Learn how to tell time
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Kat: Hi everyone, Kat here! |
| Naomi: こんにちは、なおみです！(Kon’nichiwa, Naomi desu!) |
| Kat: We know you’re busy, but there’s always time for Japanese. |
| Naomi: じゃあ (jā), Kat-san, please tell us what we're going to learn in this lesson. |
| Kat: In this lesson you will learn how to tell time in Japanese, and you will also learn the Japanese conjunction けど (kedo), meaning “but.” |
| Naomi: Where does this conversation take place and who is it between? |
| Kat: The conversation takes place at home. The dialogue is actually a continuation of the one in the last lesson, and Kent is still on the phone with his father. |
| Naomi: What’s the formality level of the conversation? |
| Kat: Kent and his father will of course be speaking informally to each other. OK, so let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ケント (Kento):今？九時。(Ima? Ku-ji.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、午後九時半。イギリスは今、何時？(... Un, gogo ku-ji han. Igirisu wa ima, nan-ji?) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・十二時半？午前？へー。(... Jū ni-ji han? Gozen? Hē.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・学校？うん、難しい。(... Gakkō? Un, muzukashii.) |
| ケント (Kento):英語は簡単だけど、他は難しいよ。(Eigo wa kantan da kedo, hoka wa muzukashii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、楽しいよ。(...Un, tanoshii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):まどかちゃんも、まどかちゃんの両親も、やさしいよ。(Madoka-chan mo, Madoka-chan no ryōshin mo, yasashii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・じゃあね。はい。おやすみ。(... Jā ne. Hai. Oyasumi.) |
| 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.) |
| ケント (Kento):今？九時。(Ima? Ku-ji.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、午後九時半。イギリスは今、何時？(... Un, gogo ku-ji han. Igirisu wa ima, nan-ji?) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・十二時半？午前？へー。(... Jū ni-ji han? Gozen? Hē.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・学校？うん、難しい。(... Gakkō? Un, muzukashii.) |
| ケント (Kento):英語は簡単だけど、他は難しいよ。(Eigo wa kantan da kedo, hoka wa muzukashii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、楽しいよ。(...Un, tanoshii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):まどかちゃんも、まどかちゃんの両親も、やさしいよ。(Madoka-chan mo, Madoka-chan no ryōshin mo, yasashii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・じゃあね。はい。おやすみ。(... Jā ne. Hai. Oyasumi.) |
| 今度は英語が入ります。(Kondo wa Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| ケント (Kento):今？九時。(Ima? Ku-ji.) |
| Kat: Right now? It's nine o'clock... |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、午後九時半。(... Un, gogo ku-ji han.) |
| Kat: Yeah, nine-thirty P.M. |
| ケント (Kento):イギリスは今、何時？(Igirisu wa ima, nan-ji?) |
| Kat: What time is it now in England? |
| ケント (Kento):・・・十二時半？午前？へー。(... Jū ni-ji han? Gozen? Hē.) |
| Kat: Twelve-thirty?... In the morning? Wow... |
| ケント (Kento):・・・学校？うん、難しい。(... Gakkō? Un, muzukashii.) |
| Kat: School? Yeah, it's tough. |
| ケント (Kento):英語は簡単だけど、他は難しいよ。(Eigo wa kantan da kedo, hoka wa muzukashii yo.) |
| Kat: English is easy, but the rest are hard... |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、楽しいよ。(...Un, tanoshii yo.) |
| Kat: Yeah, it's fun. |
| ケント (Kento):まどかちゃんも、まどかちゃんの両親も、やさしいよ。(Madoka-chan mo, Madoka-chan no ryōshin mo, yasashii yo.) |
| Kat: Madoka and her parents are really kind... |
| ケント (Kento):・・・じゃあね。はい。おやすみ。(... Jā ne. Hai. Oyasumi.) |
| Kat: See ya. Okay. Good night. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Kat: So it does sound like Kent is having a good time in Japan, doesn’t it? |
| Naomi: Um, yes, he said that Madoka and her parents are やさしい (yasashii), which means "kind", so it sounds like he's getting along with them. |
| Kat: But again, school is the hard part for him. |
| Naomi: Right. By the way, Did you like school, Kat? |
| Kat: Yes, I did. I did like school. I was actually one of those insufferable know-it-all kids with straight As. |
| Naomi: すごい。(Sugoi.) |
| Kat: No, no, no. It was so annoying when looking back on it. How about you, Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: あ、ね、どうだろう。(A, ne, dō darō.) Well… I don’t remember. |
| Kat: You are not that old, don’t use that excuse. OK, so now, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Naomi: 学校 (gakkō) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: school |
| Naomi: 学校 (gakkō) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: 学校 (gakkō) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: OK, and next. |
