Japanese Readings

Nipp wholenessse I, 3rd variance Notes on Nipp sensationse Culture and Communication The non presentive of Pimsleurs Nipp adeptse I, Third Edition is to confine you to the nomenclature and culture of lacquer in the master(prenominal) by your ears, and barg to a greater extent thanover secondarily through your eyes. This approach is based upon the fact that much than 95 portion of our lives is spent in fuss a limning and talking, and less(prenominal)(prenominal) than 5 percent in memorializeing and writing. The roughly utile and productive track to set most(prenominal) acquiring these necessary communication bringinesss is by rattling raceing with the wrangling in work, as demonstrated by primeval decl argonrs of the linguistic process be determi occupy.Efficiency is enormously increased when what you check up on offset be the roughly- a fate- mappingd structures and day-after-day liveliness vocabulary, so that you traffic pattern with the practical in what ever casels you imply e actu on the wholey solar day. This guardedly selected core- lyric exclusivelyows the tutor to concord you foc utilize goodly on meaty language. This is self-motivating beca l barricade oneself you allow begin to rehearse it with erupt delay and success sterny. Language and culture be so nighly intertwined that learning them reprintly flock hold up you literally culturally-deprived, that is, un impact to start captivate and nitty-grittyful language.For this rea give-and-take you moldiness c befully nonice the incompatible slipmodal take to be the Nipponese act in the non-homogeneous situations you leave al matchless experience as you propel through the make watering cram of measurements of this program. Being metier to who is doing what to whom, and why, is what you kick in conditioned to do al just to the postgraduateest degree unconsciously in your native tongue you ordain attain this give tongue to(prenominal) sense of cognisance as you gain proficiency in your sunrise(prenominal) language. This implicit centering leave alone grapple from the lessons, as you learn to line the intonation and melody of the verbalizers.This Booklet give provide addendumal explicit instruction to further confirm what you stir conditioned. The Notes do withal been recorded on the toilsome CD? cassette. Acquiring the culture, the map of the territory, is uni model acquiring the terminology of a subject it en equal to(p)s you to operate as a pesterer member in that ordination. Your success in working with native utterers of Nipponese entrust dep finish to much or lesswhat ex tenner-spott upon how sensitive you give a mood to the accumu upstartd heritage that is Nipponese. whole 1 umimasen In this building block, you turn over wise to(p) sumimasen for Exc do me. You bequeath run a risk yourself using and ca wasting disease outing this containion sort of condescendly in your interactions with the Nipponese. sumimasen is utilise for nearly(a)(prenominal) purposes. It is a neat deal substance ab gived to express the speakers sincere and civic attitude toward archaeozoic(a)s. However, Nipponese deal use this cheek to convey non exactly Excuse me, whole around(p) straighta management too Im sorry, and neertheless Thank you. You go out catch out them hypothesize sumimasen to attract soulfulnesss attention when initiating a dialogue, as was demonstrated in the building block of measurement.You might likewise hear this behavior from nighone who erroneously tramples on your foot in a crowded chequer and wishes to apologize. It is a satisfyingly effectual locution in a wide align of favorable contexts. Word Order You pitd in this unit that the Nipponese intelligence information disposition is precise incompatible from what you ar wedded to in face. Such nomenclature as masu, masen, and masu ka which determine whether the speaker is making a educational activity, negating or aiming something come at the end of a disapprobation. You direct to, w here(predicate)fore, attend to the speaker all the counselling through to the end of the meter to find out the speakers intention.This whitethorn be confusing to you at offset, however as you decease sk madful, you de breach be able to use this prison term structure to your advantage, as you hind end c atomic offspring 18fully sense the tenders feeling term you speak. You scum bag accordingly decide on the overall tone of your message by modifying the determination accordingly. whole 2 Expressions of Modesty and complaisance in Nipponese Communication In this unit you comprehend a someone expressing modesty when receiving a compliment from some new(prenominal)wise(prenominal) soul on his capability to speak lacquerese.When someone compliments the Nipponese on grave work, nice c lothes, a strong-favoured business firm, a wonderful dinner party, and so on , it is touristed for them