Learn how to make affirmative comparisons
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Naomi: 直美です。 (Naomidesu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. Who Are You Being Compared to? Hi and welcome back to japanesepod101.com. I am joined in the studio by |
| Naomi: こんにちは。直美です。 (Kon'nichiwa. Naomidesu.) |
| Peter: Now Naomi Sensei, in the previous lesson, Miyu’s mother Kiri, they had their house broken into and she was injured. She was taken to the hospital by an ambulance. Now the focus of this lesson is |
| Naomi: Comparative sentences. |
| Peter: The conversation takes place at |
| Naomi: 病院。成田病院。 (Byōin. Narita byōin.) |
| Peter: Narita hospital. Conversation is between |
| Naomi: 山川先生と天道きりさん。 (Yamakawa sensei to tendō kiri-san.) |
| Peter: Dr. Yamakawa and Miyu’s mother Kiri. Now they know each other, correct? |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Peter: So will they be speaking informal or formal Japanese? |
| Naomi: Formal Japanese because their relationship is not that close. |
| Peter: Okay let’s have a listen to today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| (成田病院) ((Narita Byōin)) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): こんにちは、天道さん。今日は、昨日より 元気そうですね。気分はどうですか。 (Konnichiwa, Tendō-san. Kyō wa, kinō yori genki sō desu ne. Kibun wa dō desu ka.) |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): あ、山川先生、お陰様で。昨日より、いいです。 (A, Yamakawa sensei, O-kage-sama de. Kinō yori, ii desu.) でも、ピラニアと犬が心配です。 (Demo, pirania to inu ga shinpai desu.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): ははは。旦那さんよりペットのほうが心配ですか。 (Hahaha. Danna-san yori petto no hō ga shinpai desu ka.) |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): ふふふ。ペットは雷三さんよりかわいいですから。 (Fufufu. Petto wa Raizō-san yori kawaii desu kara.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): ま、そうですね。(ははは)天道さん、来週、退院してもいいですよ。 (Ma, sō desu ne. (hahaha) Tendō-san, raishū, taiin shite mo ii desu yo.) |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): 本当ですか。ありがとうございます。あ、息子さんはどうですか。 (Hontō desu ka. Arigatō gozaimasu. A, musuko-san wa dō desu ka.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): お陰様で、前より、元気ですよ。いや~。情けない。 (O-kage-sama de, mae yori, genki desu yo. iyā nasakenai.) |
| もう一度、お願いします。今度は、ゆっくりお願いします。 (Mōichido, onegaishimasu. Kondo wa, yukkuri onegaishimasu.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): こんにちは、天道さん。今日は、昨日より 元気そうですね。気分はどうですか。 (Konnichiwa, Tendō-san. Kyō wa, kinō yori genki sō desu ne. Kibun wa dō desu ka.) |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): あ、山川先生、お陰様で。昨日より、いいです。 (A, Yamakawa sensei, O-kage-sama de. Kinō yori, ii desu.) でも、ピラニアと犬が心配です。 (Demo, pirania to inu ga shinpai desu.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): ははは。旦那さんよりペットのほうが心配ですか。 (Hahaha. Danna-san yori petto no hō ga shinpai desu ka.) |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): ふふふ。ペットは雷三さんよりかわいいですから。 (Fufufu. Petto wa Raizō-san yori kawaii desu kara.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): ま、そうですね。(ははは)天道さん、来週、退院してもいいですよ。 (Ma, sō desu ne. (hahaha) Tendō-san, raishū, taiin shite mo ii desu yo.) |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): 本当ですか。ありがとうございます。あ、息子さんはどうですか。 (Hontō desu ka. Arigatō gozaimasu. A, musuko-san wa dō desu ka.) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): お陰様で、前より、元気ですよ。いや~。情けない。 (O-kage-sama de, mae yori, genki desu yo. iyā nasakenai.) |
