Learn about describing the existence of things using "iru" and "aru"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natsuko:こんにちは、ナツコです。(Kon’nichiwa, Natsuko desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. Natsuko-san for a newbie! |
| Natsuko: Yes. こんにちは。(Kon’nichiwa.) |
| Peter: こんにちは。(Kon’nichiwa.) It’s been a long time. |
| Natsuko: Really? |
| Peter: Yep. |
| Natsuko: Hmm, maybe. |
| Peter: Sakura-san has been taking over newbie duties. |
| Natsuko: Oh yes. |
| Peter: While you are out there in the higher levels. |
| Natsuko: No, I will come here occasionally. |
| Peter: 連れて行って。(Tsurete itte.) Take me with you to the higher levels. |
| Natsuko: You are already there. |
| Peter: Ah Natsuko, it’s great to have you back. |
| Natsuko: Thank you. |
| Peter: So what are we talking about today? |
| Natsuko: デパート (depāto) |
| Peter: Department stores. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Now Natsuko-san, when I was studying Japanese in college, they had the textbook and you open the page and you see the three women all dressed up in a nice uniform pointing people to where they want to go in the department store. |
| Natsuko: Wow. |
| Peter: Yeah, it’s one of these things that is in every textbook. |
| Natsuko: Really? |
| Peter: Yeah. So when I first came to Japan, I was really excited to see them in the department store all dressed up in uniforms. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, yeah. |
| Peter: Now the whole point with this is two things. One, it is true. |
| Natsuko: Yes, definitely. |
| Peter: Usually two or three women dressed up in really nice uniforms. You go in and you can ask them anything you want about well, related to the store. So today, we are going to be focusing on that. |
| Natsuko: Wow. |
| Peter: Finding out where, what you want is in the department store. So are you ready, Natsuko-san? |
| Natsuko: Okay. |
| Peter: All right, without further adieu, here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| (デパートで) (Depāto de) |
| A(女) (onna) : すみません。家具はどこですか。( Sumimasen. Kagu wa doko desu ka.) |
| B(女) (onna) : 家具売場は６階です。(Kagu uriba wa rokkai desu.) |
| C(男) (otoko) : すみません。紳士服はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Shinshifuku wa doko desu ka.) |
| B(女) (onna) : はい、３階でございます。(Hai, san-kai de gozaimasu.) |
| D(女) (onna) : すみません。婦人服は何階ですか。(Sumimasen. Fujinfuku wa nan-kai desu ka.) |
| B(女) (onna) : はい、５階です。(Hai, go-kai desu.) |
| もう一度お願いします。ゆっくりお願いします。(Mō ichi-do onegai shimasu. Yukkuri onegai shimasu.) |
| A(女) (onna) : すみません。家具はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Kagu wa doko desu ka.) |
| B(女) (onna) : 家具売場は６階です。(Kagu uriba wa rokkai desu.) |
| C(男) (otoko) : すみません。紳士服はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Shinshifuku wa doko desu ka.) |
| B(女) (onna) : はい、３階でございます。(Hai, san-kai de gozaimasu.) |
| D(女) (onna) : すみません。婦人服は何階ですか。(Sumimasen. Fujinfuku wa nan-kai desu ka.) |
| B(女) (onna) : はい、５階です。(Hai, go-kai desu.) |
| 次は英語が入ります。(Tsugi wa Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| (デパートで) (Depāto de) |
| (At a department store) |
| A(女) (onna) : すみません。家具はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Kagu wa doko desu ka.) |
| A (WOMAN): Excuse me. Where is the furniture? |
| department? |
| B(女) (onna) : 家具売場は６階です。(Kagu uriba wa rokkai desu.) |
| B (WOMAN): Furniture is on the 6th floor. |
| C(男) (otoko) : すみません。紳士服はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Shinshifuku wa doko desu ka.) |
| C (MAN): Excuse me? Where is men's clothing? |
| B(女) (onna) : はい、３階でございます。(Hai, san-kai de gozaimasu.) |
| B (WOMAN): It's on the 3rd floor. |
| D(女) (onna) : すみません。婦人服は何階ですか。(Sumimasen. Fujinfuku wa nan-kai desu ka.) |
| D (WOMAN): Excuse me. Where is women's clothing? |
| B(女) (onna) : はい、５階です。(Hai, go-kai desu.) |
| B (WOMAN): It's on the 5th floor. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: All right Natsuko-san, what do you think? |
| Natsuko: I think this woman in the information desk at department stores talks very politely. |
| Peter: Very polite. Would you say our conversation accurately reflects the way they would talk? |
| Natsuko: I think it does. |