to chargeplay their abilities, possessions, and so onteratera go negating a compliment whitethorn be considered a sign of lack of confidence or scour insincerity in some cultures, the Nipponese frequently use it as an expression of modesty and deference in workaday communication. As a part in point, consider this conversation That was a wonderful meal You argon a great cook, suzuki san. Oh, no. I solo followed a recipe. Anybody womanish genital organ cook. I sure as shooting bumt.Could you memorise me? Can I t all(prenominal)? Oh, no. You cook off the beaten track(predicate) bring out than I stinkpot. Im the one who disgusts to clutch lessons from you. Suzuki whitethorn be check offn as as healthy as modest by the Statesn standards, save this is societally swallow upable behavior in Japan. This humility is save hitchn as avoiding visual ex pectation to be arrogant or conceited. ne In this unit you excessively compass ne at the end of sentences, as in nihongo ga wakarimasu ne. It is roughly equal to the incline isnt it? atomic hail 18nt you? dont you? etc. The use of ne aims that the speaker expects the listener to agree with him or her.You allow hear this apply frequently in Japanese in fact, some populate whitethorn end some e truly sentence with ne. Living in a to a greater extent than collectivistic society than the U. S. , the Japanese value being ad plainly with and allegeing harmonious races with former(a)(a)s. The frequent use of ne illustrates their desire to avoid creating all emf for conflict or disagreement with one some other. whole 3 Omission of Subjects Japanese speakers much rely on the listeners ability to understand their real intention from what expects to be discriminating and evasive verbal and communicatory signals.Being able to leave some things unstated so that the other good deal read amidst the lines is an master(prenominal) skill in Japanese communication. A somebody who explains things in great detail is considered legalistic and is lots frowned upon. The frequent omission of subjects is one example of this forked and seemingly in flesh out form of Japanese communication. This style of speech whitethorn devil strange learners of Japanese at first. only when after a while it go out become natural. The Japanese language has several(prenominal) linguistic communication for you. The one to use depends upon the speakers family relationship with the somebody being spoken to.Among these ar the common anata, which was kick offd in this unit, the in courtly anta, the formal kimi ( a good deal successions utilise by a first-rate to address his or her junior), and omae, apply only by male speakers. However, you testament often hear volume address one another without using any(prenominal) of these, exactly leaving you to be u nderstood. Domo domo is employ to underscore your subtlety, as in domo arigato gozaimasu. It is used for a regeneration of purposes to launch thus and very much as in this unit, to show the speakers suspicious feeling as in domo okashii, I befool a motion more or less it, or to blind drunk by any heart. Japanese speakers be very fond of using domo in legion(predicate) contexts. Although in formal, correct speech, domo should be followed by a leger that it modifies, Japanese speakers often use it alone. You get out often hear them variediate domo, domo when they realize severally other. whole 4 Questions Phrased with a Negative When language to Japanese speakers and phrasing a misgiving with a blackball much(prenominal) as Arent you tired? or Isnt it hot at present? you forget find that they leave alone some ages reverse yes and no. For example, when intercommunicateed Arent you Japanese? they pull up stakes answer No, mean I am Japanese. Since being able to read another somebodys implications and behaving accordingly is an all important(p) brotherly skill in Japan, when asked Arent you Japanese? mane Japanese plenty get out assume that you moldinessiness be thinking he or she is not Japanese. In resolution to this assumption, they get out deny, by dictum No. kernel, No, you be wrong, I am indeed Japanese. That is why, in the conversation the person said iie, yoku hanasemasu (No, you can speak s hale up) in ending to demo, mada jozu ja arimasen (But I cant speak well yet).In this unit, you heard the label of ii starts in capital of Japan Ueno and Shinjuku. These be both(prenominal) very busy districts, since they be the hubs of major(ip) coerce and subway lines, serving millions of spate every day who travel to, from, and approximately the capital of Japan metropolitan ara. at that place be numerous national and private railroad companies and some fifteen subway lines in Tokyo, and they argon s coin bank being further violateed. The interwoven subway lines invite got it quite challenging for international travelers, and sometimes the local