| 今度は、英語が入ります。 (Kondo wa, eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| (成田病院) ((Narita Byōin)) |
| (Narita Hospital) |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): こんにちは、天道さん。今日は、昨日より 元気そうですね。気分はどうですか。 (Konnichiwa, Tendō-san. Kyō wa, kinō yori genki sō desu ne. Kibun wa dō desu ka.) |
| YAMAKAWA CHOUUN: Hello Mrs. Tendo. You look better than you did yesterday. How do you feel? |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): あ、山川先生、お陰様で。昨日より、いいです。 (A, Yamakawa sensei, O-kage-sama de. Kinō yori, ii desu.) でも、ピラニアと犬が心配です。 (Demo, pirania to inu ga shinpai desu.) |
| TENDO KIRI: Ah, Dr. Yamakawa, thanks to you, I feel better than I did yesterday. But I’m worried about my piranhas and my dog. |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): ははは。旦那さんよりペットのほうが心配ですか。 (Hahaha. Danna-san yori petto no hō ga shinpai desu ka.) |
| YAMAKAWA CHOUUN: Hahaha. You worry more about your pets than your husband? |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri): ふふふ。ペットは雷三さんよりかわいいですから。 (Fufufu. Petto wa Raizō-san yori kawaii desu kara.) |
| TENDO KIRI: Haha. Well, the pets are cuter than Raizou-san. |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): ま、そうですね。(ははは)天道さん、来週、退院してもいいですよ。 (Ma, sō desu ne. (hahaha) Tendō-san, raishū, taiin shite mo ii desu yo.) |
| YAMAKAWA CHOUUN: Well, you have a point (laughs). Mrs. Tendo, you’ll be released next week. |
| 天道 きり (Tendō kiri) : 本当ですか。ありがとうございます。あ、息子さんはどうですか。 (Hontō desu ka. Arigatō gozaimasu. A, musuko-san wa dō desu ka.) |
| TENDO KIRI: Really? Thank you. Oh, how’s your son? |
| 山川 朝雲 (Yamakawa asakumo): お陰様で、前より、元気ですよ。いや~。情けない。 (O-kage-sama de, mae yori, genki desu yo. iyā nasakenai.) |
| YAMAKAWA CHOUUN: Thanks to you, he’s doing better than before. He’s pathetic. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Naomi: Do you remember who Mr. Yamakawa is? |
| Peter: Umm he was the doctor right? |
| Naomi: はい。そうです。 (Hai. Sōdesu.) |
| Peter: Which doctor, the son or the dad’s friend? |
| Naomi: The son is not a doctor. |
| Peter: So this is the dad’s friend? |
| Naomi: はい。そうです。 (Hai. Sōdesu.) |
| Peter: Two hatched the plan together. So Naomi Sensei, I am a little confused. Is this the same day? |
| Naomi: Ah no, it’s maybe like a week after or so. |
| Peter: Okay we probably should have specified that. |
| Naomi: あ、そっか。 (A, sokka.) |
| Peter: Now it makes a little more sense because Kiri asks |
| Naomi: 息子さんはどうですか？ (Musuko-san wa dōdesu ka?) |
| Peter: How is your son doing and Mr. Yamakawa said |
| Naomi: 前より元気ですよ。 (Mae yori genkidesu yo) |
| Peter: So he is better than before. |
| Naomi: Yeah so it means something had happened to Yukio. |
| Peter: And at the end he says |
| Naomi: 情けない。 (Nasakenai.) What a pity! |
| Peter: Yeah what a pity is pretty good translation. 情けない。 (Nasakenai.) |
| Naomi: 情けない。何が起きたんでしょうね。 (Nasakenai. Nani ga okita ndeshou ne.) I wonder what happened! |
| Peter: Yeah I don’t know but I think we are getting closer and closer to find out what happened. Okay what we are going to do here is take a look at the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Peter: Okay. First word |
| Naomi: 気分 (kibun) |
| Peter: Feeling. |
| Naomi: (slow)きぶん (Ki bun) (natural speed) 気分 (kibun) |
