Learn about expression to make strong suggestions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yoshi: おはよう、パラマリボ。よしです。(Ohayō, Paramaribo. Yoshi desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. Beginner lesson #145. Yoshi-san, here we are, just the two of us. |
| Yoshi: It’s a guy’s reunion. |
| Peter: Yep. I foresee this trend over the next three days. Forecast calls for guy reunions for the next 3 days but the girls will be along later in the show. |
| Yoshi: That sounds good. |
| Peter: Actually yeah I think they will but for us, we also have Take on tap, sorry about that, Take-san on tap. Yeah, we have lots of people stopping by today. |
| Yoshi: That will be fun. |
| Peter: It’s going to be good and it’s going to be good for a few reasons. One, we are introducing another extremely useful grammar structure. Yoshi-san, what grammar structure are we introducing today? |
| Yoshi: 方がいい (hō ga ii) |
| Peter: You are strongly recommending that somebody does something. To exemplify this, we have an interesting dialogue between two good friends. Okay, with that said, here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| たけ (Take) : その電話番号どうしたの？(Sono denwa bangō dō shita no?) |
| よし (Yoshi) : 昨日会った女性に電話する。(Kinō atta josei ni denwa suru.) |
| たけ (Take) : だめだよ。早すぎるよ。待った方がいいよ。(Dame da yo. Hayasugiru yo. Matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : 早すぎる？(Hayasugiru?) |
| たけ (Take) : うん、絶対待った方がいいよ。(Un, zettai matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : どれぐらい？(Dore gurai?) |
| たけ (Take) : 二週間でいいよ。あっ、友達だから、その番号を預かるよ。じゃあね。(Ni-shū-kan de ii yo. A, tomodachi da kara, sono bangō o azukaru yo. Jā ne.) |
| Yoshi: 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.) |
| たけ (Take) : その電話番号どうしたの？(Sono denwa bangō dō shita no?) |
| よし (Yoshi) : 昨日会った女性に電話する。(Kinō atta josei ni denwa suru.) |
| たけ (Take) : だめだよ。早すぎるよ。待った方がいいよ。(Dame da yo. Hayasugiru yo. Matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : 早すぎる？(Hayasugiru?) |
| たけ (Take) : うん、絶対待った方がいいよ。(Un, zettai matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : どれぐらい？(Dore gurai?) |
| たけ (Take) : 二週間でいいよ。あっ、友達だから、その番号を預かるよ。じゃあね。(Ni-shū-kan de ii yo. A, tomodachi da kara, sono bangō o azukaru yo. Jā ne.) |
| Peter: This time Take-san and Yoshi-san will give you a Japanese and I will give you the English. |
| たけ (Take) : その電話番号どうしたの？(Sono denwa bangō dō shita no?) |
| TAKE: What's up with that number? |
| よし (Yoshi) : 昨日会った女性に電話する。(Kinō atta josei ni denwa suru.) |
| YOSHI: I'm gonna call the girl I met yesterday. |
| たけ (Take) : だめだよ。(Dame da yo.) |
| TAKE: No you're not. |
| たけ (Take) : 早すぎるよ。(Hayasugiru yo.) |
| TAKE: It's too soon. |
| たけ (Take) : 待った方がいいよ。(Matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| TAKE: You would better wait. |
| よし (Yoshi) : 早すぎる？(Hayasugiru?) |
| YOSHI: Too soon? |
| たけ (Take) : うん、絶対待った方がいいよ。(Un, zettai matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| TAKE: You should definitely wait. |
| よし (Yoshi) : どれぐらい？(Dore gurai?) |
| YOSHI: How long? |
| たけ (Take) : 二週間でいいよ。(Ni-shū-kan de ii yo.) |
| TAKE: Two weeks. |
| たけ (Take) : あっ、友達だから、その番号を預かるよ。(A, tomodachi da kara, sono bangō o azukaru yo.) |
| TAKE: Ah, since I'm your friend, I'll hold on to that number for you. |
| たけ (Take) : じゃあね。(Jā ne.) |
| TAKE: Later! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Yoshi-san, let’s ask Take-san what he thinks about his character’s intentions. Seems a little strange. |
| Yoshi: たけさん、このキャラクターは何か企んでいるんですかね。(Take-san, kono kyarakutā wa nani ka takurande iru n desu ka ne.) |
| Take: いや、そんな事ないと思うんですけどね。僕と一緒で何か真面目そうな人だしね。(Iya, sonna koto nai to omō n desu kedo ne. Boku to issho de nanka majime sō na hito da shi ne.) |
| Peter: So he is a serious guy like you and you don’t think anything like that is going to happen. どうかな。(Dō ka na.) |
| Take: いやいやいやいや、よしさんのためを思って頑張っていると思うよ、僕は。(Iya iya iya iya, Yoshi-san no tame o omotte ganbatte iru to omō yo, boku wa.) |
| Peter: He is doing it for Yoshi. Well Take-san, you can’t meet my wife. |
| Take: 別にいいですよ。ひどい。(Betsu ni ii desu yo. Hidoi.) |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Peter: Okay, let’s take a look at today’s vocabulary words. Yoshi-san, |
| Yoshi: 預かる (azukaru) |
| Peter: To keep, transitive. |
