Episode 15 – Japanese Made Easy

Full Episode Audio (download link is to the right of the volume icon)

Exercises Only

Hi Greg here, welcome to episode 15 of Japanese Made Easy.

You may already know this word, but don’t skip because we’ll be learning another related word as well..

First just listen…

明日 (あした） 明日

If today is Monday,

明日 is Tuesday.

February 14th is Valentines day. So, if today is February 13th,

Valentines day is 明日。

Recalling that in Japanese, time related words tend to go at the front of the sentence. Tell somebody “Tomorrow, I’m going to Kyoto.”

あした、京都(きょうと)に行(い)く。

You are going somewhere with a friend named Sayaka. How would you translate this sentence literally?

あした、さやかと東京駅(とうきょうえき)に行くよ。　

Literally, that would be… Tomorrow, Sayaka with, Tokyo station, target location, go or will go. And more naturally…

I’m going to Tokyo station with Sayaka tomorrow.

Polite Japanese. Tell somebody, I’m going to a department store tomorrow.

あした、デパートに行きます。 and…

I’m going to Osaka with Sayaka tomorrow.

あした、さやかと大阪(おおさか)に行きます。　

Ok, let’s get another time word…

あさって あさって

If today is Monday… あさって is Wednesday.

Try and answer this question…

If today is the 15th, and your birthday is

あっさて, how many days until your birthday? That would be two.

Finish this sentence… The day after

明日（あした） is…

あさって or the day after tomorrow.

Let’s put that one to work. First, you tell somebody what you often do.

How would you translate this?

ラーメンを食(た)べる。　I eat Ramen.

Tell somebody, The day after tomorrow, I’ll eat sushi.

あさって、寿司(すし)を食べる。　

We could be dropping the を particle in these short casual sentences, but we’ll leave it in just for practice.

Ramen, in Sapporo is known for being very good, so let’s try literally..

The day after tomorrow, Sapporo de (recalling de equals the place where the action will occur), ramen を will eat. A bit more naturally, The day after tomorrow, in Sapporo, I’ll eat Ramen.

How would you say that in casual Japanese?

あさって、札幌(さっぽろ)でラーメンを食べる。

This next one is a long word, and a delicious food. If you’ve spent time in Japan you will have likely tried it. If you haven’t been to Japan yet, do try it when you get here. First listen…

お好(この)み焼(や)き

Please repeat…

お。こ。の。み。や。き。　お。こ。の。み。や。き。

お好み焼き and a city you already know, but let’s get the Japanese pronunciation.

広島(ひろしま)

Most cities in Japan have a food that is well known and associated with the city. If you ever stop through Hiroshima, definitely try some Hiroshima style　

お好み焼き。

A friend is headed to 広島. In casual Japanese, and starting with “the day after tomorrow” Try asking somebody, Are you going to have okonomiyaki in Hiroshima the day after tomorrow? Take your time…

あさって、広島でお好み焼き食べる？

あさって、広島でお好み焼き食べる？

Major train stations often have restaurants and other amenities, so how would you translate this version of the question?

あさって… 大阪駅(おおさかえき)で… 友達(ともだち)と…ピザ食べる?

Listen one more time…

あさって… 大阪駅で… 友達と…ピザ食べる?

I’d translate that as.. “Are you going to eat pizza with a friend at Osaka station the day after tomorrow?”

Of course the the word order in English could have been different than my version, but as long as we got the gist.

Ok, just one more of these types of questions. Let’s use tomorrow.

Try asking, Are you going to drink orange juice with Kenji at the hotel?

Take your time.

あした…健司(けんじ)と…ホテルで…オレンジジュース飲む？

More natural speed…

あした 健司とホテルでオレンジジュース飲む？

Let’s get a new super useful word, and for this keep in mind that in Japanese verbs go at the end of the sentence…

As we like to do let’s get the meaning of the question, based on the answer.

Mayumi’s friend David is from

イギリス, David is really good at

サッカー Mayumi and David are at a coffee shop and he takes a phone call.

She over-hears him saying something about a photo-shoot and a soccer ball. She asks him..

サッカーする？ So there we heard,

サッカー which is soccer or football, and the new word…

する and with rising intonation, seems it’s a question.

Mayumi doesn’t know it, but actually David is very good at soccer and plays often, he answers..

