Learn how to use the conditional to give instructions or directions, and we'll also show you how to form and use embedded questions
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| Jessi: Hi everyone, welcome to the New JLPT N4 Prep Course Lesson 7. I'm Jessi and I'm here in the studio joined by。。。 |
| Naomi:こんにちは、みなさん。直美です。Hi everyone, Naomi here.前回は 文法と読解のもんだい３を勉強しましたね。 |
| Jessi: Right. In the last lesson, we covered もんだい 3 of the grammar and reading comprehension section |
| Naomi:このレッスンでは、問題４＆５を紹介します。 |
| Jessi: And in this Lesson, we'll cover Questions ４＆５ of the grammar and reading comprehension section . |
| Naomi:もんだい４＆５は 長い文章を読んで、質問に答えます。 |
| Jessamine Questions 4&5, you read a passage of text and answer questions about the content. So in this section, you are tested on how well you can comprehend what you read in Japanese. |
| Naomi:問題４と５の形はほとんど同じですが、問題５の方が少し長いです。 |
| Jessi:Questions 4 and 5 have the same format, but the text passage in Question 5 is longer, containing around 450 characters. Now, of course it's a bit of a challenge to review for reading comprehension questions through an |
| audio lesson, so what we're going to do is review some really important grammar that you'll see in this section. |
| Naomi: Sounds like a good idea. |
| Jessi: In this section, a lot of the important information in the passages uses the conditional grammar, such as と, ば, たら, andなら. So in this lesson, we'll review those 4 conditionals as well as embedded questions. |
| Naomi:そうですね。Conditionalとembedded questionsを見ていきましょう。 |
| **Instructions** |
| Jessi: First of all, Naomi-sensei, can you please read the instructions? |
| Naomi: はい！ つぎのぶんしょうを よんで、しつもんに こたえてください。 こたえは 1・２・３・4から いちばん いい ものを 一つ えらんで ください。 |
| Jessi: Read the following text and answer the questions. Choose the best answer from 1 through 4. Okay, so the important part is to read the text carefully to get the right information. Let's first go over the 4 conditionals in Japanese that often show up in these passages. |
| Naomi:それでは、がんばりましょう！ |
| **Conditional** |
| Jessi: Before we get into them, there are two points I want to make. First, note that these are conjunctions - which means they connect two sentences. So the patterns will be phrase A, conditional, phrase B. And second, the differences between these 4 conditionals are really subtle. But just know you do NOT need to know the subtle differences among them for the JLPT - only the formation and the basic meaning. |
| Naomi: うん、いいポイントですね。 Good point! The first one is the と conditional. |
| Jessi: This と comes before a natural or a habitual result. It's often used for giving directions or instructions. Can we hear an example of that? |
| Naomi: はい。この道を まっすぐ 行くと、右にぎんこうが あります。 |
| Jessi: If you go straight down this road, there's a bank on the right. So it came after a verb here... 行くと. “If you go”. So と comes directly after verbs, right? |
| Naomi: Right, and also i-adjectives. Before nouns and na-adjectives, though, you need だ before と. |
| Jessi: Got it. So remember that.. だと before nouns and na-adjectives. |
| Naomi: The next one is the ば conditional. |
| Jessi: Now this expresses a general if-then statement. Let's go over the formation for this one - there is a special way to do it. To create the ba form of a Class 1 verb, take the last う sound, and replace it with the corresponding え sound in the same column of the hiragana chart. So for example, う would become え, く would become け, す would become せ, and so on. |
| Naomi:そうですね。 Right. Here's an example. The verb かう is “to buy”. We replace the last う with え. And then add ば. So かう becomes かえば. |
| Jessi: 買えば... if you buy. |
| Naomi: これを買えば、人生がかわります。 |
| Jessi: “If you buy this, your life will change”...it sounds like an advertisement, doesn’t it. |
| Naomi: Yeah, it does. Let's look at the verb できる, which is a Class 2 verb. |
| Jessi: And for now Class 2 verbs, you just take the masu stem and add れば. |
| Naomi: So できる becomes できれば. |
| Jessi: できれば, if I can/if you can, etc. This is a really common word. Can we hear a sample sentences that uses this word? |
| Naomi: Sure.....できれば、来てください。 |
| Jessi: “If you can, please come!” |
| Naomi: Actually できれば is a very useful phrase. |
| Jessi: The rules for the ば forms of Class 3 verbs, adjectives, and nouns, which we didn't cover here, are all in the Lesson Notes, so don't forget to check those out. |
| Naomi: The third conditional is たら. |
| Jessi: Basically, A+たら means “upon completion of A”. This たら can be translated as “if”, “when”, or “after”. |