| Naomi: 楽しい (tanoshii) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: enjoyable, fun |
| Naomi: 楽しい (tanoshii) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: 楽しい (tanoshii) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: OK, and next. |
| Naomi: 両親 (ryōshin) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: parents |
| Naomi: 両親 (ryōshin) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: 両親 (ryōshin) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: OK, and next. |
| Naomi: やさしい (yasashii) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: kind, gentle |
| Naomi: やさしい (yasashii) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: やさしい (yasashii) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: OK, and next. |
| Naomi: おやすみ (oyasumi) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: night, good night (informal) |
| Naomi: おやすみ (oyasumi) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Naomi: おやすみ (oyasumi) [natural native speed] |
| Kat: OK, so now, let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Naomi: The first word we are look at is 学校 (gakkō). |
| Kat: “School.” |
| Naomi: This is a really important word to know! |
| Kat: I agree, it's very common. Naomi-sensei, there are a couple of pronunciation points we should touch on for this word, aren’t there? |
| Naomi: Ah, I agree! The first one is the small "stop" in the middle of the word. |
| Kat: If you look at this word written out in hiragana, you will notice a small つ (tsu) in between the が (ga) and the こ (ko). This means you sort of pause here when you pronounce this word, がっこう (gakkō). |
| Naomi: Listen closely - [slowly] がっこう (gakkō) |
| Kat: For comparison, how would it sound without the stop? |
| Naomi: It would sound like がこう (gakō)... but this is wrong, so be careful. It's がっこう (gakkō). |
| Kat: がっこう (gakkō) |
| Naomi: Right. The other thing is to make sure that the last vowel is held longer, がっこー (gakkō) |
| Kat: Again, if you look at the hiragana for this word, you'll see an う (u) after the こ (ko), which means that it is a long vowel. |
| Kat: Okay, and the next word is? |
| Naomi: 両親 (ryōshin) |
| Kat: “Parents.” This can be used to talk about your own parents, can’t it? |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) Right. If you are talking with the parents of someone, you should attach ご (go) and say, ご両親 (go-ryōshin). But, in the dialogue Kent actually didn't put ご (go) in front of 両親 (ryōshin). |
| Kat: When talking about Madoka’s parents, he says just 両親 (ryōshin), why is that you think? |
| Naomi: It could be a mistake, or that’s because he is part of the family, you know. |
| Kat: That’s right. Because Madoka is his cousin, therefore, Madoka’s parents are his aunt and uncle, so maybe calling them ご両親 (go-ryōshin) would actually be creating distance between them, even though they are family. I see. So, this ご (go) is a polite prefix that gets attached to the front of certain words. And next, we have a couple of i-adjectives. The first one is... |
| Naomi: やさしい (yasashii) |
| Kat: “Kind”, gentle.” |
| Naomi: We mentioned this before, but Kent used やさしい (yasashii) to describe Madoka and her parents. |
| Kat: Right, you can use it to describe someone who is really nice and kind. Actually, doesn't this word also have an alternative meaning as well? |
| Naomi: Yeah, you mean "easy" and "simple"? |
| Kat: Yes, that's it! |
| Naomi: Good point. It depends on the context, but やさしい (yasashii) can also mean easy. But, generally speaking when we useやさしい (yasashii) to describe people. |
| Kat: Yes, that’s right. So if you want to describe a thing like, for example a test. How do we describe “the test is easy”? |
| Naomi:テストはやさしい。(Tesuto wa yasashii.) |
| Kat: Or. |
| Naomi: テストはかんたん。(Tesuto wa kantan.) |
| Kat: OK. And the last word is...? |
| Naomi: たのしい (tanoshii) |
| Kat: "Enjoyable", "fun.” This is also an i-adjective. |
| Naomi: In the dialogue, Kent said... うん。楽しいよ。(Un. Tanoshii yo.) |
| Kat: "Yeah, it's fun". |
| Naomi: We can assume that his father asked him how his life was in Japan, or something similar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Kat: In this lesson, you'll learn two things - how to tell time in Japanese, and how to use the conjunction けど (kedo). |
| Naomi: Let's start with telling time. |
| Kat: Telling the time in Japanese is actually quite simple if you already know how to count from 1-12. If you need to review the numbers, please check out Newbie Series Season 4, Lesson 7. In this lesson, we'll go straight into how to tell the time. |
