Learn about introducing the conjugation of Class I verbs to their potential form
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natsuko: おはよう、アシガバート。ナツコです。(Ohayō, Ashigabāto. Natsuko desu.) |
| Yoshi: おはよう、アシガバート。よしです。(Ohayō, Ashigabāto. Yoshi desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. Beginner lesson #129. Okay, we are back with part 2 of the Big Shot Next Door. This is a continuation of beginner lesson #126. So if you haven’t heard that lesson, please listen to that lesson and then come back. Now a couple of things we want to point out in beginner lesson #126. Yoshi-san, who was talking? |
| Yoshi: Two friends. |
| Peter: So what kind of Japanese were they using? |
| Yoshi: Very casual Japanese. |
| Peter: Now in today’s dialogue, one of them is going to speak with someone they have never met before. So what kind of Japanese are they going to use? |
| Yoshi: One person starts with a casual Japanese but it gets to the polite level and it’s because the person was a little angry at first. |
| Peter: In most cases when you speak with someone you’ve never met before, you keep things very formal. Now again, certain emotions can get in the way of this and the politeness level change but that’s the unique thing. You can tell emotions by the politeness level. So please listen to the politeness level in this conversation. In addition, we are continuing with another form of the potential. Again in previous beginner lessons, we showed you one way to form the potential. Today we are going to show you another way to form the potential with class 1 verbs. So these two things we looked at today. We are going to go through the conversation one time at normal speed. Then we are going to go slowly and then we are going to give you the conversation again with the English. Okay, here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| たけ (Take) : 開けろ！(Akero!) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : どなたですか。(Donata desu ka.) |
| たけ (Take) : 隣の者ですが。(Tonari no mono desu ga.) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : はい、ちょっと待ってください。(Hai, chotto matte kudasai.) |
| ええ、あなたは隣の人ではありません。あなたは誰ですか。。。(Ee, anata wa tonari no hito de wa arimasen. Anata wa dare desu ka…) |
| たけ (Take) : あ、あ、あ。。。(A, a, a…) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : どうしましたか。話せますか。聞こえますか。口を使えますか。も |
| しもーし？(Dō shimashita ka. Hanasemasu ka. Kikoemasu ka. Kuchi o tsukaemasu ka. Moshimōshi?) |
| たけ (Take) : あ、あなたは有名な芸能人ですね。(A, anata wa yūmei na geinōjin desu ne.) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : そうですけど、何か用ですか。(Sō desu kedo, nani ka yō desu ka.) |
| たけ (Take) : と、とてもすばらしい音楽ですね。もっとボリュームを上げてください。(To, totemo subarashii ongaku desu ne. Motto boryūmu o agete kudasai.) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : それだけですか。では、忙しいので。(Sore dake desu ka. Dewa, isogashii node.) |
| たけ (Take) : し、失礼します。(Shi, shitsurei shimasu.) |
| Yoshi: もう一度お願いします。ゆっくりお願いします。(Mō ichi-do onegai shimasu. Yukkuri onegai shimasu.) |
| たけ (Take) : 開けろ！(Akero!) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : どなたですか。(Donata desu ka.) |
| たけ (Take) : 隣の者ですが。(Tonari no mono desu ga.) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : はい、ちょっと待ってください。(Hai, chotto matte kudasai.) |
| ええ、あなたは隣の人ではありません。あなたは誰ですか。。。(Ee, anata wa tonari no hito de wa arimasen. Anata wa dare desu ka…) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : どうしましたか。話せますか。聞こえますか。口を使えますか。も |
| しもーし？(Dō shimashita ka. Hanasemasu ka. Kikoemasu ka. Kuchi o tsukaemasu ka. Moshimōshi?) |
| たけ (Take) : あ、あなたは有名な芸能人ですね。(A, anata wa yūmei na geinōjin desu ne.) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : そうですけど、何か用ですか。(Sō desu kedo, nani ka yō desu ka.) |
| たけ (Take) : と、とてもすばらしい音楽ですね。もっとボリュームを上げてください。(To, totemo subarashii ongaku desu ne. Motto boryūmu o agete kudasai.) |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : それだけですか。では、忙しいので。(Sore dake desu ka. Dewa, isogashii node.) |
| たけ (Take) : し、失礼します。(Shi, shitsurei shimasu.) |
| Yoshi: 次は、ピーターさんの英語が入ります。(Tsugi wa, Pītā-san no Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| たけ (Take) : 開けろ！(Akero!) |
