Learn how to describe what something is like
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| Introduction |
| Jessi: A Long, Hot Japanese Summer. ジェシーです。(Jeshii desu.) Jessi here! |
| Naomi: こんにちは！なおみです。(Kon'nichi wa! Naomi desu.) Hello, everyone, Naomi here. |
| Jessi: Thanks again for joining us for our Absolute Beginner series! In the last lesson, we reviewed a lot of phrases that we learned throughout this series. For example? |
| Naomi: ありがとうございます！(Arigatō gozaimasu!) |
| Jessi: Thank you. |
| Naomi: すみません (Sumimasen) |
| Jessi: Excuse me, or I'm sorry |
| Naomi: 大丈夫ですか？(Daijōbu desu ka?) |
| Jessi: Are you okay? Among others, I think it was a good review! |
| Naomi: Yes, definitely! |
| Jessi: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to describe what something is like. So that means what kind of things will we be able to say by the end of this lesson? |
| Naomi: You'll be able to say things like "this is tasty" and "summer is hot." |
| Jessi: That's right. You'll be able to describe what something is like. |
| Naomi: So what's happening in this conversation? |
| Jessi: Well, Taylor, Masato, and Kaori are talking a walk outside, and Masato makes a comment about the weather. Okay, so let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| まさと:あー、あつい。(Ā, atsui.) |
| カリフォルニアのなつはあついですね。(Kariforunia no natsu wa atsui desu ne.) |
| テイラー:日本のなつもあついですか。(Nihon no natsu mo atsui desu ka.) |
| まさと:はい。(Hai.) |
| かおり:日本のなつは、むしあついです。(Nihon no natsu wa, mushiatsui desu.) |
| テイラー:む・し・あ・つ・い？ (Mu-shi-a-tsu-i?) |
| English Host: Let’s listen to the conversation again slowly. |
| まさと:あー、あつい。(Ā, atsui.) |
| カリフォルニアのなつはあついですね。(Kariforunia no natsu wa atsui desu ne.) |
| テイラー:日本のなつもあついですか。(Nihon no natsu mo atsui desu ka.) |
| まさと:はい。(Hai.) |
| かおり:日本のなつは、むしあついです。(Nihon no natsu wa, mushiatsui desu.) |
| テイラー:む・し・あ・つ・い？ (Mu-shi-a-tsu-i?) |
| English Host: Now let’s listen to it with the English translation. |
| まさと:あー、あつい。(Ā, atsui.) |
| Jessi: Ah~ it's so hot! |
| カリフォルニアのなつはあついですね。(Kariforunia no natsu wa atsui desu ne.) |
| Jessi: Summer in California is really hot, isn't it? |
| テイラー:日本のなつもあついですか。(Nihon no natsu mo atsui desu ka.) |
| Jessi: Is summer in Japan hot too? |
| まさと:はい。(Hai.) |
| Jessi: Yeah. |
| かおり:日本のなつは、むしあついです。(Nihon no natsu wa, mushiatsui desu.) |
| Jessi: Summers in Japan are humid ("mushiatsui"). |
| テイラー:む・し・あ・つ・い？ (Mu-shi-a-tsu-i?) |
| Jessi: Humid ("mushiatsui")...? |
| Post conversation banter |
| Jessi: So, Naomi, I don't know if it's been mentioned before in this series, but this story takes place in California in the US! |
| Naomi: Right, Taylor lives in the US, and Masato and Kaori are visiting him there. |
| Jessi: And as anyone who has been there knows, it gets hot in California! |
| Naomi: I'm sure...! |
| Jessi: And so that's what they're talking about in this conversation. So first off, what is the word they were using, the word that means hot in Japanese? |
| Naomi: あつい (atsui) |
| Jessi: あつい (atsui) |
| Naomi: Yes, for example... カリフォルニアはあついです。(Kariforunia wa atsui desu.) |
| Jessi: "California is hot." We're going to focus on this type of sentence later on in the lesson, so just focus on the vocab for now. This word あつい (atsui) can be used to talk about weather as well as something hot to the touch. |
| Naomi: Like if you touch something hot... あつい！ (atsui!) And if it's super hot, they say it multiple times, very quickly. あついあついあつい。 (atsui atsui atsui.) |
| Jessi: Very true! So あつい (atsui) when talking about the weather just means hot, we also saw a word that meant humid! |
| Naomi: Yes, むしあつい。 (mushiatsui) |
| Jessi: むしあつい。The word むし plus the word for hot, あつい。 (atsui) むしあつい。 (mushiatsui) This describes weather that is muggy or humid, high humidity levels. |
| Naomi: Some parts of Japan get very humid in the summer. |
| Jessi: Yes! So you will hear this a lot if you visit during that time. |
| Naomi: むしあつい。(mushiatsui) |
| Jessi: むしあつい。(mushiatsui) |
| Now, Naomi, this むし (mushi) that comes before あつい (atsui) means "steaming" right? |
| Naomi: Right. So むしあつい (mushiatsui) means "Steaming hot" or "humid". |
| Jessi: How about a sample sentence? |
| Naomi: Sure. 東京はむし暑いです。(Tokyō wa mushiatsui desu.) |
| Jessi: Tokyo is humid. Okay and the last word? |
| Naomi: 夏 (natsu) |
| Jessi: 夏 (natsu), which is summer! You can see we have a theme going here. Now we can make a sentence that uses two of our vocab words. |
| Naomi: 夏は暑いです。(Natsu wa atsui desu.) |
| Jessi: 夏は暑いです。(Natsu wa atsui desu.) Summer is hot. Well, of course depending on the area you live in. So can we hear our new words one more time? |
| Naomi: Sure. あつい (atsui) |
| Jessi: Hot. |
| Naomi: むしあつい (mushiatsui) |
| Jessi: Humid and… |
| Naomi: なつ (natsu) |