| Peter: Next |
| Naomi: おかげさまで (Okage-sa made) |
| Peter: Thanks to |
| Naomi: (slow)おかげさまで (Okage-sa made) (natural speed) おかげさまで (Okage-sa made) |
| Peter: Next |
| Naomi: 旦那 (danna) |
| Peter: Husband |
| Naomi: (slow)だんな (Dan'na) (natural speed) 旦那 (danna) |
| Peter: Next |
| Naomi: 退院 (taiin) |
| Peter: Leaving the hospital. |
| Naomi: (slow)たいいん (Ta ī n) (natural speed) 退院 (taiin) |
| Peter: Next |
| Naomi: 情けない (nasakenai) |
| Peter: Shameful, pathetic. |
| Naomi: (slow)なさけない (Nasakenai) (natural speed) 情けない (nasakenai) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Peter: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. Naomi Sensei, what do we have first? |
| Naomi: 退院 (Taiin) |
| Peter: Now this is a noun and it means leaving the hospital. The opposite is |
| Naomi: 入院 (Nyūin) |
| Peter: Hospitalization. Here I think it’s very, very important for you to see the characters. Seeing the characters will help make this word stick I think a lot better because it’s very logical. Naomi Sensei, we have the nouns here but how do we make them into verbs? |
| Naomi: It’s easy. Just put する (Suru) or をする (o suru). |
| Peter: So to be discharged from a hospital is |
| Naomi: 退院する (Taiin suru) |
| Peter: To be hospitalized is |
| Naomi: 入院する (Nyūin suru) |
| Peter: Now in today’s dialogue, we had |
| Naomi: 来週、退院してもいいですよ。 (Raishū, taiin shite mo īdesu yo.) |
| Peter: You can leave the hospital next week. Now remember the usage of て (Te) |
| Naomi: もいい (Mo ī) |
| Peter: Which means you may or you can do something which we covered in lesson 15 of this series. Now what’s the next phrase you want to look at? |
| Naomi: おかげさまで。 (Okage-sa made.) That’s your favorite phrase right? |
| Peter: Ah I use this all the time. How are you? Oh おかげさまで。 (Okage-sa made.) thanks to you, I am good. |
| Naomi: How is your business? |
| Peter: おかげさまで。 (Okage-sa made.)The first part おかげ (Okage) means |
| Naomi: Support or help. |
| Peter: From somebody. The phrase おかげさまで (Okage-sa made) is used to express one’s general gratitude towards the listener or people around the speaker. |
| Naomi: 例えば、(Tatoeba,) For example, ピーターさん、元気ですか？ (Pītā-san, genkidesuka?) |
| Peter: おかげさまで、元気です。 (Okage-sama de, genkidesu.) So how are you doing? Thanks to you, I am doing well. |
| Naomi: Yeah you can switch the order too 元気です。おかげさまで。 (Genkidesu. Okage-sa made.) that’s okay too. |
| Peter: And you can also kind of use it like in a sarcastic way. |
| Naomi: あ～おかげさまで。 (A ~ okage-sa made.) |
| Peter: おかげさまで。 (Okage-sa made.) So |
| Naomi: そうですね。あの、おかげさまで忙しいです、ピーターさん。 (Sōdesu ne. Ano, okage-samade isogashīdesu, pītā-san.) |
| Peter: まぁ、こちらこそおかげさまで、忙しいです。 (Ma~a, kochira koso okage-sama de, isogashīdesu.) Thanks to you not doing your work. I am busy too. Ah this is better 直美先生のお休みのおかげで私も忙しいです。 (Naomi sensei no o yasumi no okage de watashi mo isogashīdesu.) |
| Naomi: You are blaming my taking holidays. |
| Peter: Yeah I wanted to blame your overall effort but any way moving on, let’s take a look at the grammar point for this lesson. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: Naomi Sensei, what are we looking at today? |
| Naomi: Comparative sentences. |
