Learn about asking for directions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sakura: サクラです。 |
| Yoshi: ヨシです。 |
| Peter: Peter here. Who is in the studio with us today Yoshi? |
| Peter: Sakura. |
| Sakura: Yeay ただいま。 |
| Peter: お帰り。 It’s been so long. |
| Sakura: Yes. Finally I am back. |
| Peter: We missed you. Where have you been? |
| Sakura: え、何だっけ。Swimming with the sharks. |
| Peter: Yes you look pretty fit. |
| Sakura: Yes I know. |
| Peter: Well now that you are back, maybe we will get some law and order restored around here. It’s been a wild west. |
| Sakura: Hah! |
| Peter: Are you ready? |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: So Sakura, what’s going on? |
| Sakura: サクラさん |
| Peter: Yes okay. |
| Sakura: ピーターさん。 |
| Peter: We had a campaign. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: The honorific suffix campaign. |
| Sakura: Yes good idea. Call me サクラさん |
| Peter: I was thinking サクラさまbut if you are too happy with さん, okay. |
| Sakura: Whichever. |
| Peter: And what are you going to call me, I am looking forward to this. |
| F:ピーターくん？ピーターさん。 |
| Peter: Well I think since you are so much older than me, I think… |
| Sakura: Sorry. |
| Peter: I mean it’s all right. Yeah |
| Sakura: I don’t think so. I think I should call you ピーターさんand Yoshi, ヨシさん. |
| Peter: Okay. |
| Sakura: Yeah. |
| Peter: Sounds good. |
| Sakura: Yes there. |
| Peter: Right. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Well we are back. Survival phrases #21 and this will be part 2 of our on-going directions and considering we get lost a lot, we might spend a few more weeks or years on this topic. |
| Sakura: Good idea. |
| Peter: And Yoshi, you are so quiet today? |
| Yoshi: Yes. I am missing my VAAM. |
| Sakura: ああ、ヴァームね。 |
| Yoshi: はい。 |
| Peter: Now Sakura, I cannot tell you. It is so great to have you back. We have a great dialogue for you which Sakura wrote here and you know what, I think we are going to take a picture of this and put it up on the net because Yoshi – in English we say chicken scratch you know like where the chicken claws the ground and letters appear. |
| Sakura: Umm… |
| Peter: What would you call this Yoshi? |
| Yoshi: It’s written in 象形文字 |
| Peter: Wait! Can we do this one more time? |
| Yoshi: しょうけいもじ |
| Peter: Okay and what does this mean, anyone? |
| Sakura: It’s ancient letters, characters that’s more like pictures. |
| Peter: Ah! |
| Sakura: Yeah. |
| Peter: Now this is actually hieroglyphics or picture writing. So a couple of hundred thousand years ago, someone could read this. |
| Sakura: Right. So I know my writing is terrible. 失礼ですね。very rude はい。 |
| Peter: Okay. Anyway let’s get on to |
| Sakura: Let’s get on with today’s lesson. Everybody is waiting. |
| Peter: Sorry about that. Okay but before we get into today’s lesson, we want to talk about the learning center. Now inside the learning center, every class comes with quizzes. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Now these quizzes help reinforce what you learned. Inside the PDF, there is supplemental material but inside the learning center, there are quizzes. So today’s quiz will be a map with listening directions and you can choose the right answer. |
| Sakura: Good practice. |
| Peter: Good practice. With the dialogue transcribed in there. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: And Sakura is going to do it all. |
| Sakura: Sorry! |
| Peter: This is – this is an amazing feature. This is practice for many people who are aiming for the (JLPT) The Japanese Language Proficiency Test. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: These questions are specifically designed to train you to get you ready for this test. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: Sakura is taking level III this year, Yoshi is going to do – what level you are going to be Yoshi? |
| Yoshi: Ah like five? |
| Peter: The new level which hasn’t yet appeared yet. Come down to japanesepod101.com, sign up for a 7-day free trial, check out the quizzes. Again the material in there is designed to get you ready for these tests. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Okay long opening but we are going to make it up to you. |
| Sakura: Right. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: Okay Sakura, let’s start off. What are we going to talk about today? |