うん。するよ。Yeah… and then “するよ.”

Let’s try another one but that isn’t a sport.

Listen to both of these examples which are actually the same idea, but said two different ways…

e-メール which is e-mail, and recently just

メール is common. This is referring to electronic mail. There are different words for traditional snail mail.

From here on out we’ll go with メール

So, David has cut the coffee short, and goes to a photo-shoot. He says to Mayumi…

明日(あした), メールするよ。 Tomorrow, e-mail, suru.. yo.

So, upon hearing a sport and suru, in English the mind tends to go to the idea of “play” but we also heard suru with e-mail, and of course play doesn’t work for that.

So think of suru as the universal “to do” something.

In English if we say something like, “Oh.. you do soccer?” That’s not really natural but that’s essentially how we are saying it in Japanese.

Essentially asking, is soccer something that you do?

and then..

うん、するよ。 Yeah, I do. With “I” being understood.

Then we had the other example…

明日、 メールするよ。 Literally, Tomorrow, e-mail will do. More naturally, David is saying to Mayumi, “I’ll send you an e-mail tomorrow.”

Let’s see if you can get this next one…

A couple days later, Mayumi meets up with her friend Tiger. Tiger is pretty good at golf. In fact, on the way to the coffee shop, she saw him on the cover of a golf magazine. Recalling our casual questions with “の” when wanting a bit of clarification. How would she ask him, “You play golf?”

ゴルフするの？How would he reply, “Yeah, I do.”

うん、するよ。

This is a good time for a reminder, there is a difference between meaning, and translation. Suru doesn’t mean “play”, and it doesn’t mean, “send” as in send a e-mail, but it can translate as either of those.

That’s why often if you are watching something with subtitles, the translations go for the gist of what is being said, not necessarily word for word or meaning for meaning direct translations.

With that, tell a friend, “Tomorrow I’ll do tennis.”

あしたテニスする。　Ask a friend if they are going to “do” golf the day after tomorrow.

あさってゴルフする？　Using the cognate for snowboarding…

スノーボード スノーボード

Tell a friend, I’ll do snowboarding the day after tomorrow.

あさってスノーボードするよ。

To recap, for a lot of sports where in English we’d use the word “play” in Japanese they go with the universal word for “do”.

Ok, let’s take a break.

————————————– Tip Of The Day

Today I want to talk about a strategy for getting by if you visit Japan. In my first year in Japan, at least twice I had gotten on the wrong train.

Fortunately in both cases, I got off before they left the station. But they were close calls. At Kansai airport after arriving in Japan, basically very tired after a long flight. I had to then take a few trains to get to my place in Japan.

I was sitting in a seat waiting for the train to leave, and still had my ticket out. The lady sitting next to me noticed that the ticket didn’t match the train I was on. There were two sets of tracks, and I was on the wrong side. I should have been on the train headed in the opposite direction.

This was a long time ago, and I don’t remember exactly what she said, but fortunately she helped me out, and I got the idea. Wong train. That one over there is yours.

I do remember scrambling to get all my stuff out the door before they closed and the train started moving. I barely made it, but luckily I did.

After that, another time in a city I wasn’t familiar with, I showed a person my ticket and asked “This train?” and they said, “Nope.” and pointed out the window to a different track.

So, from then on I made a personal rule, always show my train ticket to somebody on the platform before getting on, or in the train right away when I do get on, and confirm by pointing to the ticket and saying “This train?” in Japanese.

Keep in mind, I do have about a 97% over-all correct train getting on percentage. It’s just those two times early in the game, that lowered my average.

————————————– Tip Of The Day

This next section is very important so let’s make sure you are solid with the concept. If you are a Japanese Mastery Method student, this will be review as it’s dealt with in the main course, as well as in the Fluency in Casual Japanese course. Still though review of the basics is always a good thing.

So… If somebody doesn’t know Mr. Woods all that well, they’d be using polite Japanese of course. Listen to how they’d ask if he’s going to play golf tomorrow.

明日、ゴルフをしますか？ He replies, “Yes, will do.”

はい、します。Still polite, try asking Mr. Jordan, if he’s going to play basketball the day after tomorrow.

あさって、バスケをしますか？ Let’s branch it out a bit, we’ll add.. “in Osaka” so try asking, if he’s going to play basketball the day after tomorrow, in Osaka.

