Learn how to say what something is ("A is B")
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| Introduction |
| Jessi: Can You Tell Me What This is in Japanese? 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.) Naomi here! |
| Jessi: Thank you for being here with us again! Well Naomi, in the last lesson, we kicked off the story of Taylor Allen and his relatives. |
| Naomi: Yes, his relatives came to visit him from Japan! |
| Jessi: Right. It was the first time he had seen his brother-in-law Masato in a long time, and so they used the phrase... |
| Naomi: お久しぶりです (O-hisashiburi desu). |
| Jessi: Which means "Long time no see!" In this lesson, the conversation continues, and Taylor meets Masato's wife for the first time. |
| Naomi: So they'll be introducing each other. |
| Jessi: Yup, you'll hear a lot of familiar phrases in this one! |
| Naomi: See how much you can pick out! |
| Jessi: All right, are you all ready? Then let's listen in. |
Lesson conversation |
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| かおり:はじめまして。わたしはかおりです。(Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Kaori desu.) |
| テイラー:かおりさん？はじめまして。ぼくはテイラーです。(Kaori-san? Hajimemashite. Boku wa Teirā desu.) |
| かおり:よろしくおねがいします。(Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.) |
| テイラー:よろしくおねがいします。(Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.) |
| English Host: Now, let's listen to it with the translation. |
| かおり:はじめまして。わたしはかおりです。(Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Kaori desu.) |
| Jessi: Nice to meet you! I'm Kaori. |
| テイラー:かおりさん？はじめまして。ぼくはテイラーです。(Kaori-san? Hajimemashite. Boku wa Teirā desu.) |
| Jessi: Kaori? Nice to meet you, I'm Taylor. |
| かおり:よろしくおねがいします。(Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.) |
| Jessi: It's a pleasure to meet you. |
| テイラー:よろしくおねがいします。(Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.) |
| Jessi: It's a pleasure to meet you too. |
| Post conversation banter |
| Jessi: So we've just met a new character. |
| Naomi: Kaori, who is Masato's wife. |
| Jessi: She apparently hasn't met Taylor before. |
| Naomi: Yes, it's their first time meeting. |
| Jessi: And we heard the phrases we learned in Lesson 2, didn't we? |
| Naomi: Yes we did! はじめまして (Hajimemashite). |
| Jessi: "Nice to meet you." |
| Naomi: And よろしくお願いします (Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu). |
| Jessi: "I ask for your good favor" or "Please be nice to me." After Kaori first said はじめまして (Hajimemashite), what did she say next? |
| Naomi: わたしはかおりです (Watashi wa Kaori desu). |
| Jessi: Which means "I'm Kaori." We're going to go over this in the main lesson focus, but there's something I want to focus on here first. |
| Naomi: Oh, what's that? |
| Jessi: Kaori and Taylor both introduced themselves and they both use the word "I", as in "I am." But they use different words! |
| Naomi: Ah, you're right. Kaori says わたし (watashi), and Taylor says ぼく (boku). |
| Jessi: And they both mean "I"? |
| Naomi: They both mean "I". |
| Jessi: Why the difference, then? |
| Naomi: Well, it's just one of the unique things about Japanese. There are a lot of gender-specific words. |
| Jessi: It's important to know that わたし (watashi) can be used by both men AND women, right? |
| Naomi: Yes. Women can use this word any time. Men can use it in extra formal situations. |
| Jessi: And ぼく (boku) is almost exclusive to men. |
| Naomi: Right. ぼく (boku) is acceptable for men to use in everyday situations, like this one. |
| Jessi: So is it safe to say to the listeners, if you're female, use わたし (watashi), and if you're male, use ぼく (boku)? |
| Naomi: Yes, I think so! And in an everyday situation, those are fine. |
| Jessi: Okay, so now that we've got that bit out of the way, let's move onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
| Jessi: In this lesson, you'll learn a very important sentence pattern. Your first sentence pattern in Japanese! |
| Naomi: Yes, up until now, we've been learning phrases and words. |
| Jessi: That's right, and now it's time to learn a sentence pattern that you can use just by substituting in words. We recommend you look at the lesson notes while listening so that you can visualize the pattern. |
| Naomi: Okay, so the pattern is... |
