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Lesson Transcript
| INTRODUCTION |
| さくら: さくらです。 |
| Peter: Peter here. |
| さくら: 四字熟語 |
| Peter: Lesson 18. Avoid This Japanese No-Win Situation. Sakura san, |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: What do we do in these lessons? |
| さくら: We introduce Yojijukugo. |
| Peter: Japanese idiomatic phrases. |
| さくら: Made up of four kanji characters. |
| Peter: And why do we do this? |
| さくら: Umm it tells a lot about the way Japanese people think and like history, culture… |
| Peter: And above all, |
| さくら: そうね |
| Peter: And above all, it’s fun. |
| さくら: It is fun そうそう・・・・・ |
| Peter: And 認めてください please admit it. You learn from these two. |
| さくら: Yes. そうなんです I’ve heard of a lot but I didn’t know where these words came from. |
| Peter: So the story behind it. |
| さくら: そうそう・・・・・ |
| Peter: And that’s why these lessons are so good because they are very, very rich and they give you a talking topic when you meet your Japanese friends. |
| さくら: Definitely ね |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: Okay let’s take a look at the first expression お願いします |
| さくら: 四面楚歌 |
| Peter: To be completely outcast, a No-Win situation. |
| さくら: 嫌ですね |
| Peter: You have a feeling of like relation to this word. |
| さくら: No, no, no… |
| Peter: Break it down. |
| さくら: しめんそか 四面楚歌 |
| Peter: The first character |
| さくら: 四 |
| Peter: Four. |
| さくら: 面 |
| Peter: Surface. |
| さくら: 楚 |
| Peter: Whip. |
| さくら: 歌 |
| Peter: Song. Four surface whip song. Let’s break it down by the two kanji character compounds. The first one we have is |
| さくら: 四面 |
| Peter: Four directions. The second two kanji character compound. |
| さくら: 楚歌 |
| Peter: So when we put it altogether, we get |
| さくら: 四面楚歌 |
| Peter: Now the origin of this is a historical event in China, the specific event, the king of the country |
| さくら: Called 楚 |
| Peter: Recognized ______ (0:02:10) when he heard songs of his own country. So from the people surrounding his castle. So Sakura san, he thought his subordinates had kind of given up to the enemy. |
| さくら: Right. |
| Peter: From that, it came to mean |
| さくら: Circumstances in which one is surrounded by enemies and opponents with nobody providing any support. |
| Peter: Now we had this long explanation but now let’s go back and look at the characters again. What’s the first two kanji character compound? |
| さくら: 四面 |
| Peter: So surrounded, all four sides and the song |
| さくら: 楚歌 |
| Peter: Of the 楚 kingdom 難しいですね |
| さくら: I think I learned this in 漢文 class. |
| Peter: What’s that? |
| さくら: 漢文is like Chinese literature class なのかな. It’s all in kanji. You know, we learned this original text in high school I think. There was the story about 四面楚歌. |
| Peter: But this is a very well known. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: Yes. Japanese expression right? |
| さくら: そうですね。 |
| Peter: Okay how about its usage? |
| さくら: It’s used as a noun to express the situation where someone is completely outcast or someone doesn’t have any support from anybody, you can say someone は四面楚歌だ or someone は四面楚歌になる to become 四面楚歌 |
| Peter: Kind of isolated without hope. |
| さくら: そうですね。 |
| Peter: No win situation, completely outcast. |
| さくら: はい |
| Peter: Let’s have a look at some sample sentences. |
| さくら: 僕の意見はみんなに反対されて四面楚歌だった |
| Peter: Everyone was against my opinion and that was completely outcast. |
| さくら: Next 友達はタイガースファンばかりで、ジャイアンツファンの僕はいつも四面楚歌だ |
| Peter: Most of my friends are Tigers fans but I am a Giants fan so I am always completely outcast. |
| さくら: 可哀想 |
| Peter: 可哀想ですね |
| さくら: そんな勝手ばかりしていると、四面楚歌になるよ |
| Peter: If you are always selfish like that, you will be forsaken by all of your friends. Sound – the great translation there. |
| さくら: そうですね。 |
| Peter: All right. Let’s take a look at the second expression. Sakura san, |
| さくら: 順風満帆 |
| Peter: I like the sound of that. Smooth sailing, on course and going full speed ahead. |
| さくら: じゅんぷうまんぱん 順風満帆 |
| Peter: First character. |
| さくら: 順 |
| Peter: Right. |
| さくら: 風 |
| Peter: Wind. |
| さくら: 満 |
| Peter: Full |
| さくら: 帆 |
| Peter: Sale. |
| さくら: 順風満帆 |
| Peter: The first two character compound is |
| さくら: 順風 |
| Peter: Following wind. The second two character compound is |
| さくら: 満帆 |
| Peter: Full sale. So put it all together |
| さくら: 順風満帆 |
| Peter: And it means everything is going well like a boat sailing smoothly in a favorable wind. |
| さくら: Huh! |
| Peter: 良い表現ですね |
| さくら: 気持ちが良いですね |
| Peter: Can you use this if someone asks you how you are doing? |
| さくら: Umm I think so. 最近どうですか。順風満帆です |
| Peter: 良いですね |
| さくら: 良いですね |
| Peter: Interesting. Well, let’s find out a little bit more about this. First we have the usage. |
| さくら: It is used as a noun and to express the situation that everything is going well, you can say something は順風満帆だ |
| Peter: Now it can also be used as a na adjective. So when something starts smoothly, you can express it by |
| さくら: 順風満帆なスタート |
| Peter: Smooth start. Also you can use it as an adverbial. Basically, when we have adverbial, most of the time, we are going to use the particle. |
| さくら: に |
| Peter: So we have here |
| さくら: 順風満帆に進む |
| Peter: Which means to sail before the wind and of course it means things are going well. Okay let’s have a look at the sample sentences. First we have, |
| さくら: 新しい仕事は順風満帆だよ |
| Peter: Everything is going well with my new job. Next we have. |
| さくら: 新婚生活は順風満帆なスタートだった |
| Peter: Married life got off to a good start. |
| さくら: Just saw this 順風満帆なスタートだった which is past tense. So is it not going well now って思っちゃうね |
| Peter: I think so. Things started off so well. |
| さくら: そう |
| Peter: But. |
| さくら: 今も順風満帆ですなのかな Still 順風満帆 |
| Peter: Yeah 弁護士を呼ぶ時間が来ましたじゃないですか |
| さくら: ほんとだ |
| Peter: Time to call the lawyers. |
| さくら: そうです |
| Peter: Okay. And finally we have |
| さくら: 新プロジェクトは順風満帆に進んでいる |
| Peter: The new project is sailing before the wind full steam ahead. |
| さくら: It is 良いですね |
| Peter: 素晴らしいですね Sakura san, out of these two we looked at today, which do you use more? |
| さくら: 順風満帆でしょうね |
| Peter: I love the sound of that. |
| さくら: Yes そうそうそう because you are not in 四面楚歌situation so often, hopefully not…. |
| Peter: Depending on the persons. |
| さくら: 確かに |
| Peter: So after hearing this lesson, stop by japanesepod101.com. Try to use these expressions in a sentence of course in Japanese and we will let you know how the sentence went. Also, you can see how other community members are using these. |
| さくら: そうですね。 |
| Peter: 勉強になりますよ |
| さくら: 勉強になります |
Outro |
| Peter: All right, that’s going to do for today. |
| さくら: またね |
Kanji
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