Learn about different patterns of introducing oneself
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yoshi: よしです。(Yoshi desu.) |
| Chigusa: ちぐさです。 (Chigusa desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here back with another season 2 episode. Now these episodes are designed to work in tandem with the first season. In the first season, we introduced so many things. We threw so much at you. Now in season 2 what we do here is we go back and we put the meat on the bones. Kind of quoted phrase. Chigusa-san Do you like that phrase? Maybe you need a better one. |
| Chigusa: Try another one. |
| Peter: Right. Okay we bulk it up. We bulk your Japanese up. You know, we kind of gave you the framework and now we are going to put something on that frame. Yoshi-san, help me out here. Chigusa-san, help me out here. Feel free to join in. |
| Yoshi: How about fruits up the tree? |
| Peter: Okay well you get the idea. So here we give you more. Rather than just the introduction, the standard out of the box, we build it up. For example, in today’s lesson, this is going to build on introductions in season 1 way back last December. We showed you how to introduce yourself when meeting someone. Chigusa-san, Can you just refresh my memory? |
| Chigusa: はじめまして。山口ちぐさです。よろしくお願いします。 (Hajimemashite. Yamaguchi Chigusa desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Yoshi: And this is straight out of the textbook. Nice to meet you. I am Chigusa Yamaguchi, please be kind to me. Right out of the textbook. Now what we want to do today is give you something more advanced. We are going to give you a very formal way, a very polite way to introduce yourself. So please listen. Today it’s just Chigusa-san and Yoshi-san introducing themselves in a formal situation. There are many similarities to the pattern that Chigusa-san just gave us. What we would like you to do is listen, try to pick up what’s different. Okay we are going to give it to you once natural native speed. We are going to give it to you again slowly. Finally, one time, natural native speed with the English and we are going to get into the details, really pick apart how the language is working. Okay with that said here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 渡辺: 初めまして。渡辺といいます。よろしくお願いします。 (Hajimemashite. Watanabe to iimasu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| 山口: 初めまして。山口と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。どうぞこちらへ。 (Hajimemashite. Yamaguchi to mōshimasu. Dōzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu. Dōzo kochira e.) |
| Peter: One more time slowly please. |
| Yoshi: もう一度お願いします。ゆっくりお願いします。 (Mōichido onegaishimasu. Yukkuri onegaishimasu.) |
| 渡辺: 初めまして。渡辺といいます。よろしくお願いします。 (Hajimemashite. Watanabe to iimasu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| 山口: 初めまして。山口と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。どうぞこちらへ。 (Hajimemashite. Yamaguchi to mōshimasu. Dōzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu. Dōzo kochira e.) |
| Peter: This time Chigusa-san and Yoshi-san will give you the Japanese and I will give you the English. |
| 渡辺: 初めまして。 (Hajimemashite.) |
| Peter: How do you do? |
| 渡辺: 渡辺といいます。 (Watanabe to īmasu.) |
| Peter: I am Watanabe. |
| 渡辺: よろしくお願いします。 (Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Peter: Please be kind to me. |
| 山口: 初めまして。 (Hajimemashite.) |
| Peter: How do you do? |
| 山口: 山口と申します。 (Yamaguchi tomōshimasu.) |
| Peter: I am Yamaguchi. |
| 山口: どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。 (Dōzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.) |
| Peter: Please be kind to me. |
| 山口: どうぞこちらへ。 (Dōzo kochira e.) |
| Peter: This way,please. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Now as you could see and as you probably noticed, there were many similarities between this conversation and the one we presented last year. Just a few things different in there. The grammar behind them is beyond the scope of this lesson. However we will explain the premise behind this. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Peter: Now let’s first just go over the vocabulary, the new vocabulary in there and this is directly related to the politeness level in today’s lesson. Yoshi-san, what's the first word? |
