Learn how to say the days of the week
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Alisha: Hi everyone! アリッシャです！ Alisha here! |
| Natsuko: こんにちは！ナツコです！Hi everyone, I'm Natsuko. |
| Alisha: Welcome to Lower Beginner, Season 1, lesson 12, What Day of the Week is it in Japanese?. |
| Natsuko: So Alisha, what are we going to learn in this lesson? |
| Alisha: In this lesson, we're going to learn how to learn the days of the week in Japanese, and say and ask what day it is, or what happens on a certain day. |
| Natsuko: And where does this lesson's dialogue take place? |
| Alisha: Emily is throwing out her garbage and meets her neighbour, Mr. Hayashi. |
| Natsuko: では聞きましょう。 |
| Alisha: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alisha: I think for many newcomers to Japan, garbage collection in Japan is a complex and somewhat terrifying process... |
| Natsuko: 笑 そうなんですか？ Really? |
| Alisha: Well, as we heard in the dialogue, Emily got in a little trouble with Mr. Hayashi for throwing out the wrong type of garbage on a certain day, so you have to be careful that you don't mistake the day, or you'll often get a sharply-worded note stuck to your garbage, or a visit from an annoyed neighbour telling you off! In Tokyo, for example, each 区, and even the smaller areas within the same 区, have different set days for different types of garbage. |
| Natsuko: Have you ever got in trouble for something like that? |
| Alisha: Well, I did accidently put out some cardboard boxes on the wrong day... I didn’t realize that they still had my address on them, so the next day they were returned to my doorstep! |
| Natsuko: Wow - they won’t let you get away with it! |
| Alisha: They really won’t! (laughs) Now, most apartment buildings have a set area for garbage - sometimes in the bigger complexes it's a place with a roof and a locking door like a garage, and in others it's just a place on the street with a heavyweight net over it to protect the garbage from crows. |
| Natsuko:The garbage is collected by a せいそうしゃ, literally "cleaning vehicle", or ごみしゅうしゅうしゃ, literally "garbage collection vehicle". |
| Alisha: These trucks have a crusher in the back, which means they can hold up to one and a half tonnes of garbage, which makes it really efficient. OK, now let's move on to the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Alisha: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| What's the first word we're looking at? |
| Natsuko: The word もえるごみ. |
| Alisha: "burnable garbage". It's made up of the verb もえる, "to burn", and ごみ, "trash" or "garbage". This includes things like kitchen waste, non-recyclable paper, and packaging. |
| Let's hear the other categories of garbage we have in Japan. |
| Natsuko: もえないごみ |
| Alisha: Non-burnable garbage. This is the negative form of もえる, "to burn", もえない "to not burn", plus ごみ again for "garbage". It covers things like metal items. Now what's the next word? |
| Natsuko: リサイクルごみ |
| Alisha: As you can probably guess, this means "recyclable garbage". It includes things like paper, newspapers and magazines, as well as glass bottles, cans, and plastic bottles, which are called ペットボトル in Japan. And finally we have... |
| Natsuko: 粗大ゴミ |
| Alisha: "oversize garbage". This refers to things like old furniture and unwanted home appliances, such as refrigerators and TVs. In Japan it actually costs money to throw out 粗大ゴミ. You have to go and buy special stickers from a convenience store in your area, then make an appointment with the ward for a special truck to come and collect your oversize garbage. |
| Natsuko: Yes, it's a pretty inconvenient process, not to mention that it can be expensive... but I guess it reduces waste. It does cause some people to illegally dump their oversize garbage, though. |
| Alisha: Now let's move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alisha: The focus of this lesson is the days of the week in Japanese - how to say what day something is, as well as to ask what day something is. OK, Natsuko, so in English the days of the week are based on old Anglo-Saxon words, but what about in Japanese? |
| Natsuko: It's really easy. First of all, each day ends with the word 曜日, which means "day of the week". |
| Alisha: Listen and repeat, everyone. Make sure to stretch out the "o" sound. |
| Natsuko: 曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs]. And what about the prefix of each day of the week? |
| Natsuko: Well, the days of the week in Japanese are called after elements of nature. So Monday is "moon day", Tuesday is "fire day". Wednesday is "water day", Thursday is "wood day", Friday is "gold day", Saturday is "earth day", and Sunday is literally "sun day", just as in English. |
| Alisha: They sound so poetic translated literally into English! OK, so let's go through these one at a time in Japanese. First, Monday, or "moon day". |
| Natsuko: げつ is the Chinese reading of the character for "moon". Then we add "day of the week", or ようび. So altogether it's げつようび. |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Monday". |
