Learn about expressing what you thought
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Welcome to japanesepod101.com. Newbie series, season 4, Lori’s Story, Lesson 36, Opinionated Japanese. Hi my name is Eric and I am joined here by Naomi Sensei. |
| Naomi: こんにちは。エリックさん。 |
| Eric: こんにちは。直美先生。 |
| Naomi: よろしくお願いします。 |
| Eric: よろしくお願いします。 In this lesson, you will learn how to say whether you understand something or not. |
| Naomi: が、わかります and が、わかりません。 sentence structure. |
| Eric: And you will also learn how to say whether something was difficult or not. This conversation takes place. |
| Naomi: On campus 大学ですね。 |
| Eric: The conversation is between |
| Naomi: Ryu and Shizuka. |
| Eric: It seems they are talking about language study. These speakers haven’t quite become friends yet. So they will be using |
| Naomi: Formal Japanese. |
| Eric: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| リュウ: 中国語が わかりますか。 |
| 静: ちょっと わかります。でも、中国語の 発音は むずかしいですね。日本語は むずかしかったですか。 |
| リュウ: まだ、むずかしいですよ。あ、でも漢字は むずかしくなかったです。かんたんでした。 |
| (ベルがなる) |
| 静: あ、いけない。それじゃ、また。とても 楽しかったです。あ...これ 私の 電話番号と、メールアドレスです。連絡くださいね。 |
| リュウ: え?あ...はい。 |
| もう一度、お願いします。今度は、ゆっくりお願いします。 |
| リュウ: 中国語が わかりますか。 |
| 静: ちょっと わかります。でも、中国語の 発音は むずかしいですね。日本語は むずかしかったですか。 |
| リュウ: まだ、むずかしいですよ。あ、でも漢字は むずかしくなかったです。かんたんでした。 |
| (ベルがなる) |
| 静: あ、いけない。それじゃ、また。とても 楽しかったです。あ...これ 私の 電話番号と、メールアドレスです。連絡くださいね。 |
| リュウ: え?あ...はい。 |
| 今度は、英語が入ります。 |
| リュウ: 中国語が わかりますか。 |
| RYU: Do you know Chinese? |
| 静: ちょっと わかります。 |
| SHIZUKA: A little. |
| でも、中国語の 発音は むずかしいですね。 |
| But Chinese pronunciation is really hard. |
| 日本語は むずかしかったですか。 |
| Was learning Japanese difficult? |
| リュウ: まだ、むずかしいですよ。 |
| RYU: It still is difficult! |
| あ、でも漢字は むずかしくなかったです。 |
| Oh, but kanji wasn't hard. |
| かんたんでした。 |
| It was easy. |
| (ベルがなる) |
| (bell rings) |
| 静: あ、いけない。それじゃ、また。 |
| SHIZUKA: Uh oh. I'll see you later. |
| とても 楽しかったです。 |
| I had fun! |
| あ...これ 私の 電話番号と、メールアドレスです。 |
| Um... here's my phone number and email address. |
| 連絡くださいね。 |
| Contact me sometime. |
| リュウ: え?あ...はい。 |
| RYU: Huh? Oh... okay. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Naomi: So Shizuka gave Ryu her phone number and email address, right? I bet it happens to you very often Eric. |
| Eric: Hey you know me. No, no I was kidding but yeah and you know what, as long as you are not a hermit, you know, it just it sort of happens right because every time you go out and you meet new people through friends, you know, you sort of end up having huge infrared data sharing session Naomi. |
| Naomi: んーなになにそれ。 What is that? Ah you mean 赤外線？ |
| Eric: Right, right you know like on the cell phones. Yeah and by the way, 赤外線 is the infrared port on most Japanese cell phones and I don’t know about other countries cell phone systems but in Japan, you usually exchange phone numbers, email addresses and other data like for example photos using the infrared port and that way, you don’t have to write it down. It’s pretty convenient. |
| Naomi: でも They are doing it manually in this lesson. |
| Eric: Right. Ryu and Shizuka are doing it the old school way. It’s very classic. |
| Naomi: そうね。 |
| Eric: And that means, they are actually going to become friends because if you take the trouble to actually write down all the digits of the number, you are on to something good. |
| Naomi: そうですね。 |
| Eric: On to the vocabulary. |
| Naomi: 次は、単語です。 |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: The first word is |
| Naomi: わかります。 |
| Eric: To understand, to know. |
| Naomi: (slow)わかります (natural speed) わかります |
| Eric: The next word is. |
| Naomi: 発音 |
| Eric: Pronunciation. |
| Naomi: (slow)はつおん (natural speed) 発音 |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 漢字 |
| Eric: Chinese characters, kanji. |
| Naomi: (slow)かんじ (natural speed) 漢字 |
| Eric: The next word is. |
| Naomi: メールアドレス |
| Eric: Email address. |
| Naomi: (slow)メールアドレス (natural speed) メールアドレス |
| Eric: And the last word is |
| Naomi: 連絡 |
| Eric: Communication, contact. |
| Naomi: (slow)れんらく (natural speed) 連絡 |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eric: All right. So let’s talk about some of these words. What’s the first one we have today? |
| Naomi: メールアドレス |
| Eric: Ah email address. |
| Naomi: はい。 |
| Eric: You know what Naomi Sensei, this word sounds a lot like mail address right but I just want to point out that this is only about email right? It’s not about your actual |
| Naomi: Snail mail |
