Learn about introducing transitive and intransitive verb
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sakura: おはよう、北極。さくらです。(Ohayō, Hokkyoku. Sakura desu.) |
| Yoshi: おはよう、北極。よしです。(Ohayō, Hokkyoku. Yoshi desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. Beginner lesson #148. We are back with an important lesson today. Today we are going to be talking about intransitive and transitive verbs. Now in Japanese, verbs can be divided into two categories, transitive and intransitive. Now while many of them share the same kanji, what comes after that kanji differs a bit. So what we are going to do today is we are going to get your feet wet. We are going to help you get more and more used to the differences. One sure-fire way to tell can be found through looking at the particles. What particles are used will determine what verb is used. Again this takes time in getting used to but today we are going to get you started. Then next week, we have another lesson related to this. Then in the near future, we are going to have another lesson related to this and we are going to keep building and building until you get them down pat. Okay, so today’s conversation is between...Sakura san? |
| Sakura: It’s between mother and son. |
| Peter: Yes and Yoshi-san, who is playing the son? |
| Yoshi: Me. |
| Peter: Yes. Today we get another original Yoshi-san character. |
| Sakura: Hmm… |
| Peter: Yoshi-san, you never cease to amaze me with your voice acting ability. |
| Yoshi: Thank you. |
| Peter: I believe this was a いえいえ、そんな事ないです。(Ie ie, sonna koto nai desu.) But yeah sure, thank you! Thank you works to! |
| Yoshi: いえいえ、そんな事ありません。(Ie ie, sonna koto arimasen.) |
| Peter: いまさら。(Imasara.) A little late there. Okay, but anyway enjoy today’s lesson. Here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 母 (haha) : ただいま！(Tadaima!) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : お帰り。(Okaeri.) |
| 母 (haha) : あれ！ママの大好きな花瓶が壊れている！嘘！けんじくん？(Are! Mama no daisuki na kabin ga kowarete iru! Uso! Kenji-kun?) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : はい。(Hai.) |
| 母 (haha) : 誰が私の花瓶を壊したの？(Dare ga watashi no kabin o kowashita no?) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : 僕じゃない。家の猫が壊した。(Boku ja nai. Uchi no neko ga kowashita.) |
| 母 (haha) : けんじくん。(Kenji-kun.) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : はい、ごめんなさい。犯人は僕です。許してください。(Hai, gomen nasai. Hannin wa boku desu. Yurushite kudasai.) |
| 母 (haha) : わかった、わかった。今回の嘘は目をつぶってあげるけど、これからは正直に言うのよ。(Wakatta, wakatta. Konkai no uso wa me o tsubutte ageru kedo, kore kara wa shōjiki ni iu no yo.) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : わかった。(Wakatta.) |
| 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.) |
| 母 (haha) : ただいま！(Tadaima!) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : お帰り。(Okaeri.) |
| 母 (haha) : あれ！ママの大好きな花瓶が壊れている！嘘！けんじくん？(Are! Mama no daisuki na kabin ga kowarete iru! Uso! Kenji-kun?) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : はい。(Hai.) |
| 母 (haha) : 誰が私の花瓶を壊したの？(Dare ga watashi no kabin o kowashita no?) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : 僕じゃない。家の猫が壊した。(Boku ja nai. Uchi no neko ga kowashita.) |
| 母 (haha) : けんじくん。(Kenji-kun.) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : はい、ごめんなさい。犯人は僕です。許してください。(Hai, gomen nasai. Hannin wa boku desu. Yurushite kudasai.) |
| 母 (haha) : わかった、わかった。今回の嘘は目をつぶってあげるけど、これからは正直に言うのよ。(Wakatta, wakatta. Konkai no uso wa me o tsubutte ageru kedo, kore kara wa shōjiki ni iu no yo.) |
| けんじ (Kenji) : わかった。(Wakatta.) |
| 母 (haha) : ただいま！(Tadaima!) |
| MOTHER: I'm home. |
| けんじ (Kenji) : お帰り。(Okaeri.) |
| KENJI: Welcome back. |
| 母 (haha) : あれ！ママの大好きな花瓶が壊れている！嘘！けんじくん？(Are! Mama no daisuki na kabin ga kowarete iru! Uso! Kenji-kun?) |
| MOTHER: What! My favorite vase is broken! No way! Kenji! |
| けんじ (Kenji) : はい。(Hai.) |
| KENJI: Yeah. |
| 母 (haha) : 誰が私の花瓶を壊したの？(Dare ga watashi no kabin o kowashita no?) |
| MOTHER: Who broke mom's vase? |
| けんじ (Kenji) : 僕じゃない。家の猫が壊した。(Boku ja nai. Uchi no neko ga kowashita.) |
| KENJI: Wasn't me! The cat broke it. |
| 母 (haha) : けんじくん。(Kenji-kun.) |
| MOTHER: Kenji! |
| けんじ (Kenji) : はい、ごめんなさい。犯人は僕です。許してください。(Hai, gomen nasai. Hannin wa boku desu. Yurushite kudasai.) |
| KENJI: I'm sorry. I'm the guilty one. Please forgive me. |
| 母 (haha) : わかった、わかった。今回の嘘は目をつぶってあげるけど、これからは正直に言うのよ。(Wakatta, wakatta. Konkai no uso wa me o tsubutte ageru kedo, kore kara wa shōjiki ni iu no yo.) |
