observations 1

There are a lot of things that are different here and I will try to give some quick observations of things I notice that might not be long enough for their own post. (These are from an American/foreigner's perspective and no disrespect is meant at all - this is just the way I see it 1) for a woman's voice the desirable characteristics seem to be high pitch and nasaly, where the higher pitched your voice is and the more nasaly it is the more attractive you are. Sometimes voices - especially with people on radio and tv - are hard to listen to because of this fact. 2) In Japanese "hi" means yes. So if someone asks a question a normal response would be "hi." For an English speaking foreigner this leads to some pretty funny telephone conversations. Think about when you are on the phone how often you say yes, uh huh, yep, yeah or any other similar phrase to mean yes. Now put your self in Japan next to a Japanese person talking on the phone where every yes is "hi." The first phone conversation I heard I almost started laughing as it sounded like the person was talking to 16 different people but only long enough to give a greeting. "Hi" "hi" "hi" "hi" the next phone conversation you have tell the person you are talking to you learner some Japanese and say "hi" every time you would say yes and see what kind of response you get :)