| Eric: Right, right your snail mail or your post office you know address. Your real address of wherever you live. It’s not mail, its email right? |
| Naomi: そうです。 |
| Eric: And that’s what they are talking about but you just say for convenience mail but in general, I think that Japanese people think this word is too long. So most of them use like a short version of this word. |
| Naomi: そうですね。 Such as メルアド、メアド or メール |
| Eric: So メルアド、メアド or メール |
| Naomi: はい。 |
| Eric: Which one do you use Naomi Sensei? |
| Naomi: I think I use メアド and メルアド sounds too young to me. |
| Eric: What did you say Naomi Sensei? |
| Naomi: I am getting old. |
| Eric: You are talking about it. It’s about convenience. It’s not about style or coolness. You know, I think I use メアド because it’s |
| Naomi: そうね。 |
| Eric: Yeah it’s pretty to say. |
| Naomi: Many of my friends use メアド or メルアド but yeah I prefer メール |
| Eric: You got to get on with it Naomi Sensei. But any way, the next word is |
| Naomi: 連絡 |
| Eric: Communication, contact and so how would we say to contact as a verb? |
| Naomi: メールをします。 |
| Eric: To contact. |
| Naomi: 連絡します or 連絡をします。 |
| Eric: By putting します or を、します after some noun, you can turn it into a verb. |
| Naomi: そうです。今夜、連絡しますね。 |
| Eric: I will contact you tonight. You know, it could be by email, phone, telegram. |
| Naomi: Smoke signals, telepathy. |
| Eric: Whoa, whoa Naomi Sensei. |
| Naomi: The point is you can’t tell their method by 連絡します It could be anything. |
| Eric: It could be anything like you know how we often communicate by Telepathy. In the dialogue, Shizuka said. |
| Naomi: 連絡ください。 |
| Eric: Please contact me. |
| Naomi: Of course, she could have said メールください or 電話ください。 |
| Eric: Right to make it more specific. So on to the grammar point. |
| Naomi: 次は文法です。 |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: So in this lesson, you are going to learn how to say I understand. Actually we’ve already introduced the verb to understand right? |
| Naomi: そうです。わかります is affirmative and negative is わかりません。 |
| Eric: I don’t understand. And what we are going to introduce here is the が、わかります sentence pattern. Here the object that you will understand is marked by the particle が |
| Naomi: 日本語がわかります。 |
| Eric: I understand Japanese. |
| Naomi: 中国語がわかります。 |
| Eric: I understand Chinese and if you are Japanese or a Chinese is at a newbie level, you might want to say, I understand Japanese a little. |
| Naomi: In that case, you can use the word ちょっと。ちょっと日本語がわかります or 日本語がちょっとわかります。 |
| Eric: I understand Japanese just a little. Of course, the negative form is |
| Naomi: わかりません。 |
| Eric: How do you say I don’t understand Japanese? |
| Naomi: 日本語がわかりません。 |
| Eric: How do you ask do you understand Japanese? |
| Naomi: 日本語がわかりますか？ |
| Eric: Do you understand English? |
| Naomi: English in Japanese is 英語. So 英語がわかりますか？ |
| Eric: And how do you just say, do you understand? |
| Naomi: わかりますか？ |
| Eric: It could be about anything. |
| Naomi: はい。 |
| Eric: All right. Our second grammar point is |
| Naomi: 難しかったです。 |
| Eric: It’s difficult. |
| Naomi: 難しくなかったです。 |
| Eric: It wasn’t difficult. 難しい means difficult. The conjugation of adjectives into past tense form is all explained in this lesson’s PDF. So check it out on Japanesepod101.com. In the dialogue, we have |
| Naomi: 日本語は難しかったですか？ |
| Eric: Was Japanese difficult? |
| Naomi: And 漢字は難しくなかったです。 |
| Eric: Kanji wasn’t difficult. |
| Naomi: Yeah since Ryu is Chinese. |
| Eric: Right. He has a leg up on everybody who is not Chinese. |
| Naomi: Umm ねぇ。 |
| Eric: Or Korean. |
| Naomi: エリックさん、どうですか？ How about you Eric? When you studied Japanese, 何が難しかったですか？ what was difficult for you? |
| Eric: うーん。やっぱり、漢字が難しかったです。 |
| Naomi: あぁ、そうですか。 |
| Eric: Kanji was difficult. |
| Naomi: When I studied English, 発音と文法が難しかったです。 |
| Eric: I agree. |
| Naomi: ね。英語、難しいね。日本語も、まぁ、時々。 |
| Eric: 時々。 |
Outro |
| Eric: But don’t worry if the pronunciation is too difficult because you can use the most powerful tool that we have in japanesepod101.com |
| Naomi: Line by line audio. |
| Eric: Yes, this tool is awesome. It’s great for rapidly improving listening comprehension. |
| Naomi: By listening to lines of the conversation again and again. |
| Eric: Yeah it’s great. Just listen till every word and syllable becomes clear and you just shadow along that, copy exactly what they say and your pronunciation will improve by leaps and bounds. So on that note, we will see you next time. |
| Naomi: じゃ、また。 |
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