Comments on: Premium Lesson #15 - SS11: Sale, Sale, Sale!

by: Naomi

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:37:57 +0000

Ivonne C. Goodman-san
>>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… I’m afraid not. Kudasaimasen ka is used when the speaker ask for something or ask someone to do something.　
●[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? “

by: Kat

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:30:57 +0000

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!

by: Ivonne C. Goodman

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:46:27 +0000

Chotto issho ni kite kudasimasu ka? Is that, “Wait, lets go do something?”

by: Ivonne C. Goodman

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:35:29 +0000

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?”?

by: Ivonne C. Goodman

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:30:59 +0000

Whats the difference between kyou and honjisu? Would you use them the same way?

by: Naomi

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:18:11 +0000

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.

by: ニール

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:04:54 +0000

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

by: markystar

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:38:39 +0000

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!

by: プチクレア

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 12:39:27 +0000

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 ?….

by: JapanesePod101.com

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 09:30:49 +0000

Mina-san, this kind of super-polite Japanese is everywhere in Japan. Hope you found this one useful!