| Natsuko: 月曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Monday" in Japanese. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] 月曜日 |
| Alisha: How about "Tuesday", or "fire day"? |
| Natsuko: か is the Chinese reading of the kanji for “fire”, so...Fire is read か．So it's 火曜日 |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Tuesday". |
| Natsuko: 火曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Tuesday" in Japanese. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] 火曜日 |
| Alisha: "Wednesday", or "water day"? |
| Natsuko: すい is the Chinese reading of the kanji for “water”, so.... 水曜日 |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Wednesday". |
| Natsuko: 水曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Wednesday" in Japanese. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] 水曜日 |
| Alisha: Now we have "Thursday", or "wood day". |
| Natsuko: もく is the Chinese reading of the kanji for “wood”, so... 木曜日 |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Thursday". |
| Natsuko: もくようび |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Thursday" in Japanese. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] 木曜日 |
| Alisha: Now everyone's favourite. Friday! "Gold day", which I feel is appropriate (laugh). |
| Natsuko: きん is the Chinese reading of the kanji for “gold”, so...So it's 金曜日. |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Friday". |
| Natsuko: 金曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Friday" in Japanese. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] 金曜日 |
| Alisha: Now we have the weekend! Saturday, or "earth day", and Sunday, or "sun day", which should be easy to remember. |
| Natsuko: First, the Chinese reading of "earth" is ど. So Saturday is どようび. |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Saturday". |
| Natsuko: 土曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Saturday" in Japanese. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] 土曜日. And as for Sunday, "sun" is read にち. It's the same character as in the word にほん, "Japan". So Sunday is 日曜日. |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Sunday". |
| Natsuko: 日曜日 |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Listeners, say "Sunday" in Japanese. And Natsuko, there's actually a kind of slang term for "Saturday and Sunday" in Japanese, isn't there? |
| Natsuko: Yes! It's どにち, which just takes the prefix of the two words 土曜日 and 日曜日. So you're literally saying "Sat-Sun". どにち. |
| Alisha: Now, let's look at how to say something is on a certain day. We'll be using the pattern you learned previously - AはBです。A is the event you're talking about, and B is the day of the week that event is on. So let's start with something simple. How would we say "Today is Monday"? |
| Natsuko: Today is きょう. Monday is 月曜日。 So the sentence would be きょうは月曜日です。 |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Today is Monday". |
| Natusko: きょうは月曜日です。 |
| Alisha: Now listeners, you try, replacing "Monday" with the day of the week it is where you are. |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs]. Did you manage it? |
| Alisha: In the dialogue, we heard Emily trying to throw out cans and bottles on the wrong garbage day. Cans and bottles are classed as リサイクルごみ. So to say "recyclable garbage is Thursday", how would we go about that? |
| Natsuko: リサイクルごみは木曜日です。 木曜日はリサイクルごみです。 |
| Alisha: Listeners, you try, replacing "Thursday" with a different day, and "recyclable garbage" with a different category. Do you remember them? Give it a try! |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] How did you get on? Now we just have a couple more points to cover. One is asking if something is on a certain day. This is so easy - just add the question marker か on to your statement. So to turn the "recyclable garbage is Friday" into "Is recyclable garbage on Friday?" we would just say... |
| Natsuko: リサイクルごみは金曜日ですか？ |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Is recyclable garbage on Friday?" |
| Natsuko: リサイクルごみは金曜日ですか？ |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Now listeners, you try asking a question using this pattern, but a different day of the week, and the word ピクニック - to ask "Is the picnic on X day?" |
| Natsuko: [wait 3 secs] For example, ピ クニックは水曜日ですか？ |
| Alisha: And finally, to ask "What day is something?" you just replace the name of the day of the week with the word... |
| Natsuko: 何曜日 |
| Alisha: "What day of the week?" So to ask "What day of the week is non-burnable trash?" You would say... |
| Natsuko: もえないごみは何曜日ですか？ |
| Alisha: Listeners, listen and repeat."What day of the week is non-burnable trash?" |
| Natsuko: もえないごみは何曜日ですか？ |
| Alisha: [wait 3 secs] Did you get it? Great! Please check out the lesson notes for more examples and detailed explanations of what we've covered in this lesson. |
Outro |
| Natsuko: See you next time! さようなら！ |
| Alisha: じゃまた！ |
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