Learn about how to ask what it is
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Lori’s Story 2. How to declare items at customs? Naomi-sensei, what are we studying today? |
| Naomi: 何ですか。(Nan desu ka.) “What is it?” is today’s target grammar. |
| Eric: And today’s conversation takes place at |
| Naomi: Narita international airport, 成田空港 (Narita Kūkō). |
| Eric: And what’s happening? |
| Naomi: A customs official is asking Lori some questions. |
| Eric: Okay, let’s listen. |
| DIALOGUE |
| (成田空港) (Narita Kūkō) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : これは、何ですか。(Kore wa, nan desu ka.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : 薬です。...アスピリンです。(Kusuri desu.... Asupirin desu.) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : これは、何ですか。(Kore wa, nan desu ka.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : お土産です。(O-miyage desu.) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : はい、オッケーです。(Hai, okkē desu.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : ...オッケー... (..Okkē …) |
| 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.) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : これは、何ですか。(Kore wa, nan desu ka.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : 薬です。...アスピリンです。(Kusuri desu.... Asupirin desu.) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : これは、何ですか。(Kore wa, nan desu ka.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : お土産です。(O-miyage desu.) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : はい、オッケーです。(Hai, okkē desu.) |
| ロリー (Rorī) : ...オッケー... (..Okkē …) |
| 今度は、英語が入ります。(Kondo wa, Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| (成田空港) (Narita Kūkō) |
| (Narita Airport) |
| 係員 (kakariin) : これは 何ですか。(Kore wa nan desu ka.) |
| CUSTOMS OFFICER: What is this? |
| ロリー (Rorī) : 薬です。...アスピリンです。(Kusuri desu.... Asupirin desu.) |
| LORI: It's medicine....It's Aspirin, sir. |
| 係員 (kakariin) : これは、何ですか。(Kore wa, nan desu ka.) |
| CUSTOMS OFFICER: ...And what's this? |
| ロリー (Rorī) : お土産です。(O-miyage desu.) |
| LORI: It's a souvenir. |
| 係員 (kakariin) : はい、オッケーです。(Hai, okkē desu.) |
| CUSTOMS OFFICER: Oh, OK. |
| ロリー (Rorī) : ...オッケー... (..Okkē …) |
| 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 (okkē desu)? |
| Eric: Yes, he was saying okay. |
| Naomi: That's a Japanese phrase. Japanese people often use オッケーです (okkē desu). |
| Eric: Meaning okay, right? |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: And I noticed in Japanese, there are a bunch of words that they have taken from English. |
| Naomi: あ～。(Ā.) |
| Eric: And put it into Japanese and they say it of course with the Japanese pronunciation. |
| Naomi: Like サンキュー (sankyū). |
| Eric: Right, right, right. And even more common words and more words that you might think of as Japanese like television. |
| Naomi: テレビ (terebi) |
| Eric: テレビ (terebi) 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 オッケー (okkē) 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。(Ā, omotte ru kamo ne.) |
| Eric: Ah! Maybe they do ah? |
| Naomi: わかんないけど。(Wakannai kedo.) |
| Eric: I’ve always wondered that but anyway, on to the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: The first word is |
| Naomi: これ (kore) |
| Eric: This. |
| Naomi: (slow) これ (kore) (natural speed) これ (kore) |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 何 (nani) |
| Eric: What. |
| Naomi: (slow) なに (nani) (natural speed) 何 (nani) |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 薬 (kusuri) |
| Eric: Medicine. |
| Naomi: (slow) くすり (kusuri) (natural speed) 薬 (kusuri) |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: お土産 (o-miyage) |
| Eric: Present, souvenir. |
| Naomi: (slow) おみやげ (o-miyage) (natural speed) お土産 (o-miyage) |
| Eric: The next word is |
| Naomi: 係員 (kakariin) |
| Eric: Official, clerk in-charge. |
| Naomi: (slow) かかりいん (kakariin) (natural speed) 係員 (kakariin) |
| Eric: The last word is |
| Naomi: アスピリン (asupirin) |
| Eric: Aspirin. |
| Naomi: (slow) アスピリン (asupirin) (natural speed) アスピリン (asupirin) |
| 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 (kore) |
| Eric: One more time. |
| Naomi: (slow) これ (kore) (natural speed) これ (kore) |
| 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。(Sō desu ne.) 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 would be それ (sore) for you. |
| Eric: それ (sore) means that close to the person you are speaking to and how about that thing that’s way over there? |
| Naomi: あれ (are) |
| Eric: So there are 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 (kore) |
| Eric: That’s close to you. |
| Naomi: それ (sore) |
