Learn how to ask and say the location of something
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
Intro |
|---|
| Jessi: Hi everyone, ジェシーです (Jeshī desu)。Jessi here! |
| Tomoyuki: こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa)、Tomoyuki です (desu)。 |
| Jessi: Finding Your Friends in Japan. Thanks again for joining us for this series! Tomoyuki, could you remind us what we learned in the last lesson, Lesson 13? |
| Tomoyuki: はい。 (Hai.) In the last lesson, we learned how to ask where someone is, and say where someone is. |
| Jessi: That's right, and in this lesson, you'll use the same pattern to ask where something is. We'll be talking about inanimate objects instead of people. |
| Tomoyuki: Jessi, what's happening in the conversation? |
| Jessi: In the conversation, Taylor is talking on the phone with Masato, who has just arrived at the airport to pick Taylor up. |
| Tomoyuki: Okay! Let's listen to the conversation. |
| Dialogue |
| テイラー: はい、マクドナルド です。 |
| Taylor: Hai, Makudonarudo desu. |
| まさと: マクドナルド は どこ に ありますか。 |
| Masato: Makudonarudo wa doko ni arimasu ka. |
| テイラー: マクドナルド は 2かい に あります。 |
| Taylor: Makudonarudo wa ni-kai ni arimasu. |
| まさと: 2かい…。わかりました。 |
| Masato: Ni-kai.... Wakarimashita. |
| (to a passerby) |
| まさと: すみません。エスカレーター は どこ に ありますか？ |
| Masato: Sumimasen. Esukarētā wa doko ni arimasu ka? |
| A passerby: エスカレーター？あそこ に あります。 |
| A passerby: Esukarētā? Asoko ni arimasu. |
| Jessi: Let’s listen to the conversation again slowly. |
| テイラー: はい、マクドナルド です。 |
| Taylor: Hai, Makudonarudo desu. |
| まさと: マクドナルド は どこ に ありますか。 |
| Masato: Makudonarudo wa doko ni arimasu ka. |
| テイラー: マクドナルド は 2かい に あります。 |
| Taylor: Makudonarudo wa ni-kai ni arimasu. |
| まさと: 2かい…。わかりました。 |
| Masato: Ni-kai.... Wakarimashita. |
| (to a passerby) |
| まさと: すみません。エスカレーター は どこ に ありますか？ |
| Masato: Sumimasen. Esukarētā wa doko ni arimasu ka? |
| A passerby: エスカレーター？あそこ に あります。 |
| A passerby: Esukarētā? Asoko ni arimasu. |
| Jessi: Now let’s listen to it with the translation. |
| テイラー: はい、マクドナルド です。 |
| Taylor: Hai, Makudonarudodesu. |
| Jessi: Yes, McDonald's. |
| まさと: マクドナルド は どこ に ありますか。 |
| Masato: Makudonarudo wa doko ni arimasu ka. |
| Jessi: Where is McDonald's? |
| テイラー: マクドナルド は 2かい に あります。 |
| Taylor: Makudonarudo wa ni-kai ni arimasu. |
| Jessi: McDonald's is on the second floor. |
| まさと: 2かい…。わかりました。 |
| Masato: Ni-kai.... Wakarimashita. |
| Jessi: Second floor...got it. |
| まさと: すみません。エスカレーター は どこ に ありますか？ |
| Masato: Sumimasen. Esukarētā wa doko ni arimasu ka? |
| Jessi: Excuse me. Where is the escalator? |
| A passerby: エスカレーター？あそこ に あります。 |
| A passerby: Esukarētā? Asoko ni arimasu. |
| Jessi: The escalator? It's over there. |
| Vocabulary and Phrase Usage |
| Jessi: So, this conversation is a continuation of the one in the last lesson. Let's review what's going on, just in case. |
| Tomoyuki: Masato arrived at the airport to pick up Taylor. |
| Jessi: Yes, and he was late when he arrived, so he called Taylor on his cell phone. |
| Tomoyuki: Masato asked where Taylor was. |
| Jessi: And Taylor said that he was at McDonalds with Chiemi and Sara. |
| Tomoyuki: Masato doesn't seem to know where that is. |
| Jessi: Right, he goes, McDonalds? And that's where this lesson's conversation starts. By the way, where did Taylor say McDonalds was? |
