Learn how to ask questions in Japanese using -masu ka
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| Introduction |
| Jessi: Do You Drink Japanese Beer? 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!) Hi everyone, Naomi here. |
| Jessi: Welcome back to our Absolute Beginner series! In the last lesson, we learned how to make sentences using verbs. For example? |
| Naomi: わたしはすしを食べます。(Watashi wa sushi o tabemasu.) |
| Jessi: I eat sushi. And in this lesson, we're going to focus more on using this structure, but this time, with the focus on asking questions. |
| Naomi: You'll be able to say things like "Do you drink beer?" and "Do you eat meat?" |
| Jessi: That's right. |
| Naomi: Jessi, what's happening in the conversation? |
| Jessi: Taylor, Masato, and Kaori are at the supermarket, and Taylor is asking them about what they like to drink. Okay, let's listen to the conversation and see what they say. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| （supermarket) |
| テイラー:まさとさんは、なにをのみますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| ワインですか？ビールですか。(Wain desu ka? Bīru desu ka.) |
| まさと:ぼくは、ビールをのみます。(Boku wa, bīru o nomimasu.) |
| テイラー:じゃ、ビールをかいます。(Ja, bīru o kaimasu.) |
| かおりさんは？かおりさんもビールをのみますか？(Kaori-san wa? Kaori-san mo bīru o nomimasu ka?) |
| かおり:ええ。ちょっと。(Ee. chotto.) |
| Jessi: Let’s listen to the conversation again slowly. |
| テイラー:まさとさんは、なにをのみますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| ワインですか？ビールですか。(Wain desu ka? Bīru desu ka.) |
| まさと:ぼくは、ビールをのみます。(Boku wa, bīru o nomimasu.) |
| テイラー:じゃ、ビールをかいます。(Ja, bīru o kaimasu.) |
| かおりさんは？かおりさんもビールをのみますか？(Kaori-san wa? Kaori-san mo bīru o nomimasu ka?) |
| かおり:ええ。ちょっと。(Ee. chotto.) |
| Jessi: Now let’s listen to it with the translation. |
| （supermarket) |
| テイラー:まさとさんは、なにをのみますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| Jessi: Masato, what will you have to drink? |
| ワインですか？ビールですか。(Wain desu ka? Bīru desu ka.) |
| Jessi: Wine? Beer? |
| まさと:ぼくは、ビールをのみます。(Boku wa, bīru o nomimasu.) |
| Jessi: I'll have beer. |
| テイラー:じゃ、ビールをかいます。(Ja, bīru o kaimasu.) |
| Jessi: I'll buy some beer then. |
| かおりさんは？かおりさんもビールをのみますか？(Kaori-san wa? Kaori-san mo bīru o nomimasu ka?) |
| Jessi: What about you, Kaori? Do you drink beer too? |
| かおり:ええ。ちょっと。(Ee. chotto.) |
| Jessi: Yes, a little. |
| Post conversation banter |
| Jessi: So Masato is a beer drinker, we find out. |
| Naomi: Yes, and Kaori drinks some too. |
| Jessi: Speaking of beer, the word for it in Japanese is another imported loanword, isn't it? |
| Naomi: Yes, beer in Japanese is ビール (bīru). |
| Jessi: ビール (bīru). You have to prolong that vowel in the middle. |
| Naomi: Right, ビール (bīru). |
| Jessi: ビール (bīru). And the word for wine was? |
| Naomi: Almost the same! ワイン (wain)。 |
| Jessi: ワイン (wain)。So these two should be pretty easy to remember. Okay, let's get on with the rest of our vocabulary words. If you remember, in the last lesson we learned our first verb, 食べます (tabemasu), which means "to eat". This time we have two more verbs. The first one, Naomi? |
| Naomi: 飲みます (nomimasu) |
| Jessi: A verb meaning "to drink". 飲みます (nomimasu) |
| Naomi: 飲みます (nomimasu) |
| Jessi: And the second one? |
| Naomi: 買います (kaimasu) |
| Jessi: A verb meaning "to buy". 買います (kaimasu) |
| Naomi: 買います (kaimasu) |
| Jessi: Remember that formal verbs all end in ます (masu). Let's hear our two new verbs one more time? |
| Naomi: 飲みます (nomimasu) |
| Jessi: To drink. |
| Naomi: 買います (kaimasu) |
| Jessi: To buy. Can we hear how 飲みます (nomimasu), to drink, was used in the dialog? |
| Naomi: Sure. Taylor said まさとさんは、何を飲みますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| Jessi: "Masato, what do you drink?" We'll break down this sentence in the next section, right? |
| Naomi: Yes! |
| Jessi: Okay, and one last word. |
| Naomi: なに (nani) |
| Jessi: A question word meaning "what". Naomi, we learned the word なん (nan) in Lesson 11, right? This also means "what". |
| Naomi: That's right. なん (nan) and なに (nani) both mean "what". In this lesson, we're going to use なに (nani). |
| Jessi: Yup, we'll be using it in the next section as well, so please keep it in mind. And with that, let's move on to the Lesson Focus. |
Lesson focus |
| Jessi: In this lesson, you'll continue learning about making sentences that contain verbs, with focus on making questions. Let's review what we learned last time. Our structure last time was, Naomi? |
| Naomi: [ Person ] wa [ object ] o [ verb ]. |