| Jessi: Summer. Now, let's move on to the lesson focus. In this lesson, you'll learn how to describe what something is like. Naomi... this is actually going to be pretty easy, isn't it? |
| Naomi: Yes, because we are using our A is B - AはBです (A wa B desu) structure again. |
| Jessi: I know we keep bringing this up, but that's because it's so useful! So, as I'm sure you remember by now, in our A is B structure, we put what we're talking about in place of A. In place of B, we put words to identify what A is. So for example... |
| Naomi: わたしはなおみです (Watashi wa Naomi desu). |
| Jessi: I'm Naomi. |
| Naomi: これはみずです (Kore wa mizu desu). |
| Jessi: This is water, that kind of thing. Now this time, for B, instead of putting a noun, we can put an adjective. |
| Naomi: A word that describes a noun. |
| Jessi: Right, words like big, small, hot, cold, light, heavy, those go in place of B. So our pattern is...? |
| Naomi: A は (wa) adjective です (desu) |
| Jessi: A is an adjective. Okay, let's do an easy example. |
| Naomi: Let's use the words we just learned. 夏は暑いです。(natsu wa atsui desu) |
| Jessi: Summer is hot. Let's break it down. |
| Naomi: なつ (natsu) |
| Jessi: Summer. |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Jessi: This is part of our pattern. |
| Naomi: あつい (atsui) |
| Jessi: Hot. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Jessi: And this is the ending of our pattern. So, one more time? |
| Naomi: なつはあついです。(natsu wa atsui desu.) |
| Jessi: So あつい, hot, is describing なつ, summer. Listeners, repeat after Naomi. Summer is hot. |
| Naomi: なつはあついです。(natsu wa atsui desu.) |
| [pause] |
| Jessi: Okay, how about another example? |
| Naomi: Sure. 東京はむし暑いです。(Tokyō wa mushiatsui desu.) |
| Jessi: Tokyo is humid. One more time slowly? |
| Naomi: 東京は むし暑いです。(Tokyō wa mushiatsui desu.) |
| Jessi: And again at regular speed. |
| Naomi: 東京はむし暑いです。(Tokyō wa mushiatsui desu.) |
| Jessi: Great! Listeners, repeat after Naomi. Tokyo is humid. |
| Naomi: 東京はむし暑いです。(Tokyō wa mushiatsui desu.) |
| [pause] |
| Jessi: Okay. Now let's see how this pattern was used in the dialogue. In the dialogue, Masato said... |
| Naomi: カリフォルニアの夏は暑いです。 (Kariforunia no natsu wa atsui desu.) |
| Jessi: Summer in California is hot. Let's break it down |
| Naomi: カリフォルニアの夏 (Kariforunia no natsu) |
| Jessi: Literally, California's summer, in the translation we say summer in California. |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Jessi: This is part of our pattern. |
| Naomi: あつい (atsui) |
| Jessi: Hot. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Jessi: And this is the ending of our pattern. So all together one more time? |
| Naomi: カリフォルニアの夏は暑いです (Kariforunia no natsu wa atsui desu.) |
| Jessi: "Summer in California is hot." Going through this example, I realized, the word カリフォルニア in Japanese might be the hardest one to say (笑). So don't worry, listeners, if you can't quite wrap your tongue around it just yet! Okay, Naomi, let's have the listeners practice now! |
| Naomi: Sounds good. So we introduced the adjectives あつい (atsui) and むしあつい (mushiatsui) in this lesson, right? |
| Jessi: Right. |
| Naomi: Do you remember some other adjectives we learned in earlier lessons? |
| Jessi: Ah! Now that you mention it, we had すごい (sugoi), amazing, and おいしい (oishi), delicious, didn't we? |
| Naomi: Yes! Let's make a sentence using おいしい (oishi), meaning "delicious". |
| Jessi: Okay sounds good. So, listeners, how would you say, sushi is delicious? |
| Naomi: Sushi is of course, すし (sushi), and delicious is おいしい (oishi). |
| Jessi: So those two just need to go into the pattern, and you get...? |
| [pause] |
| Jessi: Naomi, what's the answer? |
| Naomi: すしはおいしいです (Sushi wa oishi desu). |
| Jessi: Sushi is good, or sushi is delicious! Mmm. I could go for some sushi right about now (笑) |
| Naomi: 寿司はおいしいですね。 (Sushi wa oishi desu ne.) |
| Jessi: Uh-oh, you just used a new particle at the end of the sentence! Listeners, did you catch that? We have ね at the end of this sentence, and it adds the meaning of "right?" or "isn't it?" to the sentence. So when you want someone to agree with you, you can use this ね。 |
| Naomi: 寿司はおいしいですね。 (Sushi wa oishi desu ne.) |
| Jessi: So this would mean something like sushi is delicious, don't you think? Do you agree? |
| Naomi: Yes. I agree. |
| Naomi: Well, that's going to do it for this lesson. |
| Jessi: Yup, that's all for now. We hope you enjoyed this lesson! Let us know what you thought, and if you have any questions! Until next time. |
| Naomi: See you next time~ じゃまた。(Ja mata.) |
Lesson conversation |
| カリフォルニアのなつはあついですね。(Kariforunia no natsu wa atsui desu ne.) |
| テイラー:日本のなつもあついですか。(Nihon no natsu mo atsui desu ka.) |
| まさと:はい。(Hai.) |
| かおり:日本のなつは、むしあついです。(Nihon no natsu wa, mushiatsui desu.) |
| テイラー:む・し・あ・つ・い？ (Mu-shi-a-tsu-i?) |
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