| MOTHER: Okay. I'll look past your lie this time, but make sure you tell the truth from now on. |
| けんじ (Kenji) : わかった。(Wakatta.) |
| KENJI: Okay. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Natsuko-san, let’s ask Yoshi-san what he thought of today’s conversation. |
| Natsuko: よしさん、今日の会話どう思いましたか。(Yoshi-san, kyō no kaiwa dō omoimashita ka.) |
| Yoshi: 何でも正直に言ったほうがいいですよね、最初にね。(Nan demo shōjiki ni itta hō ga ii desu yo ne, saisho ni ne.) |
| Natsuko: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: Honesty is the best policy. You should tell the truth right from the start but what a nice story. A happy ending. |
| Natsuko: Yeah good boy, isn’t he? |
| Peter: Now yes for the moment. Let’s see what happens in the future. Also stop by japanesepod101.com and check out the informal track. Now I think you get your fair share of animals covered in this one. Stop by japanesepod101.com to see what we are talking about. Okay, let’s move on to the vocabulary. Yoshi-san, first word. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Yoshi: 花瓶 (kabin) |
| Peter: Vase. |
| Yoshi: (slow) かびん (kabin) (natural speed) 花瓶 (kabin) |
| Peter: Now this is made up of two kanji, two Chinese characters. Yoshi-san, what does the first character mean? |
| Yoshi: Flower. |
| Peter: And the second character, |
| Yoshi: Bottle. |
| Peter: Flower bottle. Now it makes sense. Makes sense to me. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, sure. |
| Peter: And I think it’s pretty safe to say at least in my house. Let me rephrase that. Before I met my wife, any vase in my house consisted of an empty bottle with a flower. So it makes a lot of sense. Flower bottle, so this is what makes kanji the Chinese characters so interesting. There is a lot you can take from these. We really, really recommend that you get into it as soon as possible and that’s why at japanesepod101.com, we have lots of tools to help get you through this plus we are there for you. Any questions, just mail us. The best you get into kanji, the better plus with all the tools out there on the web. I mean now is as good a time as any, especially Rikaichan. We are going to have to do a special on that because I know for fact that there are people still out there not using Rikaichan, the plug-in for Firefox which allows you to see the reading of the kanji but more about that in different lessons. Next word. |
| Natsuko: 壊れる (kowareru) |
| Peter: To be broken, to break. |
| Natsuko: (slow) こわれる (kowareru) (natural speed) 壊れる (kowareru) |
| Peter: Now this verb is intransitive, okay. What comes next? We are not going to give you a sample sentence yet. First, we are going to give you its transitive counterpart. Now in Japanese, we’ve had a lot of questions and a lot of people have been asking for more lessons about this. This is why we are doing it today. In Japanese, they have a lot of transitive and intransitive pairs, pairs of verbs. One verb being transitive, one being intransitive. Now to break, we just gave you the intransitive. Yoshi-san, what’s the transitive? |
| Yoshi: 壊す (kowasu) |
| Peter: Again to break, break it down. |
| Yoshi: (slow) こわす (kowasu) (natural speed) 壊す (kowasu) |
| Peter: Now with this verb 壊す (kowasu) the transitive, we need an object. So this sentence is going to have an object marker を (o) or it will be inferred. Not said but if it was proper Japanese, it will be there. So the transitive, there was an action from the subject on the direct object. This is the transitive, okay. Let’s take a look at these two verbs in action in today’s dialogue. Can we say that in action? |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Peter: Okay, let’s take a look at these two verbs that we had in today’s dialogue. Natsuko-san, what was the first line you gave us? |
| Natsuko: ママの大好きな花瓶が壊れている！(Mama no daisuki na kabin ga kowarete iru!) |
| Peter: Mama’s favorite vase is broken. Now let’s leave off the descriptive part about the vase and just let’s take a look at the vase of the subject and the verb, 壊れる (kowareru). One more time. |
| Natsuko: 花瓶が壊れている (kabin ga kowarete iru) |
| Peter: Okay. First thing we want to notice here, the subject 花瓶 (kabin), vase. What particle are we marking this with? |
| Natsuko: が (ga) |
| Peter: This is followed by the verb |
| Natsuko: 壊れている (kowarete iru) |
