Learn about buying a prepaid phone
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yoshi,Takase: おはよう東京。 |
| Yoshi: ヨシです。 |
| Takase: タカセです。 |
| Peter: Peter here, Survival Phrases #49, Okay, we are here with the Nagasaki connection, right Takase san? |
| Takase: そうですね。 |
| Peter: How is that pronunciation for you? |
| Takase: Perfect! |
| Peter: Yes, I’ve been practising for about a week now, ever since last week. Yes, I would like to admit that I was wrong, I said…maybe I was thinking of Takase, but Nagasaki…alright, anyway, Yoshi san is also here and we are here to talk to you about, Yoshi san? |
| Yoshi: Prepaid phone. |
| Peter: Prepaid cell phones. Nowadays, a cell phone is indispensable. The thing about the cell phone is that it enables you to speak to anybody anywhere so if you meet someone on the trip you can talk to them, you know it allows you to keep this communication going. Plus, if it has an email function you can actually contact people with email or they can get hold of you. So today what we’re going to do is walk you through the options you have for getting a cell phone while you’re on vacation in Japan. Takase san, how does that sound? |
| Takase: Great. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: You are in a talkative mood today! Okay, so this first conversation will take place at the airport because you can rent a phone at the airport. We’ll go over the details and some other things later, but first let’s take a look at the following conversation. Okay, a person who just arrived in Japan looking to rent a phone at the airport. Here we go. |
| Takase: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Yoshi: 携帯を借りたいんですが。 |
| Takase: はい。 |
| Yoshi: 英語でも大丈夫ですか？ |
| Takase: はい。少々お待ちください。 |
| Peter: One time, slowly please. |
| Takase: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Yoshi: けいたいを、かりたいんですけど。 |
| Takase: はい。 |
| Yoshi: えいごでも、だいじょうぶですか？ |
| Takase: はい。しょうしょう、おまちください。 |
| Peter: This time, Takase san and Yoshi san will give you the Japanese and I’ll give you the English. |
| Takase: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Peter: Welcome. |
| Yoshi: 携帯を借りたいんですが。 |
| Peter: I’d like to rent a phone. |
| Takase: はい。 |
| Yoshi: 英語でも大丈夫ですか？ |
| Peter: Is English also alright? |
| Takase: はい。少々お待ちください。 |
| Peter: Yes, please wait a moment. |
| Peter: Now this conversation takes place in Narita airport. Now, many people coming from the US will stop in Narita, but there’s also an international airport in Osaka. Now, this conversation, again, we got the information and we verified the information from Narita, so this is a conversation that you would hear. Now, Yoshi san, being such an international airport, what do you think about everybody’s ability to speak English there? |
| Yoshi: That you should have no problem. |
| Peter: Yes, in fact they may even beat you to the punch and just say ‘Welcome’ so we wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case. In fact, when I called to verify everything they even said that their staff does speak English. Now it doesn’t hurt to try to speak Japanese, try to get this conversation done in Japanese, however, since you have credit card information and you’re going to be picking up a payment plan, you might want everything in a language that you could fully comprehend, because some of these plans can get expensive, fast. Now, again, this first conversation was renting a phone. Yoshi san, have you ever rented a phone? |
| Yoshi: No, I haven’t. |
| Peter: What kind of phone do you have? |
| Yoshi: I have a phone on contract. |
| Peter: Standard contract? |
| Yoshi: Right. |
| Peter: You have a basic payment plan and each month you make payment according to how much you use. Now what’s unique about Japan is Japanese phones, incoming calls are free of charge. Making calls is what’s going to get you. Most of these plans, we actually saw one plan that you can rent a phone for 250 yen a day and you have an option for 100 yen a day for insurance. So if you leave off the insurance, Yoshi san, do you usually get insurance? |
| Yoshi: If I can afford it. |
| Peter: Hmm, interesting. Takase san? |
| Takase: No. |
| Peter: You like to risk it all, right? |
| Takase: Yes. |
| Peter: I don’t know if I’d go for the insurance either, I think I’d risk it. So you can get a phone for 250 yen a day, all incoming calls are free so if you have friends here already this might be a great option, but, once you start calling domestic calls come out at like 80 yen a minute, also this was a really cheap plan, kind of the average we would say from all the plans we looked at is about 500-600 yen a day, that’s the average, ranging from about 840 yen per day to 525 yen per day. Now, these phones can be picked up at the airport and what’s necessary is a passport, which won’t be a problem because you’ll need that to get into the country, and a credit card so these are the two things you need. Okay, so with these two things you can pick up a phone at the airport. Now there’s two reasons that you might want to forego renting a phone at the airport. Yoshi san, there’s something else available even to Japanese people which some people prefer to kind of keep their expenses in check. Can you give us the word for this? |
| Yoshi: プリペイド携帯電話 |