| Tomoyuki: 二階（にかい） (Ni-kai). On the second floor. |
| Jessi: 二階（にかい） (Ni-kai). So this means “second floor.” It's a number, plus a counter for floors. |
| Tomoyuki: Yes, the number two, に (ni), plus かい (kai), the counter for floors. |
| Jessi: When counting objects in Japanese, you can't say just the number by itself. You need a counter word to go with it. |
| Tomoyuki: Yes. Japanese has many counters. |
| Jessi: Hmm, right. In this lesson, we'll just go over the one for floors. So, Tomoyuki, how would you say first floor? |
| Tomoyuki: 一階（いっかい） (ikkai). It's not いちかい (ichi kai), so be careful. |
| Jessi: And second floor? |
| Tomoyuki: 二階（にかい） (ni-kai). に (ni) plus かい (kai) |
| Jessi: Third floor? |
| Tomoyuki: 三階（さんかい）(san-kai)。さん (San) plus かい (kai)。Or さんがい (san-gai)。 さん (San) plus がい (gai)。You might hear both used. |
| Jessi: Fourth floor? |
| Tomoyuki: 四階（よんかい）(yon-kai])。よん (Yo n) plus かい (kai) |
| Jessi: Fifth floor? |
| Tomoyuki: 五階（ごかい） (go-kai)。ご (Go) plus かい (kai) |
| Jessi: And so on. For a more complete list, you can check out the Lesson Notes. Before we move on, let's review one more phrase we saw here. |
| Tomoyuki: And that is 分（わ）かりました (wakarimashita) |
| Jessi: 分（わ）かりました (wakarimashita). This means "okay", or "got it". So if someone tells you something, to show that you understand, you can say 分（わ）かりました (wakarimashita)。In the dialogue, Taylor told Masato that McDonalds was on the second floor, and Masato said |
| Tomoyuki: 二階（にかい）。。分かりました。 (Ni-kai... Wakarimashita.) |
| Jessi: "Second floor... got it." Okay, let's move on to the lesson focus! |
| Tomoyuki: 分（わ）かりました (wakarimashita)！ |
| Grammar Point |
| Jessi: In this lesson, you'll learn how to ask where something is. Now, this is going to be pretty easy after our previous lesson, right? |
| Tomoyuki: Yes, because the pattern is the same! We only need to change one word. |
| Jessi: Our pattern before, which was for asking where someone is, is...? |
| Tomoyuki: [A]は、どこにいますか？ ([A ] wa, doko ni imasu ka?) |
| Jessi: [A]は、どこにいますか ([A ] wa, doko ni imasu ka)？ Now, this time we are going to ask about where inanimate objects are. Things that aren't living. It also works for places. So we change the います (imasu) to あります (arimasu). And we get...? |
| Tomoyuki: [A]は、どこにありますか？ ([A ] wa, doko ni arimasu ka?) |
| Jessi: [A]は、どこにありますか ([A ] wa, doko ni arimasu ka) ？It's helpful if you're looking for something. For example, a place like a convenience store; you could say... |
| Tomoyuki: コンビニは、どこにありますか？ (Konbini wa, doko ni arimasu ka?) |
| Jessi: コンビニは どこに ありますか (Konbini wa, doko ni arimasu ka)？ Where is the convenience store? |
| Tomoyuki: Right. |
| Jessi: Let's break it down. |
| Tomoyuki: コンビニ (konbini) (Jessi: convenience store) は どこに (wa doko ni) (Jessi: where) ありますか (arimasu ka) (Jessi: is, with a question marker) |
| Jessi: Great. Here's another one. What if you want to take the escalator, but don't know where it is? |
| Tomoyuki: You can say... エスカレーターは、どこにありますか (esukarētā wa, doko ni arimasu ka)。 |
| Jessi: エスカレーターは、 どこに ありますか (Esukarētā wa, doko ni arimasu ka)。Okay! That's not so bad, right? That's one of the examples we had in the dialogue, isn't it? |
