Learn how to introduce yourself and tell people how thrilled you are to meet them
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Peter: How to Make a First Impression in Japanese that Will Last a Lifetime |
| Peter: In the previous lesson, we learned the sentence structure [A =B] or [A] is [B]. |
| Naomi: AはBです。 For example, 出発は明日です。 |
| Peter: “My departure is tomorrow.” And we also learned its question form - Is [A] [B]? |
| Naomi: AはBですか。For example, 出発は明日ですか。 |
| Peter: “Is your departure tomorrow?” In this lesson, you will learn how to introduce yourself using this sentence structure from the previous lesson. That sentence structure is… |
| Naomi: AはBです。 |
| Peter: [A] is [B]. |
| Naomi: And also, we'll introduce a lot of useful phrases. |
| Peter:As we mentioned in the previous lesson, before each dialog, we will give you the background, the setting of where the conversation takes place. So Naomi-sensei, this conversation takes place on…? |
| Naomi: The airplane. |
| Peter: In the last lesson, Ashley was talking on Skype with her colleague and getting ready to leave for Japan. In this lesson, Ashley is going to Japan on business and she’s just boarded the plane. She has a window seat and she wants to sit down, but the gentleman sitting in the aisle seat is in her way. She's trying to get his attention so that she can make her through. So the conversation is between… |
| Naomi: Ashley and a man. I think he's Japanese. |
| Peter: Now, since they don't know each other, they'll be using… |
| Naomi: Formal Japanese. |
| Peter: Before you listen to this lesson, we strongly recommend that you listen to All about series Lesson 5 - Top 5 must know Japanese phrases and Boot camp series lesson 1,2 and 3. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 豊田一郎: (singing in Japanese) |
| アシュリー: すみません。 |
| 豊田一郎: (singing in Japanese) |
| アシュリー: あの、すみません。 |
| 豊田一郎: あ、すみません。どうぞ。 |
| アシュリー: すみません。ありがとうございます。…。 |
| :こんにちは。 |
| 豊田一郎:…あ、どうも。 |
| アシュリー: 私はアシュリーです。 |
| :どうぞよろしくお願いします。 |
| 豊田一郎:あ、僕は豊田一郎です。 |
| アシュリー:はい？…とよ らい ち？ |
| :名前、もう一度お願いします。 |
| 豊田一郎:と・よ・た |
| アシュリー:とよた |
| 豊田一郎:い・ち・ろ・う |
| アシュリー:いちろう ・・・ |
| :とよた いちろう さん |
| 豊田一郎:はい。 |
| Peter: One time slowly. |
| アシュリー: すみません。 |
| アシュリー: あの、すみません。 |
| 豊田一郎: あ、すみません。どうぞ。 |
| アシュリー: すみません。ありがとうございます。…。 |
| :こんにちは。 |
| 豊田一郎:…あ、どうも。 |
| アシュリー: 私はアシュリーです。 |
| :どうぞよろしくお願いします。 |
| 豊田一郎:あ、僕は豊田一郎です。 |
| アシュリー:はい？…とよ らい ち？ |
| :名前、もう一度お願いします。 |
| 豊田一郎:と・よ・た |
| アシュリー:とよた |
| 豊田一郎:い・ち・ろ・う |
| アシュリー:いちろう ・・・ |
| :とよた いちろう さん |
| 豊田一郎:はい。 |
| Peter: Now with the English translation. |
| アシュリー: すみません。 |
| Excuse me. |
| アシュリー: あの、すみません。 |
| Um, excuse me... |
| 豊田一郎: あ、すみません。どうぞ。 |
| Oh, sorry. Go ahead. |
| アシュリー: すみません。ありがとうございます。…。 |
| Thanks. Thank you very much. ... |
| :こんにちは。 |
| Hello. |
| 豊田一郎:…あ、どうも。 |
| Oh, hello. |
| アシュリー: 私はアシュリーです。どうぞよろしくお願いします。 |
| I'm Ashley. Nice to meet you. |
| 豊田一郎:あ、僕は豊田一郎です。 |
| Oh, I'm Ichiro Toyota. |
| アシュリー:はい？…とよ らい ち？ |
| I'm sorry? Toyo...raichi...? |
| 名前、もう一度お願いします。 |
| Could you give me your name one more time? |
| 豊田一郎:と・よ・た |
| To-yo-ta |
| アシュリー:とよた |
| Toyota |
| 豊田一郎:い・ち・ろ・う |
| I-chi-ro |
| アシュリー:いちろう ・・・ |
| Ichiro... |
| :とよた いちろう さん |
| Mr. Ichiro Toyota. |
| 豊田一郎:はい。 |
| Yes! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: I can tell you it's really hard to catch foreign names. |
| Naomi: I agree. For me, L and R sounds are difficult, so Cary, Lori, Larry are so tricky. I have to ask many times like... "Excuse me?" or "Say your name again please..." |
| Peter: I understand that feeling 100%! So these phrases are essential, especially when you meet someone for the first time. You don't want to end up calling someone by their wrong name. |
| Naomi: But his name wasn't so bad, was it? |
| Peter: Not too bad. What's his name again? もう一度お願いします。 |
| Naomi: In the dialogue, he said 僕は 豊田 いちろうです. So... 豊田いちろう is his name. |
