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It’s time to Learn Japanese at JapanesePod101.com! In today’s story Kumi is waiting around for Taro (not that Taro - c’mon, it’s a popular name!). Since he’s late she befriends a kindly security guard and has a little chat. Our grammar point is how to use shika to express the idea of “nothing but” or “only.” In the following episodes we’ll compare this with a 2 other similar particles, dake and bakari. This is some important, but essential grammar that you can use right away! After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!

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


This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 3 . 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.

30 Responses to “Beginner Lesson S3 #4 - The Meet Up 1”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Mina-san, how late is “late” in your country? In Japan, being punctual is important. It’s not unusual to see business men and women running through the streets to get to their office on time. And often making a person wait 5-10 minutes at a meeting point will earn you an “遅い!” or two.

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markystar says:

Mina-san, Video Vocab for this lesson will be posted tomorrow morning (Tokyo time). :hachimaki:
Sorry for the inconvenience! 申し訳ございません  :dogeza:

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maxiewawa says:

彼女is very strict about being late. This is a big problem for her in China!

中国では、「遅刻」と言う事はない!
In China, we don’t have the concept of “late”.

遅刻なら、どう言えばいいでしょう?

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プチクレア says:

Here in France , “on time” 10 to 15 minutes late. We have something called “le quart d’heure de politesse “, which means that when meeting with friends, especially if you’re invited to their place, it’s rude to arrive less than 15 minutes late. A friend of mine from Paraguay told me that it’s worse there…

I get chided by my friends because I’m at least on time, and moreover than not 15 min early, at most meetings…

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markystar says:

one thing i heard is that for formal situations or business or first time meetings, arriving early in japan can be bad too, because you made the other party feel like they showed up late! :roll:

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プチクレア says:

How true !

I don’t advocate being early at all…people do get insulted, and I get bored… I’m just chronically anxious about being late…

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Peter says:

Lateness, a subject dear to my heart. :grin:

When meeting friends, I am on time around 50% of the time, late 25%, and 25% of the time both parties are late.

I would never, ever, recommend being late for a business meeting in Japan and/or the US. Early is definitely the way to go. The fact you show up on time is definitely a sign that you respect the other persons time. Furthermore, almost every place I’ve been in my adventures has had a secrectary or “someone at the door”, so you wind up waiting in a lobby, etc. So even if you’re early, they have time to prepare.

遅れないように!
Don’t be late!

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キース says:

chikoku sounds really similar in Korean :wink: jigak. probably have the same hanja characters :mrgreen:

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クリストファー・ハート (KC8UFV) says:

As Peter先生 indicates in his notes, here in the states, one should NEVER be late for a business meeting. Late for a business meeting generally means arriving less than 5 minutes before it is scheduled. For an event, you don’t want to be late, either. About the only thing it’s acceptable to be late to, without tardiness being pre-arranged, is a party.

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rigo says:

i personally hate being late in any ocasion
and im too old to waste time waiting for other people

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Sindyシンディー says:

Mina-sama! :wink:

oh too bad I’m not a secretary! :wink:
I do both get on time or be late, it just depends on the situation. :cool:
But if you want to keep your job or school, you definitve have to be on time. :lol: S_R_C

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Mike in Ebisu Tokyo says:

Early or Late,

I am an American who has worked for a Japanese Companies for 28 years. The previous two years until June I lived in Taiwan and now I live in Japan. For business I have traveled all over the Northern Hemisphere.

Taiwan drove me crazy with the concept of 差不多 chàbuduō which means “about” So for a 10:00am meeting it was perfectly acceptable to call the customer at 10:20 and say “oh traffic is bad we will be there in 20 minutes and then actually arrive 30 minutes later. And of course then the customer would think nothing of not coming down to the lobby for another 20 minutes. All in the name of 差不多 chàbuduō

If you did this in Japan you would never get the business. Or if you were late for a meeting in the office you would be in big trouble as well.

