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Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Two co-workers enjoyed their delicious mīto sōsu supageti (spaghetti bolognese, literally “meat sauce spaghetti”), but couldn’t finish it all! Of course, nobody wants to waste oishii pasta, so why not get a doggy bag and enjoy it later? We’ll review the verb iru, which is verb “to be” for animate nouns. After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!

Grammar: | Topic: | Politeness Level:


This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 2 . 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.

11 Responses to “Beginner Lesson S2 #22 - A Doggy Bag for Kitty!”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Mina-san, What’s your favorite pasta? Have you ever ordered so much you couldn’t finish?

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Carlo says:

Hi everyone!
Today is a National Holiday in Italy, so after a long time I was able to listen to the podcast as soon as you made it available! :razz:
Today’s lesson, with only Peter-san and Natsuko-san in the studio, recalls me the “old times” of the early beginner lessons…懐かしいな~!
カルロ :cool:

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nick barnie says:

Thank you Peter-san and Natsuko san for another excellent lesson. The references to married partners and use of honorifics only for the spouses of others reminds me of an earlier lesson in which reference was made to an old American TV show. If memory serves it was Satchko san who mentioned the show known to us as “Bewitched” but known in Japan as “My Wife is a Witch” which she said is in Japanese “Ooku Samma wa Majou desu”. Surely this can only mean Your Wife is a Witch due to the use of honorifics. This did not occur to me until some time after the episode but I would be very interested if you could shed some light on this. Keep up the great work.
Kind regards,
Nick

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ShinKo says:

Hello there~ Thanks alot~ learned alot today~

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ShinKo says:

Oh.. btw, i visited one Italian restaurant where the servings for the pasta was so huge that it’s hard to finish~! Their dessert was fantastic however i could only eat a few mouth, too full ~

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maxiewawa says:

Eeeee?
Can you give us a breakdown of ‘猫は食べられない’? How could it mean ‘the cat can’t eat it’ and also ‘cat is inedible’ at the same time?
Did ピータ先生 make a mistake or does it really mean both?

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markystar says:

maxiewawaさん、
it’s not a mistake. it can mean both depending on the context.
the formation of the passive and potential forms are the same for this class of verbs.

猫は食べられない。・As for cats, they aren’t eaten.
猫は食べられない。As for cats, they can’t eat.
there no context stated in these examples, so it’s unclear without more information.

however, compare these examples:
猫は人に食べられない。As for cats, they aren’t eaten by people.
猫はスパゲティを食べられない。As for cats, they can’t eat spaghetti.

:mrgreen:

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maxiewawa says:

Ah I get it. Well whose idea was it to make the passive and potential forms the same??? :lol:

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markystar says:

maxiewawa、

dude… it’s one of life’s eternal mysteries.
actually, i’d venture to say one is a contracted form. because in the other class of verbs, the potential and passive are distinctly different. but i’m not a japanese etymologist, so don’t quote me on that. :oops:

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Tom says:

Bologna is one of the most amazing places in Italy!

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Mayumi says:

Tom-san,
What is the best aspect of Bologna?  

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