Learn about how to ask what it is
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Welcome to JapanesePod101.com. Newbie Series Lori’s Story 2. How to declare items at customs? My name is Eric and I am accompanied by Naomi Sensei. |
| Naomi: こんにちは。 |
| Eric: こんにちは。 |
| Naomi: よろしくお願いします。 |
| Eric: よろしくお願いします。Naomi Sensei, what are we studying today? |
| Naomi: 何ですか？ What is it is today’s target grammar. |
| Eric: And today’s conversation takes place at |
| Naomi: Narita international airport. 成田空港。 |
| Eric: And what’s happening? |
| Naomi: A customs official is asking Lori some questions. |
| Eric: Okay let’s listen. |
| DIALOGUE |
| (成田空港) |
| 係員: これは 何ですか。 |
| ロリー: 薬です。...アスピリンです。 |
| 係員: これは、何ですか? |
| ロリー: お土産です。 |
| 係員: はい、オッケーです。 |
| ロリー: ...オッケー... |
| もう一度、お願いします。今度はゆっくり、お願いします。 |
| (成田空港) |
| 係員: これは 何ですか。 |
| ロリー: 薬です。...アスピリンです。 |
| 係員: これは、何ですか? |
| ロリー: お土産です。 |
| 係員: はい、オッケーです。 |
| ロリー: ...オッケー... |
| 今度は、英語が入ります。 |
| (成田空港) |
| (Narita Airport) |
| 係員: これは 何ですか。 |
| CUSTOMS OFFICER:What is this? |
| ロリー: 薬です。...アスピリンです。 |
| LORI: It's medicine....It's Aspirin, sir. |
| 係員: これは、何ですか? |
| CUSTOMS OFFICER:...And what's this? |
| ロリー: お土産です。 |
| LORI: It's a souvenir. |
| 係員: はい、オッケーです。 |
| CUSTOMS OFFICER:Oh, OK. |
| ロリー: ...オッケー... |
| LORI: ...OK... |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Hey Naomi Sensei, it seems like this customs official was trying to speak English. |
| Naomi: You mean オッケーです。 |
| Eric: He was saying okay. |
| Naomi: That’s Japanese phrase. Japanese people often use オッケーです. |
| Eric: Meaning okay right? |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: And I noticed in Japanese, there is a bunch of words that they have taken from English. |
| Naomi: あ～。 |
| Eric: And put it into Japanese and they say it of course with the Japanese pronunciation. |
| Naomi: Like サンキュー. |
| Eric: Right, right, right. And even more common words and more words that you might think as Japanese like television. |
| Naomi: テレビ |
| Eric: テレビ which is short name of television right but what is like okay and thank you and all those words, do people really think of it as Japanese? |
| Naomi: I don’t know but when we write it, we write in Katakana. So I think people know that’s from foreign country. |
| Eric: Right and of course, some people – people who know English know the word okay and stuff like that, but people who don’t know English but they would know the word okay and then they know – you know they know what it means. Do they think that’s a regular Japanese word? |
| Naomi: あ～思ってるかもね。 |
| Eric: Ah! Maybe they do ah! |
| Naomi: わかんないけど。 |
| Eric: I’ve always wanted that but any way on to the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: The first word is |
| Naomi: これ |
| Eric: This. |
| Naomi: (slow)これ (natural speed) これ |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 何 |
| Eric: What |
| Naomi: (slow)なに (natural speed) 何 |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 薬 |
| Eric: Medicine |
| Naomi: (slow)くすり (natural speed) 薬 |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: お土産 |
| Eric: Present, souvenir |
| Naomi: (slow)おみやげ (natural speed) お土産 |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 係員 |
| Eric: Official, clerk, person in-charge. |
| Naomi: (slow)かかりいん (natural speed) 係員 |
| Eric: The last word is |
| Naomi: アスピリン |
| Eric: Aspirin. |
| Naomi: (slow)アスピリン (natural speed) アスピリン |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eric: All right. Let’s take a closer look at today’s vocabulary. Our first word today was this. |
| Naomi: これ |
| Eric: One more time. |
| Naomi: これ。これ。 |
| Eric: Meaning this |
| Naomi: Or these. |
| Eric: Singular or plural is okay. All right we have this but just knowing the word this, we can’t really talk about that many things, right Naomi Sensei? |
| Naomi: そうですね。Right. |
| Eric: So what if I wanted to talk about that? |
| Naomi: You mean that one over there or that one I have? |
| Eric: I mean that thing that’s right there within your reach. |
| Naomi: That will be それ for you. |
| Eric: それ means that close to the person you are speaking to and how about that thing that’s way over there? |
| Naomi: あれ |
| Eric: So there is two words for that and one word for this because this means something around you personally and then there is that for things close to the listener and there is that for things that are far away from both the speaker and the listener. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: All right. So what’s this? |
| Naomi: これ |
| Eric: That’s close to you. |
| Naomi: それ |
| Eric: That not close to any of us. |
| Naomi: あれ Those words are called こそあどwords in Japanese. |
