Today we seriously power up the basic expressions we taught you last week! Today you get the tools to turn at-leasts-your-trying expressions into looks of astonishment. These are the real deal! Get ready to start turning some heads.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 4:08 am and is filed under Beginner Lessons. 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.
32 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #20 - Looks of Disbelief!”
Natsuko says:
January 17th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Hi, everyone! お元気ですか(o genki desu ka)?
I’m doing fine!
I believe this is one of the most useful phrases in Japanese.
We not only use it as greetings, but also say it when you want to kind of cheer up someone who looks a bit gloomy or tired. 元気? I really like that expression. I hope you all use it as well!
Peter says:
January 17th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Hey Natsuko! Great to hear from you! We missed you! Yes, this is one that will seperate you from the pack!.
Peter
Lisa says:
January 17th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
I just want to say thanks because this site is so extremely helpful! 
I’m going to recommend to my friends who are interested in Japanese. 
どうもありがとう！
Paula says:
January 18th, 2006 at 4:53 am
I am sooooo glad that I have found this website:-)) it is very very difficult to find japanese lessons in Scotland. Now I can learn from my ipod when I go to uni!!!!!!
Thanks so much guys, this is sooooooo helpful.
ARIGATO GOZAIMAS:-))))
Peter says:
January 18th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Lisa-san, どうもありがおうございます！Please do! You cannot believe how much we have grown just by word-of-mouth. We have the best listeners ever! Thanks for being one of them.
Paula-san, Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu! Thank you for the post!! It is great to know that Scotland is listening! Thank you so much!! Watashi wa Sukottorando ga totemo suki desu! My good friend got married on the Isle of Bute. It was so much fun! Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu.
Peter
Matthew says:
February 1st, 2006 at 11:39 am
こんばんわ. Matthew です。イギリスのロンドン からきました。
japanesepod101.com わ すごいです
どうもありがとうございます。
Let me first say this site is so cool. I really appreciate what you guys are doing. I am learning japanese at evening class, and this stuff is really helping me cement my knowledge. Plus it gives me experience not just of the textbook stuff, but the way Japanese people really speak. The lessons are short, and snappy, yet informative. The delivery is excellent: clearly spoken, fast enough for those with experience, and repeated slowly for those coming to terms with the new vocabulary. I particularly like the way the vocab is broken down into syllables. This really helps me get it when I’m commuting and I don’t have the notes to hand. There is a real and obvious ‘chemistry’ between Peter and the native Japanese speakers: your bright and breezy approach is really refreshing compared to the Minna no Nihongo tapes that I have. Peter - you’re doing a great job here pulling it all together and I wish you all the best of luck with the show. If you’d like me to write a review for Itunes, please let me know and I will highly recommend you.
Peter says:
February 3rd, 2006 at 11:40 pm
マシューさん、初めましてPeterです。よろしくお願いします！ 
Thank you for the great post! It is great to hear about you interest in Japanese! We were so happy to hear that you are studying while commuting! This is the way intended it to be used, so thank you!
By the way, do you have an ipod? If so, the notes for almost all January’s lessons are available by clicking the center button twice once the show start! 
Romaji, hiragana and kanji, all time coded!!!! 
This feature is quite time consuming, but our sugoi listeners deserve the best!
Yes, Mina no Nihongo tapes…I remember them well. I have studied Japanese for over 10 years now (wow, I can’t believe that number!), and have come in contact with a lot of material. I can understand where they’re coming from, but…..this is why at JapanesePod101.com we intentionally design the lessons to be practical and fun, while at the same time including culture and details that are crucial to any language learner. We are so happy when we read a post like yours! Thank you!
Itunes reviews! Yes we love them! As I say on the show, we read posts, emails, comments, etc. before lessons. That is why we sound so up! It is because of sugoi listeners like yourself. Remember it is because of the listeners and your open-mindedness that our show has been so well received and grown so fast.
本当にありがとうございます！
Tech Guy says:
March 9th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Trintin,
Thanks for pointing this out to us. The pdf is now working again!!!
Tech Guy
Laura says:
April 2nd, 2006 at 12:19 pm
So far I’ve heard of three levels of politeness.
eg:
genki degozaimasu
genki desu
genki da
But then some people just leave off the “da” altogether.
genki
Does that make the sentence even more casual then “da”, or are they equivalent. Or would the listener just fill in the ending depending on the tone of the conversation?
Jonas says:
April 2nd, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Laura-san: You got the 3 levels correct! Just note that “de gozaimasu” is used for yourself (or people in your own “group”. This “group” changes from situation to situation. Say you talk to a neighbour you dont know that well. Then your own group would be you and your family, while your neighbour and his/hers family would be his/hers group. So you would use “de gozaimasu” about your own family too. If you work in a company, and you talk with a representative for another company, your company would be in your group. Hope I expressed this in an understandable way…)
Removing “da” wouldn’t make the sentence any less polite, but be aware that if you add particles like “yo, ne” etc, dropping “da” could make you sound girlish (something you maybe would want to do?), e.g. “genki yo” is something a girl would say.
