Michael Palin arrives in Tokyo - Around the World in 80 Days - BBC

[EDSTAR0000]

3:26 Illuminati symbol 

[LAKOPUNJABI]

Wow even back in 1989 Japan was bustling in action, still modern than the western nations

[SLWatchingYouNTube]

i wish i could see this whole travel series somewhere online again. i loved the show so much. michael palin rocks.

[drpoxy]

I would love to see MIchael Palin visit Pyongyang / DPRK. I think he could make a really interesting program and, as he always respects the local point of view, I think that the (North) Koreans would probably open up to him. Incidently, before anyone e-mails to tell me, I know that you can only visit the DPRK via the official tourist agency / and with guides. However I really do think that a documentary with MIchael in the DPRK is long overdue (provided he is up for it - obviously !).

[frode1232]

love this series.. michael has the most amazing documentary voice...

[gibb253]

Considering this is a BBC clip, the video quality is very poor

[goldghoti]

@gibb253 It's like 20 years old, that's why!

[GBjoji]

タコ食え！

[TheNADIM786]

cool michael

[madmax7272jj]

Japanese language is composed of around 50 syllables. There are 5 vowels; a, i, u, e, o. And then Ka, ki, ku, ke,ko,sa, si, su,se,so...and so on. Acutally pronaucing Japanese is very easy. But when it comes to grammer and Kanji reading...very complicated...Even Japanese makes mistake reading kanji（漢字） in wrong pronunciation.

[justwatching26]

ha ha Michael Palin can use chopsticks too! :) Not that its a big deal...just pointing it out.

[SlimeTron5000]

@justwatching26 It is also two Gregorian decades prior. This series was released in 1989.

[edhernan534]

omgoshh JAPANESE!

TAKE A BREAK!

enjoy life, breath, go on vacation. lol

[GotForGimmick]

The Japanese spend most of their youth learning Kanji. It's a real problem.

[jared10011]

Problem? It's no more of a problem than learning to read and write English for Americans and British...

[GotForGimmick]

I think it is. If you're speaking from first-hand experience, then I'll stand corrected but please give some evidence for the claim.

Japanese children as expected to learn over one thousand kanji characters, we only have to memorise the 26 letter alphabet. It stands to reason, in my opinion, that it's a longer and harder learning process.

[jared10011]

Well, I can see why you think that. I learned Japanese as an adult (in college). One must learn about 50 Hiragana, 50 Katakana, and about 1800 Chinese characters to be literate. It's hard to explain, but Chinese characters are made up of a set number of basic characters, and form different words depending on the combination used- it's actually not that difficult. Pronunciation and grammar of Japanese are very simple too, compared to English... Think about the # of words US kids need to learn!

[jared10011]

PS: Yes, our 26 letter alphabet seems simple, but think of the many, many arbitrary spellings of our words (it's very illogical). When I taught English to Japanese people, it was hard to explain why "ough" was pronounced in so many ways (cough, though, through, enough, bough etc...) Also, I find some words much easier and faster to write in Japanese characters, than English. The word for "mountain" is only 3 strokes of the pen!

[stephentsang2000]

the Japanese word for mountain with 3 strokes is in fact a Chinese character invented 5000 years ago

[jared10011]

Yes...of course....don't worry, everyone knows that Japanese Kanji come from China :-)

[jl45000019]

山

[GotForGimmick]

Sounds like you did very well, but everything else I've heard has been to the contrary. That Japanese, as a written language, is hard to learn. Indeed, English pronunciation and grammar are perhaps more complicated, but I was specifically referring to Kanji.

Even if it's not very difficult, as you say, it will still take longer to memorize them. Almost 2000 characters compared to 26. I don't see how it couldn't take longer.

[jared10011]

Have you studied Japanese?

Indeed, the Kanji take a long time to learn. But compare literacy rates in the US to those of Japan...

[GotForGimmick]

Because studying hard and getting good grades is ingrained in their culture. They have a better literacy rate because the children there spend far longer studying! After school classes, study groups, hours of homework each night.

If children in the US studied that hard, literacy rates would shoot up.

[jared10011]

I quite agree.

[Serasia]

A friend of mine who was taking the same English class with me was from around the middle east area and asked why I, since I was born speaking English, was taking an English class. I got kind of flustered since I was shyer then and said 'I don't know' but that was kind of a dumb answer...it's because of the literacy rate thing.

[QuaziGNRLNose]

ive been wondering about this, are the japanese characters representative of sylables, or comparable to what we english use for letters

[GotForGimmick]

They're syllables in katakana and hiragana, like ri ro ru re ra ryu ryo, etc. but Kanji can also be more than one syllable, because they can be words on their own (like yama, a kanji which means mountain). That's as far as my knowledge goes on the subject.

[snookere8]

im emmanuel born in tokyo japan age 10 moved to london this parents from tanzania can u unstand or r u confused

[jared10011]

Do you know about punctuation? Periods, commas, apostrophes and capitalization?

[mariahfaith123]

whoa yeah japanese language is so complex..its a struggle to learn it even by my mother lol.

[tizerist]

yeah this is a great series. downloading now

[dubzy81]

wahey

[DROPSOF198]

Wahey man lol