope I didn't make you bored.

いいえ、いいえ。　ぜんぜんつまらないじゃありません でした！

そして、僕も一時間以上かかりました。　今、晩ご飯を 食べます！