I received an email on Friday asking if I knew of a song that started like this:
Chi Chi Pa Pa, Teruteru Bozu, Kisha Kisha Pon Pon, Yuu yake ko ya ke de
Well, I hadn’t, but Yumi knew a similar (same?) song and here it is:

雀の学校
The Sparrow’s School
by Shimizu Katsura (清水かつら)

チイチイパッパ チイパッパ
chii chii pappa [...]

Yumi and I are working on recording her reading Akutagawa Ryuunosuke’s short story Hana (Nose). It is only good for advanced students, but here is what we have so far. (This is only about a fifth of the story) . The text comes from the Public Domain repository at Aozora.

　禅智内供(ぜんちないぐ)の鼻と云えば、池(いけ)の尾(お)で知らない者はない。長さは五六寸あって上 唇(うわくちびる)の上から顋(あご)の下まで下っている。形は元も先も同じように太い。云わば細長い腸詰(ちょうづ)めのような物が、ぶらりと顔のまん 中からぶら下っているのである。
　五十歳を越えた内供は、沙弥(しゃみ)の昔から、内道場供奉(ないどうじょうぐぶ)の職に陞(のぼ)った [...]

When iTunes opened their Japanese store many overseas Japanese music lovers were greatly disappointed to learn only those with Japanese credit cards could purchase music. I believe this is still the case although I haven’t looked into it recently.
However, there is still a great reason to download iTunes - Japanese podcasts. Not only [...]

Building upon the first podcast, this episode covers adding a か ka at the end to change a statement into a question.

何か食べたいです。　I want something to eat.
nanika tabetai desu.
[Note: the 'I' is assumed, but it just as easily be 'you' in the right context.]
To make that into a question, just add か
何か食べたいですか？ Would you like something [...]

Since I ordered an MP3 player (see this post), I logically decided I should make a podcast.
Here is the first one:

I’d love to hear comments and criticisms since I’ve never done this before.
Phrases covered:
何か食べたいです。 nanika tabetai desu. I’d like something to eat.
何か飲みたいです。 nanika nomitai desu. I’d like something to drink.
The focus is on the ーたい [...]

And now for our top story tonight.

Mere minutes after the incident, one of our reporters was at the scene of a ground breaking development in the Makoto-the-神童 story.
Our sources tell us Makoto, sporting a shirt with a big, green* frog on it, pointed to the frog when asked, 「カエルさんはどこ？」. In a further display [...]