| Peter: Yeah, I think the second response adequately reflects what they would say and there is one more that we are going to get into. The Japanese is a bit tricky but Natsuko-san is here. So it’s not going to be an issue. All right, with that said, let’s check out today’s vocab. Natsuko-san, what do we have first? |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natsuko: デパート (depāto) |
| Peter: Department store. |
| Natsuko: (slow) デパート (depāto) (natural speed) デパート (depāto) |
| Peter: And this is short for? |
| Natsuko: Department store. |
| Peter: So again we shrink it down to just デパート (depāto). That’s it. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, that’s it for Japanese. |
| Peter: Yeah, crunched down, very compact. Next we have. |
| Natsuko: 家具売り場 (kagu uriba) |
| Peter: Furniture floor. |
| Natsuko: (slow) かぐうりば (kagu uriba) (natural speed) 家具売り場 (kagu uriba) |
| Peter: Now here we have two words. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Natsuko-san, what’s the first word? |
| Natsuko: 家具 (kagu) |
| Peter: Furniture, followed by |
| Natsuko: 売り場 (uriba) |
| Peter: Literally selling place. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: And we can translate this as a place where things are sold and in this case, it’s the floor of the department store. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, right. |
| Peter: So 売り場 (uriba) can be in many places. It can be inside of the department store, it could be outside. |
| Natsuko: Yeah. |
| Peter: Like a flea market although Japanese does have a word for flea market but 売り場 (uriba) is a place where things are sold. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: And in this case, we are talking about furniture. Next we have. |
| Natsuko: 階 (kai) |
| Peter: Floor. |
| Natsuko: (slow) かい (kai) (natural speed) 階 (kai) |
| Peter: Actually the counter for floors. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Hmm is it the counters or is it – You are not actually counting floors. |
| Natsuko: Yeah. |
| Peter: But the ordinal counter for floors? |
| Natsuko: Yeah right, which floor you are in or which floor you are talking about. |
| Peter: Yes, there it is. Now this is a high frequency counter because in Japanese there are so many buildings because of so many people who are located in such a small or narrow area. So this is high frequency. |
| Natsuko: I see. |
| Peter: Now there is a catch to counting with these. So Natsuko-san is just going to run through 1 through 10 counting floors. |
| Natsuko:１階 (ikkai) |
| Peter: First floor. |
| Natsuko:２階 (ni-kai) |
| Peter: Second floor. |
| Natsuko:３階 (san-gai) |
| Peter: Third floor and notice the change here. In the previous two, we had 階 (kai) as in |
| Natsuko:１階 (ikkai), ２階 (ni-kai) |
| Peter: Here we have |
| Natsuko:３階 (san-gai) |
| Peter: Third floor. |
| Natsuko:４階 (yon-kai) |
| Peter: Fourth floor. |
| Natsuko:５階 (go-kai) |
| Peter: Fifth floor. |
| Natsuko:６階 (rokkai) |
| Peter: Sixth floor. |
| Natsuko:７階 (nana-kai) |
| Peter: Seventh floor. |
| Natsuko: ８階 (hachi-kai) |
| Peter: Eighth floor. |
| Natsuko: ９階 (kyū-kai) |
| Peter: Ninth floor. |
| Natsuko:１０階 (jukkai) |
| Peter: 10th floor. Now afterwards you can just keep going like this to get the floor you are looking for. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: But pay attention to the third floor. Now you may also hear３階 (san-kai). |
| Natsuko: Yeah, right. I occasionally hear that. |
| Peter: Yeah. |
| Natsuko: So I think it’s kind of okay but formally…. |
| Peter: Natsuko said it, I didn’t. |
| Natsuko: Well you know, people will know what you are talking about. |
| Peter: Yeah. Next we have. |
| Natsuko: 紳士服 (shinshifuku) |
| Peter: Men’s wear. |
| Natsuko: (slow) しんしふく (shinshifuku) (natural speed) 紳士服 (shinshifuku) |
| Peter: Now this is a great word. Not only is it a great word, it’s also a very difficult vocabulary word. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, right. |
| Peter: I think there are a lot of people maybe even in the middle or intermediate level who would hear this word or heard this conversation and probably didn’t know what this word means. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, right. |
| Peter: So let’s take a closer look at this word. We have two words in there. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: First we have. |
| Natsuko: 紳士 (shinshi) |
