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This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Upper Intermediate 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.
38 Responses to “Upper Intermediate Lesson #01 - We Need a Translator 1”
Friday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, welcome to our first Upper Intermediate lesson. This is an extremely useful 4 part series covering set phrases used in the business scene. Now, while the grammar and vocabulary included in here is not particularly easy, it is exactly the kind of language that will show that you can really make a distinction between usual polite Japanese and skillful humble and honorific forms. We’re very excited about this series, so we hope you enjoy it!
Friday at 7:10 pm
Wow, you guys really pulled out the big guns for 2008. This is hardcore!
Friday at 8:16 pm
Although I don’t do any business in Japan, this lesson is interesting for those expressions with polite level and humble level. It can be useful everywhere. Thank you for this first upper intermediate lesson.
Yesterday I thought there was an english pun I didn’t understand in the gag intro.
Today all is clear!
Friday at 9:51 pm
OkayamaS-san, ask and you shall receive.
Alain-san, yes, it is interesting how one’s first exposure to Japanese can be some of the most difficult Japanese one will encounter!
This is some pretty good stuff!
Friday at 10:16 pm
Yes, the first time I went to Japan with some japanese lessons (a little 4kyuu), every evening I was seeking for the polite forms in Edict, to try to understand what people told me in hotels, restaurants…
I learned, for exemple that “お客様、申し訳ありませんが、上着とネクタイの着用をお願いいたします。”means “Go to sobaya !”
Friday at 11:36 pm
Jpod101の皆様へ
本レッソンを放送してくれまして、誠にありがとうございます。おかげ様でいつもの通りに是非勉強になりました。
Is ”是非勉強におなりしました/おなり致しました”correct ? It sounds weird… Or is there a special humble form for なる?
Saturday at 12:40 am
This lesson is great, I love formal Japanese. I am not sure if my Japanese has improved or this lesson is not tough…I find this lesson relatively easier to some intermediate lessons???
But great job, keep up with it.
Saturday at 3:39 am
Thanks, this is really what I need! I use Japanese in my day to day business, and polishing these phrases will help me to sound much more professional. And, I always wondered what “ainiku” meant even though I’ve heard it used all the time. (Why isn’t “zannen nagara” used? Is it replacable with “ainiku”?)
Saturday at 5:42 am
This is excellent. I’ve been waiting for more advanced lessons quite a while. Many thanks!
Saturday at 5:57 am
Great stuff! This takes me back 34 years to my days as a missionary. This is about all we had the ability to speak, and we felt so in the dark much of the time. You even threw in a “watakushi” to make me feel at home! Very nice work. Very helpful.
Saturday at 7:03 am
Mina-sama!
Thank you everyone for your support, I’m the sensible type but I already put some bandage and I feel fine.
Today’s lesson was excellent I really need to learn to be more humble so those words were precious for me. Keep up this great work!
S_R_C
Saturday at 7:23 am
very sugoi lesson
well beyond my level but very interesting
Saturday at 7:31 am
so this is the japanese you would hear most of the times as en employee . as a costumer etc from formal to very formal
Saturday at 11:07 am
申し訳ございません。コメントを書くの者外しております。
Our apologies. The comment writer is unavailable at the moment.
Saturday at 11:50 am
Great lesson `whew’ a bit of a mental work-out today but useful phrases for around the office.
I too you mega-polite Japanese with my friends as a joke - you aren’t alone there Peter.
Saturday at 12:29 pm
これは最高!
毎日友達と使いませんが、会社にはこれさえ本当に忘れればならないですよ!
いや、この上は正しいと思いますけど。。。 間違いましたかなあ。
とにかく、本当に有難うございます。
Saturday at 2:24 pm
this is fantastic !
always wanted to learn humble and polite Japanese, great start for the upper intermediate series
Saturday at 5:02 pm
本当に有り難う御座います。実はこれは練習になりましたよ。先学期、ビジネス日本語のクラスをとって、こういう風な単語や文法はまことに役に立つと思うよ。ビジネスする方かビジネスしない方もこの表現を勉強しておいたほうがいいと思うよ!。有り難うサクラさん、なつこさん、ピータさん!
Saturday at 8:01 pm
Thanks for the business Japanese lesson, It was a bit easier that I had expected but I guess living in Japan for awhile and going about everyday things you hear a lot of these phrases over and over again and they get entrenched in your mind.