| Naomi: To tell time, you simply add the word -じ (ji) to the number. |
| Kat: Let's go through a few examples. いち (ichi) is one, so one o'clock would be... |
| Naomi: いち (ichi) plus じ (ji), so いちじ (ichi-ji). |
| Kat: に (ni) is two, so two o'clock would be... |
| Naomi: に (ni) plus じ (ji), so にじ (ni-ji). |
| Kat: さん (san) is three, so three o'clock would be... |
| Naomi: さん (san),じ (ji). So さんじ (san-ji). |
| Kat: That's not so bad, is it?! |
| Naomi: No, it's very straightforward! |
| Kat: How, how about specifying AM and PM? |
| Naomi: Good question - we saw the words for AM and PM in the dialogue. AM is 午前 (gozen). PM is 午後 (gogo). |
| Kat: If you're studying kanji already, you'll notice that the kanji for these words are really interesting. The characters for 午前 (gozen) literally mean "before noon", and the characters for 午後 (gogo) literally mean "after noon". |
| Naomi: It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? |
| Kat: There's one more thing related to time that we need to go over. What if you need to know what time it is? |
| Naomi: Ahh, that's a very crucial question!! |
| Kat: In informal Japanese, it would be… |
| Naomi: 今、何時？(Ima, nan-ji?) 今 (ima) means "now", and 何時 (nan-ji) means "what time", so this literally means "what time is it now?" |
| Kat: Perfect! I think we're all set now! We won't cover it here, but in the PDF there is a chart that shows you how to say the minutes, so please be sure to check that out. |
| Now, let's move on to the conjunction けど (kedo). This is used after a phrase and translates to "but" in English. |
| Naomi: Using this correctly will really make your Japanese sound natural. |
| Kat: Absolutely, you really need to master this word! |
| Naomi: I know that many students use でも (demo), which also means "but", to join two sentences… but I think けど (kedo) is better for joining two sentences in casual conversation. |
| Kat: Yes, definitely, and like we said けど (kedo) means "but", so that means that the phrases before and after けど (kedo) have contrasting meanings. Let's show some examples, shall we? |
| Naomi: Sure. Let's start with two separate phrases. The first one is... ひらがなは簡単だ。(Hiragana wa kantan da.) |
| Kat: Hiragana is easy. |
| Naomi: The second one is... 漢字は難しい。(Kanji wa muzukashii.) |
| Kat: Kanji is hard. |
| Naomi: Now let's combine these with けど (kedo) in the middle. ひらがなは簡単だけど、漢字は難しい。(Hiragana wa kantan da kedo, kanji wa muzukashii.) |
| Kat: "Hiragana is easy, but kanji is hard". |
| Naomi: Great! Let's try another one. We've talked a lot about curry in this series, so... the first phrase, カレーは辛い (karē wa karai). |
| Kat: Curry is spicy. |
| Naomi: And the second phrase, おいしい (oishii). |
| Kat: Delicious. |
| Naomi: カレーは辛いけど、おいしい。(Karē wa karai kedo, oishii.) |
| Kat: "Curry is spicy but delicious." |
| Naomi: There are a couple of important rules we have to remember when using けど (kedo). |
| Kat: Right - this is where the grammar rules come in. けど (kedo) can come directly after an i-adjective or verb. Notice how we said 辛いけど (karai kedo) in the example we just did. But, when used with a na-adjective or a noun, you NEED to have だ (da) before けど (kedo). |
| Naomi: If you remember, in the first example, we said ひらがなは簡単だけど (hiragana wa kantan da kedo). |
| Kat: 簡単 (kantan) is a na-adjective, so it needs だ (da) after it when we attach けど (kedo), to make だけど (da kedo). |
| Naomi: Is that all clear? Remember to check the Lesson Notes for reinforcement. |
| Kat: It's explained in even more detail there, and it really helps to see it in writing, I think. |
Outro |
| Naomi: Well, that's all the time we have for this lesson! |
| Kat: Thanks for listening, everyone. See you in the next lesson!! |
| Naomi: じゃ、また！(Ja, mata!) |
| ケント (Kento):今？九時。(Ima? Ku-ji.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、午後九時半。イギリスは今、何時？(... Un, gogo ku-ji han. Igirisu wa ima, nan-ji?) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・十二時半？午前？へー。(... Jū ni-ji han? Gozen? Hē.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・学校？うん、難しい。(... Gakkō? Un, muzukashii.) |
| ケント (Kento):英語は簡単だけど、他は難しいよ。(Eigo wa kantan da kedo, hoka wa muzukashii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・うん、楽しいよ。(...Un, tanoshii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):まどかちゃんも、まどかちゃんの両親も、やさしいよ。(Madoka-chan mo, Madoka-chan no ryōshin mo, yasashii yo.) |
| ケント (Kento):・・・じゃあね。はい。おやすみ。(... Jā ne. Hai. Oyasumi.) |
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