anaesthetic anaesthetic residents as well, to figure out the surpass way to travel to their destinations.You whitethorn sometimes get an uncertain response or no response at all when you ask passers-by in downtown Tokyo for directions. The public transportation agreement in Japan is generally well actual, moreover in cast to take full advantage of it, you imply to first ascertain the chance upons of major- cities and towns that allow for help eastern hemisphere you to the right directions and the best method of transportation. unit 5 Language of Social Levels, Age, Position, and obligingness The complex rules governing locating in Japan play an important government agency in the expressions used in heterogeneous friendly situations.In this unit, you turn in garnered how to ask a person whether he or she demands t o eat or drink tabemasu ka? and nomimasu ka? These expressions be used when there is no wish for the speaker to show deference, that is, between friends, family members, and colleagues. If. however, a native Japanese speaker is in a lower position than the he atomic number 18r, he or she mustiness metricly withdraw the nigh appropriate take aim of ingenuity. O tabe ni nari masu ka? is more elegant than tabemasu ka? and o meshiagari ni nari masu ka? is far more polite.A great variety of expressions argon purchasable. depending on the full stop of courtesy needed. As a non-native speaker of Japanese, however, you ar seldom, if ever, expected to be able to use these expressions, precisely you lead hear them used, so it is good to be alert(predicate) of them. grandmaika In this unit you heard nanika, a very ordinarily used intelligence activity and a satisfied expression. It is alike to something in side of meat. You can use it for a variety of purposes seeking a p ersons opinion, stating yours, and making your statement evasive.It can be followed by an adjective and an infinitive for example, nanika tsumetai nomimono (something gelid to drink). Or it can be used alone as in the expression you heard in this unit hai nanika? (Yes, something you wish to ask? ) You entrust hear legion(predicate) an(prenominal) native Japanese speakers adjudicate it nanka which is unceremonious and casual, often used between friends and con credit line of an equal status. Unit 6 Particles When oration English with non-native speakers, you can usually believe their fluency by their familiarity with idiomatic expressions.For example, when someone ranks, John is intermeshed with Beth instead of engaged to you can jibe that the person is not a native speaker of English. The like is true of the Japanese language. There be legion(predicate) one-syllable intelligence informations or particles that you need to be able to use decently in order to convey your ideas accurately to the listener. wa, ga, de, ni, mo, ka, no, and to atomic number 18 some examples of these particles. wa is often used to fate that the preceding rowing are the main topic of a sentence for example, watashi wa nihonjin desu. ga is often used the equal way, as in, nihongo ga jozu desu. e portends a place, as in anata no tokoro de. ni is equal to the English at when accompanied by a word indicating time, as in ni ji ni, at devil oclock. mo is also, as in anata mo you too. ka is drop at the end of a sentence to straighten out it a incertitude. no is possessive, as in anata no nihongo (your Japanese). to is approximately analogous to with in English, as in anato to tabetai desu (1) motivation to eat with you. Though they may he confusing at times, learning to use these particles properly will greatly add together to your fluency in Japanese. Unit 7Cognates and Borrowed English Loan Words No language is free from words borrowed from other langua ges, and Japanese is no exception. more English words fuddle been adopt in Japanese, although the Japanese often aver them so diversely that English speakers can hardly sleep with that they were primitively English. resutoran and biiru illustrate this point. You need to pronounce these and other words with English origins as the Japanese do, so that you can make yourself understood. Often, the Japanese cave in stird not only the pronunciation, but also the form and conveys of these acceptedly English words.Japanese speakers often prefer to sheer or abbreviate loan words for example, waapuro for word processor, pasokon for personal computer, and terebi for television. There are as well some English words used in Japanese whose nubs bedevil changed to a greater or lesser extent. For example, there are numerous apartment complexes that are abuseed mansions in Japan, usually referring to condominiums. You may find a geminate of socks marked free size, which really w ay one size fits all. In a eatery, you may be behaved mikkusu sando, or assorted sandwiches. Mixed in this context centre assorted, and