| Jessi: A is B. That is the meaning in English. For example, "I AM Jessi. You ARE Naomi. She IS Jennifer." We have A, which is the item being talked about, and then we have B, which is what we identify it as. So, in Japanese, how would we say A is B? |
| Naomi: AはBです (A wa B desu) |
| Jessi: One more time? |
| Naomi: (Slowly) AはBです (A wa B desu) |
| Jessi: Let's break it down. So we have A, followed by? |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Jessi: And then B, followed by...? |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Jessi: Okay, so the pattern one more time? |
| Naomi: AはBです (A wa B desu) |
| Jessi: So where we have A and B, we can start inserting different words to make sentences. |
| Naomi: Yes! In the dialogue, Kaori said (slowly) わたし は かおり です (Watashi wa Kaori desu). |
| Jessi: わたし (Watashi), as just learned, means "I", and かおり(Kaori) is her name, Kaori. So we just put both of those into the A is B structure, AはBです (A wa B desu)... |
| Naomi: And we get, わたしはかおりです (Watashi wa Kaori desu) |
| Jessi: "I'm Kaori" or "My name is Kaori." Okay. Listeners, listen and repeat. |
| Naomi: わたしはかおりです。 (Watashi wa Kaori desu.) |
| [Pause] |
| Jessi: Okay. Let's try it one more time. |
| Naomi: わたしはかおりです。 (Watashi wa Kaori desu.) |
| [Pause] |
| Jessi: Okay. Great! Ah, but, Naomi, one thing... |
| Naomi: What's that? |
| Jessi: Remember how we learned to introduce ourselves in Lesson 2? In that lesson, we just said our name plus です (desu). For example, ジェシーです (Jeshii desu), to mean "I'm Jessi." But in this lesson, we also learned we could say わたしはジェシーです (watashi wa Jeshii desu). So are they the same? |
| Naomi: Good point! Yes, they mean the same thing. You can leave off わたしは (watashi wa) and simply say your name plus です (desu), like we learned. |
| Jessi: Oh good. So we can use either one. |
| Naomi: Yes! |
| Jessi: So if your name is ケン (Ken), Ken, you can say either… |
| Naomi: わたしはケンです (Watashi wa Ken desu.) |
| Jessi: Or simply… |
| Naomi: ケンです。(Ken desu.) |
| Jess: To say "I'm Ken." Okay. So up until now we've been using names to complete this AはBです (A wa B desu) pattern, but we can insert other nouns, right? |
| Naomi: Yes! For example, in place of B, you can also say your job 私はパイロットです。(Watashi wa pairotto desu.) |
| Jessi: Which means "I'm a pilot." Can we hear the same phrase a little more slowly? |
| Naomi: わたしはパイロットです。(Watashi wa pairotto desu.) |
| Jessi: And once again at natural speed? |
| Naomi: わたしはパイロットです。(Watashi wa pairotto desu.) |
| Jessi: Okay, great! Let's have the listeners try it themselves, shall we? But not with "pilot," but just with their name. |
| Naomi: Sounds good! |
| Jessi: The pattern we'll use is...? |
| Naomi: わたしは [name] です。(Watashi wa [name] desu.) |
| Jessi: わたしは (Watashi wa) and then insert your name です (desu). Naomi will go first! After Naomi, please use the pattern to introduce yourself. |
| Naomi: Okay, here I go. わたしはなおみです (Watashi wa Naomi desu.) |
| [Pause] - わたしは[name]です。 (Watashi wa [name] desu.) |
| Jessi: Great! Now let's add はじめまして (hajimemashite), nice to meet you, and try the whole thing! Repeat after Naomi, but give your own name! |
| Naomi: はじめまして！わたしはなおみです。 (Hajimemashite! Watashi wa Naomi desu.) |
| [Pause] - はじめまして！わたしは[name]です。 (Hajimemashite! Watashi wa [name] desu.) |
| Jessi: Okay. Sounding good! How was it everyone? |
| Naomi: This is your first real sentence pattern in Japanese. |
| Jessi: This will be the key to understanding a lot of other sentence patterns in Japanese, so please keep it in mind! Okay Naomi, can you tell us the sentence pattern we covered today once more? |
| Naomi: AはBです (A wa B desu)。 |
| Jessi: A is B. Now, once you know this sentence pattern, you can also use it to say what something is, for example, "This is water." We'll touch on that more in the next lesson! |
| Naomi: じゃ、また。(Ja, mata.) |
| Jessi: じゃ、また。(Ja, mata.) See you again! |
Lesson conversation |
| かおり:はじめまして。わたしはかおりです。(Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Kaori desu.) |
| テイラー:かおりさん？はじめまして。ぼくはテイラーです。(Kaori-san? Hajimemashite. Boku wa Teirā desu.) |
| かおり:よろしくおねがいします。(Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.) |
| テイラー:よろしくおねがいします。(Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.) |
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