| Yoshi: 申す (mōsu) |
| Peter: To say. |
| Yoshi: (slow) もうす (mōsu) (natural speed) 申す (mōsu) |
| Peter: Now this is the humble form of to say. In Japanese, the way to say to say is the verb to say that is is |
| Yoshi: 言う (iu) |
| Peter: Break it down. |
| Yoshi: (slow) いう (iu) (natural speed) 言う (iu) |
| Peter: Okay so 言う (iu) and 申す (mōsu) express the same thing to say but their meaning is quite different. Before we get into that, before we delve into that, let’s just take a look at the second verb that we are going to introduce today. |
| Chigusa: いたす (itasu) |
| Peter: To do. |
| Chigusa: (slow) いたす (itasu) (natural speed) いたす (itasu) |
| Peter: Again here we have the humble form of to do. Chigusa-san, what is the polite way to say to do? |
| Chigusa: します (shimasu) |
| Peter: Now if you noticed Chigusa-san in the beginning of this lesson, I asked you to introduce yourself and after you introduced yourself, you said an expression and this expression we use over and over. What’s that expression? |
| Chigusa: お願いします (onegaishimasu) |
| Peter: お願い (onegai) and what’s the last part? |
| Chigusa: します (shimasu) |
| Peter: します (shimasu). Now in today’s conversation, we have |
| Chigusa: いたします。 (Itashimasu.) |
| Peter: The humble form of する (suru). So we gave you 申す (mōsu) and we gave you いたす (itasu), the humble forms but what does this mean? What it means is in Japanese, there are many different politeness levels. Now there is a form of Japanese called |
| Yoshi: 謙譲語 (kensetsu) |
| Peter: Which roughly translates into humble language and this is used to lower yourself or the people in your group down. Please think about it this way and maybe this could be a useful pneumatic for you. Imagine you are face to face with somebody talking okay. So you are on the same level. You see eye to eye but when you use this, it’s almost like you are kneeling down okay. So 謙譲語 (kensetsu) starts with a K 謙 (ken), kneel starts with a K, 謙 (ken), kneel, so they both start with a K. So if you kneel down you are lowering yourself down. If you use 謙譲語 (kensetsu) you are lowering your position down compared to the person you are speaking with and becoming more polite and when you do this, when you use 謙譲語 (kensetsu), you substitute these extremely polite, these humble verbs for regular verbs. Case in point. We have お願いします (onegaishimasu). Now in place of the します (shimasu) we substitute Chigusa-san. |
| Chigusa: いたします。 (Itashimasu.) |
| M: You take out one verb, you put another verb in. Now let’s take a look at the conversation and see how this works. |
| Yoshi: はじめまして。 (Hajimemashite.) |
| Peter: Which means the first time. Literally the first time but when interpreted, in English we would say how do you do? How are you? Just break that down, Yoshi-san. |
| Yoshi: はじめまして。はじめまして。 (Hajimemashite. Hajimemashite.) |
| Peter: Okay and this is followed by |
| Yoshi: 渡辺といいます。 (Watanabe to īmasu.) |
| Peter: First we have Yoshi’s last name. |
| Yoshi: 渡辺 (watanabe) |
| Peter: Break it down. |
| Yoshi: わたなべ。渡辺。 (Wata nabe. Watanabe.) |
| Peter: So your name goes here and it’s followed by the particle |
| Yoshi: と (to) |
| Peter: And then the verb? |
| Yoshi: 言います。 (iimasu.) |
| Peter: This is the verb in its polite form. Non past polite form and this is followed by |
| Yoshi: よろしくお願いします。 (Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Peter: Please be kind to me as I will to you. Now Chigusa-san responds with a much more polite way of introducing oneself. Really pay attention here because in business, if you are introducing yourself in a business situation, if you are doing business in Japan, this is definitely how you want to introduce yourself in a business environment. Yoshi-san, Can I get you to agree with me on that? |
| Yoshi: Yes. |
| Peter: Chigusa-san. |
| Chigusa: Yes. |
| Peter: Okay Chigusa-san. Let’s hear it. |
| Chigusa: はじめまして。山口と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。 (Hajimemashite. Yamaguchi tomōshimasu. Dōzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.) |
| Peter: So the beginning is the same. Nice to meet you. Please remember that this literally means for the first time. Then it’s followed by |
| Chigusa: 山口と申します。 (Yamaguchi to mōshimasu.) |