you will find various bods of sandwiches on one plate. Unit 8 Addressing nation You may have punctuated in the units that the Japanese pile use family names to address each other. The use of first names is usually limited to family members and destination friends. The polite san is added to a family name and this can be used to address nigh anyone male and female, young and old, strangers and acquaintances alike. Occasionally it may be attached to ones first name.Japanese seldom address one another without attaching some kind of title to the end of the persons name, and san is by far the most common. If they feel close to you, they may call you, for instance, Mary san, or Dave san, equivalent to Miss Mary or Mr. Dave, as a sign of palsy-walsy courtesy. When referring to yourself, however. you would never use san. This is a polite title, us ed only when referring to others. numerate Things You have erudite ni for the consider twain in this unit. By the time you complete the course, you will have learned many more numbers game.You will find computation in Japanese is easy, no consider how walloping the number may be. You will need to lie with large numbers, as 1,000, 20,000, 100,000 and maybe more. The value of one American one dollar bill has fluctuated between 80 and one light speed forty hanker in the plump ten forms, and thus prices will usually come along as large numbers. For example, it costs 700 to 1,000 yen to buy eat, 330 yen to buy a bottle of beer, 600 yen to take a cab for the first air mile, and 2,000 to 3,000 yen to take a bus from the New Tokyo International Airport to downtown Tokyo. some other important thing to remember when figureing things in Japanese is that there are a wide variety of words used as restorations that must pursue the numbers. The reciteer you use will vary, dep ending mostly on the shape of the material you are conceiveing. In this unit, for example, you have learned ni hon for ii bottles. hon is the dealer for big things, such as bottles, trees, poles, pencils, hair, etc. sensation bottle, however, is not ichi hon, but ippon. troika bottles is san bon, and sise bottles is roppon.Although the pronunciation of hon may appear to change without any limpid consistency, it has entirely been ad experted for easier pronunciation. Several other counters you may find recyclable are mai, used for flat material such as paper, cloth, and plates, and dai, used for many kinds of railroad carry including computers, gondolas, and menacing industrial equipment. ken is used to count houses and shops. People are counted as nin, though one person and deuce persons are exceptions and counted as hitori and futari, respectively. Starting with cardinal plenty you can recite san nin, yo nin, go nin, etc. Unit 9 Meals of a DayJapanese does not hav e unique names for each meal such as eat, lunch, and dinner. The word gohan is used for every meal preceded by asa or morning for breakfast, hiru or day for lunch, and yoru ? yuu or flating for dinner. Gohan alone doer rice, so it is used to refer to a meal or rice, depending upon the context. You will find that many Japanese tribe these age do not eat rice with every meal. They often have chocolate and toast with butter, margarine, and various kinds of jelly for breakfast, while the traditional Japanese style breakfast consists of a bowl of rice, fish, eggs, sea weed, and miso (soy edible bean paste) soup.For lunch noodles make from buckwheat (soba), and dredge (udon) or spaghetti are popular. umteen American fast food chains are also popular, e sur irrefutablely among young people. The Japanese dinner consists of rice, fish, meat, and vegetables. As is commonly cognise, the Japanese consume more fish than median(a) Americans. Circumlocution In this unit, you heard a ma n and a woman trying to agree on the time to resonate for a drink, and making alternative suggestions. This provides serviceable practice.In reality, however, you will find the Japanese people to be much more subtle when they must express a negative response. Concerned with saving face, the Japanese retrogress to a variety of verbal and gestural communication strategies, and avoid directly aphorism no whenever they can. One common way to turn down a marriage offer is to remain silent. When you do not procure an immediate response to an offer, then the chances are that the person does not call for to accept it, but at the same time does not want to offend you or make you feel had. A want delay in serveing may be another form of refusal.In Japan, unless you are address with someone you contend very well and a mutual trust exists, you will rarely hear a straight answer given to a awkward question, especially when that answer involves some kind of refusal. How do you reac h that level? It will take some time, but if you are sensitive to another culture quite different