Learn about talking about grocery bags
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Sachiko: さちこです。 |
| Akihiro: あきひろです。 |
| Peter: Peter here. Lower Intermediate lesson #27 My Shopping Bag. Sachiko san, 今日はどうですか。 |
| Sachiko: 今日の話はとっても生活に役に立つ話です。 |
| Peter: Yes today is a very useful conversation. Now speaking of today, 今日は久しぶりに絶好調です。 |
| Sachiko: Yes that’s us. |
| Peter: なぜなら今日、男が一匹ではなくて二匹です。 |
| Sachiko: ちょっと待って、ちょっと待って。 |
| Peter: 増えましたよ。 |
| Sachiko: 二匹？なんで引きなんですか。な、なんで二匹なんですか。 |
| Peter: Exactly. Okay, okay let’s slow down a little bit. All right, Sachiko san, do you want to explain why everybody is laughing? |
| Sachiko: Yes when you refer to people, you use a different counter. The counter that Peter used is used for animals and honestly, I think it’s inappropriate because men are all animals. |
| Peter: Sachiko, easy, easy umm… |
| Sachiko: I am kidding of course. |
| Peter: You have a new person on the show so sad…All right yeah, let’s just deep breaths. So yes that was the little play on words there. I used a different counter and a little bit of fun with counters. So rather than the person counter, I used the one for animals. Now speaking of animals, so you got me all worked up, Sachiko. Umm…let’s meet our new guest. I said several months ago. It took this long to find the right guy. |
| Sachiko: It did. |
| Peter: But we did find him. So I mentioned that the number of guys around here would be increasing. So from today on, we have more manpower. |
| Sachiko: Yeay. |
| Akihiro: こんにちは。あきひろです。鎌倉出身です。今、英語と中国語を勉強しています。よろしくお願いします。 |
| Sachiko: よろしくお願いします。 |
| Peter: よろしくお願いします。 All right so with that long intro wrapped up, we have a new member and we are going to get to know him more right after we listen to this conversation. Sachiko san, 今日の話題は何ですか。 |
| Sachiko: ショッピングバックのことですね。 |
| Peter: Shopping bag. |
| Sachiko: はい。 |
| Peter: どうでしょうね。あきひろさん、どうですか。Shopping bag. |
| Akihiro: はい。これは最近、無駄だから止めたほうがいいって言われていますね。 |
| Peter: Sachiko お願いします。 |
| Sachiko: Recently in Japan, we have been trying to reduce the number of plastic bags that they distribute at grocery stores. So the way we do that is for us to bring our own bags from home. That way, we don’t have to produce, manufacture or consume plastic bags. |
| Peter: And that is what this conversation is about. Now this conversation is between a husband and a wife. So casual, informal Japanese. All right, with that said, here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 妻: スーパーに買い物に行ってきてくれる?このマイバッグを持って行ってよね。レジ袋はもらわないで、このカードにスタンプを押してもらってきてよ。 |
| 夫: はいはい。ところで、このスタンプを集めると何かいいことあるの? |
| 妻: 20個たまったら、100円割引してくれるのよ。 |
| 夫: ということは、1枚5円っていうことか。でも、レジ袋を削減したところで、それほど環境にいい影響があるとは思えないなぁ~。 |
| 妻: そんなことないわよ。そういう小さいことをしたところで無駄だと思うことが良くないのよ! |
| もう一度、お願いします。ゆっくり、お願いします。 |
| 妻: スーパーに買い物に行ってきてくれる?このマイバッグを持って行ってよね。レジ袋はもらわないで、このカードにスタンプを押してもらってきてよ。 |
| 夫: はいはい。ところで、このスタンプを集めると何かいいことあるの? |
| 妻: 20個たまったら、100円割引してくれるのよ。 |
| 夫: ということは、1枚5円っていうことか。でも、レジ袋を削減したところで、それほど環境にいい影響があるとは思えないなぁ~。 |
| 妻: そんなことないわよ。そういう小さいことをしたところで無駄だと思うことが良くないのよ! |
| 次は、英語が入ります。 |
| 妻: スーパーに買い物に行ってきてくれる?このマイバッグを持って行ってよね。レジ袋はもらわないで、このカードにスタンプを押してもらってきてよ。 |
| WIFE: Can you go to the supermarket for me? Bring this bag, too. We can get a stamp on this card if we bring our own bags instead of using the store's plastic bags. |
| 夫: はいはい。ところで、このスタンプを集めると何かいいことあるの? |
| HUSBAND: Sure. By the way, what happens if we collect these stamps? |
| 妻: 20個たまったら、100円割引してくれるのよ。 |
| WIFE: When we get 20 stamps, we get a 100 yen discount. |
| 夫: ということは、1枚5円っていうことか。でも、レジ袋を削減したところで、それほど環境にいい影響があるとは思えないなぁ~。 |
| HUSBAND: So in that case, each stamp is worth 5 yen. But I don't think we're going to have much positive impact on the environment just by reducing those plastic grocery bags. |