| TAKE: Open up! |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : どなたですか。(Donata desu ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Who is it? |
| たけ (Take) : 隣の者ですが。(Tonari no mono desu ga.) |
| TAKE: I'm your next door neighbor. |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : はい、ちょっと待ってください。ええ、あなたは隣の人ではありません。(Hai, chotto matte kudasai. Ee, anata wa tonari no hito de wa arimasen.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Okay, just a sec. Hey, you are not my next door neighbor. |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : あなたは誰ですか。。。( Anata wa dare desu ka…) |
| NEIGHBOR: Who are you...? |
| たけ (Take) : あ、あ、あ。。。(A, a, a…) |
| TAKE: Ahhh… |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : どうしましたか。(Dō shimashita ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Are you okay? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : 話せますか。(Hanasemasu ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Can you speak? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : 聞こえますか。(Kikoemasu ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Can you hear? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : 口を使えますか。(Kuchi o tsukaemasu ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Can you use your mouth? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : もしもーし？ (Moshimōshi?) |
| NEIGHBOR: Hello? Anybody home? |
| たけ (Take) : あ、あなたは有名な芸能人ですね。(A, anata wa yūmei na geinōjin desu ne.) |
| TAKE: Yu, you are a famous entertainer, aren't you? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : そうですけど、何か用ですか。(Sō desu kedo, nani ka yō desu ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Yes, that's right. What can I do for you? |
| たけ (Take) : と、とてもすばらしい音楽ですね。(To, totemo subarashii ongaku desu ne.) |
| TAKE: That's great music. |
| たけ (Take) : もっとボリュームを上げてください。(Motto boryūmu o agete kudasai.) |
| TAKE: Could you turn the volume up? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : それだけですか。(Sore dake desu ka.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Is that it? |
| 隣の人 (tonari no hito) : では、忙しいので。(Dewa, isogashii node.) |
| NEIGHBOR: Alright, I gotta go. |
| たけ (Take) : し、失礼します。(Shi, shitsurei shimasu.) |
| TAKE: Ah, okay. Thanks. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Yoshi-san, let’s ask Natsuko-san what she thought of today’s conversation. |
| Yoshi: ナツコさん、今日の会話はどうでしたか。(Natsuko-san, kyō no kaiwa wa dō deshita ka.) |
| Natsuko: 隣に住んでいたのは有名な人だったんですね。(Tonari ni sunde ita no wa yūmei na hito datta n desu ne.) |
| Peter: English. |
| Natsuko: So it was kind of a celebrity who was living next door. |
| Peter: Yep. |
| Natsuko: I wonder who it is, Paris Hilton? |
| Peter: In Japan. |
| Natsuko: In Japan maybe. |
| Peter: And what do you think about the reaction by this guy? |
| Natsuko: Impulsive, isn’t it? |
| Peter: Impulsive. |
| Yoshi: I think it’s typical. |
| Peter: Typical? |
| Natsuko: Typical, maybe. |
| Peter: He was like a jellyfish. No spine, he just crumbled. Now that the conversation is over, notice how he went over angry using extremely strong Japanese. Yoshi-san, how do you start off the conversation? |
| Yoshi: 開けろ！(Akero!) |
| Peter: How strong is this? |
| Yoshi: It’s really strong. |
| Peter: Would you normally use this? |
| Yoshi: Only when I am angry. |
| Peter: Really angry. So the famous person playing the music loud could have probably put together that the music is the cause of this problem. So at first, he goes over quite angry but before we get into that, let’s just take a quick look at today’s vocabulary. Yoshi-san, first word please. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Yoshi: どなた (donata) |
| Peter: Extremely polite interrogative, who. |
| Yoshi: (slow) どなた (donata) (natural speed) どなた (donata) |
| Peter: Now Natsuko-san, can I ask you, we have 誰 (dare), the interrogative pronoun who. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: We just learned どなた (donata) the polite for who. There is also another polite way to express this interrogative, which is |