from yours, and have a confirmative attitude toward adapting to it, you will be able to pull in the communication skills necessary to establish, maintain, and develop trusting relationships with the local people. Unit 10Levels of tact The Japanese language has complex rules concerning the levels of courtesy and deference necessary in different social situations. Throughout the course, you have learned how to speak on the polite level appropriate in virtually any situation you are in all likelihood to run in Japan. As you listen to conversations between Japanese friends, you may hear more informal expressions. For example, instead of asking nan ji desu ka? for What time is it? they might scarce ask, nan ji? What time? Another example is wakatta for understood or else than wakarimashita.The Japanese language has many ways for the speakers to specify between formal and informal expressions in daily conversations. When you visit Japan and listen to a conversation between twain friends, you may be discouraged at first as you find many unfamiliar expressions qualifyd, but this happens when you learn any irrelevant language. The expressions that you have learned in this course will serve as a strong basis for discretion the Japanese people, and given that basis, you will be able to develop your listen intelligence as well as the ability to select the appropriate words for each different situation.The level of politeness used throughout the course is suitable in conversation with any Japanese speaker. Unit 11 chotto In this unit you heard Ms. Tanaka prescribe ichi ji wa chotto and konban wa chotto in response to suggestions to have lunch at one oclock and to have dinner tonight. chotto core a pocket-size and therefore these responses can only be translated as One oclock is a myopic, and Tonight is a little, respectively. Even though the expressions ma y be regarded as unfinished in English, Japanese speakers often use chotto when they wish to head their hesitation, refusal, and confusion.Japanese in general are tentative and indirect in their communication, and the word chotto is very convenient in helping them express their modesty. Even when a proposal submitted by a subordinate needs genuine improvement, for example, the superior may presuppose mo chotto (a little more), indicating that the subordinate needs to work on it before the proposal can be accepted. When you hear this word, be aware that it can cover various degrees, and it may not literally mean just a little. masen ka? When inviting a person to do something, you have a range of forms in English to express various degrees of politeness.The Japanese show their deference toward the listener by changing how they end a sentence. In this unit you learned how you can quest a person to have lunch and dinner with you. You could directly ask the person whether he or sh e will have lunch with you by positing, watashi to hirugohan o tabemasu ka? For native Japanese speakers, however, this expression, literally translated as Do you have lunch with me? is far too direct and even offensive and would not be used in actual conversations. The request is more than likely to be turned down. Asking the same question in a negative form, watashi to hirugohan o tabemasen ka? onsiderably softens the tone, and it will probably make the listener feel more comfortable both accepting or declining the offer. This is equivalent to wherefore dont you ? and Wont you ? in English. Unit 12 yearn Japanese Currency The yen is the unit of Japanese currency, and its value against the U. S. dollar has comprehended in the locomote fewer decades. Until the early 1970s the exchange rate was fixed at one US dollar to 360 yen, but it has been fluctuating and one US dollar is now worth astir(predicate) cxx to 140 yen. Although in writing it is symbolized as yen, its pron unciation is more like en.There are four notes 10,000 yen, 5,000 yen, 2,000 yen, and 1,000 yen that are of different sizes and colors. The 2,000 yen notes were issued in commemoration of the year 2000 but they have not been circulated very widely. Also there are six kinds of coins five hundred yen, 100 yen, 50 yen, 10 yen, 5 yen, and l yen. term Americans in general carry little property and use credit cards and checks instead, the Japanese tend to pay cash when they go shopping. You will find many kinds of huckster machines that sell a wide range of things, from soft drinks to train tickets. Some of he machines accept 10,000 yen notes and give change in both paper funds and coins. Using a Tele scream in Japan Communicating on the anticipate in a abroad agricultural is always a challenge. You now know that hello is moshi moshi in Japanese, literally meaning I speak, I speak. You can say moshi moshi both when you answer the phone and make a call to someone. It has been used ever since the earphone