| Peter: とよた is his family name and いちろう (with the long vowel) is his first name. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Peter: So his name is Ichiro Toyota. Not too bad. Well, I think that’s because Toyota is also the name of the world famous car manufacturer Toyota. |
| Naomi: そうですね。Right. And his first name Ichiro isn’t so difficult either... |
| Peter: Well, that’s if you're a baseball fan, you might have heard of… |
| Naomi: Suzuki Ichiro, or Ichiro Suzuki. |
| Peter: Again, his first name is… |
| Naomi: Ichiro. |
| Peter: As we mentioned in All about series lesson 10, Ichiro Suzuki is a professional baseball player who plays in the Major Leagues. |
| Naomi: そうですね。Right. He is a huge star in Japan. Everyone knows Ichiro. |
| Peter: And that's why it’s important, even if you're not familiar with the major leagues or baseball outside of Japan, you should know that inside Japan, baseball, or in Japanese, 野球, is a very popular sport. So when you’re learning about Japanese culture, you may want to learn a little bit about baseball and at least a little bit about Ichiro Suzuki. |
| Naomi: そうでしょうね。Right. |
| Peter: Ok, on to the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Peter: First word… |
| Naomi: どうぞ [natural native speed] |
| Jessi: go ahead, here you are |
| Naomi: どうぞ [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: どうぞ [natural native speed] |
| Peter: Next... |
| Naomi: どうも。 [natural native speed] |
| Jessi: Thanks. |
| Naomi: どうも。 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: どうも。 [natural native speed] |
| Peter: Next... |
| Naomi: 名前 [natural native speed] |
| Jessi: name |
| Naomi: 名前 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: 名前 [natural native speed] |
| Peter: Next... |
| Naomi: 僕 [natural native speed] |
| Jessi: I ,me (used by males) |
| Naomi: 僕 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: 僕 [natural native speed] |
| Peter: Next... |
| Naomi: 私 [natural native speed] |
| Jessi: I, me |
| Naomi: 私 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: 私 [natural native speed] |
| 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’s the first word we’re going to look at? |
| Naomi: Ok, first of all, I'd like to introduce two first person pronouns. |
| Peter: Naomi-sensei, stop scaring people with big bad grammar terms. |
| Naomi: A pronoun is just a noun. |
| Peter: Person, place, thing. |
| Naomi: Right, and the first person is just the speaker. So we're just talking about the English equivalent to “I” |
| Peter: 私 (watashi) is the standard word for "I". It can be used by both men and women. |
| Naomi: そうですね。Right. |
| Peter: But in the dialogue, we heard a different word, that was… |
| Naomi: 僕 (boku) |
| Peter: It means the same thing as “I” but it is used mainly by men and young boys to refer to themselves. |
| Naomi: In this lesson's dialogue, わたし and ぼく are used. However, they both mean "I" in Japanese. |
| Peter: When they come at the beginning of the sentence. |
| Naomi: そうですね。 |
| Peter: Now, Japanese is interesting because there are multiple ways for a person to refer to themselves. |
| Naomi: That's right! |
| Peter: Now, 私 (watashi) is an extremely polite way to refer to yourself. 僕 (boku) is still polite but it’s primarily used by men and young boys. So these are two polite way to refer to oneself. There’s also a very casual way to refer to oneself for guys, which is… |
| Naomi: 俺 (ore) |
| Peter: And it’s a bit rough. And because it’s an informal way to refer to oneself, it's mainly used by men and young boys. You probably wanna get a grasp on Japanese before you try to use this; it’s not something you use speaking to a teacher or in polite situations. But think about it if a bunch of guys are hanging out together, this is probably the word they would use to refer to themselves, depending on the person. So, Naomi-sensei, what do you recommend for our learners, what should they use? |
