Learn about recapping of the plain imperative form
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natsuko: おはよう、モントレー。ナツコです。(Ohayō, Montorē. Natsuko desu.) |
| Yoshi: おはよう、モントレー。よしです。(Ohayō, Montorē. Yoshi desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. Beginner lesson #121. |
| Peter: Now today we have a very unique lesson. We are actually going to work on someone speaking to who, Natsuko? |
| Natsuko: To oneself. |
| Peter: Yes, and the reason we are covering it today is it has to do with the imperative form which we covered last week. When men speak to themselves, what form of the verb do they tend to use? |
| Natsuko: Imperatives. |
| Peter: Yes, it’s quite common. So what we are going to do today is take a look at a guy who is in a situation where he ends up addressing himself but not speaking out loud. Now this leads him to make some interesting expressions and noticed by the person in the elevator with him. So with that said, let’s take a look at today’s conversation. Here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ＜男の人がエレベーターに乗っている。可愛い女性が入ってくる＞ |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : 待って！そのエレベーター、ちょっと待ってください！(Matte! Sono erebētā, chotto matte kudasai!) |
| ＜足音＞ ありがとうございます！！(Arigatō gozaimasu!!) |
| よし (Yoshi) : 何階ですか。(Nan-kai desu ka.) |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : ４７階お願いします。ああ、どうもすみません。今日は涼しいですね。(Yon-jū nana-kai onegai shimasu. Ā, dōmo sumimasen. Kyō wa suzushii desu ne.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : あ、はい、そうですね。。。(A, hai, sō desu ne…) |
| ＜自分に対して＞ おれのばかー！はい、そうですね？はい、そうですね？ |
| 何考えてるんだ！もっと賢い返事をしろよ！考えろ。早く何か言え！(Ore no bakā! Hai, sō desu ne? Hai, sō desu ne? Nani kangaete ru n da! Motto kashikoi henji o shiro yo! Kangaero. Hayaku nanika ie!) |
| よし (Yoshi) : ＜彼女を向いて＞ あ、あの。。。(A, ano…) |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : すみません。間違えました。２５階お願いします。(Sumimasen. Machigaemashita. Ni-jū go-kai onegai shimasu.) |
| Natsuko: もう一度お願いします。ゆっくりお願いします。(Mō ichi-do onegai shimasu. Yukkuri onegai shimasu.) |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : 待って！そのエレベーター、ちょっと待ってください！(Matte! Sono erebētā, chotto matte kudasai!) |
| ありがとうございます！！(Arigatō gozaimasu!!) |
| よし (Yoshi) : 何階ですか。(Nan-kai desu ka.) |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : ４７階お願いします。ああ、どうもすみません。今日は涼しいですね。(Yon-jū nana-kai onegai shimasu. Ā, dōmo sumimasen. Kyō wa suzushii desu ne.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : あ、はい、そうですね。。。(A, hai, sō desu ne…) |
| おれのばかー！はい、そうですね？はい、そうですね？何考えてるんだ！もっと賢い返事をしろよ！考えろ。早く何か言え！(Ore no bakā! Hai, sō desu ne? Hai, sō desu ne? Nani kangaete ru n da! Motto kashikoi henji o shiro yo! Kangaero. Hayaku nanika ie!) |
| よし (Yoshi) : あ、あの。。。(A, ano…) |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : すみません。間違えました。２５階お願いします。(Sumimasen. Machigaemashita. Ni-jū go-kai onegai shimasu.) |
| Natsuko: 次は、ピーターさんの英語が入ります。(Tsugi wa, Pītā-san no Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| ＜男の人がエレベーターに乗っている。可愛い女性が入ってくる＞ |
| ＜There is a man in the elevator. A pretty woman comes in.＞ |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : 待って！そのエレベーター、ちょっと待ってください！(Matte! Sono erebētā, chotto matte kudasai!) |
| NATSUKO: Wait! Hold that elevator! |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : ＜足音＞ ありがとうございます！！(Arigatō gozaimasu!!) |
| NATSUKO: ＜Foot steps＞ Thank you!! |
| よし (Yoshi) : 何階ですか。(Nan-kai desu ka.) |
| YOSHI: What floor? |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : ４７階お願いします。(Yon-jū nana-kai onegai shimasu.) |
| NATSUKO: 47, please. |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : ああ、どうもすみません。今日は涼しいですね。 (Ā, dōmo sumimasen. Kyō wa suzushii desu ne.) |
| NATSUKO: Phew, thank you. It's cool today, isn't it? |
| よし (Yoshi) : あ、はい、そうですね。。。(A, hai, sō desu ne…) |
| YOSHI: Umm, yeah, that's right… |
| よし (Yoshi) : ＜自分に対して＞ おれのばかー！(Ore no bakā!) |
| YOSHI: ＜To himself＞I'm an idiot! |
| よし (Yoshi) : はい、そうですね？はい、そうですね？(Hai, sō desu ne? Hai, sō desu ne?) |
| YOSHI: Yeah, that's right? Yeah, that's right? |
| よし (Yoshi) : 何考えてるんだ！(Nani kangaete ru n da!) |
| YOSHI: What am I thinking! |
| よし (Yoshi) : もっと賢い返事をしろよ！(Motto kashikoi henji o shiro yo!) |
| YOSHI: Say something more intelligent! |