| Yoshi: (slow) あずかる (azukaru) (natural speed) 預かる (azukaru) |
| Peter: So this is a transitive. So this is a direct object. For example, let’s hear this example sentence. |
| Yoshi: 親のお金を預かる。(Oya no o-kane o azukaru.) |
| Peter: To keep one’s parents' money. Notice how we have the object marker を (o) in there. So direct object transitive and I don’t know about that Yoshi san, hold on to your parent’s money. What are you planning? Seems like both you and Take have some kind of ulterior motives. Let’s get one more sample sentence. |
| Take: 医者は病人の命を預かる仕事です。(Isha wa byōnin no inochi o azukaru shigoto desu.) |
| Peter: A doctor’s work consists of having a patient’s life in their hands. Now when we talk about 預かる (azukaru), we have to mention 預ける (azukeru). So 預かる (azukaru) has to do with you keeping, you possessing, where 預ける (azukeru) has to do with another person keeping or possessing. For example |
| Yoshi: 保育園に子供を預ける。(Hoikuen ni kodomo o azukeru.) |
| Peter: To put a child in daycare in the trust of daycare. To have the child kept in daycare. The key here is the particles. When using 預ける (azukeru) the に (ni) marks the indirect object. So the に (ni) marks the indirect object and the を (o) marks the direct object. So say you want your friend to hold on to money for you. So you are asking your friend, the friend will be the indirect object. Your friend will be marked by に (ni), the money will be marked by を (o) and we will use 預ける (azukeru) because it’s the other person doing it. Yoshi-san, can you give us the Japanese for asking your friend to hold on to money for you? |
| Yoshi: 友達にお金を預ける。(Tomodachi ni o-kane o azukeru.) |
| Peter: Your backpack. |
| Yoshi: 友達にリュックを預ける。(Tomodachi ni ryukku o azukeru.) |
| Peter: Okay. Now let’s take a look at today’s conversation. Informal conversation between two close friends or soon to be old friends. Well, we will see how this storyline turns out but maybe Take is planning something but as of now, it's a conversation between two friends. Okay, first line. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Take: その電話番号をどうしたの？(Sono denwa bangō dō shita no?) |
| Peter: Now the interesting thing about this sentence is Yoshi-san, what particle are we missing? |
| Yoshi: は (wa) |
| Peter: Now if this is polite Japanese, what would we have here? |
| Yoshi: その電話番号はどうしたのですか。(Sono denwa bangō wa dō shita no desu ka.) |
| Peter: But again, here the conversation is informal and when speaking informal Japanese, lots of particles and other things get dropped. I guess the closer you are, the more particles you drop. I don’t know. It just seems that way but here it gets condensed. Okay and again, point to notice is we finished this sentence with the particle |
| Yoshi: の (no) |
| Peter: Indicating a question. This is followed by |
| Yoshi: 昨日会った女性に電話する。(Kinō atta josei ni denwa suru.) |
| Peter: Point of interest in this sentence is describing the noun 女性 (josei). Again in English, usually this description comes after the noun. The girl who I met yesterday but in Japanese, we reverse it. So we have |
| Yoshi: 昨日会った (kinō atta) |
| Peter: Yesterday met. |
| Yoshi: 女性 (josei) |
| Peter: Woman, girl. “Yesterday met woman, girl.” Now when we interpret it into English, the girl I met yesterday, followed by |
| Yoshi: に (ni) |
| Peter: Again indicating direction to that person, to – to the girl I met yesterday |
| Yoshi: 電話する (denwa suru) |
| Peter: I will call. So if we rearrange it, I will call to the girl I met yesterday. Now the reason I am intentionally putting this “to” in there is it's quite a common mistake Japanese people make when they are speaking English at first because this is the particle they are using. In English, we would say I am going to call the girl I met yesterday but here we have the particle に (ni) which is translated to to and that’s why it’s often put in there but in Japanese, you need that direction. I am going to call to the girl I met yesterday, followed by |
| Take: だめだよ。(Dame da yo.) |
| Peter: No good, literally no good and when we interpret it, I interpret it as no you are not. Like you can’t do that. It’s not good to do that. No way it might be good. What do you think, Yoshi-san? |
| Yoshi: I think it works. |