| Natsuko: どちら様 (dochira-sama) |
| Peter: Now 誰 (dare) is not as polite as どなた (donata), but where does どちら様 (dochira-sama) fall in? |
| Natsuko: I think it’s about the same with どなた (donata) or maybe a bit higher. |
| Peter: So if someone comes to your door, how do you ask who it is? |
| Natsuko: どなたですか (donata desu ka) or どちら様ですか (dochira-sama desu ka). |
| Peter: Okay, next we have. |
| Natsuko: 隣の者 (tonari no mono) |
| Peter: Neighbor. |
| Natsuko: (slow) となりのもの (tonari no mono) (natural speed) 隣の者 (tonari no mono) |
| Peter: And this is made up of two words with the possessive particle in between. The first word being |
| Natsuko: 隣 (tonari) |
| Peter: Next to. Then we have the possessive, |
| Natsuko: の (no) |
| Peter: Which gives us next to’s, the possessive. |
| Natsuko: 者 (mono) |
| Peter: Person, next to’s person. Again this is literal. So we have to take this, twist it around, go back to front and we get person of next to, your neighbor. Person next door. Now Natsuko-san, is this limited to literally the person next door or if someone lives a few places, a few apartments down from you, what’s the range of this? |
| Natsuko: I think this is limited to those who live right next door. |
| Peter: Right next door and person upstairs or person below you if it’s an apartment? |
| Natsuko: No. |
| Peter: Okay. So just to the right and left of you. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: And maybe behind. |
| Natsuko: Yes, right. |
| Peter: Okay. Then we also had |
| Natsuko: 隣の人 (tonari no hito) |
| Peter: Neighbor. Again break this down. |
| Natsuko: (slow) となりのひと (tonari no hito) (natural speed) 隣の人 (tonari no hito) |
| Peter: So why do we have two words for neighbor? What’s going on here? |
| Natsuko: 隣の者 (tonari no mono) is an expression usually referring to oneself. |
| Peter: So that’s why the person who went knocking referred to himself as |
| Natsuko: 隣の者ですが。(Tonari no mono desu ga.) |
| Peter: Then we had |
| Natsuko: あなたは隣の人ではありません。(Anata wa tonari no hito de wa arimasen.) |
| Peter: She responds with |
| Natsuko: 隣の人 (tonari no hito) |
| Peter: And she does this because |
| Natsuko: Because she is talking about the other person and not herself. |
| Peter: Makes perfect sense now. Okay, then we have |
| Yoshi: 芸能人 (geinōjin) |
| Peter: Famous entertainer. |
| Yoshi: (slow) げいのうじん (geinōjin) (natural speed) 芸能人 (geinōjin) |
| Peter: Now Yoshi-san, can you tell us about this word because this word actually is translated some places as TV personality? What’s going on with this word? Yoshi has an interesting take on this word. |
| Yoshi: I think originally 芸能人 (geinōjin) meant people who were really talented in arts and entertainment but now like even myself use these words pretty much for the people I see on TV like famous singers, actors, models. |
| Natsuko: Yeah comedians, entertainers. |
| Yoshi: Uhoo. |
| Peter: And the TV is the commonality between them for this word. |
| Natsuko: Yeah, usually. |
| Peter: So TV changed the face of this word. |
| Yoshi: Yes, I think so because now TV is one of the biggest media in Japan. |
| Peter: And it’s monopolized by a few celebrities. Okay, but that's a topic for a different day. So that is our position on this. We tried to brainstorm what we were thinking and all the roads kept leading back to the TV. What makes someone a 芸能人 (geinōjin) what makes them and we concluded that it’s the TV. Okay, so now let’s go back to the dialogue. There are a few points we want to take a look at and most of it has to do with politeness level. Now in many previous lessons, we said that in informal situations, ではありません (de wa arimasen) is substituted by ではない (de wa nai) or if you want to be more polite ではないです (de wa nai desu) and ではありません (de wa arimasen) is not used very often but in this conversation, Natsuko-san, what do we have? |
| Natsuko: 隣の人ではありません。(Tonari no hito de wa arimasen.) |
| Peter: Why is this structure used here? |