| よし (Yoshi) : 考えろ。早く何か言え！(Kangaero. Hayaku nanika ie!) |
| YOSHI: Think! Hurry up and say something! |
| よし (Yoshi) : ＜彼女を向いて＞ あ、あの。。。(A, ano…) |
| YOSHI: ＜Facing her＞Umm... |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : すみません。間違えました。(Sumimasen. Machigaemashita.) |
| NATSUKO: Excuse me. I made a mistake. |
| 夏子 (Natsuko) : ２５階お願いします。(Ni-jū go-kai onegai shimasu.) |
| NATSUKO: Floor 25, please. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Yoshi-san, let’s ask Natsuko-san what she thought of today’s conversation. |
| Yoshi: ナツコさん、今日の会話はどうでしたか。(Natsuko-san, kyō no kaiwa wa dō deshita ka.) |
| Natsuko: そうですね、この女の人どうしてとっとと降りちゃったんでしょうね。(Sō desu ne, kono onna no hito dōshite tottoto orichatta n deshō ne.) |
| Peter: English, please. |
| Natsuko: Why did this woman suddenly get off the elevator? |
| Peter: Well I believe we will have that answer tomorrow. |
| Natsuko: Oh really? |
| Peter: Yes, this is part 1 of 2. |
| Natsuko: Oh again? |
| Peter: Again. And what’s interesting about today and tomorrow’s conversations, we are actually dealing with people’s thoughts, kind of like the voice over in the movies. So we are getting a special look inside the main character’s minds. Now let’s get into today’s vocabulary because we really want to take a look at addressing oneself and how this is done in Japanese. Natsuko-san, first word お願いします (onegai shimasu). |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natsuko: エレベーター (erebētā) |
| Peter: Elevator. |
| Natsuko: (slow) エレベーター (erebētā) (natural speed) エレベーター (erebētā) |
| Peter: And this of course is from the English word elevator. Now in department stores, they have lots of elevators but they also have escalators. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Lots of escalators. |
| Natsuko: Uhoo. |
| Peter: On regular streets, everywhere in Japan, there are – in Japanese, how do we say this? |
| Natsuko: エスカレーター (esukarētā) |
| Peter: And could you break it down? |
| Natsuko: (slow) エスカレーター (esukarētā) (natural speed) エスカレーター (esukarētā) |
| Peter: So we have some long vowels towards the end of this word and also towards the end of the elevator. Next we have |
| Yoshi: 返事 (henji) |
| Peter: Answer, reply. |
| Yoshi: (slow) へんじ (henji) (natural speed) 返事 (henji) |
| Peter: Natsuko-san, example sentence, please. |
| Natsuko: 返事は大きな声でしてください。(Henji wa ōkina koe de shite kudasai.) |
| Peter: Please reply in a loud voice. Yoshi-san, one more please. |
| Yoshi: 彼の返事を待っています。(Kare no henji o matte imasu.) |
| Peter: I am waiting for his reply. Natsuko-san, next word please. |
| Natsuko: 賢い (kashikoi) |
| Peter: Smart. |
| Natsuko: (slow) かしこい (kashikoi) (natural speed) 賢い (kashikoi) |
| Peter: Natsuko-san, example sentence, please. |
| Natsuko: からすは賢い生き物です。(Karasu wa kashikoi ikimono desu.) |
| Peter: Crows are smart living things. What’s the word for crow? |
| Natsuko: からす (karasu) |
| Peter: Can you break that down? |
| Natsuko: (slow) からす (karasu) (natural speed) からす (karasu) |
| Peter: Really smart birds, right Natsuko-san? |
| Natsuko: Yes, indeed. |
| Peter: Now if you come to Japan, you will notice that everywhere the garbage is covered in nets. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Natsuko-san, can you tell us why this is? |
| Natsuko: Because when the garbage is put directly on streets in a bag, the crows will come and rip the garbage bag and take out the things inside and eat them. |
| Peter: And make a huge mess in the process. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Yeah, they are some crafty creatures. So this is why they have the nets. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: On the garbage. Now they have also been known to use cars to crack nuts? |
| Natsuko: Oh yes. |
| Peter: Actually coordinating their swoop down and placement with the red and green lights. So yeah really, really smart birds but in the morning at about 5 AM always at the break of dawn, I don’t know why it is at the break of dawn, Yoshi-san, what sound can we hear? |
| Yoshi: カー、カー、カー。(Kā, kā, kā.) |
| Peter: Yep, it’s the morning call. |
| Natsuko: Really? |
| Peter: Crows in Japan are so loud. |
| Natsuko: Especially in Tokyo, I guess. |
