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Not just fine! Today we introduce a whole lot more than the good-old standby, “I’m fine.” Today we run the gamut of phrases for expressing the condition you are in. Whether you are looking to spice up your greetings or you just want to say hi, this lesson has it all!

Grammar: | Function: , | Topic: | Politeness Level:


This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 1 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

35 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #17 - How Are You?”

JapanesePod101.com says:

these lessons are really helping, but please make the numbering on the downloaded file, the blog files, and the pdf’s all the same. thanks again, keep it up!!

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Amanda says:

when peter just says “Genki” towards the end does that one word mean “how are you”? why dosent he add anything after it?

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John C. Briggs says:

Amandaさん、
In Japanese, a lot is implied. A complete sentence might
Anata wa kyou genki desu ka
How are you today?
Watashi wa kyou genki desu.
Today I am good.
But this can be shortened to
Genki? (rising intonation)
How are you today?
Genki. (flat intonation)
Today I am good.
Everything is implied.
Hope this helps.
John

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Hana says:

I remember from previous lessons that totemo means very. ould it be grammatically correct to say totemo genki?

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PixieAlli says:

Yes, that would be grammatically sound, although you would definitely sound extremely enthusiastic! :)

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ashurii says:

this has nothing to do with lesson but on another site it said that “watashi wa nihong go wa amari umaku hana semasen” was i can’t speak Japanese real well. would this be correct?

Arigato gozaimazu! :nihon:

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JapanesePod101.com says:

drop the 私は (watashi wa), to sound natural.
日本語はあまり上手く話せません is OK. it means “I can’t speak Japanese well.”

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Carla says:

Konnichiwa

Anyone interested in Portuguese, visit this site for a Portuguese translation of this lesson.

http://aprenderjapones.blogs.sapo.pt/2008/02/05/

Doomo Arigatoo

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Kyle Hanson says:

I use zekkouchou all the time here in Okinawa, people are really amazed! Thanks for the great lessons!

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palmist81 says:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Good lessons :wink:

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Mayumi says:

Kyle Hanson-san, palmist81-san

Thank you for listening to and enjoying our lessons! :dogeza:

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Maichan says:

Hello,

First of all, thank you for these wonderful lessons… these are just perfect!

I have a question… I have always learned that a polite follow up to the “genki” question is

おかげさまです

Does that apply for some of the alternative responses you mentioned… for example

ぜっこうちょう… おかげさまです

Thanks,

Miles

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Mayumi says:

Maichan-san,

おかげさまで comes first. So, you can say おかげさまで、げんきです, or おかげさまで、ぜっこうちょうです。 Also, you can say just おかげさまで which implies that you are good.

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Maichan says:

Thank you !

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Aaron says:

I was wondering if anyone could clarify the use of SUGOKU over SUGOI. I’ve heard statements that alternately use both, like; “sugoku / sugoi oishii.” Is there a rule that dictates which form of the word to use? And if you could also explain what dropping the “I” and adding “ku” does, that would be…well, sugoi!
Arigato

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JKid says:

Aaron-san,
Sugoi is a noun meaning “amazing” or something similar. Sugoi oishii would mean “Amazing! Delicious!” Sogoku is the adverbial form of Sugoi. An adverb, if you’re not aware “is a word that adds information to a verb, an adjective, or an adverb”. So it is used to add further information to the word that comes after it. Such as in the example of sugoku oishii. That would mean would mean amazingly delicious.

I hope that clears things up. If you have any further questions please ask away! :)

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Aaron says:

Thanks for your reply JKid! I guess what I was more curious about was how both forms of the word Sugoku can be used. Meaning; If I can say ’sugoi oishii,’ but I could also say ’sugoku oishii, and they both mean the same thing, then’ what rule determines which form of the word that I use? Ugh, I probably should have paid better attention in elementary school grammar class. Hope my question makes sense.
Aaron

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Aaron says:

Wait!! I think I just got it. Ok, so ‘Sugoi Oishii’ is is “Amazing! Delicious!”– two separate words. BUT, Sugoku Oishii is “Amazingly delicious!” as in describing the kind of amazing that ‘it’ is. Is that right?

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maxiewawa says:

Aaron, from what I’ve seen, “Sugoi” is an exception to the grammatical rule… To make “sugoi” into an adverb, you don’t change the “~i” to “~ku”. (And we can think of “oishii” as a verb for the purposes of this explanation.)