I’m looking forward to the next upper intermediate lessons!
Sunday at 6:53 am
Why not just skip upper intermediate and go to advanced - full Japanese lessons with no English at all. Seems rather overkill to have 3 different Intermediate lessons.
Sunday at 11:32 am
Full Japanese will be too difficult, besides that if you want to listen to full Japanese, you can just go and watch J-drama or listen to those online Japanese news…or Youtube…there are tons of japanese resources there that are full Japanese.
What we really need is something to bridge the gap between real advanced full japanese and the intermediate, which I think is the most difficult part. The lower intermediates are really easy, not event considered intermediate sometime.
Sunday at 12:09 pm
There is no gap. In schools, they don’t use any English from day one. Intermediate was never a word of English. What I mean is that they should explain the things in Japanese. Maybe give the meaning of the word in English, but other than that, it would just be regular “intermediate” again. They’ve had like one lesson in the intermediate lesson where there wasn’t one moment of peter saying something in English casually, or translation. They gave the meaning of the words in english, gave an example sentence. That was all the English for the whole episode. Best lesson they’ve ever had. Besides, you can always get transcripts online.
Sunday at 8:55 pm
Hi there everyone
Can someone please remind me of the rule (keigo) for when to use “ko” and when to use “go” as a pre-fix? I know it was something regarding chinese characters.
Thanks a bunch
Monday at 10:07 am
There is no ko used as a prefix. o- is used as a prefix though. The difference is word specific. So you have to learn o- and go- on a word-by-word basis.
Examples:
お客様 (guest), お手洗い(bathroom)
ご利用 (usage of someone’s service), ご主人(husband)
Monday at 5:28 pm
I’m not sure how useful this is, but even if it doesn’t help with your Japanese, it might be interesting as a little bit of trivia.
All of the words with ご in front of them are the same in Chinese as in Japanese. So in Chinese, 利用 is to use something, and 主人 is also a word (it actually means ‘master’ as in the opposite of ’servant’ though…).
On the other hand the お prefix words don’t mean anything in Chinese - 客様 and 手洗 don’t appear in the Chinese language.
It might take a proper linguist to tell you why, but I would guess that the ご words are all older than the お words. They were taken from the Chinese in the wholesale import of 漢字.
そうかな?
Tuesday at 11:47 am
お茶、お水、お電話 all mean something in Chinese (minus the お).
The ご=Chinese Origin, お=Japanese Origin doesn’t always work. There are many exceptions.
Wednesday at 2:02 pm
I have a question
質問があります!
Do you also use the word “きしゃ” instead of “onsha”?
御社の代わりに貴社も使いますか?
I just remembered this Japanese tongue-twister
「貴社の記者が汽車で帰社しました」
Thursday at 8:32 am
From my perspective, this was a great lesson in all respects. Very well put together. Please continue this “upper intermediate” level. Nice job!
Monday at 10:37 am
Comment:
Too much English. It’s not necessary to have a sentence by sentence translation - the explanations that follow are enough. I would prefer a longer text.
Neil
Thursday at 11:28 am
Great lesson, thanks.
Thursday at 2:23 pm
貴社ー your honorable company
記者 - reporter
汽車 - railway train
帰社 - return to the company(?)
Hah
Sunday at 9:26 am
I need help with JPLT level 2 and ! but there aren’t practise papers for this level. Also, only one content question for whole lesson. I suppose there’s no point me subscribing yet which is a shame!
Sunday at 9:29 am
Where are the JLPT practise papers for level 2 and 1?
Tuesday at 11:25 pm
Good site! it is very helpful for various level of japanese studies
Tuesday at 11:38 pm
I am in awe. so awesome!
Tuesday at 11:07 pm
Great lesson! I really need help with improving my keigo!
BTW: Grammar quiz is not working. (8/18/09)
Wednesday at 2:37 pm
Katie-san,
Thank you for your great comment! Also thank you for letting us know the error. I fixed it.
Sunday at 4:12 am
There is a mistake in the translation of the phone number: in the audio it should be “03-1868 0691″. But Peter says it’s “03-1186 0691.”
電話番号を間違ったら、誰とも繋げないわよ!
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