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| INTRODUCTION |
| さくら: さくらです。 |
| Peter: Peter here. |
| さくら: 四字熟語 |
| Peter: Lesson 15. Passionate Japanese, I like the sound of this one. |
| さくら: はい。 |
| Peter: Again in this series, we take two Japanese idiomatic phrases and we dissect them. We take a look at the characters, the four kanji characters that make up the phrases and it gives you a bit of insight into the Japanese way of thinking. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: Okay Sakura san, first one, what do we have? |
| さくら: 二人三脚 |
| Peter: Three-legged race. Two cooperating people sharing the same purpose, be joined at the hip. |
| さくら: ににんさんきゃく 二人三脚 |
| Peter: Let’s take a look at each of the four kanji characters. First character, |
| さくら: 二 |
| Peter: Two. |
| さくら: 人 |
| Peter: Person. |
| さくら: 三 |
| Peter: Three. |
| さくら: 脚 |
| Peter: Leg. So the first two kanji character compound means |
| さくら: 二人 |
| Peter: Two people. The second two character kanji compound means |
| さくら: 三脚 |
| Peter: Three legs. Put it together, |
| さくら: 二人三脚 |
| Peter: Three-legged race. Is that right? |
| さくら: Yes, yes, yes…. |
| Peter: Tell us a little bit about this. |
| さくら: It originally means a race where you – two people run together and one person’s right leg is tied to the other person’s left leg. |
| Peter: And then they have the other legs free. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: This is very common. I think I don’t know maybe you can help us out listeners but I think this is common throughout the world, this kind of race. |
| さくら: Umm I think so. |
| Peter: So this phrase is taken kind of metaphorically? |
| さくら: Yes, yes, yes it indicates the two persons cooperate with each other or work together closely for the same purpose. |
| Peter: Makes perfect sense. |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: Sakura san |
| さくら: うん |
| Peter: Well first, do we use this phrase a lot? |
| さくら: Umm まあまあ |
| Peter: まあまあ Maybe something I could see appearing in like a newspaper article. |
| さくら: Or 何だろうstories about like episode of somebody athletes とかさpeople who became successful 二人三脚で頑張りましたlike this. |
| Peter: Okay and how about the usage? |
| さくら: It’s often used as an adverbial phrase like 二人三脚で |
| Peter: So we use the particle で and we use it to express how closely people are working together. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: Let’s take a look at some sample sentences. |
| さくら: 僕は父と二人三脚でオリンピックを目指した |
| Peter: So my father and I are aspiring to go to the Olympic games and it’s kind of as if we are joined at the hip. |
| さくら: So father was helping him you know to become a good athlete. Next, 私は夫と二人三脚でこの店を大きくしてきた |
| Peter: My husband and I have been working closely together to develop our shop and finally |
| さくら: 私は医者と二人三脚で病気と戦っている |
| Peter:My doctor and I are cooperating closely with each other to fight against the disease. |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: So you see in all the cases, we had the phrase followed by で and it was two people working to achieve a common goal. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: Okay now, let’s leave a metaphorical phrase aside for a second. Sakura san, have you ever participated in one of these races where you tie a leg to… |
| さくら: Oh yes, yes, yes in the elementary school. |
| Peter: Isn’t this part of the kind of sports day or the battle of the classes. |
| さくら: Yes 運動会 そうですね. I saw on TV where 30 children lying up and tie their legs together and do ３０人３１脚. They do a race. It’s nationwide competition. |
| Peter: Yeah I remember that. |
| さくら: Yes そうそうそう |
| Peter: It’s a national championship. |
| さくら: そうそうそう |
| Peter: And those kids, they actually train at school for this. |
| さくら: そうです In like class, the whole class worked together for this race. |
| Peter: It’s really something to see them all running together. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: And Sakura san, do you route for them to make it to the finish line? |
| さくら: Umm… |
| Peter: That’s so nice of you. Okay on to the second phrase. |
| さくら: 無我夢中 |
| Peter: To lose oneself in something, to be absorbed in. |
| さくら: むがむちゅう 無我夢中 |
| Peter: Let’s take a look at the four characters that make up this phrase. First character, |
| さくら: 無 |
| Peter: Nothing. |
| さくら: 我 |
| Peter: Oneself. |
| さくら: 夢 |
| Peter: Dream. |
| さくら: 中 |
| Peter: In. Now this is one of the Buddhist phrases. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: That we love so much. |
| さくら: そうですね |
| Peter: Now let’s take a look at the two, two kanji character compounds that make up the four kanji character compound. |
| さくら: 無我 |
| Peter: Now this is originally a Buddhist word or a word from Buddhism. Sakura san, can you tell us about that? |
| さくら: It means the mind condition that someone can go beyond obsession with oneself. |
| Peter: To go beyond obsession with oneself. The second two character kanji compound is |
| さくら: 夢中 |
| Peter: And this means to be absorbed in but this is quite common. |
| さくら: Yes popular phrase ね |
| Peter: Now when we put these two two kanji character compounds together, we get |
| さくら: 無我夢中 |
| Peter: And it means be completely and passionately absorbed in one thing without paying attention to other things at all and we know from experience that that’s not a good thing. |
| さくら: Umm まあな、無我夢中 it’s not that totally negative though. 無我夢中で走れRun without thinking about anything like my teacher might say on sports day. |
| Peter: Wow! Driving them to such competition. That’s a good point, it’s interesting. I didn’t think about it that way but it could have also kind of positive. |
| さくら: So it depends on the situation maybe, negative and positive. |
| Peter: Okay. 有難うございますLet’s take a look at the usage and then some sample sentences to kind of see how it’s used in context. First usage, |
| さくら: It’s often used as a adverbial phrase like 無我夢中で do something. |
| Peter: Again we have the で the phrase followed by でmuch like the previous phrase. |
| さくら: Yes, yes. |
| Peter: How about an example? |
| さくら: 無我夢中で逃げた |
| Peter: Which means to run away feverishly. We also have another structure that you can use when you want to say that someone is completely absorbed in one thing. |
| さくら: Someone は無我夢中だった |
| Peter: And I think we are going to have an example of this in the sample sentences. |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: So first one, |
| さくら: その本はとても面白くて無我夢中で読んだ |
| Peter: That book was so interesting, I couldn’t put it down. And kind of a more literal translation is, I read it feverishly. I was wrapped up in it. Next, |
| さくら: 僕はすごくお腹がすいていたので、無我夢中で食べた |
| Peter: I was so hungry. So I could think about nothing but eating, just concentrating on eating. Finally we have |
| さくら: 私は昨日の試合中無我夢中だったので何も覚えていない |
| Peter: Since I was completely absorbed in the game yesterday, I didn’t remember anything about that. So just focused on one thing. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: Sakura san, is this one more common? Do you use this in every day conversations and things? |
| さくら: Umm. I think so. It’s not used for something you do for very long time like if you are absorbed in doing something recently you know. |
| Peter: A bit short term rather than long term. |
| さくら: そうそうそうそう |
| Peter: And it can have not negative, not a negative meaning like in a dictionary or something. It just means that you are putting all your energy into one thing. |
| さくら: そうですね |
| Peter: 勉強になりました |
| さくら: はい |
Outro |
| Peter: Okay Sakura san, that’s going to do for today. |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: Now don’t forget to stop by japanesepod101.com, pick up the PDF, leave us a comment and try to use these phrases and we will be more than happy to respond in the comments section of this lesson. |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: Japanesepod101.com |
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