| Peter: Naomi-sensei, which one do you recommend the most? |
| Naomi: For Newbies or beginners, I would recommend わたし because it's polite and good for both genders. How about you, Peter? Which one do you use? |
| Peter: In polite situations, I usually use 私 (watashi). In informal situations, I use 僕 (boku). Because, of course, I’m a male speaker and I like to keep things a little more polite. I rarely use 俺 (ore), even though I have many Japanese friends and we speak very informal, and they use it too. But when I first started learning it was just how I was taught that I should probably stick to僕 (boku). OK. What do we have next? |
| Naomi: どうぞ |
| Peter: "Please" or "please go ahead" |
| Naomi: It has a long おー sound. どーぞ。 It's not ど・う・ぞ。But it's どーぞ。 |
| Peter: You hold the vowel. |
| Naomi: そうですね。Right. |
| Peter: You’ll come across with this expression quite a bit. One of the best case I can think of is if you’re in the elevator and you are holding the door for somebody and you can say… |
| Naomi: どうぞ |
| Peter: On the train, when you give up your seat for an elderly person, you can say… |
| Naomi: どうぞ |
| Peter: And if you pass something along to someone, say, at the table, you pass some of them chopsticks… |
| Naomi: どうぞ |
| Peter: So Naomi-sensei, somebody hands you something or someone does something for you, and they use this expression, どうぞ, what should you reply? |
| Naomi: どうも |
| Peter: As we explained in All about lesson 5, the meaning of どうも depends on the situation. |
| Naomi: That どうも in this lesson’s dialogue has a closer meaning to "Hello." |
| Peter: Naomi-sensei, let's stay on the topic of expressing gratitude. What are some other phrases that expresses gratitude? |
| Naomi: In casual situations, we use the well-known phrase ありがとう |
| Peter: It's long vowel, hold the end. Naomi-sensei, one more time? |
| Naomi: ありがとう. You can use this with どうも and say どうも ありがとう. |
| Peter: Two long vowels in there. どうも ありがとう. Please note that どうも ありがとう is a very casual expression. So it shouldn't be used for strangers or people who have a higher social ranking than you. You don’t want to say this to your boss. |
| Naomi: Right. If you want to say "Thank you" in polite way, add ございます after it. |
| Peter: So, どうも ありがとうございます。 |
| Naomi: Right. どうも ありがとうございます。 |
| Peter: Thank you very much. Naomi-sensei, one quick question about this. For a long time, like when I’m a customer, or I would buy something at a convenient store, as a customer, should I say this to the stores I’m patronizing? |
| Naomi: If the clerk was nice to you, maybe you can say どうも, but basically, you don’t have to say anything. |
| Peter: So one of the funny things was it, and I did it for a very long time, I buy something at the convenience store and the cashier would have me the receipt and I would say どうも ありがとうございます. If you think about it, in terms of, you’re saying to the cashier, I would like to humbly thank you for this. It's nice to do and it is super nice, no problem, but most Japanese people, they'll just go with どうも or a different expression. |
| Naomi:To express your gratitude, you can say すみません, which is our target phrase. |
| Peter: All right. On to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: In this grammar section, you will learn how to introduce yourself by giving your name, and learn the different uses of the phrases sumimasen (すみません) and onegai shimasu (お願いします). Because their meanings are contextural, which means the expression meaning changes depending on the use of context. |
| Naomi: Let's start with self-introduction. |
| Peter: As you learned in Basic Bootcamp Lesson #1, When introducing yourself, start with Watashi wa (わたしは、"I"), then give your name, and then end it with the phrase desu (です). |
| Naomi: So, for example, 私は直美です。 “I'm Naomi.” |
| Peter: 私はピーターです。 “I'm Peter.” In the dialogue, Ashley said? |