I am always early. It is less stressful for me unless like this morning begging my wife to hurry so we could catch the Yamonote Line to Tokyo so she could catch the 7:00am Narita Express.

Mike in Ebisu

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maxiewawa says:

I can relate to Mike’s story, being in China. I think 差不多 sums up a lot of Chinese philosophy, the idea that something WILL get done, that we WILL arrive at a point, that we WILL get something done, given enough time.

差不多 is an interesting mix of 漢字:the first is 差, which means “difference”, as in “the difference between two things”. Second is 不, which means “not”. 多 means “many” or “a lot’. So we literally have “to not be off by much”.

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Liz21 says:

I am sure I hear Chigusa-san’s voice at 4:22, introducing the English translation: 今度は英語がはいります。It’s her, isn’t it? You used her clip!! I know I am right! :grin:

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Liz21 says:

すみません:
I’m sorry to tell you that the Line-By-Line audio is missing a line and the lines are not as written. Can you fix it? :dogeza:

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マーキースター says:

hey guys, the Video Vocab is posted, so if you refresh iTunes it should show up :cool:
as for the Line By Line, it’s fixed now too! i apologize for any inconvenience! 申し訳ございません!  :dogeza:

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Josiah says:

In Australia, there is almost no concept of being late, (except in a business meeting)
For example, if I was to meet a friend at 12pm it would be perfectly acceptable to arrive at 12.10- 12.30.
Now this isn’t cannon, but the majority of Aussie’s are often late because both japanese and korean friends often complain about the tardiness of people when it comes to meeting up or something.
But parties are different, if you were to invite me to a party which started at 6pm, then i wouldn’t get there until 7.30 at the earliest, unless there was dinner ;)

maxiwawa, i don’t know if i can agree with your comments about the chinese always being willing to wait, didn’t they have a revolution because the people got fed up with the system?
its bound to happen again, always does when the masses are treated like cattle :wink:

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maxiewawa says:

Josiahさん that’s a good point, I don’t really have an answer for that. China has undergone many massive changes started by a few people, so maybe the philosophy I described doesn’t apply everywhere.

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ndb1 says:

Hey, I just did shika in my lesson. Thanks for the chance to practice some more.

I used to live in Italy, and although for business meetings they were pretty punctual, they’d usually be late for social meetings. That’s why mobile phones caught on so quickly there - it’s a useful way to let people know how late you’re going to be.

Unfortunately, I would almost always be paid late, by whichever company. Sometimes up to a month. : (

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MexicanHat says:

Funny you mention that Josiah I know some Japanese friends and they are late :lol:

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Francisco says:

I am the world’s only punctual South American.

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マット says:

Thanks for talking about the differences between こわい and かわい. I, myself, am guilty of accidentally calling the move Ju-On cute.

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gerryboy says:

Hi!

I noticed the English translation of 6時50分 was “6:30″ in the main audio lesson.
At 04:43 “Wow, it’s already 6:30? This is bad.”

:grin:

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Jessi says:

gerryboyさん,
Thanks for pointing this out! :dogeza:

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timt. says:

any chance of posting a lesson notes lite? my pdf won’t open without a new adobe package of what so ever?

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Ercan says:

:cry:
I have problem with new pdf files, some of the letters can not be read (Japanese characters). I did not have that problem before on the old pdf files. Is it my sofware?

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亀井 says:

Tardiness is a bit of a commonplace in Washington, DC; driven in part by grossly insufficient transportation infrastructure.

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Mark says:

In Ireland, lateness is part of our culture; even trains and the Dail (parlament) are usually late by quite some time.

PS: Why is the PDF different today?

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Jessi says:

Hi Mark,
This PDF uses our updated PDF format. We are still in the process of updating the rest of the old PDFs to this format, which is why you’ll still see some of the odler ones. :)

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Mark says:

The old one is much easier to use! You could see all the formats at once rather than using two pages for it!

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