| 妻: そんなことないわよ。そういう小さいことをしたところで無駄だと思うことが良くないのよ! |
| WIFE: It's not good to think that a little effort is useless! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: あきひろさん。 |
| Akihiro: はい。 |
| Peter: 今日の会話、どう思いましたか。 |
| Akihiro: 今日の会話はすごく身近で大切な問題ですね。 |
| Peter: そうです…ね、大切ですね。どういう風に大切ですか。 |
| Akihiro: うちの近くのスーパーでも最近レジ袋をくれないところがでてきました。 |
| Sachiko: 確かに多いです。 |
| Peter: So recently, the grocery store near your house doesn’t even give out disposable or bags that you throw away. |
| Akihiro: Right. If you want to use it, you have to pay like ¥5 for each bag. |
| Peter: Ah but yes 考え方は違います. We have different ways of thinking. I was thinking from the relationship perspective, the husband and wife. |
| Akihiro: あ、そうなんだ。 |
| Peter: Yeah 環境は大切ですね。 I thought it was the relationship. |
| Akihiro: あ、この二人の関係ですか。 |
| Peter: Yeah but yes Sachiko san, what did you think? |
| Sachiko: I literally have the exact same conversation with my boyfriend at home all the time. I am a stickler for stamp collecting and my boyfriend always forgets, he always doesn’t want to carry around all these cards and so we have a fight all the time about this. |
| Peter: Yes so 同じ立場ですね。 we have the same point of view but 違いますね。環境ですね。 |
| Sachiko: まじめですね。さすが。 |
| Peter: Yeah caring about the environment. |
| Sachiko: じゃ、あきひろさんはレジ袋はどうしてますか？買ってますか？それともマイバックを持って行きますか？ |
| Akihiro: えっと、なんだかんだ言って、やっぱり面倒くさいので、あのーレジ袋をくれるスーパーに行きます。 |
| Sachiko: あららららら。じゃあ… |
| Peter: So you – it’s a little bit of a hassle for you to get these bags. So basically it’s a bit of a hassle for you to take the bag with you to the stores. So you go to places that give out grocery bags. |
| Akihiro: はい。そうですね。はい。 |
| Peter: 私も同じです。 |
| Akihiro: 面倒くさいですよね。 |
| Sachiko: It is, it is. It’s cumbersome to get into the habit of carrying around a bag. |
| Peter: 言いづらいですけどそうですね。 Yeah it’s a bit of a hassle. |
| Sachiko: はい。 |
| Akihiro: そうですね。 |
| Peter: So yeah everyone talks about the environment but well, the action isn’t there yet. |
| Sachiko: Not quite, we are trying. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Peter: Okay let’s move on to these vocabulary. First we have, Sachiko san.. |
| Sachiko: レジ袋 |
| Peter: Plastic disposable shopping bag. Next we have. |
| Akihiro: 割引 |
| Peter: Discount, reduction, rebate 例文、お願いします。 |
| Akihiro: 今からお弁当は全部50円割引します。 |
| Sachiko: From here on, all the lunchboxes will be ¥50 off. |
| Peter: Sounds like 6 o'clock at the grocery stores. |
| Sachiko: It does and I bet you go there all the time at 6 o’ clock. |
| Peter: Before I was married, 結婚する前に六時ぴったりスーパーについてご飯を買っていました。 So like I was eating. I always go to the supermarkets like 6 and pick up my dinner but 結婚しまして、ちゃんと食べます。 |
| Sachiko: あきひろさんは？お弁当よく買うんですか？ |
| Akihiro: はい。あの、よくほかほか弁当に行ってお弁当を買ってます。 |
| Sachiko: あ～いいですね。 |
| Peter: ほかほか弁当。 Now for everybody out there who doesn’t know what that is, that’s like the McDonald's of 弁当, the McDonald's of lunchboxes. 申しわけございませんが Nasty. |
| Sachiko: Yeah you think so 美味しいですよね。どうですか。美味しいですよね。 |
| Peter: Yeah. |
| Sachiko: あんまり？ |
| Peter: Well in the same way I would say McDonald's is delicious. Moving on, next we have |
| Sachiko: 削減 |
| Peter: Cut, reduction 例文、お願いします。 |
| Akihiro: ＣＯ２の削減に世界各国が取り組んでいる。 |
| Sachiko: Countries around the world are trying to reduce carbon dioxide. |
| Peter: Next. |
| Akihiro: 影響 |
| Peter: Influence, effect. 例文、お願いします。 |
| Sachiko: 台風の影響で波が高い。 |
| Peter: The waves are big due to the influence of the typhoon and finally we have |
| Akihiro: 無駄 |
| Peter: Futility, uselessness. 例文、お願いします。 |
| Akihiro: 彼に何を言っても無駄だよ。だって、聞いてないから。 |
| Sachiko: It’s useless to say anything to him. He is not listening. |