あさって、大阪(おおさか)でバスケをしますか？

How would you translate this reply..

いいえ、しません。

That would be “no” and whenever we hear the “sen” attachment to a verb, it’s a safe bet the answer is negative. Won’t, not, isn’t. etc. So listen for that. In this case.. しません is literally “Not do”, or “won’t do.”

Revisiting this word.

スノーボード スノーボード

When I first moved to Japan, I was invited to go snowboarding. I’d never tried it before, and had recently really messed up one of my knees so that was something I definitely did not do.

So in casual situations and getting to know people, if a person asked generally speaking if I did snowboarding, I could have answered with simply… “Snowboarding don’t do.”

スノーボードしない。

In fact, not just しない.. but because of the reasons I mentioned, I absolutely would not do it. So I could have said…

スノーボード絶対(ぜったい)しない。

Let’s get that word real quick…

絶対 絶対

Your friend Ned, who isn’t that bright holds up a small black bottle with a skull and crossbones on it. He asks, Should we put a few drops of this in our drinks?

If it were polite you might answer..

絶対しません Speaking casually to Ned though…

絶対しない。 Absolutely do not.

I might tell somebody I’m definitely, or absolutely going to eat Okonomiyaki.

お好み焼き、絶対食べる。So we can use

絶対(ぜったい） for adding a bit of emphasis or certainty about a situation. We absolutely or definitely will, or won’t, or we think a person absolutely or definitely should or shouldn’t do something.

I want to do a quick casual and polite workout with する, as it’s really important to be able to switch back and forth between polite and casual for this particular verb.

So, I’ll say an activity and then “don’t” or “do”, as in “do generally, or don’t do generally” and you say the casual and then polite versions. Here’s an example. Tennis… do.

テニスする。and polite テニスをします。

Ok, You give it a try. Golf don’t do.

ゴルフしない。and polite ゴルフをしません。

Probably uncommon but just to practice, staying off the grid…

Don’t do e-mail

メールしない。and polite. メールしません。　

do e-mail or send an e-mail

メールする。and polite… メールします。

Notice that bowling and tennis had the “を” particle, while mail, didn’t.

This is because mail and suru are combined as the actual verb. For the English usage “I’ll mail you.” Where mail is used as a verb. We can’t say, “I’ll tennis you tomorrow.”

So the “を” particle is used as usual. Simply though, just use “を” with sports when speaking politely.

Just about done with this lesson, so let’s run through a couple new activities and work with the past tense at the same time. First just repeat…

ボーリング　　ボーリング　Mayumi asks Keiko if she wants to go bowling.

ボーリングする？　 Keiko declines, as she doesn’t want to “do bowling” two nights in a row, she mentions that just last night…

ボーリングした。She then mentions that she was bowling with Kenji actually.

健司とボーリングした。How would Mayumi ask… Where?

More specifically, “Where was the location that the action of took place?”

どこで？

Another activity that people sometimes mention as a hobby, or what they did on a date is…

ドライブする ドライブする

So that’s a combination of the word “drive” and “do”

listen again…

ドライブする There is no “v” sound in Japanese, so it’s changed to a “b”.

ドライブするin other words, to go for a drive.

Keiko tells Mayumi, “I went for a drive with Kenji.” focussing on the past tense here…

健司とドライブした。If she wanted to say that in polite Japanese…

健司とドライブしました。　

Again, this is not a sport and the words drive and する or functioning as one. For example, “We drove.” So we don’t need the “を” particle.

Tell somebody in casual Japanese, “I went bowling in Kyoto.”

京都(きょうと)でボーリングした。and polite…

京都でボーリングをしました。

Ok, let’s use the short version of the word

スノーボード which is just

スノボー スノボー

Casual Japanese. Try saying, “I did snowboarding with a friend.”

友達(ともだち)とスノーボードした。 and polite… 　

友達とスノーボーをしました。Snowboarding we’ll say is a sport so we have the を in there.

And finally, tell a friend about a wild night out. Say, “I did bowling with a friend in Tokyo.”

友達と東京(とうきょう)でボーリングした。

Alright, we’re making some serious progress now. We’ll cover more noun and する combinations that form verbs in the next episode. See you there.