About our Printer-friendly lesson notes
Follow along to our award winning lessons with detailed PDF Lesson
Notes! These easy to print notes take a closer look at the grammar
point and vocabulary words presented in the audio lesson. Plus,
read more about
language101 cultural topics related to the lesson.
Re-activate or upgrade your account to access the PDF Lesson
Notes today!
Kanji Close-Up
Take a closer look at the kanji characters used in the lesson
Dialogue with the Kanji Close Up Practice Sheets! You'll learn the
meaning, readings, and stroke order of each character. Plus,
improve your writing with kanji stroke order practice sheets!
Re-activate or upgrade your account to access the Kanji Close Up
Practice Sheets today!
About our Review Audio Tracks
Listen and repeat with the Review Track. Hear the lesson
vocabulary and main phrases and repeat after the native speaker -
it's the best way to perfect your pronunciation!
Upgrade your account to access The Review Track and start
perfecting your pronunciation today!
About our Lesson Audio
Our team of
Japanese language specialists have been releasing new audio and video
lessons weekly since 2005. That's a lot of
Japanese language learning! All lessons are free for the first 2 weeks
before going into our Basic and Premium Archive.
Re-activate or upgrade your account to access every single
lesson we've ever created today!
About our Dialog Audio Tracks
The audio lesson is a comprehensive, easy to use lessons that
makes learning Japanese fun for anyone.
Each audio lesson contains can be downloaded in seconds
to your computer, iPod, phone, or mp3 player so that you can learn quickly and be speaking Japanese in no time at all.
The audio lesson is your ticket to learning to speak
Japanese with confidence and accuracy, and from your very first lesson!
About our Dialog Audio Tracks
Don't have enough time for an entire lesson today? Listen to the
Dialogue Only Track to hear the native Dialogue. Listening to a
little bit of
Japanese everyday, no matter how much, will greatly improve your listening
comprehension. Guaranteed!
Upgrade your account to access the Dialogue Only Track and other
Premium Tools today!
About our Grammar Audio Tracks
Tackle grammar head on with the lesson Grammar List. We break
down the grammar piece by piece so you fully master the structure
and formation.
Upgrade your account to access the Grammar List and other
Premium lesson tools today!
About our Videocasts
Our team of
Japanese language specialists have been releasing new audio and video
lessons weekly since 2005. That's a lot of
Japanese language learning! All lessons are free for the first 2 weeks
before going into our Basic and Premium Archive.
Re-activate or upgrade your account to access every single
lesson we've ever created today!
About our Learning Center
Listen and read the line-by-line breakdown of the lesson
conversation with this Premium Tool. Listen to each line as many
times as you need until you fully understand the conversation and
pronunciation. Line-By-Line Audio Transcripts are the perfect way
to improve your comprehension - fast!
Upgrade your account to access Line-By-Line Audio Transcript and
other Premium lesson tools today!
About our Videocasts
Our team of
Japanese language specialists have been releasing new audio and video
lessons weekly since 2005. That's a lot of
Japanese language learning! All lessons are free for the first 2 weeks
before going into our Basic and Premium Archive.
Re-activate or upgrade your account to access every single
lesson we've ever created today!
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Extra Fun . 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.
10 Responses to “Premium Lesson #15 - SS11: Sale, Sale, Sale!”
Saturday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, this kind of super-polite Japanese is everywhere in Japan. Hope you found this one useful!
Saturday at 9:39 pm
It’s good practice, as this kind of japanese is rarely explained in textbook, and sometimes when you walk into a shop you might wonder if the people there actually speak japanese !
I have a question : in a kabuki play, I once heard a character ( a former samurai’s young daughter) ending her sentences in ~くださりませ.Compared to ~くださいませ, is this :
- plain wrong
- archaic but OK
- archaic and even more polite than くださいませ
- a regionalism
- something else entirely ?….
Sunday at 1:38 am
i can’t say definitively but….
i know that ござります is an archaism for ございます
so it’ not far-fetched to imagine くださりませ for くださいませ.
i’ll consult rebekah on this one as she know classical japanese 詳しく
i’m really curious now!
Tuesday at 4:04 am
When I was in Japan 30 years ago, kudasai, kudasaimasen ka, kudasaru no desho ka were standard polite usage. Have these been replaced with kureru for the most part, with the exception being business usage?
How about otabe ni natte kudasai, oyomi ni natte kudasaimasen ka
Tuesday at 1:18 pm
二ールさん
質問ありがとうございます。
I think people still use お+masu stem +になってください very often, not only in business but also in a daily conversation. When they talk to people with whom they are not very close or those who are older, they use formal expressions such as ください、くださいませんか.
くれる vs くださる
Could you (would you) come with me?
1)ちょっと、(私と)一緒に来てくれる?Chotto, (watashi to) isshoni kite kureru?
2)ちょっと、一緒に来てくれますか?Chotto, issho ni kite kuremasu ka?
3)ちょっと、一緒に来てくださいますか?Chotto issho ni kite kudasaimasu ka?
(1) = very casual —used to one’s close friends, people who have same or lower social status
(2) = polite —used to one’s colleagues who have higher social status
(3) = even more polite—used to people who have higher social status; business situations
I would say the difference between 2 and 3 are very vague, it really depends on the speaker’s personality and the impression they want to give.
Friday at 4:30 am
Whats the difference between kyou and honjisu? Would you use them the same way?
Friday at 4:35 am
Kudasaimasen ka sounds like please don’t ask me(?) am I right? Doesn’t the ka make it a ? and masen make it negative like don’t? In this case when could you use,”Please don’t ask me?”?
Friday at 4:46 am
Chotto issho ni kite kudasimasu ka? Is that, “Wait, lets go do something?”
Friday at 11:30 am
Ivonne-san,
Honjitsu is the formal/polite version of kyou, often used in business speech or formal written Japanese. They both mean “today”. You would not say honjitsu in a conversation with, or email to, your friend.
Kudasaimasen ka comes from the verb kudasaru, meaning “to have someone of higher social status do something for you”. Like honjitsu, it’s keigo, or “respect language”. It’s fairly high-level grammar, so please don’t worry too much about mastering it just yet. It does contain the word for “please” - kudasai - but for our purposes kudasai and kudasaru are totally different. Please don’t confuse them in your mind!
So in your example, “kudasaimasen ka” doesn’t mean “please don’t ask me”, but “wouldn’t you do this for me”?
Similarly, chotto issho ni kite kudasaimasu ka: here, chotto is used in the sense not of “wait” but of “a little bit”. “Would you come with me for a moment?” might be a good translation.
I hope this makes things a bit clearer!
Friday at 11:37 am
Ivonne C. Goodman-san
I’m afraid not.
Kudasaimasen ka is used when the speaker ask for something or ask someone to do something. 
>>Whats the difference between kyou and honjisu?
→ Honjitsu is more formal than kyou.
>>Kudasaimasen ka sounds like please don’t ask me(?) am I right?
→ Well…
●[Noun] o kusaisamasen ka? → Could you give me [ noun ]? (literal translation; Won’t you please give me ~?)
●[Te form of a verb] kudasai masenka? → Could you [verb] ? (literal translation; Won’t you please ~?)
How to make a formal request is covered in beginner series season 6 Lesson 9. There, you can find a detailed write up so please also check that lesson.
>>Chotto issho ni kite kudasimasu ka?
→This sentence means “Could you come with me/us? “
Leave a Reply