| Peter: Oh yeah. So I don’t know if that’s the case in general but the first time I came into contact with this was upon coming to Tokyo. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Uff, now let’s take a quick look at the two characters in the word for reply. Natsuko-san, what’s the first character? |
| Natsuko: 返 (hen) |
| Peter: And this means |
| Natsuko: Return. |
| Peter: And what does the second character mean? |
| Natsuko: Thing. |
| Peter: Returned thing, thing you return. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: A reply. It's a polite manner thing to do. So maybe this is a good way for you to remember the thing you return. And Yoshi-san, what do we have next? |
| Yoshi: 階 (kai) |
| Peter: Floor. |
| Yoshi: (slow) かい (kai) (natural speed) 階 (kai) |
| Peter: Now in Japanese, かい (kai) can be interpreted as many words. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: So you have to listen to the context, the context of the sentence will tell us everything. Another popular way, Natsuko-san, if I say かい (kai) to you, what do you think of off the bat, what comes first to your head? |
| Natsuko: Times. |
| Peter: As in ２回 (ni-kai) would be |
| Natsuko: Twice. |
| Peter: Yeah, so this is the most popular way but if we are talking about buildings and I say 階 (kai), we think of |
| Natsuko: Floor. |
| Peter: Now the characters – the Chinese characters for this are different. |
| Natsuko: Yes. Also in Japan, the way to count the floors is in the US style, right? It’s not the European style like there is no ground floor. It starts from the first floor. |
| Peter: Really? |
| Natsuko: Yes, isn’t it? |
| Peter: Umm... yeah. |
| Natsuko: あれ？ (Are?) I noticed that, you know, in many European countries, the floor starts from the ground floor and the second floor in Japan and the US is actually called the first floor. |
| Peter: Really? |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: So what floor are we on now? |
| Natsuko: Ah, the sixth floor? |
| Peter: Sixth floor and in Europe, it would be |
| Natsuko: Fifth floor. |
| Peter: I see, wow thank you, Natsuko-san. Like Yoshi-san right, how amazing it is to have a cultured person on the show. |
| Yoshi: Hmm yeah, I didn’t even know about it. |
| Peter: I didn’t know about that either. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, that’s because I made a big mistake when I traveled to Europe. |
| Peter: Really? |
| Natsuko: Yes. I couldn’t figure out the floor of my hotel room. |
| Yoshi: Hah. |
| Peter: Ah some people on the floor above you are quite surprised? |
| Natsuko: Yeah, actually. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Peter: All right. So now that we talked about these vocabulary words, what we are going to do is talk about addressing oneself and I think the best way to start here is by looking at the dialogue. Now in the dialogue, the two people were interacting and the guy said something he wanted to take back or expound on or it wasn’t enough for him. It just wasn’t enough. So when he is thinking to himself, Yoshi-san, what did he say? |
| Yoshi: おれのばかー！はい、そうですね？はい、そうですね？何考えてるんだ！もっと賢い返事をしろよ！考えろ。早く何か言え！(Ore no bakā! Hai, sō desu ne? Hai, sō desu ne? Nani kangaete ru n da! Motto kashikoi henji o shiro yo! Kangaero. Hayaku nanika ie!) |
| Peter: Yoshi-san, what form of the verb is he using when he is addressing himself? |
| Yoshi: Imperative. |
| Peter: Now when a guy addresses himself when he is speaking to himself, what form of the verb will he most likely use? |
| Peter: Not all the time, but mostly imperative is used. |
| Peter: There are some other things we will be looking at tomorrow but today we are just going to cover the first part and this actually took a while for me to learn because one of the ways I practiced Japanese was speaking to myself so… |
| Natsuko: I see. |
| Peter: First it must have been really strange for my neighbors hearing me speak to myself in polite Japanese. Then I kind of caught on actually through anime that when a person addresses himself especially guys, they will most likely use the imperative and here is what we have here. So first he says to himself |
| Yoshi: おれのばかー！(Ore no bakā!) |