| Eric: The reason they are called こそあど is because these are the first sounds or the first characters of these words. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: And they always describe a place. We will see more of them later on. So don’t worry. Okay, the next word we want to take a look at is |
| Naomi: 薬 |
| Eric: Medicine. |
| Naomi: When 薬 is preceded by other noun, くすり becomes ぐすり |
| Eric: All right. So you turn the ku from く into a ぐ. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: So that would be to specify different types of medicine right? |
| Naomi: Hm. |
| Eric: So for example, I ate crazy 焼肉and then I have an upset stomach. What should I take? |
| Naomi: Stomach in Japanese is 胃。 |
| Eric: Well that’s easy. It’s 胃。 |
| Naomi: And plus 胃 so 胃薬。 |
| Eric: Stomach medicine. |
| Naomi: 胃薬 And eyes is 目 So 目薬。目薬。 |
| Eric: Oh like eye drops or I personally call them eye juice. |
| Naomi: Eye juice. |
| Eric: Yeah you see those people putting them on their eyes right? |
| Naomi: はい。 |
| Eric: All right. You can make up any 薬 words you like as long as it really exists ah! You could just add 薬 to the end of anything. Oh Naomi Sensei, it seems like Lori brought some souvenirs to Japan ah! |
| Naomi: Ah そうですね。 right. |
| Eric: What did she bring? |
| Naomi: お土産 |
| Eric: お土産 that means souvenir right? |
| Naomi: Right. お is a honorific prefix. So you can say 土産 without お. |
| Eric: That’s right. There is a lot of words in Japanese that people say with お. For example, the bath – the bathroom or the bathtub お風呂 |
| Naomi: 風呂 is bathtub and お風呂 is more polite way to say it. |
| Eric: That’s right but everybody uses that right? |
| Naomi: Uhoo. |
| Eric: It would be almost rude to say that you go into the 風呂 |
| Naomi: そうかなぁ。 For male speakers, I think it’s okay. |
| Eric: I will keep that in mind. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: All right, so let’s talk about grammar Naomi Sensei. What do we have today? |
| Naomi: 薬です。 |
| Eric: It is medicine. This is medicine. Actually it’s not exactly clear if you are trying to say this is medicine or it is medicine. It’s vague but of course it’s up to the context. So you will probably understand depending on the context. |
| Naomi: Right. The subject is missing in this sentence right? |
| Eric: Exactly. |
| Naomi: So if the subject is this, that sentence will be これは、薬です。 |
| Eric: And that would be completely clear. That means this is medicine. Let’s break that down where you just said, what’s the first word? |
| Naomi: これ |
| Eric: This. |
| Naomi: は |
| Eric: The topic marking particle. |
| Naomi: 薬 |
| Eric: Medicine |
| Naomi: です。 |
| Eric: The copula which is equivalent to the English is, am or or and in general, as we just saw, when the subject is pretty clear or you understand from context, then you can omit the subject and as a matter of fact, I think it’s just more natural to omit the subject rather than include the subject. It’s more natural to be vague than to be very clear about what you are saying. So the sentence you just said this is medicine. |
| Naomi: これは薬です。 |
| Eric: Becomes |
| Naomi: 薬です。 |
| Eric: Which is the same thing. It’s just more common. |
| Naomi: Then in a vocab section, we have covered こそあど words right? |
| Eric: That’s right and we talked about it earlier right. If I wanted to tell you Naomi Sensei that that thing right next to you is medicine, I would say それは薬です and if you wanted to tell me that the thing all the way over there is medicine, you would say |
| Naomi: あれは薬です。 |
| Eric: And that’s why these こそあど words are really useful because you use them to describe things further their location where they are in relation to the listener, the speaker and just the general space around you. Okay Naomi Sensei, in today’s dialogue, we have. |
| Naomi: これは何ですか。 |
| Eric: All right. Let’s break that down. First word is |
| Naomi: これ |
| Eric: This |
| Naomi: は |
| Eric: The topic marking particle. |
| Naomi: 何 |
| Eric: What. |
| Naomi: です |
| Eric: The copula |
| Naomi: か |
| Eric: The question marking particle. |
| Naomi: これは何ですか？ |
| Eric: What is this? So now able to ask questions by introducing just one character which is |
| Naomi: か |
| Eric: That’s right. You just add か after this and it becomes a question. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: So you are not sure if what I am holding in my hand now is medicine. So you would ask me |
| Naomi: それは薬ですか？ |
| Eric: Is that medicine and then I would say はい、これは薬です which means yes, this is medicine. So now you are able to ask about and state what things are all around you and around other people and things that are really far away too. So now you could say whole a lot. So we were just talking about asking about specific things but if you don’t even know what things are, you have to say the word what. So how would you ask what is this? |
| Naomi: これは何ですか？ |
| Eric: That’s right. What is this? Or just what you said earlier, without the これは it would be |
| Naomi: 何ですか？ |
| Eric: Which just means what is it |
| Naomi: Or just what. |
| Eric: So Naomi Sensei, what is this? |
| Naomi: これは何ですか？ |
| Eric: And what is that? |
| Naomi: That one – I have that one over there. |
| Eric: The one right in front of you. |
| Naomi: Ah okay それは何ですか？ |
| Eric: And what is that one over there? |
| Naomi: あれは何ですか？ |
| Eric: All right. So let’s review what we have learned in this lesson. So for example, you found something that you’ve never seen on your plate like a big hair okay, a big… |
| Naomi: On my plate? |
| Eric: Yeah big blonde hair on your plate. |
| Naomi: Okay, okay. |
| Eric: And then you would say? |
| Naomi: これは何ですか？ |
| Eric: Yeah that’s right. It’s not a piece of pasta and then you saw something flying in the sky, you would say… |
| Naomi: あれは何ですか？ |
| Eric: It’s superman and your friend is wearing a strange hat. |
| Naomi: My friend, it means you or? |
| Eric: Ae don’t make fun of my hat. |
| Naomi: それは何ですか？ |
Outro |
| Eric: All right. It’s about time for me to go buy a new hat but before I go, I want to tell all of you about the community forum at japanesepod101.com. You know this is newbie series lesson 2 so far and I am guessing you guys have a lot of questions. So just go to japanesepod101.com, click on the form and start asking questions. There is tons of people there that are really knowledgeable about all aspects of Japanese writing, listening, speaking, and everything that can answer your questions and if you are an expert at something and then there is probably something that you know, some question that you can answer for other people. So please check it out. See you next time. |
| Naomi: じゃ、また。 |
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43 Comments
HideMina-san, have you ever had problems at immigration or customs?
Narendra Shikaripurさん
Thank you for your question!
「これ」is a noun and it's used like this 「これ は わたし の かばん です。」whereas 「この」is always followed by a noun; for example, 「このかばん」(this bag) or 「このペン」(this pen).
Please let us know if you have a further question :)
Sincerely
Ryoma
Team JapanesePod101.com
Hi Sirui,
Thank you for your feedback and we are happy that you liked the lesson with Eric!
We have a few more lessons with him, you can access them through the following links:
https://www.japanesepod101.com/lesson/newbie-s4-1-getting-through-customs-in-japan/
https://www.japanesepod101.com/lesson/newbie-lesson-s4-16-everybody-counts/
https://www.japanesepod101.com/lesson/newbie-lesson-s4-10-how-to-say-goodbye/
https://www.japanesepod101.com/lesson/newbie-lesson-s4-24-next-stop-yours/
If you have any other questions, you can share them with us.
Cheers,
Igor
Team JapanesePod101.com
Hi are there anymore lessons that are hosted by eric? I find his way of talking entertaining and makes it easier for me to focus on the lessons
What’s the difference between これ and この
- ナレンドラ
Hi Peter,
On behalf of Motoko, I thank you for your reply.
We appreciate your feedback?
Keep studying with JapanesePod101.com
Cheers,
Miki(美希)
Team JapanesePod101.com
Thanks for the update Motoko. The series was actually pretty good, I think the first episode is just misleading as to the level of content later on. Especially following from the previous series.
Peter-san konnichiwa,
Thank you for your feedback.
Good point! ?This series is situation-based so that the Lesson Focus might overlap Newbie Season 2 and 3.
However, in other words, it means that you can learn useful Japanese for a variety of real-life situations.
If you finished up to Newbie Season 3, and would like to learn upper level, I recommend to study Beginner Season 4.
https://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php?cat=17
It is one of the Nihongo Dojo series, and continuation of Newbie Season 3.
Sorry for the inconvenience, and hope this helps,
Motoko
Team JapanesePod101.com
I feel that this is not actually Newbie Season 4. It is mentioned in this lesson that this is Season 2 and the much easier difficulty seems to indicate that. Can you please clarify why this series is significantly easier?
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for the comment!
We always try to launch better lessons.
We are glad if our lessons help you?
Keep studying with JapanesePod101.com
Cheers,
Miki(美希)
Team JapanesePod101.com
Why is this series much easier than the previous one?
Ryan