| Peter: Gentleman. Natsuko-san, feel free to make example sentences using my name? |
| Natsuko: ピーターは紳士ではありません。ん？(Pītā wa shinshi de wa arimasen. N?) |
| Peter: Thank you, Natsuko-san. Peter is not a gentleman. Not really what I had in mind when I asked for it but nevertheless, thank you. |
| Natsuko: Oh I thought you were expecting that. |
| Peter: No, no, here we use です(desu), Natsuko-san. です (desu), 紳士です (shinshi desu). Anyway, the point is that this word is gentleman. Now not an everyday word. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, not actually not. |
| Peter: But this is definitely good for some bonus points if you are talking to your Japanese teacher. |
| Natsuko: Wow. |
| Peter: Then we have |
| Natsuko: 服 (fuku) |
| Peter: Clothes. So these two words make up men’s wear and the kanji for this, you definitely want to check out the PDF because inside the PDF, we are going to have the kanji. So when you go shopping at a Japanese department store, these are actually the characters you are going to look for. |
| Natsuko: Right. |
| Peter: It took me forever to find men’s wear when I first came to Japan. |
| Natsuko: Why? |
| Peter: Because I couldn’t read these characters. I was looking for guys or men’s or common spoken words. |
| Natsuko: Oh yeah, right. |
| Peter: So I could never make that transition when I finally made it to the department store. |
| Natsuko: You should have gone through all of the floors to find out. |
| Peter: Lovely advice Natsuko-san, very efficient. This is followed by |
| Natsuko: 婦人服 (fujinfuku) |
| Peter: Women’s clothing. |
| Natsuko: (slow) ふじんふく (fujinfuku) (natural speed) 婦人服 (fujinfuku) |
| 婦人 (fujin) means ladies, right? |
| Peter: Yeah. |
| Natsuko: So this is also not a very commonly used word as is but the word 婦人服 (fujinfuku) and 紳士服 (shinshifuku) of course, you see lots of those especially in department stores. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Peter: All right, now with that said, let’s take a look at today’s conversation. We start off with the first customer. |
| Natsuko: すみません。家具はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Kagu wa doko desu ka.) |
| Peter: Excuse me, where is the furniture and let’s just back up and walk through this. First we have |
| Natsuko: すみません (sumimasen) |
| Peter: Excuse me and here the person is approaching the counter and asking for the attention of the information lady. Then we have. |
| Natsuko: 家具はどこですか (kagu wa doko desu ka) |
| Peter: Where is the furniture? Now let’s just back up and take a look piece by piece at the sentence. First. |
| Natsuko: 家具 (kagu) |
| Peter: Furniture. |
| Natsuko: は (wa) |
| Peter: Topic marking particle. So the topic is furniture. |
| Natsuko: どこ (doko) |
| Peter: Where? |
| Natsuko: ですか (desu ka) |
| Peter: Is it. Literally, furniture where is, but again we translate this as where is the furniture? Answer to this. |
| Natsuko: 家具売り場は６階です。(Kagu uriba wa rokkai desu.) |
| Peter: The place where they are selling the furniture is the 6th floor or the furniture floor is the 6th floor. Let’s take a look at this. |
| Natsuko: 家具売り場 (kagu uriba) |
| Peter: Place where they are selling the furniture. Again furniture places where things are sold. |
| Natsuko: は (wa) |
| Peter: Topic marking particle. |
| Natsuko: ６階 (rokkai) |
| Peter: Sixth floor. |
| Natsuko: です (desu) |
| Peter: Is. Literally, furniture the place where they are selling 6th floor is, but if we just back up, if we go to the end of the sentence, 6th floor is the place where they are selling the furniture. The 6th floor is the furniture floor. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Then we have our next customer. |
| Natsuko: すみません。紳士服はどこですか。(Sumimasen. Shinshifuku wa doko desu ka.) |
| Peter: Excuse me, where is men’s wear? Now here notice, again we have すみません (sumimasen) getting the attention of the person working at the information counter. This is followed by |
| Natsuko: 紳士服はどこですか (shinshifuku wa doko desu ka) |
| Peter: Where is men’s wear? The only difference between this sentence and the previous one asking for where something is. |
| Natsuko: 紳士服 (shinshifuku) |
| Peter: Is the thing you are looking for. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: And in this case, as Natsuko said. |
| Natsuko: 紳士服 (shinshifuku) |