| Peter: Which is in the present progressive tense. Now again, we go over this over and over. In Japanese, we don’t have the perfect tense. So the present progressive can represent an ongoing state and it’s broken. It’s in the state of being broken. So the subject here is marked by が (ga) and the verb is in the present progressive form. That doesn’t have to be the case with intransitive verbs but we just want to point out here that right now, it’s in the state. Now let’s take a look at the transitive verb. Natsuko-san, next line |
| Natsuko: 誰が私の花瓶を壊したの？(Dare ga watashi no kabin o kowashita no?) |
| Peter: Who broke my vase? Here we have direct action. So the subject is marked by |
| Natsuko: が (ga) |
| Peter: Then the direct object, what was broken? What received that action is marked by |
| Natsuko: を (o) |
| Peter: That direct object is |
| Natsuko: 花瓶 (kabin) |
| Peter: And in this case, we have the transitive verb to break, which is |
| Natsuko: 壊す (kowasu) |
| Peter: And in this sentence it was |
| Natsuko: 壊した (kowashita) |
| Peter: Because the action already took place. Now in last week’s lesson, we had the same thing. We had the intransitive and transitive pair, to turn on the light and the light being on. Again in that case, when you turn on the light, when you turn on the TV, when you turn on that electric appliance, the appliance that is turned on is marked by a direct object particle, Natsuko-san. |
| Natsuko: を (o) |
| Peter: For example, Yoshi-san, turn on the lights. |
| Yoshi: 電気をつける。(Denki o tsukeru.) |
| Peter: Natsuko-san, turn on the TV. |
| Natsuko: テレビをつける。(Terebi o tsukeru.) |
| Peter: Okay, を (o) direct object receiving that action of being turned on. Then we have the state of being on, the TV is on, Yoshi-san. |
| Yoshi: テレビがついている。(Terebi ga tsuite iru.) |
| Peter: Again notice the subject is marked by the particle |
| Yoshi: が (ga) |
| Peter: And this too is in the present progressive representing a state. It’s in the state of being on. Okay, so we have another lesson coming up where we are going to go over these intransitive versus transitives. Okay, now let’s think of a nice pneumatic to remember transitive and intransitive. Transitive sounds a bit like train or tram, something that moves. So with transitives, the action is moving from the subject to the direct object, transitive. That action is being transferred, transferred, transitive where the intransitive, no action is being transferred at all. So let us know if that helps you out because this is one of the key points to really master in Japanese. Intransitive versus transitive and we are going to help you through this. Now we are going to give you some sentences using 壊れる (kowareru) and 壊す (kowasu). Pay attention to the placement of the particles in the following sentences. Okay Yoshi-san, give us the first one. |
| Yoshi: おもちゃが壊れた。(Omocha ga kowareta.) |
| Peter: The toy is broken. Give us one more. |
| Yoshi: コンピュータが壊れている。(Konpyūta ga kowarete iru.) |
| Peter: The computer is broken. Here intransitive, no action taking place. The toy is broken, the computer is broken. No action taking place. Now Natsuko-san, give us the transitive counterpart 壊す (kowasu) in a sentence. |
| Natsuko: ゴジラがビルを４０軒壊した。(Gojira ga biru o yon-yukken kowashita.) |
| Peter: Godzilla broke 40 buildings. Again give us that sentence one more time, nice and slow. |
| Natsuko: ゴジラがビルを４０軒壊した。(Gojira ga biru o yon-jukken kowashita.) |
| Peter: Notice the subject Godzilla, marked by the particle |
| Natsuko: が (ga) |
| Peter: Then the buildings, marked by the object marker |
| Natsuko: を (o) |
| Peter: Followed by the counter, the counter actually comes after を (o) right before the verb |
| Natsuko: ４０軒 (yon-jukken) |
| Peter: And this is followed by |
| Natsuko: 壊した (kowashita) |
| Peter: Broke. Okay, let’s move on to the next one. |
| Natsuko: 嘘 (uso) |
| Peter: Lie. |
| Natsuko: (slow) うそ (uso) (natural speed) 嘘 (uso) |
| Peter: Now Natsuko-san, in the conversation give us that line one more time. Give us the preceding line, the word we are covering now and what came after that. Give us that whole line you said. |
| Natsuko: ママの大好きな花瓶が壊れている！嘘！けんじくん？(Mama no daisuki na kabin ga kowarete iru! Uso! Kenji-kun?) |
| Peter: So you just said the meaning is lie or actually I just said the meaning is lie. In this context, is it a lie? |
| Natsuko: No. |
| Peter: What does it mean? |
| Natsuko: It means really or it can’t be. |
| Peter: Are you serious? |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Here it should be interpreted as really. Are you serious, no way, impossible! You are doubting what is said or in this case, you are doubting what took place or kind of wishful doubting. |