| Peter: We have an extremely informal way for the male to refer to himself おれ (ore), followed by the possessive の (no) and then ばか (baka) which means fool. My fool is the literal translation but when we interpret this, we can say I am an idiot. I am a fool and we can conclude, he is not happy about what he just said. He verifies this by saying |
| Yoshi: はい、そうですね？はい、そうですね？(Hai, sō desu ne? Hai, sō desu ne?) |
| Peter: Now in his mind, again this is not out loud. Again he is thinking this and now he is repeating in his mind what he said. He is kind of in shock about what he said. Natsuko-san, you know this feeling, right? |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: We’ve all had this especially during interviews. Did I just say that? So he follows this up by saying |
| Natsuko: 何考えてるんだ！(Nani kangaete ru n da!) |
| Peter: And here he is asking himself, what was I thinking but it is kind of like a rhetorical question. He doesn’t really expect an answer. He is just saying to himself, what was I thinking? Notice here how we drop the object marker |
| Natsuko: を (o) |
| Peter: And of course in the present progressive informal, the い (i) from いる (iru) is dropped. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: On the end, we have |
| Natsuko: んだ (n da) |
| Peter: Now after he is done, he is going through this mental cycle reflecting on what he said and now he is trying to get the proper response. What to do about it. He says here |
| Yoshi: もっと賢い返事をしろよ！(Motto kashikoi henji o shiro yo!) |
| Peter: Say something more intelligent and what we want to point out here is how he is ordering himself. What tense of the verb is he using here? |
| Yoshi: Imperative. |
| Peter: Of what verb? |
| Yoshi: する (suru) |
| Peter: Which becomes |
| Yoshi: しろ (shiro) |
| Peter: Now what’s interesting about this, the よ (yo) on the end actually softens the imperative a bit. So しろよ (shiro yo) is not as heavy as or edgy as しろ (shiro). So he is being a bit nice to himself at first. Then time is running out, time is passing and now he is getting frantic. So |
| Yoshi: 考えろ。(Kangaero.) |
| Peter: Think. |
| Yoshi: 早く何か言え！(Hayaku nanika ie!) |
| Peter: Say something, again imperatives. Natsuko-san, what do you think? Do you think at first, it may have been hard for some of the listeners to realize he was addressing himself? |
| Natsuko: Hmm yeah, maybe. |
| Peter: What do you think is the best way to realize that he is not speaking out loud, he is actually addressing himself? What do you think gives it away? |
| Natsuko: In this situation, I think it’s the politeness level. |
| Peter: Definitely. Most normal people would not address someone they just met or speak like this in front of them. |
| Natsuko: Yes, not to a stranger. |
| Peter: Especially in an enclosed environment. So this dramatic shift in the politeness level really kind of tells the listener that he is actually speaking to himself. He is actually thinking in his head, not out loud because he is using some very strict edgy Japanese. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: And if you notice at first, they are speaking in polite Japanese. Now Natsuko-san, why do you think she first said the 47th floor and then switched to the 25th floor? |
| Natsuko: She says that she made a mistake. |
| Peter: What do you think? |
| Natsuko: Hmm, we got to wait and see. |
| Peter: Yeah. I think lots of people tend to make faces and expressions while they are thinking. So one can only imagine what kind of faces this guy was making. He is being pretty hard on himself, like only Yoshi-san can tell us. Yoshi-san, can you tell us what kind of expressions you were making? |
| Yoshi: You know, you only have to imagine. |
| Natsuko: Right. You can’t show. |
| Peter: And that’s the best thing about what we are doing. Use your imagination. |
| Yoshi: Yeah. This face, this face right here. |
| Peter: Ah, so that’s the one! |
| Natsuko: Ah, no wonder. |
| Peter: おかしいですね。(Okashii desu ne.) |
| Natsuko: おかしいですね。(Okashii desu ne.) |
| Yoshi: え？(E?) Come on. |
Outro |
|---|
| Peter: All right. That’s going to do for today. |
| Natsuko: じゃあ、また明日ね。(Jā, mata ashita ne.) |
| Yoshi: またね。(Mata ne.) |
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