| Peter: Prepaid cell phone. Now this has its advantages and disadvantages. Now, one is you can pick them up in many locations throughout Japan, right? |
| Yoshi: Mm-hmm. |
| Peter: Now I verified that SoftBank has these. Now in order to get a prepaid cell phone, you need two things. Yoshi san, what’s the first thing you need? |
| Yoshi: Passport. |
| Peter: Okay, and can we have the Japanese for that? |
| Yoshi: パスポート |
| Peter: What else do we need? |
| Yoshi: Credit card. |
| Peter: That’s it. And how do we say that? |
| Yoshi: クレジットカード |
| Peter: So with these two things, you can get a prepaid phone. Now when we say a prepaid cell phone, and we say get, Yoshi san, what do you actually have to do? |
| Yoshi: You have to buy it. |
| Peter: So, it’s not like renting a phone, again depending on how long you’ll be in Japan will determine whether you will want to rent a phone or get a prepaid phone. We looked at phones ranging from 3,000 to 7,000 yen. Now the 7,000-yen phone has a camera, which can be nice, but if you have a digital camera then you may not need that, so you can get a 3,000-yen phone. Also, Yoshi san, what amounts do the cards come in? When you buy this phone, it doesn’t have any time on it, so what denominations do the phones come in? |
| Yoshi: 3000円カード and 5000円カード |
| Peter: A 3,000-yen card and a 5,000-yen card, so if you get the phone for 3,000 yen, and you pick up the card for 3,000 yen you’re looking at 6,000 yen which is about 50 US dollars, so when you’re thinking about what to do, kind of calculate how long you’ll be in Japan, how much you are going to use the phone and what you need it for. If you’re expecting calls, maybe you want to rent a phone, if you’re going to be here for a month, maybe you want to get a prepaid phone, again, depending on how long you are going to be here and the circumstances of your particular trip. So, say you do get a prepaid phone, how hard is it, Yoshi san, to get more minutes, to get more time for this? |
| Yoshi: Oh, it’s really easy. |
| Peter: There it is. Yoshi san guarantees it. And why is that, Yoshi san? |
| Yoshi: Because if you run out of the time you can buy a new card at convenience stores. |
| Peter: And many convenience stores have these cards, so it should be relatively easy to get more minutes for your phone, okay. So what we’re going to do now, we gave you the conversation at the beginning, that’s going to be if you’re at an airport, but if you’re foregoing the airport rent a cell phone and you want to pick up a prepaid phone, and the card, we’re going to give you the Japanese for that right now. Takase san, welcome back. We are going to have you play the role of shopkeeper because you just do that so well. Would you like to do that, or would you like to be the customer this time Takase san? |
| Takase: I want to do the shop. |
| Peter: Oh right, yes ma’am. Yoshi san, you are the customer – again! So let’s have you go in and find out if they have prepaid cell phones and if they do, let the shopkeeper know that you have a passport and credit card and you want a 3,000-yen card. When we talk about shops here we are talking about the big cell phone providers in Japan – SoftBank, which recently bought Vodafone, au, Dokomo, okay, let’s get this conversation – here we go. |
| Takase: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Yoshi: プリペイドフォンはありますか？ |
| Takase: はい、あります。 |
| Yoshi: いくらですか？ |
| Takase: 3000円と7000円です。 |
| Yoshi: 3000円をお願いします。 |
| Takase: はい、かしこまりました。 |
| Yoshi: 3000円カードをお願いします。 |
| Takase: はい、かしこまりました。 |
| Peter: One more time, slowly please. |
| Takase: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Peter: プリペイドフォンは、ありますか？ |
| Takase: はい、あります。 |
| Yoshi: いくらですか？ |
| Takase: 3000えんと、7000円です。 |
| Yoshi: 3000えんを、おねがいします。 |
| Takase: はい、かしこまりました。 |
| Yoshi: 3000えんカードを、おねがいします。 |
| Takase: はい、かしこまりました。 |
| Peter: Okay, Takase san and Yoshi san will give you the Japanese and I’ll give you the English. Here we go. |
| Takase: いらっしゃいませ。 |
| Peter: Welcome. |
| Yoshi: プリペイドフォンはありますか？ |
| Peter: Do you have prepaid phones? |
| Takase: はい、あります。 |
| Peter: Yes, we have them. |
| Yoshi: いくらですか？ |
| Peter: How much? |
| Takase: 3000円と7000円です。 |
| Peter: We have a 3,000-yen phone and a 7,000-yen phone. |
| Yoshi: 3000円をお願いします。 |
| Peter: A 3,000-yen phone, please. |
| Takase: はい、かしこまりました。 |
| Peter: Yes, understood. |
| Yoshi: 3000カードをお願いします。 |
| Peter: And a 3,000-yen card, please. |
| Takase: はい、かしこまりました。 |
| Peter: Yes, understood. |
| Peter: Okay, we are running out of time, we have a few more seconds. What we’re going to do in this short time is go over some vocabulary. Let’s just get the word for phone, which we had in the first dialogue. |
| Yoshi: 携帯 |
| Peter: This is short for cell phone. The long version is actually? |
| Yoshi: 携帯電話 |
| Peter: But this is good enough. 携帯. Break it down? |
| Yoshi: け・い・た・い、携帯 |
| Peter: Then we had the word for prepaid phone. Takase san? お願いします。 |
| Takase: プリペイドフォン |
| Peter: Break it down? |
| Takase: プ・リ・ペ・イ・ド・フォ・ン、プリペイドフォン |
Outro |
| Peter: And this is what you want to ask for when you go into these major carriers and if you want the cell phone, if you want the prepaid phone, inside, past the airport, inside Japan. Alright, so I think that’s going to do for today. |
| Takase: また明日。 |
| Yoshi: またね。 |
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