| Peter: So as we discussed in the previous lesson, comparative sentences are used to compare two quantities or qualities. Now we covered question and answer sentences in the previous lesson. In this lesson, we are going to do comparative, affirmative sentences. Now comparative affirmative sentences basically in English, we can think of them as more than and the reason I chose those words more than, you will see in just a minute, okay Naomi Sensei, what do we have in the dialogue? |
| Naomi: ペットは雷三より可愛いです。 (Petto wa raizō yori kawaiidesu.) |
| Peter: Pets are cuter than Raizo. |
| Naomi: What kind of a sentence is this? |
| Peter: Very subjective, very objective. Okay X or something より (Yori) means more than or X compared with |
| Naomi: 雷三さんより (Raizō-san yori) |
| Peter: Than Raizo |
| Naomi: 昨日より (Kinō yori) |
| Peter: Than yesterday. |
| Naomi: バスより (Basu yori) |
| Peter: Than the bus. Now in Japanese, there aren’t comparatives. So in English, for example big becomes bigger but in Japanese, that’s not the case. |
| Naomi: It stays the same. |
| Peter: The placement of the particle より (Yori) is the basis for comparative sentences. Now for affirmative sentences, the subject is established with the particle は (Wa). |
| Naomi: ペットは (Petto wa) |
| Peter: Pets. Then you add the comparing object followed by |
| Naomi: より (Yori) |
| Peter: Than |
| Naomi: 雷三さんより (Raizō-san yori) |
| Peter: So literally to this point, we have pets Raizo than |
| Naomi: And add adjective 可愛いです。 (Kawaiidesu.) |
| Peter: Cute. Pets Raizo is cute. Pets are cuter than Raizo. Can we have another example? |
| Naomi: I think Osaka is the second smallest prefecture in Japan. So 大阪は東京より小さいです。 (Ōsaka wa Tōkyō yori chīsaidesu.) |
| Peter: Osaka is smaller than Tokyo. Let’s go through this sentence one more time. First we have |
| Naomi: 大阪は (Ōsaka wa) |
| Peter: Osaka. |
| Naomi: 東京より (Tōkyō yori) |
| Peter: Tokyo than |
| Naomi: 小さいです。 (Chīsaidesu.) |
| Peter: Small. Osaka, Tokyo is small. Osaka is smaller than Tokyo. |
| Naomi: Yeah but Osaka is livelier than Tokyo right? So 大阪は東京より賑やかです。 (Ōsaka wa Tōkyō yori nigiyakadesu.) |
| Peter: Osaka is livelier than Tokyo. So Naomi Sensei, you have a little test for us. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) I am going to start the sentence. So please finish the sentence by adding appropriate adjective plus です. カタカナは漢字より (Desu. Katakana wa kanji yori) |
| Peter: 難しいです。 (Muzukashīdesu.) |
| Naomi: ね。ピーターは言うよね。 (Ne. Pītā wa iu yo ne.) That’s what you always say. |
| Peter: Katakana is more difficult than Kanji. |
| Naomi: じゃあ、ピーターは直美より (Jā, pītā wa Naomi yori) |
| Peter: 頭がいいです。 (Atamagaīdesu.) |
| Naomi: Are you following the script? I put 背が高いです。 (Segatakaidesu.) |
| Peter: Oh yeah, yeah. So Peter is smarter than Naomi. |
| Naomi: No, no, no. |
| Peter: And 背が高いです。 (Segatakaidesu.) and taller than Naomi. |
| Naomi: はい。ピーターは直美より背が高いです。 (Hai. Pītā wa Naomi yori segatakaidesu.) |
| Peter: ピーターは直美より頭が良いです。 (Pītā wa Naomi yori atamagaiidesu.) |
| Naomi: ピーターは直美よりちょっと頭がいいです。 (Pītā wa Naomi yori chotto atamagaīdesu.) |
| Peter: ずっと。 (Zutto.) |
| Naomi: そうかもね。 (Sō kamo ne.) May be. |
| Peter: Let’s try 直美先生はピーターより (Naomi sensei wa pītā yori) |
| Naomi: 優しいです。 (Yasashīdesu.) Kind |
| Peter: かな？ (Ka na?) |
| Naomi: So 皆さん、 (Minasan,) what do you think? |
Outro |
| Peter: That’s going to do for today. |
| Naomi: じゃあ、また。 (Jā, mata.) |
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