Our House (Feedback)

Thanks for all your comments on this week’s entry. I am doing the feedback early this week because I’m going to Hokkaido tomorrow, so I will be busy getting ready for that. When I read your comments, I couldn’t help but think how lucky we all are to live in a world where the only complaints we have about our houses are things like rooms not getting enough sunshine! Anyway, I’m sure that I will make some mistakes when I design my house, but I’ve lived in around 12 houses and apartments in my life, so I have a good idea about the kinds of things I want and the kinds of things I want to avoid.

For me, the worst thing about Japanese houses is the lack of insulation and temperature control. The house I live in at the moment is boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. The problem is that Japanese people don’t heat or cool houses; they just heat or cool individual rooms within the house. This is incredibly inefficient if the house is not insulated properly. It’s also horrible when you have to move from one room to another. My house is going to have proper insulation with triple-glazed glass. I’m also going to have an American-style central heating/cooling system that controls the temperature of the whole house in all seasons. I was reading about it the other day, and the estimated running cost is around 27 yen per day. I’m also planning to have solar panels, so the total electricity bill should be close to zero anyway. Now I just have to save the money to build the house!

Here is some feedback on your comments.

I live in an apartment ( I wonder if I should use condominium for マンション) with my husband and two sons.
I think “condo” is the usual translation, but it’s American, so I’m not sure.

It’s a quite small one,
This is an interesting point about English that many people don’t know. If you use “quite,” it comes before “a,” so it should be “quite a small one.”

we made a list which is sometimes called “pros and cons”.
we made a list of the pros and cons of different types of accommodation.

One of the things I like most is that we live on the 4th floor
Nice sentence.

Anyway, are you supposed to settle down in Japan?
Are you planning to settle in Japan?

I’ve been to Hida Takayama where I could enjoy 合掌造り and beautiful city.
I’ve been to Hida Takayam. I saw the … and the beautiful city. (A-Z: enjoy)

I like that it has several storage spaces.
Nice sentence.

By the way, I wish I had a big window in our kitchen.
Nice sentence.

Now, I give piano lessons in a living room because our house don’t have a room my family don’t use.
Almost perfect! “Now, I give piano lessons in the living room because our house doesn’t have a room my family don’t use.”

I wish I have my lesson room, but I don’t have money to add a room…
I wish I had a lesson room, … (A-Z: hope/wish; my car)

I like here
I like it here. / I like living here. (A-Z: there (1))

I wish the entrance door of apartment was automatically locked.
I wish the front door of the apartment building locked automatically.

Your story reminded me of the bar I visited with some friends of mine many years ago.
Nice sentence, but “a bar” would be more natural.

The first floor is for our office and the upstairs is for dwelling.
The first floor is for our office, and we live upstairs. (“Dwelling” is quite a formal word.)

we emphasized the design of our office,
we focused on the design of our office

I’m almost satisfied with my house, but if I had more money, I wished I had haven a larger balcony and bathroom.
I’m pretty satisfied with my house, but if I had had more money when we were building it, I would like to have had a larger balcony and bathroom.

I think you can comfortably spend winter days with only it.
I think the winter will be comfortable if you have it. (A-Z: spend)

For the real fire, I think people who live in the cities seldom have any, but perhaps for people who live in the countryside or mountains it’s more common. I wonder if David is thinking of having one.
Of course! But I don’t think I will use it very much, so it will mostly be for decoration.

Should I have wtitten “how we can deal with the summer” instead of “how we could deal with the summer”? I’m not sure.
“how we can deal” is correct.

I live in a detached house with my parents, younger brother, grandfather and three cats!
… with my parents, my younger brother, my grandfather, and three cats! (A-Z: family)

A good point of my house is having two toilets.
One good thing about my house is that it has two toilets.

We bought our house where is close to my parents’ house 12 years ago.
We bought our house, which is close to my parents’ house, 12 years ago. (A-Z: where)

I made each room (place) as some image.
I designed each room with its own theme.

David wrote: I am hoping to build a new house~. If we say “build a house” doesn’t it means you build a house by yourself or does it also mean we ask carpenters to build it?
It can mean both. It depends on the context. I am going to be paying someone else, though, because if I built it, it would probably fall down in a week!

As my house faces to the south, it is very sunny and not so cold even in winter, I love the fact!
Nice sentence, but the last part should be “I love that about it.”

about 2 years and a half ago,
about two and a half years ago (A-Z: half)

By the way, I found you call kattie’s name as “キャシー” not “ケイティ”,right?
I’m not sure how I said it in the recording, but it should be pronounced as it is spelt, so you need the “t” sound.

My parents-in-law built the house, so I’m not involved building the house from the scratch.
My parent-in-law built the house, so I wasn’t involved in designing it. (You don’t need “from scratch”here because that is obvious from the context.)

That’s it for today. I’ll be getting back from Hokkaido on Monday night, so I’ll probably do the next entry on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend.