Learn about useful expressions for first time meeting
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Lori’s story 4. Okay Naomi-sensei, what are we studying today? |
| Naomi: 今日は (kyō wa), expressions used on meeting a person for the first time. |
| Eric: All right. So what’s today’s grammar? |
| Naomi: Possessive particle の (no) and negative sentences. |
| Eric: Okay and today’s conversation takes place at? |
| Naomi: 成田空港 (Narita Kūkō.) Narita international airport again. |
| Eric: Well we love this place, don’t we? We should go – we will do it like a live location there next time, okay? So yeah in the previous lesson, Mr. Mizuki was looking for Lori and finally found her and today’s conversation starts with the greeting. So let’s take a listen. |
| DIALOGUE |
| (成田空港) (Narita Kūkō) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : はじめまして。ロリーです。よろしく お願いします。(Hajimemashite. Rorī desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| 水木 (Mizuki) : よろしく お願いします。ラリーさん。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Rarī-san.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : あ、あの... ラリーじゃありません。ロリーです。(A, ano... Rarī ja arimasen. Rorī desu.) |
| 水木 (Mizuki) : あ... すみません。ロリー ハンマーさん ですか。(A... sumimasen. Rorī Hanmā-san desu ka.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : ハンマーじゃない です。ネイラーです。私の名前は ロリー ネイラーです。(Hanmā ja nai desu. Neirā desu. Watashi no namae wa Rorī Neirā desu.) |
| もう一度、お願いします。今度は、ゆっくりお願いします。(Mō ichi-do, onegai shimasu. Kondo wa, yukkuri onegai shimasu.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : はじめまして。ロリーです。よろしく お願いします。(Hajimemashite. Rorī desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| 水木 (Mizuki) : よろしく お願いします。ラリーさん。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Rarī-san.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : あ、あの... ラリーじゃありません。ロリーです。(A, ano... Rarī ja arimasen. Rorī desu.) |
| 水木 (Mizuki) : あ... すみません。ロリー ハンマーさん ですか。(A... sumimasen. Rorī Hanmā-san desu ka.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : ハンマーじゃない です。ネイラーです。私の名前は ロリー ネイラーです。(Hanmā ja nai desu. Neirā desu. Watashi no namae wa Rorī Neirā desu.) |
| 今度は、英語が入ります。(Kondo wa, Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| (成田空港) (Narita Kūkō) |
| (Narita Airport) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : はじめまして。ロリーです。よろしく お願いします。(Hajimemashite. Rorī desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| LORI: Nice to meet you. I'm Lorry. Please be kind to me. |
| 水木 (Mizuki) : よろしく お願いします。ラリーさん。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Rarī-san.) |
| MIZUKI: Nice to meet you too, Larry. |
| ロリー (Rorī) : あ、あの... ラリーじゃありません。ロリーです。(A, ano... Rarī ja arimasen. Rorī desu.) |
| LORI: Ah… I'm not Larry. I'm Lori. |
| 水木 (Mizuki) : あ... すみません。ロリー ハンマーさん ですか。(A... sumimasen. Rorī Hanmā-san desu ka.) |
| MIZUKI: Oh, I'm sorry, Lori Hammer. |
| ロリー (Rorī) : ハンマーじゃない です。ネイラーです。私の名前は ロリー ネイラーです。(Hanmā ja nai desu. Neirā desu. Watashi no namae wa Rorī Neirā desu.) |
| LORI: It's not Hammer. It's Nailer. My name is Lori Nailer. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Wow, what was this guy looking at? It sounds like somebody told him Lori’s name through, like hieroglyphics and smoke signals. He completely destroyed her name. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) But Larry and Lori sounds similar to me. |
| Eric: Ah okay yeah. And now that you put it like that, it actually does so. I guess he was getting the Ls and Rs confused. That’s a huge problem for Japanese people learning English, right? |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) Huge problem for me, too. |
| Eric: What’s the problem? |
| Naomi: If I know the spelling, I think I can pronounce it but... |
| Eric: But how about listening to it? |
| Naomi: Tough. |
| Eric: Wow so somebody should make tongue twisters for Ls and Rs. |
| Naomi: そう。すごい、絶対的な。(Sō. Sugoi, zettaiteki na.) |
| Eric: Like a nice rally Larry. Hey, let's ride in my Rolls Royce to grab some lunch at the Red Lobster. And repeat that Naomi-sensei. |
| Naomi: 無理無理無理無理。(Muri muri muri muri.) |
| Eric: If you guys have a better suggestion for nice L and R tongue twisters, send them to Naomi at japanesepod101.com. We are waiting for them. |
| Naomi: Yeah anyway, yeah L and R, V, B. |
| Eric: Yeah, I come to think of it neither it is Spanish. There is no real V sound. So everything is pronounced B. |
| Naomi: あ、本当？(A, hontō?) |
| Eric: Yeah, same thing I see. I guess just some languages don’t have the V built in. |