| Jessi: That's right. The person or subject followed by は (wa), the object followed by を (o), and the verb at the end. Let's hear an example. |
| Naomi: テイラーはすしを食べます。(Teirā wa sushi o tabemasu.) |
| Jessi: テイラーは (Teirā wa), Taylor, すしを (sushi o), sushi, 食べます (tabemasu) eats。So this is a straightforward statement. If we want to turn it into a question... |
| Naomi: Remember that we just add か to the end. |
| Jessi: So it would be... |
| Naomi: テイラーはすしを食べますか。(Teirā wa sushi o tabemasu ka.) |
| Jessi: "DOES Taylor eat sushi?" Note, though, that if you were talking directly to Taylor, it would be "Do you eat sushi Taylor?" |
| Naomi: Simple enough, right? |
| Jessi: How about another one? |
| Naomi: Okay! Remember how ビール (bīru) is beer, and 飲みます (nomimasu) is drink? |
| Jessi: Yes! |
| Naomi: Then how about this - テッドはビールを飲みますか？ (Teddo wa bīru o nomimasu ka?) |
| Jessi: Let's break this down. |
| Naomi: テッドは (Teddo wa)、Ted, ビール (bīru)を, beer, 飲みます (nomimasu), drinks, か (ka), question marker. |
| Jessi: So listeners, as you can guess, this means? |
| Naomi: Does Ted drink beer? Or if you're talking to Ted, it means "Do you drink beer, Ted?" |
| Jessi: Listeners, please repeat after Naomi. |
| Naomi: テッドはビールを飲みますか？ (Teddo wa bīru o nomimasu ka?) |
| [Pause] |
| Jessi: Okay, now! Let's step it up a notch. |
| Naomi: Uh oh. |
| Jessi: It'll be okay, I promise! Okay, up until we've been asking, Does so-and-so eat this? Does so-and-so drink that? So now, let's try asking, WHAT does so-and-so eat or drink. |
| Naomi: Remember, we just learned the word 何 (nani) which means "what." |
| Jessi: We are going to use this in the middle of our structure, in place of our "object". Let's show you with an example. |
| Naomi: We had a great example of this in our dialogue. |
| Jessi: Yup, Taylor says… |
| Naomi: まさとさんは、何を飲みますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| Jessi: Literally, "What does Masato drink? " However Taylor is talking directly to Masato, so the translation would be, "Masato, what do you drink?" or "Masato, what will you drink?" When this is a question, it can be used to ask about someone's habits in general, or about a future action. Let's break it down. |
| Naomi: まさとさんは (Masato-san wa) |
| Jessi: Masato plus は (wa) |
| Naomi: 何を (nani o) |
| Jessi: なに (nani) “what” plus を (o) |
| Naomi: 飲みますか (nomimasu ka) |
| Jessi: のみます (nomimasu) drink, plus question marker. So altogether again? |
| Naomi: まさとさんは、何を飲みますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| Jessi: Listeners, please repeat. |
| Naomi: まさとさんは、何を飲みますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| [Pause] |
| Jessi: You can ask this to someone when you want to know what they drink in general, or what you can serve them to drink. |
| Naomi: Yes, like at your house, at a party, or a restaurant... |
| Jessi: Like this! Let me try it. なおみさんは、何を飲みますか。(Naomi-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) Naomi, what will you have to drink? |
| Naomi: わたしは、オレンジジュースを飲みます。 (Watashi wa, orenjijūsu o nomimasu.) I'll drink orange juice. |
| Jessi: Listeners, please repeat. "I'll drink orange juice." |
| Naomi: わたしは、オレンジジュースを飲みます。 (Watashi wa, orenjijūsu o nomimasu.) |
| [Pause] |
| Jessi: Great! Now, we've touched on this before, Naomi, but, we don't always need to say わたしは, or the subject in the beginning, do we? |
| Naomi: That's right. If it's obvious who you are talking about, you can just say the sentence starting with the object. オレンジジュースを飲みます。 (orenjijūsu o nomimasu.) |
| Jessi: Right. Giving only information that is necessary is important for natural sounding Japanese. |
| Naomi: We have an example in the dialogue. Masato says that he drinks beer, and so Taylor says that he will buy some beer, ビール を買います。(bīru o kaimasu.) |
| Jessi: ビール を買います。(bīru o kaimasu.) I'll buy beer. |
| Naomi: Remember that 買います (kaimasu) means "to buy". |
| Jessi: Okay, well I think that's going to do it for this lesson! |
| Naomi: Thanks for listening, everyone. |
| Jessi: Hope to see you next time! |
| Naomi: じゃまた。(Ja mata.) |
Lesson conversation |
| （supermarket) |
| テイラー:まさとさんは、なにをのみますか。(Masato-san wa, nani o nomimasu ka.) |
| ワインですか？ビールですか。(Wain desu ka? Bīru desu ka.) |
| まさと:ぼくは、ビールをのみます。(Boku wa, bīru o nomimasu.) |
| テイラー:じゃ、ビールをかいます。(Ja, bīru o kaimasu.) |
| かおりさんは？かおりさんもビールをのみますか？(Kaori-san wa? Kaori-san mo bīru o nomimasu ka?) |
| かおり:ええ。ちょっと。(Ee. chotto.) |
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