| Natsuko: Yeah. |
| Peter: You are kind of wishing that wasn’t… |
| Natsuko: You don’t want to believe. |
| Peter: Exactly. |
| Natsuko: What you saw. |
| Peter: Exactly and this is very common, in this context a common phrase that you will hear over and over especially in casual Japanese. Don’t expect to hear this in a business meeting I guess unless, like, there is real shock. The market crashes and our stock is worth nothing. Maybe the protocol will be thrown out the window but kind of for informal situations and this is informal situation, conversation between a mother and a son. Okay, next we have, Yoshi-san. |
| Yoshi: 犯人 (hannin) |
| Peter: Criminal. |
| Yoshi: (slow) はんにん (hannin) (natural speed) 犯人 (hannin) |
| Peter: Can you give us a sample sentence? |
| Yoshi: 犯人をさがす。(Hannin o sagasu.) |
| Peter: To look for the criminal. Okay, here the subject is inferred. Maybe it’s the police. Yoshi-san, can we say the police will look for the criminal? |
| Yoshi: 警察が犯人をさがす。(Keisatsu ga hannin o sagasu.) |
| Peter: The police will look for the criminal. Here the criminal is the direct object and that’s why it’s marked by を (o). Again many times in Japanese, the subject will be omitted and that’s why you have to pay attention to what is used, the different particles and object markers. Okay, next we have |
| Natsuko: 許す (yurusu) |
| Peter: To forgive. |
| Natsuko: (slow) ゆるす (yurusu) (natural speed) 許す (yurusu) |
| Peter: Next. |
| Yoshi: つぶる (tsuburu) |
| Peter: To close the eyes. |
| Yoshi: (slow) つぶる (tsuburu) (natural speed) つぶる (tsuburu) |
| Peter: Now Yoshi-san, what did we have in today’s dialogue? |
| Yoshi: 目をつぶる (me o tsuburu) |
| Peter: Now this is an idiomatic phrase meaning let it go. I will kind of look past what transpired, look past something. Yoshi-san, what’s the literal meaning? |
| Yoshi: To close the eyes. |
| Peter: Yeah, so it’s funny. In English, we have the same expression, to close one’s eyes but we also have to look past, which means literally, to look beyond but also means to let something go. And here it has the same meaning. The mother says to the child, Yoshi-san. |
| Yoshi: 今回の嘘は目をつぶってあげるけど、(Konkai no uso wa me o tsubutte ageru kedo,) |
| Peter: I will look past this lie. I will let this lie go but she follows up with, from now on tell the truth. Now Yoshi-san, is this a pretty frequent idiomatic phrase? In Japanese, do you use this a lot? |
| Yoshi: You hear this on TV a lot in dramas. |
| Peter: So kind of a dramatic expression? |
| Yoshi: Right. |
| Peter: Yeah, but what about the regular person not acting? |
| Yoshi: I think it depends. |
| Peter: On how eccentric that person is and how much he’d like to build things up. |
| Yoshi: Right. |
| Peter: Plus you kind of have to be in a higher position than the person speaking. |
| Natsuko: Yeah right. You are kind of like… |
| Peter: You have that power to let it go. |
| Natsuko: Oh yes, right. |
| Peter: So it’s not like you can use it in any situation. You kind of have to have that power to let that incident go but really we want to make you and help you think like a Japanese person and idiomatic phrases are a big part of this. Some of them you will see are quite common with western ones as today’s idiomatic phrase shows, close one’s eyes to, look past, turn the other way, look the other way but some are quite different as you will see in the future. Okay, next we have |
| Natsuko: 正直 (shōjiki) |
| Peter: Honesty. |
| Natsuko: (slow) しょうじき (shōjiki) (natural speed) 正直 (shōjiki) |
| Peter: Okay. Running short on time today. So we are not going to have time to dissect this conversation but we will have time to go over a few things that we need to point out. Natsuko, after you came home and had the standard coming home greetings ただいま (tadaima) and おかえり (okaeri), you said a phrase, a one word phrase. What was that? |
| Natsuko: あれ！ (Are!) |
| Peter: Now this can be used to express surprise, something you didn’t expect to occur happened, and you are kind of lost for words, you can use this word. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: So at times when something unexpected occurs, you can use this. Okay. All right, anything else we need to cover? |
| Yoshi: I think we are pretty good. |
Outro |
|---|
| Peter: All right, that’s going to do it for today. |
| Natsuko: じゃ、また明日ね。(Ja, mata ashita ne.) |
| Yoshi: またね。(Mata ne.) |
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