I’m listening to EnglishPod101.com right now, Hiroko-sensei (remember her!) just said “sugoi yaseta” when describing someone who has lost their love handles. (”Love Handles” was last week’s phrase of the week!)

I used to pick up on people’s misuse of “sugoi” (instead of “sugoku”) but I’ve stopped now. Think of it as an exception to remember; there is not “sugoku” in Japanese, only “sugoi”.

But now that I think of it, I’m sure that I’ve heard “sugoku” sometimes.

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JKid says:

maxiewawa-san,
I agree about sugoi oishii not being grammatically incorrect.

>> But now that I think of it, I’m sure that I’ve heard “sugoku” sometimes.

However, I am 99.9% certain that sugoku is the adverbial form of sugoi. I did a search for sugokuoishii in Google just to see what would happen and there is a number of Japanese websites using it. So I am pretty sure I am right.

We’ll get the bottom of this! :)

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JKiddo says:

Aaron-san,
Half right! It is further expanding on adding information to delicious. Being more descriptive. Very similar to what you said though. :)

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Tommy says:

I am perplexed about one of the characters on the Kanji list for the premium content for this lesson. The character is 彙 and its kun reading is given as はりねずみ or “hedgehog.” The given definition is “same kind.” Research indicates that the most common use for this quite unusual character is in the combination 語彙 — or “goi,” which means “vocabulary.”

There is nothing in the lesson content which makes any reference to this character and so I am wondering why it would be introduced in Beginners Lessons 16 and 17. Thank you in advance for your response.

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Tommy says:

Just adding a note that nearly 60 days has passed since my comment/inquiry of October 21 — with no response as of yet.

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Keith says:

Our sincerest apologies Tommy! Keeping track of more than 800 lessons can be quite difficult… but we do try to get back to everyone! I’ll be sure to forward your question with someone who can help you better than me (my Japanese isn’t so great :P ) Thank you for reminding us and for your patience!

Also, please check your e-mail. We’ve e-mailed you with a special gift :mrgreen:

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Naomi says:

Tommy -san

I got rid of the kanji from the list. It was way too difficult a Kanji for this lesson. As these were the start of JapanesePod101.com, it wasn’t the easiest thing to get organized. These lessons have good value, but some more structured lesson can be found with Nihongo Dojo!

Thank you.

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Melissa says:

Konnichiwa,
I have a question-
please could anyone tell me why you would put a dash and ‘’san'’ after someone’s name?
Thanks

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aaron says:

Melissa-san,

“san” is equivalent to Mr. or Ms. in english. You could consider it a gesture of respect. You use it mostly when addressing people older than you or those outside of your immediate social groups, or perhaps when referring to someone in a conversation. Close friends omit “san” when talking to one another. Also, you never use it in reference to yourself. You would never introduce yourself as Melissa-san. Hope that helps.

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Melissa says:

Thank-you for replying so quickly-that makes alot more sense now!

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kiki-chan says:

I have noticed in Anime, they use “nano” at the end of sentences instead of “desu” What does “nano” mean?

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Mayumi says:

kiki-chan,

“nano” can be divided into “na” and “no.” “no” is the sentence ending particle which indicates a question in a casual conversation or softens the sentence.
When this “no” is used at the end of a sentence ending with “desu” or “da,” these “desu” or “da” is changed to “na.”

あなたは、いくつなの?= how old are you?
( あなたは、いくつですか? ; です => な;  か=>の)

ぼくは三歳なの。= I’m 3years old.
(ぼくは さんさい です。; です => な;  + の sentence ending particle)

I hope that would be of any help! :wink:

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kiki-chan says:

Arigatou gozaimasu! that really helped! :mrgreen:

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Molly says:

im sorry this has nothing to do with this lesson but still would like to know this.What is the difference between: “wa”,”ga”,”ni”,”wo” and “de”? :???:

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Jessi says:

Mollyさん,
Each particle you listed has many different usages, so I highly recommend you listen to our particle series that goes through each one in-depth:

http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php?cat=37&order=asc

You’ll find the answers in these lessons! :grin:

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Molly says:

thank you!that was really helpful :smile:

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おう says:

お元気ですか。絶好調です。
お元気ですか。元気一杯です。
お元気ですか。凄い元気です。
お元気ですか。まあまあです。
お元気ですか。あまり元気じゃない。
お元気ですか。駄目です。

また今日ね。

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