| Peter: To waste. 無駄にしないで。 Don’t waste it or 無駄にするな。 which is a strong way of don’t waste it. |
| Sachiko: And it can be used for so many different topics like time, effort, material objects obviously. |
| Peter: For example. |
| Sachiko: But time and effort too. |
| Akihiro: そうですね。時間を無駄にしないでとか言いますね。 |
| Sachiko: So don’t waste time. |
| Peter: Great example. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Peter: All right, let’s move on to the conversation. We will have Sachiko san read the part of the wife and we will have Akihiro read the part of the husband unless you want to switch it around. |
| Sachiko: Oh not quite. |
| Akihiro: Okay 普通で行きましょう。 |
| Sachiko: That will be kind of weird for me. Okay じゃあ、行きます。スーパーに買い物に行ってきてくれる？ |
| Peter: Can you go to the supermarket for me? Now the interesting part here is the end of the sentence. We start off first with |
| Sachiko: スーパー |
| Peter: Supermarket again short for supermarket. Then we have. |
| Sachiko: に |
| Peter: Direction. Marking the direction followed by |
| Sachiko: 買い物に |
| Peter: And here, this is short for 買い物する and the する gets dropped but that’s why here the ne is actually when you go to do something, here is how this particle is acting and then we have the main point of this sentence which is |
| Sachiko: 行ってきてくれる |
| Peter: 行ってくる is to go and come. くれる is one of the giving and receiving verbs and in this case, when we attach くれる to 行ってくる we get. |
| Sachiko: 行ってきてくれる |
| Peter: 来る changes to its て form, 来て and then we have くれる and when the speaker uses くれる, its asking the listener or the listening party to do something for them. So it’s an action for the speaker and then we have…. |
| Sachiko: このマイバッグを持っていってね。 |
| Peter: Take this bag with you. Well there are few interesting points here. First we have |
| Sachiko: この |
| Peter: This |
| Sachiko: マイバッグ |
| Peter: My bag. Sachiko san, help us out here. My bag. |
| Sachiko: Okay this is definitely Japanglish. These are English words that we use in the Japanese language and it means my own bag and that’s to differentiate from the bags that they give you at the store. Whatever bag you bring to put your groceries, that’s your my Bag. |
| Peter: Exactly. |
| Sachiko: And we actually use this terminology for a lot of things. There is another campaign going around bringing your own chopsticks to work or to you know on a picnic so that you don’t have to use wooden chopsticks, disposable chopsticks and those we call My お箸 or My Chopsticks. |
| Peter: Wow I didn’t know that. My お箸. |
| Sachiko: Yeah. |
| Peter: That’s pretty good. All right, well the MY goes in front, attach the noun. This is followed by the object marking particle を and then we have |
| Sachiko: 持って行ってね |
| Peter: Carry and go. Take with you and the ne here emphasizes the fact that the wife wants this action done. Now if we take the proper Japanese, it would be 持って行ってください like please do it for me but here conversation is between husband and wife. So it’s very informal. So the ください gets dropped and it’s followed by ね adding emphasis which is kind of like Sachiko san? |
| Sachiko: はい。 |
| Peter: Then we have |
| Sachiko: レジ袋はもらわないで、このカードにスタンプを押してもらってきてよ。 |
| Peter: So don’t get a grocery bag and have this card stamped and as we mentioned before, some grocery stores give out these cards that you could have stamped. When you spend a certain amount of money at that store, you will get something for free. |
| Sachiko: Right. |
| Peter: And then we have the husband say. |
| Akihiro: はいはい。ところで、このスタンプを集めると何かいいことあるの？ |