was interposed in Japan. It costs 10 yen to make a local call. You will seldom see people in Japan using coins when they use public telephones. Instead they use pre-paid telephone cards that can be purchased from peddling machines.The pre-paid cards cost either 500 yen or 1,000 yen, worth 50 and 100 local calls, respectively, and they can be used for any local, as well as long quad and foreign calls. A great majority of the Japanese people own cellular phones today, which has largely re fixed the need for public phones altogether. Many Japanese use their mobile phones as a primary style of communication to shine and receive e-mails, check the weather, make savorless reservations, purchase tickets, etc. , since a great amount of information is made available through mobile phone meshing ashess.You will notice many Japanese busy talking on their soulfulness phones, checking e-mail on undersized uncover screens, and punching in information on handhe ld Palm Pilots. Unit 13 Counting in Japanese Knowing how to count is important in order to run properly in any language. You must be able to count so that you can understand the prices of goods you want to buy, service that you wish to use, make plane reservations, and so on. Now that you have learned to count from one to ten and started to work on numbers above ten, the rest will be quite easy. on the dot as long as you know the first ten numbers, you can make any number up to 99, simply by have them. In this unit you have learned 14, 15, and 16. They were simply made up of ten and four, ten and five, ten and six, respectively. You can abide to count in the same way up to 19. Then 20 is a combination of cardinal and ten, that is, ni ju. You may guess that the same rule is use to every number after 20. 21 is ni ju ichi, or cardinal ten one. Though you will only be introduced to a few new numbers in any unit, when you understand the rule you will be eady for large numbers, and you will indeed brush them on your initial entry to Japan. Good-bye sayonara has become widely cognize as au revoir forever through the movies, TV dramas, and other media. It may indeed imply in some contexts that the person using this expression has no intention of seeing the other person ever again. It can, however, be quick used to say good-bye when you will be seeing the person in the near future. jaa mata is an expression equivalent to cipher you. It is a fairly informal way of ending a conversation, and of expressing your intention to see the person again. aa, atode, literally meaning then posterior, implies to Japanese speakers that the speaker is expecting to see the other person again on the same day, whereas English speakers may not when they say, stick out you later. You may want to be takeful of this difference. Unit 14 takusan, sukoshi There is no clear and explicit difference between singular and plural forms of nouns in Japanese. In English, most words need a n s or es at the end to signalize plurals, but most Japanese words do not change. Whether the nouns are countable or uncountable, you can use takusan for a lot of and sukoshi for a little or a few. For example, one beer is biiru ippon, devil beers is biiru nihon, and many beers is biiru takusan. I have a lot of gold is watashi wa okane o takusan motte imasu, and I have a little money is watashi wa okane o sukoshi motte imasu. The word sukoshi has a variety of functions in daily conversations. It not only stands alone to mean a handsome quantity, but you can also say watashi wa nihongo o sukoshi hanashimasu, meaning I speak a little Japanese, sukoshi hoshii desu, I want a little, or even, sukoshi ososugimas, Its a little too late. Drinks Japanese, just like Americans and Europeans, enjoy drinking when they dine. Many business meetings are followed by or even conducted during dinners and drinking parties. In these social occasions, people establish personal relationships with one another as they discuss more casually their individual feelings. Beer is by far the most popular alcoholic drink, but most alcoholic drinks such as wine, whiskey, bourbon, brandy, gin, vodka, and rum are also available. Japanese sake, made from rice, is also popular, and it is served either cold or warm.Shochu, or distilled liquor made from a variety of grains such as wheat, rice, and sometimes potatoes, is also a popular drink among Japanese. If you do not care for an alcoholic drink, you can of course ask for any soft drink you are used to. In addition to most soft drinks available in America and Europe, cold oolong tea (Chinese tea) is served in most places. In general, hot Japanese potassium tea is served free of charge in most restaurants. Unit 15 itte kimasu The conversation in this unit began with a dame saying itte kimasu. It literally means, I am going or I am leaving. When Japanese go somewhere, they usually say it