Learn how to prepare for the reading comprehension section of the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam
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| Jessi: Hi everyone, welcome to the New JLPT N3 Prep Course Lesson 7. I'm Jessi and joining me in the studio is Naomi-sensei! |
| 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＆６を紹介します。 |
| Jessi: And in this Lesson, we'll cover Questions 4, 5, and 6 of the grammar and reading comprehension section . |
| Naomi:もんだい４、５、＆６は 長い文章を読んで、質問に答えます。 |
| Jessi: In Questions 4, 5 and 6, 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と６の形はほとんど同じですが、問題５と６の方が少し長いです。 |
| Jessi:Questions 4, 5 and 6 all have the same format, but the text passage gets longer with each question. In Question 4, the passage has around 200 characters, in Question 5, around 350characters, and in Question 6, around 550characters. Now, it's a bit of a challenge to review for reading questions through an audio lesson, so what we're going to do is review some really important constructions that you'll see in this section. |
| Naomi: Sounds like a good idea. |
| Jessi: In this section, you'll come across many different styles of reading passages. The most common styles are essays, letters, passages explaining something, and passages containing data. |
| Naomi: Right, so it helps to practice reading all kinds of passages if you can. |
| **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, now one of the keys to correctly understanding a Japanese passage is conjunctions. |
| Naomi:そうです！「接続詞」ですね。 |
| Jessi: Conjunctions are expressions that connect nouns, sentences, phrases, and so on. We've grouped them by usage in the PDF, so let's take some of the more advanced ones that may be new to you from each set and go over them. |
| Naomi: All right, sounds good! |
| Jessi: First are conjunctions that indicate a reason. The first one we'll look at is... |
| Naomi: したがって |
| Jessi: したがって means "consequently", or "therefore". To compare it to another word, it basically has the same meaning as だから. |
| Naomi: そうです！したがって, however, sounds much more formal. |
| Jessi: Yes, you won't hear this in spoken Japanese often. 例文お願いします。 |
| Naomi: 昔は車が少なかった。したがって、交通事故も少なかったのだ。 |
| Jessi: "There weren't many cars in the olden days. Consequently, there were also few car accidents." If you think of it as being equal to "consequently", I think you can get a good feel for this word. And like the word "consequently" in English, したがって is used primarily in writing. |
| Naomi: Right. The next one is なぜなら. |
| Jessi: なぜなら means "because", and it is used to begin a sentence. A good translation would be "The reason is that...". 例文お願いします。 |
| Naomi: 私たちは結婚式をしなかった。なぜなら、お金がなかったからだ。 |
| Jessi: "We didn't hold a wedding ceremony. The reason is that we didn't have any money." |
| Naomi: Let's look at the next set of words. |
| Jessi: The next set of conjunctions are used to indicate additional information. The first one is...? |
| Naomi: および |
| Jessi: This means "and", or "as well". 例文お願いします。 |
| Naomi: この駐車場は土日および祝日は、利用できません。[← add object?] |
| Jessi: You cannot use it on weekends and holidays. 土日, weekends, および, and, 祝日 holidays, so weekends AND holidays. |
| Naomi: This has a very formal feel to it. Basically it means と. or そして. |
| Jessi: Mm, I agree. It looks like something you would see written on a sign. There's another conjunction that is similar in meaning on the list, and that is...? |
| Naomi:または |
| Jessi: And this means "or". 例文お願いします。 |
| Naomi: Eメールまたはファックスで送ってください。 |
| Jessi: Please send it by e-mail or fax. Eメールまたはファックス E-mail OR Fax. So, while および encompasses both, A AND B, または means one or the other - A OR B. (合っていますか？) |
| Naomi: Right. It's like か. So you can rephrase e-mail またはファックス as |
| Jessi:Eメールかファックス |
| Naomi:そうです。 |
| Jessi: The next conjunction is... |
| Naomi: そのうえ |
| Jessi: "in addition", "furthermore". 例文お願いします。 |
| Naomi: おなかと頭が痛い。その上、歯までいたくなってきた。 |
| Jessi: My stomach and head hurt. On top of that, my teeth have also started to hurt. If you think of the literal meaning, it makes a lot of sense. その上 - almost literally, "on top of that". |
| Naomi: そうですね～。If you want to say easily that would be...そして、それから、それに加えて orそれにプラスして。 |
| Jessi: Okay, and lastly, a couple conjunctions that are used to rephrase something. The first is...? |
| Naomi: つまり |
| Jessi: "I mean", "in other words". You use つまり right before you are about to rephrase something you said. |
| Naomi: そうですね。 たとえば、それはノンアルコールビール、つまり、お酒がはいっていないビールだ。 |
| Jessi: "That's non-alcoholic beer - in other words, it's beer with no alcohol in it." You're basically just clarifying something by putting it in a different way. And the second one...? |
| Naomi: いわゆる |
| Jessi: "so-called", "quote-unquote". Example please! |
| Naomi: 彼はいわゆる天才だったが、成功できなかった。 |
| Jessi: "He was a quote-unquote genius, but he wasn't able to succeed." In this sentence, the implication is that while he may have been called a genius, there is some doubt as to whether he really was one. |
| Naomi: そうですね。But いわゆる doesn't always imply doubt. |
| Jessi: That's true. Sometimes it's just used in the sense of "what is known as [blank]" (example?). Okay, so what we've just gone over are the more advanced conjunctions. Aren't you glad we got some of those out of the way? |
| Naomi: Definitely! But don't forget to check the PDF for the rest. |
| Jessi: You may know some of them already, but it doesn't hurt to review! |
| Naomi: Well, that's all the time we have for this lesson. |
| Jessi: Make sure to let us know if you have any questions, and see you next time! |
| Naomi: じゃまた！ |
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