Mina-san,

Part two of Agnes’s traveblogue is here! Tune in to see what kind of challenges she faces as she makes the transition to the big city! And have a great weekend!

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

Hello and thanks for the lesson,

Did I sleep inadvertently and miss a few lessons, or has the number of the pdf files gone from 319 to 327 in just one day ?

I think the comment count will be low this weekend since most of the Americans will be recovering from all the feasting. I feel sorry for those poor Tampa Bay Buc fans. Go Cowboys!

Some thoughts about the lesson today:

Smoking Cars
Now, you can find one or two smoking cars on a 新幹線（しんかんせん）train. But, when I was a kid, and we visited Japan it was the opposite. If I remember correctly, there was only one non-smoking train. I got a headache so bad from the smoke one time, that I spent most of the ride between cars near the doors.

Morning Call
Yoshiさん asked if this term was used in English…And Peterさん got the answer right!!! This is definitely Engrish. See, our Save Peter Campaign™ is working!

かしこまりました
When I was dating my wife, we would send a lot of emails (by computer, text messaging by cell wasn’t yet in vogue). Once she made a request, and I responded with 畏まりました。And she couldn’t read it!!! This is definitely not usually written.

Anyway, have a great weekend everyone!

Yoshiさん、

Are you making it out ot Ben’s Café this weekend?

Maxiewawa,

Ending a sentence with “to” makes it an eliptical expression, that is, the end of the thought is implied rather that explicitly stated. So the structure here is “I don’t go to the hotel and . . .”, or in more natural English, “If I don’t go to the hotel . . . (I’ll have to carry all my luggage around with me while I’m out apartment hunting). As has been introduced before, “to” introduces a consequence that can be expected to flow naturally from the preceding condition. Such an elliptical expression would be common in expressions when talking to oneself (as used in this instance), or if used when talking to others, the elipsis might be used to refer to a consequence so obvious that stating it explicitly would insult the listener’s intelligence.

Japanese subscribe to the ideal of “Ichi–juu”, which itself is eliptical for “Hear one thing, understand ten things”. Therefore, stating the obvious is often considered obnoxious and rude. The listener has to work very hard, and Japanese often repeat requests to make sure that they have understood correctly.

Hey Bob, thanks for your help!
Now off I go, to…

Why do you end the sentence with ‘to’? It happens a lot, in this lesson and the intermediate lesson before.

Here, it’s actually short for [negative verb]といけない. This is a common and much more informal version of the 〜なくてはいけない construction for expressing obligation.