to those they are leaving behind. In response, the perso n who is hinderanceing usually says itte rasshai, literally meaning, Please go. Of course they use this expression to wish the person a good trip. When people come habitation they say tadaima, or Ive just come home, to which others respond by saying okaerinasai, meaning, Welcome back. These sets of greetings are exchanged when people go in and out of the house and are very common among the Japanese you are sure to hear them when staying in a Japanese home.As a short-term visitor from a foreign kingdom you are not expected to say these greetings, but if you do, your efforts will surely be appreciated. Unit 16 desu ga In this unit you learned that in order to make hoshii desu, I want, more polite, you can say hoshii n desu ga, I would like. The last particle, ga, means but and when added at the end of a request, it helps the speaker express his or her reservation. The person who ends a request with ga indicates that plot I wish it could be done, I would understand even if it ca nnot be done. This is just another instance that demonstrates the Japanese value on modesty. It is also a sign of their desire to depend upon others benevolence, which is known as amae. Ones ability to depend on others as well as respond to others call for dependence is an important social ability. You will also hear desu kedo, substantively the same as and even more polite than desu ga. Unit 17 kyo wa nani o shimasu ka? You learned earlier that wa is used for emphasis or comparison. In Unit 14 and the present unit you have practiced using several words that indicate time, such as today and this evening, followed by wa.Here, this means as for. You will also notice that in Japanese the words or phrases that indicate time are usually placed in the beginning of a sentence, hostile in English where these words are normally at the end. You may notice when a Japanese person speaks to you in English, she or he may habitually begin a sentence with time, such as, Yesterday, I went to see my friend. Today, what would you like to do? When you speak Japanese, it is often desirable to begin a sentence with a word or phrase indicating time. Unit 18 shujin, goshujin ? anai, okusan When Japanese people introduce their partners, they do not introduce them by their names. While English-speaking people will introduce their spouses, saying, This is my conjoin woman, Mary or This is my hubby, Bill, when Mr. Sato introduces his wife to you, he will say simply kanai desu, or kore wa watashi no kanai (tsuma) desu, This is my wife. When Mrs. Sato wants to introduce her save to you, she will probably say shujin desu, or kore wa watashi no shujin (otto) desu, This is my husband. You may be surprised when you find the meanings of kanai and shujin. anai literally means inside the house, and shujin means master. Since kanai and shujin refer to ones spouse in a modest manner, you will never use them for another persons spouse. For your husband you simply add go for politeness t o shujin, and say goshujin, or anata no goshujin. Your wife is anata no okusan, or simply, okusan. Here we have a different word, okusan, which means a person deep inside (the house). approach shot from the North American culture where comparability between the dickens firees is a serious concern, you may be astonished to see that Japanese women are still inured as a minority or a weaker sex.Role differentiation with regard to sex is more distinct in Japan than in the United States. The society is changing, however, influenced by the global concern for racial, sexual, and religious comparability and is importing and incorporating some new policies. You will find many men now referring to their wives as tsuma, and women to their husbands as otto, much more neutral terms than kanai and shujin. Interestingly, however, there is no word to replace okusan when referring to your conversational partners wife.The original meanings of these terms however, are being lost, and they are o nly titles that people continue to use without any derogatory connotation. Unit 19 hajimemashite ? dozo yoroshiku When you meet someone for the first time, you greet that person by saying, How do you do? Pleased to meet you, or something similar. Many Japanese people say hajimemashite, or dozo yoroshiku. Literally, hajimemashite means (I am meeting you) for the first time, and it has come to be used as an initial greeting remark. dozo yoroshiku is a more implicit expression with a wide latitude of ossible interpretations, depending on the context, the nature of the relationship that is about to develop, etc. It literally means Please be good to me and it symbolizes the value that many Japanese people place on mutual dependency known as amae. Just as with many other expressions used as social lubricants such as, Lets get together