| Naomi: Yeah, I bet your name like Eric Japanese people pronounce your name like エリック (Erikku) not R sound, L sound, right? |
| Eric: Well I don’t know that. I haven’t really come across that that much. They say my name like in Japanese or in the Japanese pronunciation. So it’s like the D sound like it’s not L or R. Like for me, it just sounds Japanese.. |
| Naomi: あ～、そっかそっかそっか。(Ā, sokka sokka sokka.) |
| Eric: But I haven’t had anybody who is really confused who has explicitly said hey, Elic. I have never heard that before. If you know, that does happen, I think I would be surprised. |
| Naomi: Do you have any particular Japanese name you always confuse? |
| Eric: Yeah, actually I always get confused between たけし (Takeshi) and たかし (Takashi). It’s almost the same. So… |
| Naomi: たかし、たけし？(Takashi, Takeshi?) |
| Eric: Right and like I mean, I can say them both. It’s not a matter of listening or pronunciation or anything like that but it’s just so close that if I meet somebody named たかし (Takashi), I might call him たけし (Takeshi). |
| Naomi: Sounds very similar, yeah. |
| Eric: But anyway, on to the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: All right and the first word today is actually a phrase. What is it? |
| Naomi: はじめまして (hajimemashite) |
| Eric: How do you do? Nice to meet you. |
| Naomi: (slow) はじめまして (hajimemashite) (natural speed) はじめまして (hajimemashite) |
| Eric: And the next phrase is? |
| Naomi: よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) |
| (slow) よろしくおねがいします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) (natural speed) よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) |
| Eric: And this word doesn’t have any English equivalent at all, but it’s used often when you meet somebody to close the greeting and we will get into it later. So just hang on. The next word is. |
| Naomi: 私の (watashi no) |
| Eric: My, mine. |
| Naomi: (slow) わたしの (watashi no) (natural speed) 私の (watashi no) |
| Eric: And the last word is |
| Naomi: 名前 (namae) |
| Eric: Name. |
| Naomi: (slow) なまえ (namae) (natural speed) 名前 (namae) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eric: All right. Let’s take a look at some of the useful vocabulary and phrases. First we have |
| Naomi: はじめまして (hajimemashite) |
| Eric: All right and this expression はじめまして (hajimemasthite), it comes from the verb 始める (hajimeru) which means |
| Naomi: To begin. |
| Eric: And literally translated, it literally means for the first time. It’s kind of like for the first time dot, dot, dot. It’s like cut off but it’s a set phrase and everybody knows what it means now. It’s – it means you know, how do you do? Nice to meet you, right Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: And do you always use it when you meet somebody new? |
| Naomi: In a polite situation, yes but with friends, I would just say どうも (dōmo). |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Naomi: In a casual situation. |
| Eric: So どうも (dōmo) would sort of replace for the first time. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: Okay and what’s the accent for はじめまして (hajimemashite)? |
| Naomi: (slow) はじめまして (hajimemashite) (natural speed) はじめまして (hajimemashite) |
| Eric: Okay the tone goes up on the second syllable and comes down for し (shi). |
| Naomi: そうです。はじめまして。はじめまして。(Sō desu. Hajimemasthite. Hajimemashite.) |
| Eric: And when you say it fast, you notice that the し (shi) is not a shi but it’s actually an unvoiced consonant. So it just sounds like sh. Okay and the next phrase is |
| Naomi: よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) |
| Eric: All right. This is another one of those words that we can devote a whole episode to and it’s really hard because there is no real way to translate it or there is no equivalent in English. We just don’t have the concept of よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu). All right and it’s used in many different ways but today we are going to talk about よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) in the form of a greeting. In other words, when you first meet somebody, the closest thing I could say is to bless your upcoming friendship. Your forthcoming friendship that you are going to have and you want to start off on a good foot. So you say, よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu). Okay if you want to break it down word by word, よろしく (yoroshiku) means |
| Naomi: Well or best regards. |
| Eric: Like it’s very positive, right? It’s kind of like – it’s very celebratory and お願い (onegai) means |
