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Lesson Transcript

Three Rookie Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid. Don’t make these common mistakes. In this lesson, we are going to look at three frequent mistakes by beginners learning Japanese. They are super easy to avoid and it will only take 3 minutes. So here are the three mistakes. Your name plus san さようなら (sayōnara) when you see the person again that day and masu form plus desu. Okay let’s break them down. First we have your name plus san. san is an honorific suffix corresponding with Mr. or Mrs. in English for other people. So don’t use it with your own name, use it for other people’s name. Next sayōnara to someone who you are seeing again on the same day. sayōnara means goodbye or see you but you can’t use it when you are expecting to see that person again on the same day. So if you think you are going to see that person again on the same day, don’t use sayōnara and finally we have ます、です。 (masu, desu.) . This mistake is to say des after the masu form of the verb. For example, わたしは、ねますです。 (Watashi wa, nemasu desu.) is the formal form of ねる (neru) which is a verb meaning to sleep. です (desu) is the equivalent to English am, is or are. You can’t use des after a verb. So you can’t say ねますです。 (Nemasu desu.) but you just say ねます。 (nemasu.) but people sometimes say when they want to sound funny on purpose. So never use です (desu) after a verb. Okay let’s recap. First don’t use san with your own name. Next don’t say sayōnara when you will see that person again on the same day. And never use des with a verb. Now to the tip, Ta-dah. So, here is the informal way to say goodbye when you see that person on the same day. じゃ、また。 (Ja, mata.) see you later. じゃ、ま、た。 (Ja, ma, ta.) じゃ、また。 (Ja, mata.) わたしは、ひろこさんです。 (Watashi wa, Hiroko-san desu.) Now the right way is わたしは、ひろこです。 (Watashi wa, Hiroko desu.) わたしは、ひろこです。 (Watashi wa, Hiroko desu.) わたしは、ねますです。 (Watashi wa, nemasu desu.) わたしは、ねます。 (Watashi wa, nemasu.) わたしは、ねます。 (Watashi wa, nemasu.)

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