Learn how to discuss your language abilities
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| Hi, everyone! My name is Alisha. |
| みなさん、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 discuss language abilities. |
| Let's get started! |
| Okay, let's look at the vocabulary words for this lesson. |
| First is... |
| えいご (Eigo) |
| We saw this in the dialogue. |
| えいご (Eigo) |
| えいご (Eigo) means "English" |
| えいご (Eigo) |
| Next is... |
| フランスご (Furansu-go) |
| which means "French" |
| フランスご (Furansu-go) |
| French |
| Next is... |
| スペインご (Supein-go) |
| which means "Spanish" |
| スペインご (Supein-go) |
| Spanish |
| Next is... |
| ドイツご（Doitsu-go） |
| which means "German" |
| ドイツご（Doitsu-go) |
| German |
| Next is... |
| タイご（Tai-go） |
| which means "Thai" |
| Next is... |
| ちゅうごくご (Chūgoku-go) |
| which means "Chinese" |
| ちゅうごくご (Chūgoku-go) |
| Chinese |
| Next is... |
| かんこくご（Kankoku-go） |
| which means "Korean" |
| Finally, we have... |
| にほんご (Nihon-go) |
| which means "Japanese" |
| にほんご (Nihon-go) |
| “Japanese” |
| You might notice that all of these words in this lesson end with ご (go), this means “language.” |
| So that's an easy thing to remember for this lesson. |
| Ok, let's start by taking a look at the dialogue for this lesson. |
| First is... |
| すみません。えいごを はなしますか。 |
| (Sumimasen. Eigo o hanashimasu ka.) |
| Which means "Excuse me. Do you speak English?" |
| And the response is... |
| はい、えいごを はなします。 |
| (Hai, Eigo o hanashimasu.) |
| Which means "Yes, I speak English" |
| In this dialogue, you'll notice that the words in red correspond to the word for "English." |
| Ok! Now let's look at some speaking examples. |
| First is... |
| はい、フランスごを はなします。 |
| (Hai, Furansu-go o hanashimasu.) |
| This is the response from the dialogue. |
| はい、フランスごを はなします。 |
| (Hai, Furansu-go o hanashimasu.) |
| Which means "Yes, I speak French." |
| In this sentence, the red word here, the language word, is フランスご (Furansu-go), which means "French." |
| So, "Yes, I speak French." |
| Let's look at the second example sentence. |
| はい、にほんごを はなします。 |
| (Hai, Nihon-go o hanashimasu.) |
| “Yes, I speak Japanese.” |
| In this example, we've replaced the word in red, the language word, with にほんご (Nihon-go), "Japanese." |
| So, "Yes, I speak Japanese." |
| はい、にほんごを はなします。 |
| (Hai, Nihon-go o hanashimasu.) |
| Ok! Now let's take a look at the basic sentence pattern for this lesson. |
| The sentence pattern is... |
| はい、[language]を はなします。 |
| (Hai, [language] o hanashimasu.) |
| Which means "Yes, I speak [language]." |
| In this pattern, simply replace the [language ]part of the sentence pattern with the language of your choice to create "Yes, I speak [(that) language].". |
| Ok! Here's a quick tip for this lesson. |
| If you want to talk about a language that isn't on this vocabulary list, there's a really easy way that you can create the language name in Japanese. |
| We do this by putting the country name plus ご (go) together. |
| For example, when we write フランスご (Furansu-go) to create "French," we're putting フランス (Furansu), "France," and ご (go) together. |
| We do the same thing with something like スペインご (Supein-go), which is "Spain" and ご (go) together. |
| This creates "Spanish." |
| So there are some situation where this rule doesn't quite work, for example, えいご (Eigo), doesn't refer to the country, えい (Ei), that doesn't exist. |
| But it refers to "English" as a whole. |
| However, in lots and lots of cases, if you don't know the specific word that you can use to talk about the language you want to describe, you can simply put the country name and ご (go) together. |
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