| Naomi: Wish, favor. |
| Eric: And します (shimasu) is |
| Naomi: Do. |
| Eric: And I guess, you could say something like, please be good to me. |
| Naomi: Yeah, yeah because I will be good to you. |
| Eric: And for you people who’ve been listening to our shows, you notice that at the beginning of every show, Naomi-sensei and I say, よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) to each other. It’s not like we both have amnesia and we come in and we say oh hey, nice to meet you every single time. This is a different usage. It also means please be good to me because we are working together and we are about to do something together and you use it all the time in this type of situation when you are asking for favors, when you want somebody to do something for you or when you are going to work together but we will get into that in another lesson. So, but, with this phrase, we have many different levels of politeness. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: Let’s start with the most polite. |
| Naomi: どうぞ、よろしくお願いします。(Dōzo, yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Eric: This is very polite. Okay, you use it I don’t even know when you would really…. |
| Naomi: Yeah, yeah but if you are taking an interview. |
| Eric: Okay, yeah. |
| Naomi: You want to say どうぞよろしくお願いします (dōzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu). |
| Eric: That’s a perfect example when you have a job interview or some sort of very serious interview for something high level like you know you are trying to get into a school, you say どうぞよろしくお願いします (dōzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu) and you say it slowly and you have to bow at that time. |
| Naomi: Yeah, like 45 degrees. |
| Eric: Yeah, right it’s really set. As a matter of fact, I think when I say it to you in the beginning of the show, I bow a little bit too. So my voice might change a little bit. It’s like you just have to sort of bow a little bit to show your…. |
| Naomi: Respect. |
| Eric: Yeah, your respect and how nice you are going to be to me. Please be good to me. Okay and what’s the regular polite expression? |
| Naomi: よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) |
| Eric: The same way we learned it and the same way that Lori said and Mizuki-san and what’s a more casual way to say it? |
| Naomi: どうぞよろしく。(Dōzo yoroshiku.) |
| Eric: And what’s an even more casual way to say it? |
| Naomi: よろしく。(Yoroshiku.) |
| Eric: All right and you would say どうぞよろしく (dōzo yoroshiku) or よろしく (yoroshiku) to your friends, right? |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: When you are asking for favors or stuff like that. When you are meeting people, even if you are meeting someone of your age or some friends, you would still more or less say よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu), right? |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: All right and our next phrase is |
| Naomi: 私の名前はロリー・ネイラーです。(Watashi no namae wa Rorī Neirā desu.) |
| Eric: Okay, it literally means my name is Lori Naylor. |
| Naomi: Yeah. I don’t think we often use this sentence pattern. |
| Eric: Right it sounds perfectly normal in English. |
| Naomi: Yeah. |
| Eric: But in Japanese, it sounds a little odd, right? |
| Naomi: Yeah. The reason she used this phrase is she wants to emphasize her name. |
| Eric: Right because the guy kept on messing up her name. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: You know I guess his Morse code signal didn’t come in through and he got it all wrong and he called her something else. So she wanted to say no. My name is Lori Naylor, okay. That’s my name. So that’s why she said 私の名前は (watashi no namae wa). |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: So this is not a regular self introduction. How would you regularly introduce yourself, Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: なおみです (Naomi desu) or 私はなおみです (watashi wa Naomi desu). |
| Eric: Either you leave out the subject or you include the subject, but you don’t say 私の名前は (watashi no namae wa). You don’t say my name is. You could say I am or you could say Naomi is. It doesn’t kind of make any sense. Yeah but as we talked about the function of の (no) in the previous lesson, so check that out. It basically means to attribute a position or title to yourself and/or just to connect two nouns together. So when you say 私 (watashi) I, 私の (watashi no), it becomes my. It’s possessive. Okay, it gives ownership to but as I said in the previous lesson and as I’ve said elsewhere, try not to say 私は (watashi) as much as you can. You don’t really need it in daily conversation. It’s more natural not to mention the subject especially when you are talking about it yourself. Okay, let’s take a look at today’s target phrase. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Naomi: ラリーじゃありません。(Rarī ja arimasen.) |