| Natsuko: Because she is talking to a stranger and she wants to be polite. |
| Peter: Exactly and here is what we are going to get into from now on, the politeness level is extremely important in Japanese. Just before, if there were the two friends talking, how would they say the same sentence, Yoshi-san? |
| Yoshi: 隣の人じゃない。(Tonari no hito ja nai.) |
| Peter: Exactly. Very informal, but here it’s strangers. So she is speaking in polite Japanese. Now we are about to get into our grammar point for the day. So she follows this up by saying |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natsuko: あなたは誰ですか。(Anata wa dare desu ka.) |
| Peter: Who are you? Now Natsuko-san, why would she switch here? Previously she said どなたですか (donata desu ka). Why did she go with 誰ですか (dare desu ka) here? |
| Natsuko: Maybe she got a little suspicious about who this person is. |
| Peter: Yeah, I think the first expression どなたですか (donata desu ka), a one time per person usage. So you ask the first time but now he has lied. I think she is a little worried. |
| Natsuko: Yes. |
| Peter: So she is waiting for a response and he is not responding. So she asks |
| Natsuko: どうしましたか。(Dō shimashita ka.) |
| Peter: What happened? What’s wrong? |
| Natsuko: 話せますか。(Hanasemasu ka.) |
| Peter: And here it is, the potential of class 1 verbs. Are you able to speak? Can you speak? |
| Natsuko: 聞こえますか。(Kikoemasu ka.) |
| Peter: Can you hear it? But this isn’t a conjugation. This is the verb itself, are you able to hear? |
| Natsuko: 口を使えますか。(Kuchi o tsukaemasu ka.) |
| Peter: Can you use your mouth? Here is a conjugation to the potential and finally |
| Natsuko: もしもし？(Moshimoshi?) |
| Peter: Which is the equivalent of anybody home, anybody there, hello? He hasn’t responded to the first 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 attempts at getting a response out of him and actually if you put in the first question who are you, the first five responses he has said nothing. So she wants to know if he is even okay. So is anybody there? I really like this expression. Natsuko-san, what do you think about this expression? |
| Natsuko: You will hear it a lot of times. |
| Peter: Really? |
| Natsuko: Yes, I do. |
| Peter: When someone is spacing out or out in space, how do we say that in Japanese? |
| Natsuko: ボーッとする (bō tto suru) |
| Peter: ボーッとする時 (bō tto suru toki), someone can say it to you. もしもし (moshimoshi), hello anybody there, welcome to earth. Now let’s move on to today’s grammar point as we just covered it. The two verbs we talked about today, Natsuko-san? |
| Natsuko: 話せる (hanaseru) |
| Peter: And |
| Natsuko: 使える (tsukaeru) |
| Peter: This is the potential form of these two verbs. And what we are going to do now is talk about class 1 verbs. Natsuko-san, can you give us the dictionary form of the verb to speak? |
| Natsuko: 話す (hanasu) |
| Peter: Notice the final hiragana syllable. |
| Natsuko: す (su) |
| Peter: Now give us the plain potential. |
| Natsuko: 話せる (hanaseru) |
| Peter: That す (su) becomes |
| Natsuko: せる (seru) |
| Peter: So the す (su) gets dropped and replaced by |
| Natsuko: せる (seru) |
| Peter: Which is actually you can think about it this way if it helps. The う (u) column gets shifted one to the right to the え (e) column and then it’s followed by る (ru) and in the process, these class 1 verbs actually become class 2 verbs. So to better exemplify this, let’s look at our second example in today’s dialogue. |
| Natsuko: 使える (tsukaeru) |
| Peter: Originally this is |
| Natsuko: 使う (tsukau) |
| Peter: The plain dictionary form. Again the う (u) column shifts to the え (e) column. So う (u) becomes |
| Natsuko: え (e) |
| Peter: And then we attach |
| Natsuko: る (ru) |
| Peter: So we have |
| Natsuko: 使える (tsukaeru) |
| Peter: Able to use. |
Outro |
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| Peter: Okay, more about this inside the PDF. So stop by japanesepod101.com and be sure to leave us a post. |
| Natsuko: じゃあ、また明日ね。(Jā, mata ashita ne.) |
| Yoshi: またね。(Mata ne.) |
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