| Naomi: 私はアシュリーです。 |
| Peter: “I'm Ashley.” Ok, so just recapping. Now, on to the usage of sumimasen. In this lesson's dialog, sumimasen (すみません) was used in three different ways. Let's take a look at the different meanings of sumimasen (すみません). First usage: In the dialogue, Ashley said |
| Naomi: あの、すみません。 |
| Peter: "Ummm...Excuse me" In this case, すみません is used to get someone's attention. Then Ichiro says |
| Naomi: あ、すみません。どうぞ。 |
| Peter: "Oh, sorry. Go ahead." In this case, すみません means "I'm sorry." |
| Naomi: Because he was in her way. |
| Peter: So for a second usage, it's used to lightly apologize. |
| Naomi: We also have... すみません。ありがとうございます。 |
| Peter: The third meaning is "Thank you." It’s used to thank someone for doing something for you. For example, if you’re in the restaurant and somebody brings you something and they put it down, you can say…. |
| Naomi: すみません。 |
| Peter: So, すみません could mean "Excuse me," "I'm sorry," or "Thank you." For a more detailed explanation, please check out Bootcamp lesson 3. Ok, on to our next expression, which also changes with context, that expression is… |
| Naomi: お願いします。 In the dialogue, there are 2 phrases that contain お願いします。So let's review them. |
| Peter: When Ashley introduced herself, she said... |
| Naomi: どうぞよろしくお願いします。 |
| Peter: This phrase is also introduced in Basic Bootcamp lesson 1. So the expression どうぞよろしくおねがいします is often used when you meet someone for the first time. Now, English does not have an equivalent, but literally, this phrase roughly translates to… |
| Naomi: It’s really tough but I’m begging. |
| Peter: So if you think about it this way, whenever you use this phrase, it’s “I’m begging.” |
| Naomi: For something. |
| Peter: So you just have to play this with context. So in this case, you’re meeting someone for the first time, so, I’m begging that you look favorably upon me. |
| Naomi: Or “be nice to me.” |
| Peter: Yes, exactly. I’m begging for your kindness. And kind of think about this as we go through these next few expressions, remember, it’s the context. The expression is kind of like “I’m beggin you,” but it’s the context that changes the meaning. Let's look at what happened when Ashley can’t catch Ichiro's name, she said... |
| Naomi: もう一度お願いします |
| Peter: "One more time, please" is how we’d translate it, but think about it from the begging prospective, “one more time? I’m begging you” |
| Naomi: Right |
| Peter: And then from that, we can understand that "Could you say that again, please?" This phrase was actually introduced in Basic Bootcamp #3. |
| Naomi: Mō ichido (もういちど） means "one more time"; お願いします means “I’m begging you” or "Please." |
| Peter: So “please one more time.” So you can say もう一度お願いします when you are asking for someone to repeat something. |
| OK. Let's recap with a quiz, the quiz will be multiple choice. We’ll give you a question and three possible answers, your job is to guess the answer. Ok? |
| QUIZ |
| Peter: First question - Which expression is the most polite way to say thank you? |
| A） どうも B) ありがとう C)どうもありがとうございます |
| Peter: The answer is… |
| Naomi: C) どうもありがとうございます |
| Peter: どうも is Thanks. ありがとう means Thanks, too, but they’re both informal expressions. Put altogether… |
| Naomi: どうもありがとうございます |
| Peter: is the most polite way to say “thank you.” |
| Naomi: Ok. On to the next question. Which phrase means "Please go ahead." in Japanese? |
| Peter: A) どうも B)どうぞ C)すみません |
| Peter: The answer is… |
| Naomi: B)どうぞ |
| Peter: "Please go ahead." |
| Naomi: Yeah. どうも and どうぞ sound similar, don't they? |
| Peter: Very similar, one syllable difference. |
Outro |
| Peter: That's all for this lesson. In the next lesson (Lesson 3), you'll be learning how to ask and talk about where someone is from. See you in the next lesson. |
| Naomi: じゃ、また。 See you. |
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