I really, really like this song a lot, too. I really need to find the time to translate it sometime, because the lyrics are just wonderful.

The artist’s name is “Honey” and the name of the song is “Cinderella no moto-kare” (”Cinderella’s Ex-boyfriend”). They are listed on the still in the video, but I listed them in Japanese, which was probably a stupid move given the nature of the podcast… =P

You can see a video of Honey performing the song live here (though the sound quality isn’t very good, unfortunately). Her web page is here.

My real question to you is this …

Where did the music come from in regards to THIS particular podcast? (Genkier series podcast: An overview of the Japanese writing system)

You have the name of the tune written in Japanese, and since I am a BRAND NEW to Japanese, I have NO idea what it says. It does say that it’s by the artist “Honey” but I can’t seem to find anything anywhere on the Internet about this artist.

I LOVE this song and have played it several times. But, since you didn’t mention this song title or artist in this podcast, I’m having a difficult time finding it.

Please, if you get a spare minute, write back and let me know where I might be able to find it?

Thanks again for all of the hard work you put into the Podcasts. I hope you will continue to offer even more in the future!

~Jennifer

Actually, the くんよみ for 私 is indeed わたくし, but I forgot to mention that in the podcast. わたし is actually an abbreviation, and わたくし is generally considered too formal for most situations. You will hear it occasionally, however, for example in speeches and the like. I’m not sure if わたし is considered an “official” reading or not, though Kojien (one of the biggest Japanese dictionaries) does list it as an alternative reading.

You always read the かん if it is there, but the difference in meaning between 一ヶ月（いっかげつ） and 一ヶ月間（いっかげつかん） is pretty small. It’s very similar to the difference between “I was in Japan for one month” and “I was in Japan for a period of one month”. Both, in effect, mean the same thing, but the latter is putting emphasis on the amount of time spent, rather than the action that occurred.

In Japanese, I would probably be more likely to say ５分まちました (I waited for 5 minutes), because I’m putting emphasis on the wait, but I might say ５分間ゆでました (I boiled it for 5 minutes), because I’m putting emphasis on the time. One exception, however, is “hours”, which will always take the 間 suffix, perhaps to make it differentiate between times and lengths of times. In other words, 1:00 is always 一時, but 1 hour is always 一時間.