Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to JapanesePod101.com. This is Business Japanese for Beginners Season 1 Lesson 5 - Talking About Your Long Weekend in Japanese. Eric here.
Natsuko: こんにちは。 なつこです。
Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to greet your co-worker on a Monday morning after a long weekend. The conversation takes place at an office.
Natsuko: It's between Linda and her co-worker, Ms. Taniguchi.
Eric: The speakers are co-workers. They are basically speaking formal Japanese, but use informal expressions occasionally. Okay, let's listen to the conversation.

Lesson conversation

Linda: 谷口さん、おはようございます。
Taniguchi: リンダさん、おはようございます。
Linda:  連休は、どうでしたか。
Taniguchi: 富士山にのぼりましたよ。
Linda: え~。富士山!富士山は、どうでしたか。
Eric: Listen to the conversation one time slowly.
Linda: 谷口さん、おはようございます。
Taniguchi: リンダさん、おはようございます。
Linda:  連休は、どうでしたか。
Taniguchi: 富士山にのぼりましたよ。
Linda: え~。富士山!富士山は、どうでしたか。
Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation.
Linda: Ms. Taniguchi, good morning.
Taniguchi: Hi Linda. Good morning.
Linda: How was your long weekend?
Taniguchi: I climbed Mt Fuij.
Linda: Oh Mt Fuji!! How was it?
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Eric: Natsuko, what are the biggest holidays in Japan?
Natsuko: Basically, Japan has three big holiday seasons. The first one is the New Year holidays, called 年末年始. The second is the O-bon holidays called お盆休み and the third one is Golden Week.
Eric: I see. Since some listeners might not have heard of O-bon and Golden Week, can you tell us a little bit about them?
Natsuko: Sure.
Eric: When is the Obon holiday?
Natsuko: It’s in the middle of August.
Eric: And what do people do?
Natsuko: Well…the Obon holiday is basically for visiting ancestors’ graves. So a lot of people visit their parents or grandparents’ homes.
Eric: So It’s like a big homecoming season. I guess that's why many companies are closed during this period.
Natsuko: Right. And many people enjoy this period as a summer break.
Eric: OK. What about Golden week - When is it?
Natsuko: It’s from the end of April to the beginning of May. Four national holidays fall in one week, so depending on the calendar and the company, people can have a week or more of vacation.
Eric: That sounds great! I've also heard that Japan has a lot of national holidays, mostly on Monday.
Natsuko: Right. They are called “ハッピーマンデー” or “Happy Monday” because people can be happy about getting an additional day off.
Eric: Okay, now onto the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is..
Natsuko: 連休 [natural native speed]
Eric: consecutive holidays
Natsuko: 連休[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Natsuko: 連休 [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Natsuko: どう [natural native speed]
Eric: how
Natsuko: どう[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Natsuko: どう [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Natsuko: 富士山 [natural native speed]
Eric: Mt. Fuji
Natsuko: 富士山[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Natsuko: 富士山 [natural native speed]
Eric: And last we have..
Natsuko: のぼる [natural native speed]
Eric: to climb
Natsuko: のぼる[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Natsuko: のぼる [natural native speed]
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Eric: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The word for this lesson is..
Natsuko: 連休
Eric: which means “consecutive holidays”
Natsuko: 連休 is made up of two Kanji. 連 means “consecutive” and 休 which means “rest” or “day off”.
Eric: Listeners, you can't use this word when you’re talking about Saturday and Sunday which are the normal days off each week.
Natsuko: Right. But if a national holiday falls on a Monday, and you have a long weekend, you can call it 連休.
Eric: Using this word, you can also say how many holidays are in a row.
Natsuko: For example, you can call a “three-day holiday” san-renkyū.
Eric: This sounds very easy! How do you say “five days off” then?
Natsuko: Replace san meaning “three” with go, which means “five”. go-renkyū
Eric: Can you give us an example sentence using 連休?
Natsuko: Sure. For example, you can say.. 連休は箱根へ旅行に行きます。
Eric: ..which literally means “On this consecutive holiday, I go traveling to Hakone.” Okay, now onto the lesson focus.

Lesson focus

Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to ask your co-workers how their holidays were. In our dialog, Linda asked Ms. Taniguchi...
Natsuko: 連休は、どうでしたか。
Eric: which means “How was your long weekend?”. Let's break down this sentence. First we have...
Natsuko: 連休
Eric: “consecutive holidays”.
Natsuko:は
Eric: a topic marking particle.
Natsuko: どう
Eric: meaning “How”
Natuko:でした
Eric: “was” or “were”, the past form of the copula [desu].
Natsuko:か?
Eric: Question marking particle. So altogether…
Natsuko: 連休はどうでしたか。
Eric: ”How were your consecutive holidays?” or “How was your long weekend?”
Natsuko: The sentence structure used here is [something]はどうでしたか。
Eric: “how was [something]?” Listeners, if you know this pattern, you can ask “How was your weekend?”
Natsuko: “weekend” is 週末 in Japanese. So you can say.. 週末はどうでしたか。
Eric: “How was your weekend?” Let’s practice more. How do you say “How was your summer vacation?”
Natsuko: “summer vacation” is 夏休み.
Eric: So…
Natsuko: 夏休みはどうでしたか.
Eric: “How was your summer vacation?”
Natsuko: Now, we translated 夏休み as “YOUR summer vacation”, although Linda didn’t say あなたの which means “your”. In Japanese, it’s not common to say あなたの, so just say 夏休み to mean “YOUR summer holiday.” あなたのなつやすみは、どうでしたか doesn’t sound natural.
Eric: Listeners, this lesson’s sentence structure is very useful. Once you know this sentence structure, you can ask how events, things, places and many other things were.
Natsuko: Let me give you some sample sentences. 京都はどうでしたか。
Eric: “How was Kyoto?”
Natsuko: 映画はどうでしたか。
Eric: “How was the movie?”

Outro

Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye!
Natsuko: またねー

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