| Peter: What happens if we collect these stamps? Very straightforward. Two points of interest. ところで By the way, a nice topic changer here and this can be used whenever you want to change the topic or add something else ところで by the way. Then we have the と conditional If. このスタンプを集めると If we do this |
| Sachiko: 何かいいことあるの？ |
| Peter: Is there something good or will we get something good or what happens. So the と conditional indicates what happens after some action is completed. Next we have. |
| Sachiko: 20個溜まったら100円割引してくれるのよ。 |
| Peter: If we get 20, we get a ¥100 off. If we get 20, we get a ¥100 discount and here we have the たら conditional. In the previous sentence, we had the と conditional, here たら if or in this case, when we get 20. When we get 20, we will get a ¥100 off. Then we move on to the sentence that contains our grammar point for this lesson. This is |
| Akihiro: ということは一枚5円っていうことか。でも、レジ袋を削減したところでそれほど環境にいい影響があるとは思えないな。 |
| Peter: So in that case, each stamp is worth ¥5 but I don’t think we are going to have much of a positive impact on the environment just by reducing those plastic grocery bags. |
| Peter: Okay on to today’s grammar point. We are going to stop here and take a look at today’s grammar point. Today’s grammar point is Sachiko san. |
| Sachiko: なになにしたところで、なになにない。 Even if we do this, doesn’t necessarily mean that this is going to happen. |
| Peter: When we have the plain past of a verb followed by ところで, we translate this as even if. You can use this when you want to talk about your judgment. However there is a nuance here and in this case roughly equivalent to the English, even if. Now in this case, there is kind of a negative nuance about it that even if you do this, the effort is in vain. Let’s take a look at some examples. |
| Sachiko: 例え、私が意見を言ったところで、彼は聞いてくれないだろう。 |
| Peter: Even if I tell him my opinion, he won’t listen to me. So the speaker hasn’t told him but probably due to past experience of telling this guy over and over, telling the person over and over and watching them not listen, the speaker is assuming that the same kind of negative or undesirable results will occur. Next we have. |
| Akihiro: どんなに急いで行ったところで、もう間に合わないだろう。 |
| Peter: No matter how much I hurry, no matter how fast I go, we won’t make it. Again using estimation of route they are going to go, traffic conditions. You know, they have a supply person is probably traveling to a place they go to a lot and can safely say, even if I really speed and do my best to get there, I am not going to make it. So again this outcome is unfavorable and the effort would be in vain are the definitive things when using this grammar point. Then, back to the conversation, finally we have |
| Sachiko: そんなことないわよ。 |
| Peter: That’s not the case, that’s not true. |
| Sachiko: そういう小さいことをしたところで、無駄だと思うところがよくないのよ。 |
| Peter: It’s not good to think that little things won’t make a difference. |
| Sachiko: I agree with that. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: Yes and I agree that we went way over our – lot of time for this lesson. |
| Sachiko: But it was fun hey! |
| Peter: Very fun. Akihiro san. It was great to have you. |
| Akihiro: ありがとうございます。すごい楽しかったです。 |
| Peter: こちらこそ。とっても、楽しかったです。Sachiko san, as always a pleasure. |
| Sachiko: Always a pleasure. |
| Peter: Now in the next week, Natsuko san will be back. So I am going back to the lower levels, back to the lower levels with her. |
| Sachiko: That’s okay. Natsuko and I will hold on to the upper levels. |
| Peter: All right that’s going to do for today. |
| Sachiko: また来週。 |
| Akihiro: また来週。 |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get complete breakdowns, review with quizzes and download printable practice sheets! Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide