Learn the phrases you can use to say "someone looks" or "something looks"
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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 21 – Getting Some Good Japanese News. |
| Natsuko: So, Alisha, we can finally find out why the police needed to speak to Ken! |
| Alisha: That’s right. In the last lesson, the dialog ended when Ken received the phone call. Let’s find out! And, what are we going to learn in this lesson? |
| Natsuko: We’ll learn the expression you use to say “someone looks…” or “something looks…” describing their appearance. |
| Alisha: And where does this lesson’s dialog take place? |
| Natsuko: The conversation is at the office where Ken works. After Ken hangs up the phone, he has a chat with his colleague. では、聞きましょう。 |
| Alisha: Okay. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alisha: Wow; good luck or bad luck for Ken…? |
| Natsuko: I don’t know. At least he now has a good reason to travel again. I don’t know why Ken didn’t go to the police when he realized that he’d lost his wallet. |
| Alisha: Yeah, he could’ve gone to a Koban, like you mentioned in the previous lesson, right? |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Alisha: Maybe because Koban are not a “lost and found”? |
| Natsuko: (笑) But you can report it there. Who knows? A nice person might just bring it to the nearest Koban. |
| Alisha: Is that common in Japan? |
| Natsuko: Yes, it is! Japanese police officers can be described as strict, but that’s only to criminals. Their jobs include being nice to people. |
| Alisha: You mentioned that we could ask them how to get to the place we want to go to. |
| Natsuko: Exactly. We often use “omawari-san” to talk about a police officer in a friendly way. The word “omawari” comes from the patrolling routine, and we add the polite suffix “-san” to address police officers. |
| Alisha: I see; we can see there’s a close relationship between police and the community. That’s nice. Okay; let’s move on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Alisha: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. Natsuko, what do we have for this lesson? |
| Natsuko: First, we have でも, meaning “but” or “however”. This word でも often comes at the beginning of the sentence. |
| Alisha: Can you give us an example? |
| Natsuko: 私は、肉は食べます。でも、魚は食べません。 |
| Alisha: “I eat meat. However, I don’t eat fish.” |
| Natsuko: The first sentence ends with です and a period. Then, you can start the second sentence with でも. |
| Alisha: This でも is not too formal, so we can use it a lot in daily conversations. Now, what’s the next word? |
| Natsuko: だから, meaning, “therefore”, or “so”. Just like でも, だから also comes at the beginning of a sentence a lot. |
| Alisha: The word “dakara” is used when the first sentence is a reason for the second sentence. |
| Natsuko: That’s right. For example, 日本に行きます。だから、日本語を勉強します。 |
| Alisha: I’m going to Japan. So, I study Japanese. |
| Natsuko: Again, 日本に行きます is one complete sentence, so it ends with a period. Then the second sentence starts with だから, meaning “therefore”. |
| Alisha: Sweet! Those are very easy and yet very useful! Now, onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alisha: In this lesson, we’re going to learn how to say “someone looks something” for example, “You look happy.”… |
| Natsuko: Right. In the dialog, Ken’s colleague saw Ken after the phone call and said “you look happy”, which was... うれしそうですね。 |
| Alisha: And how does it work? |
| Natsuko: It’s easy; we use “-sou” after adjectives. When you attach “-sou” to i-adjectives, you need to drop the final “i” and then add “-sou”. |
| Alisha: Ken’s colleague saw that he looked happy after the phone call. To describe his happy feelings, “Ken wa….” |
| Natsuko: うれしいです。 |
| Alisha: The adjective うれしい is the dictionary form, and you take the final “i” out,… |
| Natsuko: うれし・・・ |
| Alisha: and add “-sou” |
| Natsuko: うれし・・・そう、うれしそう。 |
| Alisha: Okay, now let’s practice with some other i-adjectives. Natsuko will give you some i-adjectives, so try conjugating them with “-sou”. |
| Natsuko: たのしい [wait 5 sec.] たのしそう |
| Alisha: たのしい means “fun” and たのしそう means something “seems fun”. Next one, please? |
| Natsuko: おいしい [wait 5 sec.] おいしそう |
| Alisha: おいしい means “delicious”, so you can use おいしそう to say something “looks delicious”. Did you get them right? |
| Natsuko: There’s one exception. The I-adjective いい meaning “good” becomes よさそう when you want to say something looks good, or something seems to be good. |
| Alisha: Okay; now let’s see the na-adjectives. |
| Natsuko: Just like i-adjectives, when you attach “-sou” to na-adjectives, you need to drop the final “na” and then add “-sou”. For example, げんきな would be げんき、そう。げんきそう。 |
| Alisha: And it means someone seems or looks fine. That’s easy, right? Let’s practice. Listeners, conjugate the na-adjectives Natsuko will give you with “-sou”. |
| Natsuko: かんたんな [wait 5 sec] かんたんそう |
| Alisha: かんたんな means easy, so かんたんそう means something seems to be easy. Like this quiz! Next one, please. |
| Natsuko: 便利な [wait 5 sec]便利そう |
| Alisha: 便利な means convenient, and you can use 便利そう to say something seems to be convenient. Ok, for more examples, please check out the lesson notes. Unfortunately, that’s about all we have time for in this lesson. How did you find the lesson? |
| Natsuko: どうでしたか。 |
Outro |
| Alisha: Okay everyone. That’s about all we have time for this lesson! See you next time. |
| Natsuko: じゃ、また。 |
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