Learn how to discuss your well-being
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| Hi everybody, my name is Alisha. |
| 皆さん、こんにちは。Alisha です。 |
| (Mina-san, kon'nichiwa. Alisha desu.) |
| Welcome to another Whiteboard Lesson! |
| In this lesson, you'll learn how to talk about one's well-being in Japanese. |
| Let's get started! |
| Okay, let's look at the vocabulary. |
| First, we have... |
| げんき (genki), |
| good |
| まあまあ (mā mā), |
| so so |
| ぜっこうちょう (zekkōchō) |
| super good |
| さいこう (saikō) |
| great |
| さいあく (saiaku) |
| feeling down |
| Let's look at the dialogue. |
| While I read it, I want you to focus on the word being used to describe the character's well-being. |
| Let's take a look! Ok, first, |
| げんきですか。(Genki desu ka.) |
| はい、げんきです。(Hai, genki desu.) |
| So the first line here, げんきですか。(Genki desu ka.) |
| means "How are you?" |
| げんきですか。(Genki desu ka.) |
| And the response is はい、げんきです。(Hai, genki desu.) |
| which means "I'm good." |
| In this dialogue, we see here in red, げんき (genki), we learned in the vocabulary section earlier that げんき (genki) is used to mean "good." |
| We typically use it to respond to this question. |
| げんきですか。(Genki desu ka.) |
| Which literally means "Are you good?" |
| The response - |
| はい、げんきです。(Hai, genki desu.) |
| Yes, I'm good. |
| Let's take a look at a few more examples that use different well-being words. |
| Ok, now let's take a look at a few more examples that use different vocabulary words. |
| First is, まあまあ です。 (Mā mā desu.) |
| This means "I'm so so." |
| You can use this in response to the same question here. |
| げんきですか。(Genki desu ka.) "How are you?" |
| まあまあ です。 (Mā mā desu.) "I'm so so." |
| The next example here is |
| ぜっこうちょう です。(Zekkōchō |
| desu.) |
| Which means "I'm super good" or "I'm great," "I'm doing awesome." |
| So again, you can respond to this question with this sentence. |
| げんきですか。(Genki desu ka.) |
| ぜっこうちょう です。(Zekkōchō desu.) |
| Or if you like, you can use はい (hai) at the beginning. |
| はい、ぜっこうちょう です。(Hai, zekkōchō desu.) |
| Great! Now let's take a look at the basic pattern that you can use to create sentences like these. |
| Ok! Now let's take a look at the sentence pattern that you can use to create your own sentences. |
| Simply follow this pattern: [Well-being] です。 |
| ([Well-being] desu.) |
| So here in the [Well-being] part, choose one of the vocabulary word that reflects your well-being. |
| For example, you can put げんきです。(Genki desu.) |
| Or you can put さいこうです。(Saikō desu.) |
| I'm doing great, or "I'm doing super awesome." |
| So, simply following [well-being] with です (desu), which means "is" or "am." |
| In this case, it would mean "am" because you're referring to yourself. |
| I'm great or "I'm good." |
| げんきです。(Genki desu.) |
| So the translation becomes "I'm" plus your well-being word. |
| I'm good or "I'm so-so." |
| You can use this pattern to create your own sentences. |
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