| Sakura: Directions again. |
| Peter: Again. Now last week we covered the most basic question. You know you could be in the middle of space and ask this question and someone speaks Japanese, you will get kind of direction but we want to get it down a bit. We want to condense the area and we also want to talk about places. You know where you want to go but you just don’t know how to get there. When you are asked the question where is the post office like we did last week |
| Sakura: 郵便局はどこですか？ヨシさん、もう一度お願いします。 |
| Yoshi: 郵便局はどこですか？ |
| Peter: Now this is a broad question right? |
| Sakura: Uhoo. |
| Peter: The next post office could be in the next town. So first we want to introduce a question that kind of condenses the target area. Again we will use the post office. Yoshi, can you give us that question? |
| Yoshi: 郵便局は近くにありますか？サクラさん、もう一度お願いします。 |
| Sakura: 郵便局は、近くに、ありますか？ |
| Peter: Is there a post office nearby? Now this nearby construction makes everything a lot easier. You don’t want to go looking for a post office. If you ask where a post office is and there is not one for a mile, and someone happens to know, I don’t even think I can get the directions. I don’t even think a Japanese person could get the directions. |
| Sakura: I think so, right. |
| Yoshi: Right. |
| Peter: So that’s why we are going to go with this one. So let’s get a little more practice with this. Sakura, can you give us the phrase without the first part? |
| Sakura: 近くにありますか？ |
| Peter: Close by, nearby. Now that’s the phrase. In front of this, we attach the destination plus the magical は(va) and we have the sentence. Let’s try a few. Sakura, bank? |
| Sakura: 銀行は近くにありますか？ |
| Peter: Now Yoshi, how do we answer this question? Is there a bank nearby? If there is |
| Yoshi: はい、あります。 |
| Peter: And if there is not |
| Yoshi: いいえ、ありません。 |
| Peter: So you know that you are going to have to look a bit more for the bank. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Or you are going to have to look at a different area. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Okay. Let’s do a few more examples. Yoshi, train station. |
| Yoshi: 駅は近くにありますか？ |
| Sakura: はい、あります。 |
| Peter: Bus stop. |
| Sakura: バス停は近くにありますか？ |
| Yoshi: いいえ、ありません。 |
| Peter: Taxi stand. |
| Sakura: タクシー乗り場は近くにありますか？ |
| Yoshi: はい、あります。 |
| Peter: Okay. So you get the idea. All right, some very useful information in there, bus stop, station, place to catch a taxi. Now that we have that covered, let’s move on to asking about going to a destination you already know beforehand. Up until now, we covered, you don’t know where anything is. So you want to go to the post office but you don’t know where the post office is. So you would say |
| Sakura: 郵便局はどこですか？ |
| Peter: Or this week we gave you |
| Yoshi: 郵便局は近くにありますか？ |
| Peter: Now we want to give you another expression and this one kind of covers it all. It asks these two questions plus says you want to go there, all in one. Now to make this sentence a little easier to understand, why don’t we use a hotel? The Sakura hotel. So how do we say I want to go to the Sakura Hotel? |
| Sakura: サクラホテルに行きたいんですが。ヨシさん、もう一度お願いします。 |
| Yoshi: サクラホテルに行きたいんですが。 |
| Peter: I want to go to the Sakura Hotel. Again it’s similar to the other expressions. There are fixed parts in this sentence. So Sakura, can you give us the fixed parts? |
| Sakura: に行きたいんですが。ヨシさん、もう一度お願いします。 |
| Yoshi: に行きたいんですが。 |
| Peter: And what comes before に is the destination, the place you want to go. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: Sakura, can you break down the parts of this sentence. Now first we have a particle, what particle is that? |
| Sakura: に |
| Peter: And that’s saying to. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: The place where you want to go. What comes after that? |
| Sakura: 行きたいんですが。 |
| Peter: I want to go. And the conjugation of this is beyond the scope of this lesson but this phrase means want to go. Combined with the particle, I want to go to, and the destination which actually comes first. And what comes after this? |
| Sakura: んですが。 |
| Peter: Okay. What is this expression, one more time? |
| Sakura: んですが。 |
| Peter: What does this expression do? |