| Eric: That is not close to any of us. |
| Naomi: あれ。(Are.) Those words are called こそあど (ko so a do) words in Japanese. |
| Eric: The reason they are called こそあど (ko so a do) is because these are the first sounds or the first characters of these words. |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: And they always describe 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 (kusuri) |
| Eric: Medicine. |
| Naomi: When 薬 (kusuri) is preceded by other noun, くすり (kusuri) becomes ぐすり (gusuri). |
| Eric: All right. So you turn the く (ku) from くすり (kusuri) into a ぐ (gu). |
| Naomi: Right. |
| Eric: So that would be to specify different types of medicine, right? |
| Naomi: Hm. |
| Eric: So for example, I ate this crazy 焼肉 (yakiniku) the other day and then I have an upset stomach. What should I take? |
| Naomi: Stomach in Japanese is 胃 (i). |
| Eric: Well that’s easy. It’s 胃 (i). |
| Naomi: And plus ぐすり (gusuri), so 胃薬 (igusuri). |
| Eric: Stomach medicine. |
| Naomi: 胃薬。(Igusuri.) And eyes is 目 (me). So 目薬 (megusuri). 目薬。(Megusuri). |
| 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。(Hai.) |
| Eric: All right. You can make up any ぐすり (gusuri) words you like as long as it really exists ah! You could just add ぐすり (gusuri) to the end of anything. Oh Naomi-sensei, it seems like Lori brought some souvenirs to Japan ah! |
| Naomi: あー、そうですね。(Ā, sō desu ne.) Right. |
| Eric: What did she bring? |
| Naomi: お土産 (o-miyage) |
| Eric: お土産 (o-miyage), that means souvenir, right? |
| Naomi: Right. お (o) is a honorific prefix. So you can say 土産 (miyage) without お (o). |
| Eric: That’s right. There is a lot of words in Japanese that people say with お (o). For example, the bath – the bathroom or the bathtub, お風呂 (o-furo). |
| Naomi: 風呂 (furo) is bathtub and お風呂 (o-furo) 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 are going to use 風呂 (furo). |
| Naomi: そうかなぁ。(Sō ka nā.) 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。(Kusuri desu.) |
| 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 would be これは、薬です (kore wa, kusuri desu). |
| 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 (kore) |
| Eric: This. |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Eric: The topic marking particle. |
| Naomi: 薬 (kusuri) |
| Eric: Medicine. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Eric: The copula which is equivalent to the English is, am or are 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。(Kore wa kusuri desu.) |
| Eric: Becomes |
| Naomi: 薬です。(Kusuri desu.) |
| Eric: Which is the same thing. It’s just more common. |
| Naomi: Then in a vocab section, we have covered こそあど (ko so a do) 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 (sore wa kusuri desu) 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。(Are wa kusuri desu.) |
| Eric: And that’s why these こそあど (ko so a do) 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。(Kore wa nan desu ka.) |
| Eric: All right. Let’s break that down. First word is |
| Naomi: これ (kore) |
| Eric: This. |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Eric: The topic marking particle. |
| Naomi: 何 (nan) |
| Eric: What. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Eric: The copula. |
| Naomi: か (ka) |
| Eric: The question marking particle. |
| Naomi: これは何ですか。(Kore wa nan desu ka.) |
| Eric: What is this? So now able to ask questions by introducing just one character which is |
| Naomi: か (ka) |
| Eric: That’s right. You just add か (ka) 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。(Sore wa kusuri desu ka.) |
| Eric: Is that medicine and then I would say はい、これは薬です (hai, kore wa kusuri desu) 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 a whole 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。(Kore wa nan desu ka.) |
| Eric: That’s right. What is this? Or just what you said earlier, without the これは (kore wa), it would be |
| Naomi: 何ですか。(Nan desu ka.) |
| 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。(Kore wa nan desu ka.) |
| Eric: And what is that? |
| Naomi: That one – I have or that one over there? |
| Eric: The one right in front of you. |
| Naomi: Ah okay. それは何ですか。(Sore wa nan desu ka.) |
| Eric: And what is that one over there? |
| Naomi: あれは何ですか。(Are wa nan desu ka.) |
| 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。(Kore wa nan desu ka.) |
| 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。(Are wa nan desu ka.) |
| 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。(Sore wa nan desu ka.) |
Outro |
| Eric: See you next time. |
| Naomi: じゃ、また。(Ja, mata.) |
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