| Tomoyuki: Right. He also asked another question. He said マクドナルド は どこ に ありますか (makudonarudo wa doko ni arimasu ka)。 |
| Jessi: マクドナルド は どこ に ありますか (Makudonarudo wa doko ni arimasu ka)。 "Where is McDonald's?" Okay, good. So again, our pattern is [A]は ([A ] wa)、どこにありますか (doko ni arimasu ka)? Now.. on to how to respond to this question! |
| Tomoyuki: Okay. The pattern for saying where something is, is..... Aは[place]にあります (A wa [place] ni arimasu)。 |
| Jessi: Aは[place]にあります。 (A wa [place] ni arimasu.) |
| Tomoyuki: Aは[place]にあります。 (A wa [place] ni arimasu.) |
| Jessi: And as usual, the first part, Aは (A wa), can be left out. |
| Tomoyuki: If the subject is obvious. |
| Jessi: Right. So, let's start by taking a look at the examples we had in the dialogue. |
| Tomoyuki: We had two examples. |
| Jessi: The first one was...? |
| Tomoyuki: マクドナルド は 2かい に あります。(Makudonarudo wa ni-kai ni arimasu.) |
| Jessi: "McDonald's is on the second floor." Let's break it down. |
| Tomoyuki: マクドナルド (Makudonarudo) (Jessi: McDonalds) は 2かい (wa ni-kai) (Jessi: second floor) に あります (ni arimasu) (Jessi: is)。 |
| Jessi: So, one more time? |
| Tomoyuki: マクドナルド は 2かい に あります。 (Makudonarudo wa ni-kai ni arimasu.) |
| Jessi: Great. Masato then asks where the escalator is... let's hear the question he asked first. |
| Tomoyuki: エスカレーター は どこ に ありますか？ (Esukarētā wa doko ni arimasu ka?) |
| Jessi: "Where is the escalator?" And the answer was...? |
| Tomoyuki: あそこ に あります。 (Asoko ni arimasu.) |
| Jessi: "It's over there." |
| Tomoyuki: The full sentence would have been エスカレーターは あそこ に あります (Esukarētā wa asoko ni arimasu)。 |
| Jessi: "The escalator is over there." |
| Tomoyuki: Remember that あそこ (asoko) means "over there". |
| Jessi: Yes. This word is used a lot when talking about the location of something. |
| Tomoyuki: Right. Listeners, repeat after me. エスカレーターは あそこ に あります。 (Esukarētā wa asoko ni arimasu.) |
| [pause] |
| Jessi: All right everyone, how's it going so far? Are you ready for a question and answer practice? |
| Tomoyuki: Okay! Let's do it! |
| Jessi: All right. Listeners, Tomoyuki is going to ask you where the escalator is. Please respond with, "it's over there." Are you ready? |
| Tomoyuki: エスカレーターはどこにありますか？ (Esukarētā wa doko ni arimasu ka?) |
| [pause] |
| Jessi: Okay, Tomoyuki, what's the answer? |
| Tomoyuki: あそこにあります (Asoko ni arimasu)。It's over there. You could also add エスカレーター (esukarētā), and say... エスカレーターは、あそこにあります (esukarētā wa, asoko ni arimasu)。 |
| Jessi: Excellent! How did you do, everyone? Now are you ready to switch roles? Now you're the one looking for the escalator. What do you ask? |
| [pause] |
| Tomoyuki: Did you get it? |
| Jessi: The answer is... |
| Tomoyuki: エスカレーターはどこにありますか？ (Esukarētā wa doko ni arimasu ka?) |
Outro |
| Jessi: All right, great job everyone. I think everyone must have it down by now, don't you think? |
| Tomoyuki: I hope so! |
| Jessi: For more information, check out the lesson notes, and as always, leave us a comment if you have any questions. |
| Tomoyuki: We look forward to hearing from you. |
| Jessi: All right. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you all next time! |
| Tomoyuki: じゃあ、また～。 (Jā, matā.) |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide