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Learn Japanese travel phrases with Japanese Survival Phrases! A little Japanese can go such a long way! Whether you’re traveling to Japan for business or pleasure, these phrases will help make your trip much more pleasant and meaningful!

Today, we’ll cover the phrase, “Can you speak English?” Using this phrase — as opposed to suddenly speaking English — is important for many reasons. If the party you’re speaking to doesn’t understand English, at least they’ll know what you’re asking. And, they’ll respect your effort to learn even a little bit of their language. To learn more about Japanese customs and phrases, be sure to comb through Japanese Survival Phrases.

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Function: | Topic: | Politeness Level:

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Survival Phrases 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.

28 Responses to “Survival Phrases S2 #8 - Can You Speak English?”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Hi mina-san! We hope you find this Survival Phrases lesson useful :nihon:

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Carlos Ruiz Checa says:

Estimados Amigos;
Con el placer de siempre, el escucharlos siempre me recuerdan a mis amigos Japoneses.
Que por alguna razón u otra ya no están en contacto conmigo.
Realmente la forma de enseñar de ustedes es muy agradable, en esta lección aprendí otra forma de decir en japonés, si la persona ¿habla Ingles? Creo que poco a poco, hablare Japonés algún día.
Muchas gracias.
Sinceramente.
Carlos Ruiz Checa

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chin says:

Carlos Ruiz Checa san, 英語を話せますか? :mrgreen:

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Dashaun says:

I like it. I think that it is very important to learn this. I have now, learned something that it important for me, Thank you Japanesepod101.

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Sumiko says:

Dear Jpod, I was taught that it is incorrect to use を in this type of potential sentence. That the correct form was が。Or is my Japanese too old fashioned? Thanks, Sumiko

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Jessi says:

Thank you for your comments!! :dogeza: We think that this is a good phrase to use in Japan if you get stuck.

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Jessi says:

Sumikoさん,
Good question!! It is perfectly acceptable to use either を or が in this type of potential sentence :smile:

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sittisak says:

Good question . yes I can speak english sometime may be find dictionary . so but not problem. I can
thank you very much

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Arian I. says:

Another variant that I’ve seen in Japanese phrasebooks is “Eigo ga dekimasu ka?” I don’t know the level of politeness for this one when compared to “Eigo, hanasemasu ka?”

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Naomi says:

Arian I.-san
I would say the politeness level of those phrases are the same.
It’s just that the skill the speaker is talking about is different.
“Eigo ga dekimasu ka?” literally means “Can you do English?” Of course it means “Do you UNDERSTAND English?”
Whereas “Eigo (ga) hanasemasu ka?” means “Can you speak English?” or “Do you SPEAK English.”

I hope this helps. :wink:

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Fayefei says:

So when is it not acceptable to use を for potential sentence?
Thanks m(_ _)m 

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sittisak says:

Hi every boby or some guy I glad at talk about with japanese ohio gosaimuse ogenki desu ka

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ahmad says:

yes ican speak english

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Enerccio says:

>Arian I. says:
Wednesday at 10:50 am

Another variant that I’ve seen in Japanese phrasebooks is “Eigo ga dekimasu ka?” I don’t know the level of politeness for this one when compared to “Eigo, hanasemasu ka?”

The difference between those are that GA focuses on the “Eigo”, that means You can speak ENGLISH, while wo is more showing off that you “CAN” speak English.

Thus:
英語を話せます means I CAN speak English
while
英語が話せます means I can speak ENGLISH.

>Fayefei says:
Wednesday at 1:16 pm

So when is it not acceptable to use を for potential sentence?
Thanks m(_ _)m 

wo must NOT BE USED with dekiru! That is grave mistake! Dekiru must use ga!
英語を出来ます is wrong, correct is 英語が出来ます

other from that wo is mostly not used in potential, only for special verbs, such as aruku or deru, as in:
その森を夜一人で歩けない 
そのもりをよるひとりであるけない
I can’t go trough that forest at night.

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Jenny says:

I’ve only had to use this phrase twice since I’ve been here, and only because it was really important. Most times I had to ask if they spoke Japanese. :mrgreen:

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メー says:

こんにちは、 :dogeza:

In the lesson, Sachiko-san said  英語”を”話せますか?,
but, according to Naomi-sensei’s comment above, it’s “Eigo ‘ga’ dekimasu ka?”

「を」と「が」はどちらでも正しいですか?  :wink:

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Enerccio says:

メー: Read my post

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Naomi says:

Enerccio-san
Thank you for the great explanation!!! とてもわかりやすいですね。 :wink:
We really appreciate it! :dogeza:

メー -san
Right. Both 「英語を話せますか」and 「英語が話せますか」are correct! :wink:

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Enerccio says:

Naomi-san:
どうも

for everyone else, if you are unsure on how to use potential, just use koto ga dekiru, and you are of the hook. Simply attach koto ga dekiru to plain (! must be plain verb, do not use any polite forms in the middle) for of verb and you can say the same thing.

英語が話せる
will become
英語で話すことが出来る。

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tuba-san says:

doo mo arigato gozaimasu Japanesepod101.

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Bennitta says:

i know very good english

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Jason says:

オウムは日本語がわかりません。英語を話せますか? 

 Is オウム the right word for parrot? Mine seems amused when I speak Japanese, but so far he only speaks English. :wink:

Thank you Enerccio-さん for explaining that stuff with the particles so well, as they still confuse me. :dogeza:

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Mayumi says:

Jason-san,

yes, オウム is the right word for parrot.
If you keep talking to your parrot in Japanese, he/she is going to be able to speak Japanese! :nihon:

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Salivia Baker says:

I read that for verbs ending in す (like 話す) you build the polite form with changing す into します.
I have seen 話します in the Lesson 9 expansion section in the learning center. 彼は英語と日本語を話します。

So what is the difference between 話せます and 話します?

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Anagha says:

:cool: :evil: :grin: :oops: :razz: :roll: :wink: :cry: :eek: :lol: :mad: :sad: :dogeza: :hachimaki: :kokoro: :nihon:

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ケリー says:

Salivia Bakerさん:

“彼は英語と日本語を話します” means “He speaks (or he will speak) in English and Japanese”

“彼は英語と日本語を話せます”means “He can speak English and Japanese”

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Salivia Baker says:

ケリーさん
教えてくれてありがとうございました。(I hope this does mean “thanks for telling/teach me”)

So 話せます is the potential form. being able to do something. I see. This helps a lot! thank you again.

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