| Peter: Men’s wear. So literally men’s wear is where? So please get used to this pattern. Now you have this pattern. It’s in your arsenal. Only thing you need to change is what comes before. |
| Natsuko: はどこですか (wa doko desu ka) |
| Peter: All right. The answer to this is |
| Natsuko: はい、３階でございます。(Hai, san-kai de gozaimasu.) |
| Peter: Yes, the 3rd floor. So let’s just rewind and check this out. We have first |
| Natsuko: はい (hai) |
| Peter: Yes. |
| Natsuko: ３階 (san-gai) |
| Peter: Third floor. |
| Natsuko: でございます (de gozaimasu) |
| Peter: Is. Yes, the 3rd floor. Now here we have でございます (de gozaimasu). This is just the polite form of the copula and the copula is roughly equivalent to the English to be. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: And to kind of put this into, well terms that I would understand, kind of the way – the most common way you encounter the copula is in its polite form です (desu). |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: So this is just a politer form. |
| Natsuko: Right. |
| Peter: So です(desu) and above that is |
| Natsuko: でございます (de gozaimasu) |
| Peter: So as we said in the intro, this is probably what you will come into contact with. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, right. |
| Peter: At a department store because they are being ultra-polite. |
| Natsuko: Right, yes, definitely. |
| Peter: And then next we have. |
| Natsuko: すみません。婦人服は何階ですか。(Sumimasen. Fujinfuku wa nan-kai desu ka.) |
| Peter: Excuse me, what floor is women’s clothing? |
| Natsuko: すみません (sumimasen) |
| Peter: Excuse me. |
| Natsuko: 婦人服 (fujinfuku) |
| Peter: Women’s clothing. |
| Natsuko: は (wa) |
| Peter: Topic marking particle. |
| Natsuko: 何回 (nan-kai) |
| Peter: What floor and that’s literally it. 何 (nani) which becomes なん (nan) here. It is the interrogative, meaning what. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: Followed by |
| Natsuko: 階 (kai) |
| Peter: Floor, what floor, literally very straightforward. |
| Natsuko: Very simple.ですか (desu ka). |
| Peter: Is it. So women’s clothing what floor is it. Now if we start after the は (wa) here and work our way towards the end of the sentence, what floor is, then jump back to women's clothing. So that は (wa) is marking off the topic. |
| Natsuko: Yeah. |
| Peter: So think about – we are just establishing the topic. Women’s clothing, where is it? And it makes perfect sense. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, and this phrase is also very useful. |
| Peter: Yeah, the reason we put this in here is if I went to a department store, this is actually how I would ask. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, right. |
| Peter: I wouldn’t say どこですか (doko desu ka). I would say 何階ですか (nan-kai desu ka). Literally what floor is anything I am looking for will precede that marked by は (wa). |
| Natsuko: Right. I think this pattern is really useful. This is what I actually use. |
| Peter: Definitely agree. |
| Natsuko: I go to department store and say すみません、婦人服は何階ですか (sumimasen, fujinfuku wa nan-kai desu ka). |
| Peter: Excuse me, what floor is women’s wear? |
| Natsuko: Yeah, that’s very, you know, realistic. |
| Peter: Definitely. You know, these are the patterns you will hear because this is probably what you are going to come across in a textbook. That’s why they are here. |
| Natsuko: Right. |
| Peter: But more realistic is this third pattern. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, but if you know, the department store is very huge and you can’t find what you are looking for even if you are on the same floor, then you can use the first pattern 家具はどこですか (kagu wa doko desu ka). |
| Peter: Excellent point. So we should reverse the order. |
| Natsuko: Maybe. |
| Peter: What floor and then where is it? |
| Natsuko: Yeah, more pinpoint. |
| Peter: Ah Natsuko-san, what would we do without you and this is followed by |
| Natsuko: はい、５階です。(Hai, go-kai desu.) |
| Peter: Yes, 5th floor. |
Outro |
|---|
| Peter: All right, so that’s going to wrap it up for today. Again stop by japanesepod101.com. Inside we have the PDF, things to bring it altogether. Natsuko-san? |
| Natsuko: そう。また来てくださいね。(Sō. Mata kite kudasai ne.) |
| Peter: See you next newbie class. That’s going to do for today. |
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