| Sakura: It softens your request. |
| Peter: Yes. Instead of saying I want to go here, it’s more like I would like to go here. You are softening it. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: You are softening the thing you want to do. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: So it makes it much, much more polite. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: Now can you break down the fixed part of this sentence? |
| Sakura: に、い・き・た・い・ん・で・す・が。 |
| Peter: And one time fast. |
| Sakura: に、行きたいんですが。 |
| Peter: Yoshi, can you give us the expression? |
| Yoshi: に、い・き・た・い・ん・で・す・が。に、行きたいんですが。 |
| Peter: All right. Now we are going to give you a short dialogue using this. Here we go. |
| Sakura: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Yoshi: すいません。上野公園に行きたいんですが。 |
| Sakura: 少々お待ちください。こちらが地図です。私たちは今ここです。まっすぐ行って、3番目の信号を左に曲がって、まっすぐ行って、右側にあります。 |
| Yoshi: どうも、ありがとうございました。 |
| Peter: Oh Yoshi. So where were you from this time… |
| Yoshi: I am from New York. |
| Sakura: Oh! |
| Peter: All right. Give us the conversation one more time in normal Japanese Yoshi. Everyone is out there copying. Here we go! |
| Sakura: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Yoshi: すいません。上野公園に行きたいんですが。 |
| Sakura: はい、少々お待ちください。こちらが地図です。私たちは今ここです。まっすぐ行って、3番目の信号を左に曲がって、まっすぐ行って、右側にあります。 |
| Yoshi: どうも、ありがとうございました。 |
| Peter: Wow, a lot in there. Pretty tough directions. Okay let’s start off with the first part. Sakura, give us the first line. |
| Sakura: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Peter: Welcome. |
| Sakura: Welcome. |
| Peter: Next we had |
| Yoshi: すいません。上野公園に行きたいんですが。 |
| Peter: Excuse me, I would like to go to Ueno Park. The word for park being |
| Yoshi: 公園 |
| Peter: Then we had |
| Sakura: はい、少々お待ちください。 |
| Peter: This is an extremely polite way to say, wait a moment please. Then |
| Sakura: こちらが地図です。 |
| Peter: In many convenient stores and shops, in addition to the police, what’s the word for police box? |
| Sakura: 交番 |
| Peter: At these locations, if you ask to go somewhere, usually they will take out a map and show you where you are and where you need to go. And I have done this many times at a convenience store, over 20. So I felt bad a few times like there was a line behind me but they still took the map out and showed me. So the convenient store is my recommended place to get directions. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Okay. And the word for map is |
| Sakura: 地図 |
| Peter: Next we had |
| Sakura: 私たちは今ここです。 |
| Peter: We are here. Now we had the word for I which is |
| Sakura: 私 |
| Peter: And the word for us is |
| Sakura: 私たち |
| Peter: Now, we had the word for here and that is |
| Sakura: ここ |
| Peter: And what’s the last word we had |
| Sakura: 今 |
| Peter: Now. |
| Sakura: Now. |
| Peter: After that we said |
| Sakura: まっすぐ行って |
| Peter: Go straight. Again last week we had this. |
| Sakura: 3番目の信号を |
| Peter: New phrase and what does this mean? |
| Sakura: The third signal. |
| Peter: Yes, the third traffic light. At the third traffic light |
| Sakura: 左に曲がって |
| Peter: Turn left. |
| Sakura: まっすぐ行って |
| Peter: Go straight. |
| Sakura: 右側にあります。 |
| Peter: It’s on the right side. |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: All right and this is a real conversation that would happen or happens every day in Japan. |
| Sakura: I think so. |
| Peter: So we ran quite long today. Now the transcripts, line by line transcripts for this will be in the learning center. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Questions, more questions about where you are going, how to get there. With the map… |
| Sakura: Yes. |
| Peter: That you can choose the multiple choice for just like you would have on the JLPT with the audio file, accompanying audio file will be there. |
| Sakura: Right. |
| Peter: Plus inside the PDF, we are going to have the vocab that was introduced today. We had a few more but we don’t have the time to get into them today. So stop by the learning center, see what’s going on, stop by japanesepod101.com and welcome back Sakura. |
| Sakura: ありがとうございます。 |
| Peter: What a happy day! |
| Yoshi: お帰りなさい。 |
| Sakura: ただいま。 |
Outro |
| Peter: See you tomorrow. |
| Sakura: また明日 |
| Peter: またね。 |
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