This discussion happened last Saturday. I've been helping Mihoko by acting as her conversation partner. Our talk happened on Skype. The first part of our talk covered what songs we like to sing at Karaoke. I don't have a dedicated Karaoke machine or a PA system to use, so I just use an analog mike and use WinXP's mixer to include it in the stereo stream going out of my computer. I typically do the el-cheapo sing along to youtube thing. She was surprised to see the setup I used and even more surprised to see the lyrics in romanji for lots of Japanese songs.
I have to admit that I'm not good enough at reading Japanese to be able to read it quickly enough to sing, so this is an effective solution not only for me but for some of my other friends who can not read Japanese at all. It turns out that Mihoko-san also likes to sing anisongs (songs from Japanese animation) and we talked about our mutual love for the medium as well as what songs we like to sing.
She was interested in the anime convention scene in the States, so I discussed how different it was from Comiket and other venues in Japan.
After that we discussed our plans for the New Year. I'd prepped a list of vocabulary for herr:
year end postcards (年賀状 nengajou
kotoshi mo yoroshiku o-negai-shimasu (今年もよろしくお願いします) (I hope for your favor again in the coming year)
(shinnen)
akemashite o-medetou-gozaimasu ((新年)あけましておめでとうございます?) (Happiness to you on the dawn [of a New Year])
kinga shinnen (謹賀新年?) (Happy New Year)
shoshun (初春) (literally "early spring")
That's great that you could give her seasonally-fitting vocab with translations in Japanese. I'm sure she'll find that helpful around this time of year!
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