Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Jessi: Hi everyone! Welcome to Lower Beginner Season 1, Lesson 3, Networking in Japan! ジェシーです。Jessi here!
Natsuko: こんにちは!なつこです!Hi everyone, Natsuko here!
Jessi: Welcome to the third lesson in our brand new Lower Beginner series! So Natsuko, what are we going to learn in this lesson?
Natsuko: In this lesson we're going to learn how to introduce other people with their name, as well as the name of the company for which they work.
Natsuko: Jessi, where does this lesson's dialogue take place?
Jessi: Ken is at some kind of work-related party, and he's introduced to someone new by a colleague.
Natsuko: では聞きましょう。
Jessi: Let's listen to the dialogue.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Jessi: All right, so in this dialogue, we had business cards, or 名刺, which are an indispensable part of Japanese business culture.
Natsuko: そうです, that's right. 名刺 usually have your name in big letters, your company name and job title, and your contact details.
Jessi: If you live in Japan, you will most likely amass an impressive collection of business cards after a short period of time (笑). Almost everyone has business cards in Japan, right?
Natsuko: Yes, I’d say so!
Jessi: And there's a special set of rules, or manners, that you have to remember when you exchange business cards in Japan, isn't there?
Natsuko: そうです. When you hand someone your 名刺, you should hold it in both hands. And when you take someone's 名刺, you should also take it with both hands.
Jessi: In Japan, holding things in two hands shows respect for the item or the item's owner, right?
Natsuko: That's right. Also, when you exchange 名刺, you should both bow.
Jessi: Good advice to keep in mind! Now let's look at the vocab for this lesson.
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Jessi: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.
Jessi: What's the first phrase we're looking at?
Natsuko: こちら
Jessi: This is the polite version of the word これ, meaning "this". While we saw in the previous lessons and in previous series that これ is used for objects, in general it is not used for people and is considered rude if you do so. Instead when introducing someone, saying "This is so-and-so", we use こちら. It can also mean "here" or this way", as in...
Natsuko: こちらへどうぞ。
Jessi: "Please come this way." or "Please come here". Now if you remember the ko-so-a-do words which we learned before...
Natsuko: これ、それ、あれ、どれ
Jessi: There are a "polite" set of words which correspond to these. Starting with
Natsuko: こちら
Jessi: "here, this way, this person"
Natsuko: そちら
Jessi: "there, that way, that person"
Natsuko: あちら
Jessi: "over there, that person over there"
Natsuko: どちら
Jessi: "which way, which one"
Natsuko: You may have heard the word for "who" in Japanese is 誰.
Jessi: But this is a very direct and sometimes rude way of asking "who". There are two more polite and respectful ways
Natsuko: どちら様 or どなた.
Jessi: So make sure you use these words when asking someone directly who they are! What's the next vocabulary phrase?
Natsuko: もう一度、お願いします。 
Jessi: "Once more, please". This literally means "One more time, please" and is a really useful phrase for when you want to ask someone to repeat something they have said. And now what's the final word we're going to cover today?
Natsuko: 名字.
Jessi: This means "family name" or "surname", while the word for "first name" is...
Natsuko: 名前.
Jessi: Now let's look at this week's Lesson Focus.

Lesson focus

Jessi: In this lesson, you'll learn how to introduce someone to someone else, and give their company name. You'll also learn the extra polite way of giving your name. So, Natsuko, imagine you are introducing me to someone that works at Erklaren, JPOD’s parent company. How would you start?
Natsuko: こちらは
Jessi: "this is"
Natsuko:エァクレーレンの鈴木さんです。
Jessi: "Mr. Suzuki from Erklaren". Note that in business situations, last names or full names are usually used in introductions. The の means "of" or "belonging to". So what you're literally saying is "This is Erklaren’s Mr. Suzuki", or "This is Mr. Suzuki of Erklaren".
Natsuko: Remember to add さん after the person's name to be polite. But remember ,you don't call yourself さん!
Jessi: Listeners, repeat after Natsuko. "This is Mr. Suzuki from Erklaren."
Natsuko: こちらはエァクレーレンの鈴木さんです。
Jessi: (wait 5 seconds) Now listeners, you try saying "This is Mr. Suzuki from Erklaren" in Japanese.
Natsuko: (wait 5 seconds) こちらはエァクレーレンの鈴木さんです。
Jessi: Did you get it? Great! I should also mention that, with this pattern, you can replace the company name with the person's job title - such as
Natsuko: 秘書
Jessi: secretary
Natsuko: プログラマー
Jessi: programmar... and so on. So you'd be saying "This is the secretary, Mr. Suzuki". Let’s hear how that sounds.
Natsuko: こちらは秘書の鈴木さんです。
Jessi: You can also replace it with their occupation in general. How would we say "This is Mr. Suzuki, a designer?"
Natsuko: こちらはデザイナーの鈴木さんです。
Jessi: OK, so we know how to introduce others... but how do we go about introducing ourselves with this same pattern? Let’s use our company name Innovative Language for practice.
Natsuko: In this case, I’ll give my full name. For me, it would sound like this - イノベイティブランゲージの山森なつこです。
Jessi: Remember how we said that the 私は part in the beginning is optional? Here, we’re going to leave it out to sound more natural. OK listeners, repeat after Natsuko. "I'm [name] from Innovative Language", replacing "name" with your full name.
Natsuko: イノベイティブランゲージの山森なつこです。
Jessi: Great! And of course the same rules about replacing the name of the company with your occupation, job title, or relationship to someone else apply here too. It's very flexible. So if you wanted to say for example, "I'm Natsuko Yamamori, a lawyer", you would say?
Natsuko: 弁護士の山森なつこです。
Jessi: Now Natsuko, this is already pretty polite because we're using "です”,but there's an even more polite way to introduce yourself in Japanese, isn't there?
Natsuko: That's right. We just replace です with と申します。
Jessi: と申します means literally "to be humbly called", and it's an example of humble language to lower your position and thereby raise the position of the person you're speaking to. So Natsuko, how would that sentence look now?
Natsuko: イノベイティブランゲージの山森なつこと申します。
Jessi: OK listeners, listen and repeat, but using your name instead.
Natsuko: イノベイティブランゲージの山森なつこと申します。
Jessi: (wait 5 secs) Now say the super-polite version of "I'm [name] from Innovative Language Learning",using your name, in Japanese.
Natsuko: (wait 5 secs) イノベイティブランゲージの山森なつこと申します。
Jessi: How did you do?
Natsuko: Oh, a really important point with this と申します... you can only use it with your own name.
Jessi: That's right. Because it's humble language, you can only use it when talking about yourself.
Natsuko: Also, remember that you don't always need to say 私は at the beginning.
Jessi: So we're almost out of time for today... how did you do, everyone?
Natsuko: どうでしたか?
Jessi: Please leave us some comments letting us know how you found the lesson.

Outro

Natsuko: Bye for now! じゃ、また!
Jessi: See you next time!

Kanji

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