| Peter: Yeah, in this case, it’s actually a permission thing. His friend wants to do something but he is saying ダメだよ (dame da yo). So you can’t do it or you shouldn’t do it but since they are so close, it’s that notion of kind of he knows best. No good, so his friend is not recommending he does it like you can’t do that. Maybe his friend sees something or his friend is planning something that he doesn’t know about but his friend is – he is forbidding him to do it ダメだよ (dame da yo) you can’t do it and he gives this reason, |
| Take: 早すぎるよ。(Hayasugiru yo.) |
| Peter: It’s too soon, 早い (hayai) means fast. So literally it’s too fast but here we interpret it’s too soon. |
| Take: 待ったほうがいいよ。(Matta hō ga ii yo.) |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: You should wait. Now here is today’s grammar point 方がいい (hō ga ii). In previous lessons, we gave you this construction with a noun の方がいい (no hō ga ii), but today we are using a verb. The way we construct this is we use the past tense of a verb. Here we have 待った (matta), the past tense of 待つ (matsu) to wait, 待った (matta), 待った方がいい (matta hō ga ii), you’d better wait is how we interpret it but let’s take a look at the part. This phrase is roughly equivalent to the English expression, you’d better. You are strongly suggesting someone to do something. In the dialogue, he is strongly suggesting that his friend doesn’t call. Now this is an idiomatic expression as can be inferred by looking at the difference between the meaning and the elements of the expression. Yoshi-san, 方 (hō) how can we translate this into English? |
| Yoshi: Direction. |
| Peter: And this is followed by the particle が (ga) and finally by |
| Yoshi: いい (ii) |
| Peter: So “direction good.” Then we have the verb in front. So “wait direction good,” literally. However this is an idiomatic expression meaning had better. Moving on, Yoshi-san then counters with |
| Yoshi: 早すぎる？(Hayasugiru?) |
| Peter: And notice the intonation here. One more time. |
| Yoshi: 早すぎる？(Hayasugiru?) |
| Peter: It’s the intonation that triggers the question. He is asking, it’s too soon? |
| Take: うん、絶対待った方がいいよ。(Un, zettai matta hō ga ii yo.) |
| Peter: Now here he answers yes by saying |
| Yoshi: うん (un) |
| Peter: Now this is an informal yes. Would you use this in business meetings or formal Japanese, Yoshi-san? |
| Yoshi: No. |
| Peter: Yeah, informal cases followed by 絶対 (zettai), definitely. Here we have the grammatical structure again, you’d better, yes you should definitely wait but here we have 絶対 (zettai). So to make it into proper English, we use should. In this case, the very strong should, followed by |
| Yoshi: どれぐらい？ (Dore gurai?) |
| Peter: How long. Now Yoshi-san, now here we have どれぐらい (dore gurai). What about どのぐらい (dono gurai). Can we say here どのぐらい (dono gurai)? |
| Yoshi: Uhoo. |
| Peter: Both work. |
| Yoshi: Yes. |
| Peter: And finally we have |
| Take: 二週間でいいよ。(Ni-shū-kan de ii yo.) |
| Peter: Two weeks but notice how the time is marked here. Yoshi-san, what particle do we mark the time with? |
| Yoshi: で (de) |
| Peter: Here we are going to use two weeks to wait. Here we are using that time and that’s where we mark it with で (de). Two weeks, it’s good. So about two weeks, followed by |
| Take: あっ、友達だから、その番号を預かるよ。(A, tomodachi da kara, sono bangō o azukaru yo.) |
| Peter: Ah hmm because I am a friend, I will hold on to that number for you. Finally |
| Take: じゃあね。(Jā ne.) |
| Peter: See you. And you could tell by the dialogue that he may have some other intentions here. Yoshi-san, what do you think? |
| Yoshi: Uhm… I don’t want to know. |
Outro |
| Peter: But I have a feeling we are going to find out. All right, that’s going to do it for today. Again stop by japanesepod101.com. There we will have more on this grammar structure. Inside the PDF, we will have a write up, part 2 of this series will be coming up in the next beginner lesson this Thursday. You definitely don’t want to miss that. Okay, lots more with this structure 方がいい (hō ga ii) very, very important structure in Japanese used a lot with nouns, verbs, many, many things. Okay, so stop by, be sure to say hi and leave us a post. |
| Yoshi: また明日。(Mata ashita.) |
| Take: じゃあね。(Jā ne.) |
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