Jonas
Laura says:
April 6th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Thanks. The bit about the shifting groups makes sense. I’m not sure what you mean by this though:
“Just note that “de gozaimasu” is used for yourself (or people in your own “group”.”
You mean you’d use very polite mode when talking about people inside your group to people outside it? Wouldn’t you use polite mode with outside people no matter who you’re talking about?
On the same topic, I read somewhere that if you were talking to your boss you’d use polite mode, because he’s outside your group and above you. But if you were talking to someone from another company you’d talk *about* your boss in casual mode because in that context he’s in your group. By talking about him in casual mode you show your group membership.
Well I just wrote all this and then realized something. Did you mean “de gozaimasu” specifically? I think I might get it. You’d say that for people inside your group because it implies humbleness. But you wouldn’t use, say, “-san” when describing someone in your group because it implies exaltedness. That fits with the boss example too - he’s in your group so you wouldn’t raise him up when you talk about him.
Laura
Jonas says:
April 7th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Uhm… I’ll try to explain some more… 2 groups right? and 2 (actually more, but there are 2 main ones) types of polite speak. Sonkeigo (Polite, elevates the position of the listener) and kenjogo (Humble, lowers your own position). With “you” I mean you and people in your group.
So “de gozaimasu”, being an humble expression (actually it is classified as teineigo), you would use it about things related to you and your group.
When talking about people in your group, you usually refer to them by family name + title (e.g. kawamoto shachou, 川本社長)
Politeness in Japanese is a difficult topic, with many variables, and even most Japanese people don’t really master it (You often get sent to “polite-speak-school” when you start working in a company. Especially if you work in human relations).
Hope this helps to clear up some confusion…
Jonas
Laura says:
April 7th, 2006 at 7:08 am
Ah, ok. So when speaking about your boss to someone outside, you’d use Kenjogo, but when speaking to your boss you’d use Senkeigo. It’s all polite, but different kinds of polite. That’s what the thingy I read must have meant when it said “casual”. That makes so much more sense.
L
Laurel says:
May 9th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Pages 2 and 3 for January 17th episode actually contain pages 2 and 3 from January 16th.
I want to make note that this might be a different problem than was reported in March, when Tintin reported that “pdf isn’t working” - pretty vague - and Tech Guy replied that it was fixed.
どうもありがおうございます
Laurel
Scott B says:
July 27th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I greeted my Japanese co-worker with “choshi wa do desu ka”, and her opinion was that this was most appropriate in a business setting, with co-workers you know, for example. Does anyone have opinions on that?
Robin B says:
August 19th, 2006 at 4:29 am
This may be a silly question, but I now have so many ways to tell someone how I’m doing and was wondering… if someone asks me “choshi wa do desu ka”, is “genki desu yo” an acceptable answer or is it only said when someone asks you “genki desu ka”? can genki refer to my choshi????
polo says:
January 30th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
hi all
polo des, watashi wa saudiya des,, lol
i have a question:
is it useful to watch japanies anime ? will it be good to enhance my listening skills or it’s too early ?
and i believe they use another way to express in anime right?
and by the way arigatu
this lesson was so good
polo says:
January 30th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
hi scott b.
well i believe if you are going to say ” how r u? to a co-worker i think it’s better to say ginki or ginki des ka?
thi is my opinion?
lol
John C. Briggs says:
January 30th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Poloさん,
Personally, I think it is too early. They tend to talk very fast in Anime. It is too hard. There is no harm in watching, just don’t expect too much from it.
ジョン
PixieAlli says:
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:16 am
I have a quick question about one of the phrases that Kazunori said: “mechamecha genki desu” // めちゃめちゃ元気です - I am assuming it’s some kind of slang, to mean “Super Great”, am I correct?
Uchiha Itachi says:
November 14th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Really awesome lesson, but i read alot of books that taught me alot of my japanese and in one of them, they said that okage sama de meant luckily can anyone elaborate.
frankmiller says:
November 15th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
SkyDiver,
You’ve never heard that word before?? It’s pretty common. 
SkyDiver says:
November 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
That was a rhetoric question about the writing error, but you obviously didn’t get that 
gilin says:
July 19th, 2008 at 8:10 am
hi!! watashi wa jirinu desu!(hahah!! don’t know if that correct..), 
im from Philippines!!! hehehe… i love the website..
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Category: Beginner Lessons |
Grammar: copulas, da | Function: greeting people, making small talk | Topic: greetings | Politeness Level: Informal, Polite
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