| Naomi: To make this, you just add ら to a verb or i-adjective in the past form. |
| Jessi: For example, 来る would be 来たら。 |
| Naomi: ケンが来たら、教えてください。 |
| Jessi: When Ken comes, please tell me. |
| Naomi: For na-adjectives and nouns, just add だったら after them. For example, 私だったら、そんなことは言わない。 |
| Jessi: If it were me, I wouldn't say such a thing. |
| Naomi: The last conditional is なら. |
| Jessi: なら means “if” and is used when talking about what will happen in a certain context. So, in English, this is roughly the same as “if it is true that” or “if that's the case.” It attaches directly to verbs, adjectives, and nouns. |
| Naomi: For example - あなたが帰るなら、私も帰る。 |
| Jessi: “If it's true that you're going home, I'll go home too.” So again, don't worry about the differences between the four. Just focus on knowing the meaning, and being able to form them correctly. More details about the formation are in the PDF, so make sure |
| to read through those. |
| *** |
| Jessi: Okay, and now we're going to focus on embedded questions. |
| Naomi: From the name it sounds really technical... |
| Jessi: I know, it does, doesn't it. But what it really refers to is just a question that is inside another statement or question. And example in English would be the question “what time is it?” in the sentence “I don't know what time it is”. And there are two types of embedded questions, right? |
| Naomi: Right- embedded wh-questions, and embedded yes/no questions. |
| Jessi: We'll start with embedded wh-questions. |
| Naomi: Maybe we should mentioned what wh- refers to. |
| Jessi: Good idea. Wh-questions refer to questions that have a question word like what, when, why, which, etc. So except for words like “how”, they all start with wh-, hence the name. Now let's see how to make an embedded wh-question. To make one, you take a question with a wh-word, put question marking particle か after it, and then follow it with a verb. |
| Naomi: I think we need some examples for this to make sense. |
| Jessi: I agree. So, can we have an example sentence please? |
| Naomi: バスが何時に来るか分かりません。 |
| Jessi: “I don't know what time the bus comes.” |
| Naomi: The question inside here was 何時に来る - what time does it come? Then we added か, and 分かりません - which means “I don't know”. |
| Jessi: So can we hear the whole phrase one more time? |
| Naomi: Sure. バスが何時に来るか分かりません。 |
| Jessi: And how about one more example. |
| Naomi: 昨日、どこに行ったか覚えていません。 |
| Jessi: “I don't remember where I went yesterday.” |
| Naomi: Scary. |
| Jessi: So those are a couple of examples of embedded wh-questions. Now let's take a look at embedded yes/no questions. These are simple questions that can be answered with yes or no! The formation is the same as embedded wh-questions, right? |
| Naomi: Right - you have the question, add か, and then follow it with a verb. One thing though - with yes/no questions, you can follow it with か or with かどうか. They are both acceptable. |
| Jessi: かどうか is like “whether or not” in English. And in our examples, we'll use かどうか. So, can we hear an example? |
| Naomi: Sure. 正しいかどうか分かりません。 |
| Jessi: “I don't know whether it's correct or not.”“ |
| Naomi: The yes/no question would be ただしい？ |
| Jessi: Is it correct? |
| Naomi: わかりません。 |
| Jessi: I don't know. So, “I don't know whether it's correct or not.” How about one more? |
| Naomi: 行くかどうか決めていません。 |
| Jessi: “I haven't decided whether or not I'll go.” |
| Naomi: The yes/no question would be 行く？ |
| Jessi: Now this could mean Will you go? Will you go? It depends |
| on the context. |
| Naomi: 決めていません。 |
| Jessi: I haven't decided. So, all together “I haven't decided whether or not I'll go.” |
| Well, that was a lot of information, wasn't it?! |
| Naomi:うん、すごい、たくさんありましたね！ |
| Jessi: So now are you ready to try your hand at practicing and reading a real passage? Well, unfortunately we can't do that through audio, but our wonderful Naomi-sensei has written some practice passages just for you to try! They're real practice questions just like you'd see on the test, so don't miss those. |
| Naomi: Practice passagesはレッスンノートですよね |
| Jessi: That's right. They’re in the lesson notes, so please check those out. |
| Naomi: Yes, please give them a try! |
| Jessi: And also let us know how you do. Well, that's all the time we have for this lesson. |
| Naomi: Make sure you study hard! しっかり勉強してくださいね！ |
| Jessi: Until next time! |
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