| Peter: First here we have. |
| Chigusa: 山口 (Yamaguchi) |
| Peter: Chigusa’s last name. The last name goes here. Then it’s followed by the particle |
| Chigusa: と (to) |
| Peter: Then we have |
| Chigusa: 申します。 (mōshimasu) |
| Peter: Now this is different. Yoshi-san, how did you introduce yourself? |
| Yoshi: 渡辺と言います。 (Watanabe to iimasu.) |
| Peter: Again last name, particle と (to) the verb to say 言います (iimasu) but here as Chigusa-san is on the business side, she is using much more polite Japanese and instead of 言います (iimasu), she substitutes 言います (iimasu) with |
| Chigusa: 申します (mōshimasu) |
| Peter: That’s all there is to it. By changing these words just by alternating words, she is expressing her respect for the customer and everything that goes along with it is conveyed through the switching words. Okay then it’s followed up by |
| Chigusa: どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。 (Dōzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.) |
| Peter: Okay first we have. |
| Chigusa: どうぞ (dōzo) |
| Peter: Please |
| Chigusa: よろしく (yoroshiku) |
| Peter: Which is an adverb for the word よろしい (yoroshī) which is polite for |
| Chigusa: 良い (yoi) |
| Peter: Good. Please good also nice works here. Please nice and as it’s an adverb, nicely. Please nicely |
| Chigusa: お願いいたします。 (Onegai itashimasu.) |
| Peter: Please kindly please. どうぞ (dōzo) is making this expression more polite. Now the expression is the same as what Yoshi said. Yoshi-san what did you say? |
| Yoshi: よろしくお願いします。 (Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Peter: But here we substitute again that final word します (shimasu), the verb gets replaced with |
| Chigusa: いたします (itashimasu) |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: The humble form of します (shimasu) and again, here you are lowering yourself down and when you do that, the person who is speaking with deposition goes up, respect is shown by doing this. Now this is quite advanced Japanese but the reason we are showing you here is that these are fixed expressions that no matter what your level, you can use. You don’t have to know the functionality of them. You can say this when you introduce yourself in business. Now some people say – some people might be thinking why are you introducing us to this now like this is – you just said it’s quite complex and stuff but I want to reiterate. I want to really reinforce that you are already familiar with many of these expressions, many of these humble expressions. You just haven’t realized it yet. For example, Yoshi-san, how do you say thank you in Japanese? |
| Yoshi: ありがとう。 (Arigatō.) |
| Peter: Okay. How about Chigusa-san, if someone says to you thank you, what do you say instinctively? |
| Chigusa: どういたしまして。 (Dōitashimashite) |
| Peter: What’s the second part of that expression? |
| Chigusa: いたしまして。 (Itashimashite.) |
| Peter: This comes from the verb いたす (Itasu). So again, you’ve already come in contact with these. You are welcome. As time goes by, it will all start to make sense. Okay but for now, know that these are fixed expressions. If you want to introduce yourself in a business meeting, if you want to introduce yourself in the most polite way possible, the only thing that you have to change in that above expression, the one that Chigusa gave us is, put your name in front of the と (to) that’s in front of 申します (mōshimasu). That’s it. You can now officially introduce yourself in extremely polite situations. For anybody out there studying in Japanese classes, please give this a try. So that’s what we want to convey to you. Please try these expressions out. Please and if you try them out, please let us know the response. Again they are extremely polite. So now we have three ways to introduce ourselves. Yoshi-san, can you just run through those three ways? |
| Yoshi: はじめまして。渡辺です。はじめまして。渡辺と言います。はじめまして。渡辺と申します。 (Hajimemashite. Watanabe desu. Hajimemashite. Watanabe to iimasu. Hajimemashite. Watanabe to mōshimasu.) |
| Peter: With the last one being extremely polite. |
Outro |
| Peter: All right, I think that’s going to do it for this lesson. |
| Chigusa: またね。 (Mata ne.) |
| Yoshi: またね。 (Mata ne.) |
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