| Eric: I am not Larry all right and what’s the key point here? |
| Naomi: じゃありません (ja arimasen), the negative form of です ( desu). |
| Eric: Well that is – it’s so different from です (desu). How can it become the negative form? |
| Naomi: Umm… |
| Eric: Okay first – okay this is a really complicated topic and here, I can talk about this for another show but I will stop saying that. Okay first, let’s break it down like this. There are three forms of です. First let me point out that we’ve been talking in です (desu)/ます (masu) form which is the polite form of speaking. The most basic る (ru) form is である (de aru), okay. That is the neutral basic form in Japanese. So the negative of である (de aru) is ではありません (de wa arimasen) which is the first way to say a negative form. There are three ways. What’s the second way, Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: じゃありません (ja arimasen) |
| Eric: And all we did here was get that では (de wa) from ではありません (de wa arimasen) and shorten it into じゃ (ja) and what’s the third way? |
| Naomi: じゃないです (ja nai desu) |
| Eric: And this is no less polite. It’s also polite but you just got the ありません (arimasen) and you turned it into ない (nai) and ない (nai) is the casual version of ありません (arimasen) but we attach です (desu) at the end. So it remains polite. So you could use it on anybody. All right and all of these expressions are polite. Are there any real differences in the way that you use them, Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: I would say ではありません (de wa arimasen) is the most polite expression. |
| Eric: Do you ever find yourself using it? |
| Naomi: In speaking, not much. |
| Eric: How about in writing? |
| Naomi: Writing, I use it a lot. |
| Eric: Okay Naomi-sensei, so let’s be a little negative here. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: Translate all my sentences into negative. 私はロリーです。(Watashi wa Rorī desu.) |
| Naomi: 私はロリーではありません。(Watashi wa Rorī de wa arimasen.) |
| Eric: 私はロリーです。(Watashi wa Rorī desu.) |
| Naomi: 私はロリーじゃありません。(Watashi wa Rorī ja arimasen.) |
| Eric: 私はロリーです。(Watashi wa Rorī desu.) |
| Naomi: 私はロリーじゃないです。 (Watashi wa Rorī ja nai desu.) |
| Eric: And those are three ways of saying I am not Lori in the same level of politeness. |
| Naomi: Okay, do you want to practice? |
| Eric: All right. Let’s go. |
| Naomi: こんにちは、アンディさん。(Kon’nichiwa, Andi-san.) |
| Eric: え？アンディじゃないです。私はエリックです。(E? Andi ja nai desu. Watashi wa Erikku desu.) |
| Naomi: えり？(Eri?) |
| Eric: いいえ、違います。エリックです。(Iie, chigaimasu. Erikku desu.) |
| Naomi: エリック。(Erikku.) |
| Eric: はい、そうです。(Hai, sō desu.) |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Eric: あ、こんにちはなおこさん。(A, kon’nichiwa Naoko-san.) |
| Naomi: なおこ？なおこじゃないです。なおみです。(Naoko? Naoko ja nai desu. Naomi desu.) |
| Eric: あ、すみません。ねよみさん。(A, sumimasen. Neyomi-san.) |
| Naomi: ねよみじゃないです。なおみです。(Neyomi ja nai desu. Naomi desu.) |
| Eric: Whatever. All right, so let’s review what we learned in today’s lesson. When you meet somebody for the first time, the first thing you have to say is |
| Naomi: はじめまして。(Hajimemashite.) |
| Eric: はじめまして。(Hajimemashite.) And then you want to say, please be good to me because I will be good to you. |
| Naomi: よろしくお願いします。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Eric: よろしくお願いします。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) And you say your name. |
| Naomi: なおみです。(Naomi desu.) |
| Eric: エリックです。(Erikku desu.) All right. Let’s introduce each other. はじめまして。(Hajimemashite.) |
| Naomi: はじめまして。なおみです。(Hajimemashite. Naomi desu.) |
| Eric: エリックです。(Erikku desu.) |
| Naomi: どうぞよろしくお願いします。(Dōzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Eric: よろしくお願いします。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
Outro |
| Eric: All right. The time has come for Naomi-sensei and I to take our Amnesia medicine but we always forget though but anyway, I will see you guys next week. Good bye. |
| Naomi: じゃあ、また。(Jā, mata.) |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get complete breakdowns, review with quizzes and download printable practice sheets! Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide