Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Jessi: Hi everyone! ジェシーです! Jessi here!
Natsuko: こんにちは!ナツコです!Hi everyone, I'm Natsuko.
Jessi: Welcome to Lower Beginner series 1 lesson 11 - What's Your Biggest Fear in Japan?.
Natsuko: So Jessi, what are we going to learn in this lesson?
Jessi: In this lesson we're going to learn how to learn how to talk about fears and phobias, as well as how to connect two or more adjectives to describe something in detail.
Natsuko: And where does this lesson's dialogue take place?
Jessi: Emily is talking to the little boy from the park from last week's lesson.
Natsuko: では聞きましょう。
Jessi: Let's listen to the dialogue.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Jessi: Last week we were talking about legitimate allergies using the phrase アレルギーがある, but in this dialogue we heard the word for "phobia"...
Natsuko: 恐怖症
Jessi: きょうふ means "fear" and 症 means "illness". So a phobia in Japanese is literally a "fear illness".
Natsuko: To say you have a phobia or are scared of something, you just say the thing then 恐怖症です。
Jessi: Let's hear the words for some common phobias. Fear of heights, or acrophobia, is...
Natsuko: 高所恐怖症. 高所 means "high places".
Jessi: Fear of small or narrow spaces, or claustrophobia, is...
Natsuko: 閉所恐怖症. 閉所 is "closed in spaces".
Jessi: Fear of frogs for example would be...
Natsuko: カエル恐怖症. By the way, ジェシーさん, do you have any phobias?
Jessi: Hmm... I would have to say the one from the dialogue actually. a fear of high places.
Natsuko: Oh, 高所恐怖症?
Jessi: Right. Listeners, do you have any phobias or fears? Try looking it up in Japanese and sharing it with us! OK, now let's move on to the phrases and vocabulary for this lesson.
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Jessi: Let's have a closer look at the usuage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.
Jessi: What's the first word we're looking at today?
Natsuko: The word だから, meaning "because".
Jessi: This is a really useful word. You can also translate it as "so" or "therefore". You can use it in front of a statement that is the result of another statement. The structure would be - Statement 1. だから、Statement 2. Statement 1 is giving a reason for Statement 2. For example...
Natsuko: 私は高所恐怖症です。だから、東京タワーを上りません。
Jessi: "I'm scared of heights. So I won't go up Tokyo Tower." What's our next word?
Natsuko: It's the words for the four seasons. Season is 季節 in Japanese.
Jessi: So first we have spring
Natsuko: 春
Jessi: summer
Natsuko: 夏
Jessi: autumn or fall
Natsuko: 秋
Jessi: and winter.
Natsuko: 冬
Jessi: What's the next word we have today?
Natsuko: ふーん。
Jessi: Less a word than a sound! 笑 When would you use this ふーん? Well, it can be used to express understanding, like "wow, really" in English. It can also be used to show that you're unimpressed by what someone says. For example...
Natsuko: ジェシー、私は実は大金持ちなんだよ。Jessi, did you know I'm actually really rich?
Jessi: ... ふーん。
Both laugh
Jessi: This is a really casual sound, so be careful not to use it in polite conversation! Now let's move on to this week's lesson focus.

Lesson focus

Jessi: The focus of this lesson is how to connect two or more adjectives to describe something in detail, to say things like "this movie is long and boring". OK, Natsuko, how do we get started connecting two adjectives? Let's use the sentence I just mentioned
Natsuko: "Movie" is 映画. The word for "long" is 長い and "boring" is つまらない。To connect 長い and つまらない, take the い off 長い to make なが. Then add the ending くて. So we have 長くてつまらない.
Jessi: This くて ending is equivalent to "and" in English. Again always remember to remove the final い before adding くて - it's not ながいくて but ながくて. Can we have some more examples of this くて form?
Natsuko: たかい
Jessi: expensive, high up, becomes...
Natsuko: たかくて. こわい
Jessi: scary, becomes...
Natsuko: こわくて. むずかしい
Jessi: Difficult, becomes...
Natsuko: むずかしくて.
Jessi: OK listeners, now you try making the connective form.
Natsuko: おいしい
Jessi: "delicious". Listeners, say the connective form of this word in Japanese.
Natsuko: [wait 5 secs] おいしくて
Jessi: Let's try another. How about "fun"?
Natsuko: たのしい
Jessi: Listeners, what's the connective form?
Natsuko: [wait 5 secs] たのしくて
Jessi: Have you got it? Now when you connect two adjectives, the second adjective doesn't change. Only the one that comes first has the くて ending. Let's try some examples. Natsuko, how about describing someone who's nice and good-looking?
Natsuko: 彼は優しくてかっこいいです。
Jessi: 優しい means kind, and かっこいい means good-looking, or cool. In the dialogue we heard the boy say
Natsuko: 高いところがこわくてきらい。
Jessi: "I'm scared of high-up places. I hate them." Remember we said in the previous lesson that certain words that are verbs in English are adjectives in Japanese? Like the word for "hate", 嫌い。Listeners, listen and repeat. "I'm scared of high-up places. I hate them."
Natsuko: 高いところがこわくてきらい。
Jessi: [wait 5 secs] Now listeners, say "I'm scared of high-up places. I hate them." in Japanese.
Natsuko: [wait 5 secs] 高いところがこわくてきらい。
Jessi: Now we've looked at connecting い adjectives with the くて ending, but how would we go about connecting な adjectives like 奇麗?
Natsuko: It's easy. You just replace the な with the particle で.
Jessi: So "clean and spacious" would be...
Natsuko: 奇麗で広い
Jessi: What about "cheerful and bright"?
Natsuko: 元気で明るい
Jessi: Now let's have a full sentence. Sushi is beautiful to look at, right? So let's try saying "Sushi is beautiful to look at and delicious."
Natsuko: すしは奇麗でおいしい。
Jessi: Listeners, listen and repeat. "Sushi is beautiful to look at and delicious."
Natsuko: すしは奇麗でおいしい。
Jessi: [wait 5 secs] Now listeners, try saying "Sushi is beautiful to look at and delicious." in Japanese.
Natsuko: [wait 5 secs] すしは奇麗でおいしい。
Jessi: Did you get it? For more examples, please check out the lesson notes. But unfortunately that's about all we have time for today. How did you find the lesson?
Natsuko: どうでしたか?

Outro

Jessi: Please leave us your comments, questions, and any feedback you have on the lesson page.
Natsuko: じゃ、また!
Jessi: See you next time!

Kanji

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