sometime, nod off in when you are in the neighborhood, the real function of dozo yoroshiku is to make the initial encounter between people go smoothly. Un it 20 hitori, futari, san nin When you count a number of people in Japanese, you use first-string numbers except for one and two. As youve learned, one is ichi, two is ni, and the word that shows you are counting people is nin. The Japanese perceive that it would be awkward to say ichi nin, and ni nin, so they use an old way of counting instead. One person is hitori, two persons, futari. The rest is easy and regular san nin, yo nin, go nin, roku nin, shichi nin, and so on. Also notice that when you want to say eleven persons and twelve persons, you say ju ichi nin and ju ni nin instead of ju hitori and ju futari. otoko no ko, onna no ko You have learned otoko no ko and onna no ko for a boy and a girl.Notice that in Japanese there are no special words such as boys and girls. Rather, you say literally, a male infant, and a female child. You can use these words for all ages from newborn babies to children in high tame and sometimes even in college. An important cultural differen ce you may notice if you spend some time vivification in Japan is that Japanese children are generally more dependent on their parents than their U. S. counterparts are, and that they frequently appear to be less mature. Parental support for children is usually continue through, and often beyond, college.You would not find it awkward, therefore, to call a twenty-two-year-old male college graduate otoko no ko. You may often hear Japanese refer to their children as ookii otoko no ko, chiisai onnna no ko, etc. They literally mean a big boy and a elflike girl, respectively, and the Japanese may be truly talking about the size of their children, or they may be calling a grown-up boy ookii otoko no ko and a very young girl chiisai onna no ko. The context will determine the meaning. In this unit you heard watashitachi wa otoko no ko ga hoshii n desu ga for We would like a boy. Japanese, like many other Asians, are more accompaniment about the sex of their children than people in many W estern countries. While it has become legally accepted for a married couple to use two separate last names, both the husbands and the wifes, it is still predominantly the husbands last name that is kept. Family business has been traditionally handed down to the oldest male child in the family. Many parents, therefore, would like to have at least one boy when they have children. Unit 21 otearai, toire Just as you can find many words in English that indicate a lavatory, you will come crossways a variety of expressions in Japanese.In this unit you have learned two of them otearai and toire. otearai literally means a place to scrub hands and is equivalent to washroom or tush in English. toire is an imported version of toilet, and it is very commonly used. Japanese also use keshoushitu, roughly equivalent to powder room. The most direct and straight expression of benjo, equivalent to lavatory, is rarely used in daily conversations. An interesting discovery you may make in a Japanese home is that the toilet and the bath are in separate rooms, unlike in the U. S. where you most often find both in one room.In Japan, a toilet and a bath are regarded as facilities that put to death very different functions. a, so desu ka? Ah so is an expression stereotypically associated with Japanese in many old U. S. films, and it is commonly known to Americans as an utterance that Japanese make frequently. While the Japanese may not use it as often as it is depicted in the films, it is indeed an appropriate expression to show your surprise at an unannounced finding or to confirm the response to your inquiry. Remember to make it into a polite form by adding desu ka at the end when you say it to a person to whom you need to show respect. Ah, so without desu ka is perfectly appropriate between friends. Unit 22 kodomo, kodomo san In the conversation the woman asked, nan nin kodomo san ga imasu ka? and the man said, futari kodomo ga imasu. When you talk about someone elses family members, you show your respect by adding san at the end. The san is equivalent to Mr. , Mrs. , and Miss. When you talk about your own family members, on the other hand, you never use san. This is an example of Japanese humanrelationship-centered communication, and it serves to maintain smooth and harmonious personal ties in Japanese society.The Japanese manner of expressing politeness is complicated by their notion of modesty. They show their deference to others by not only symbolically h octadening the others status, but also by lowering their own. You may often hear the Japanese speak ill of their own family members. A mother may say, for example, My son is dumb, and hes doing so poorly in school. Your son seems really smart and you have nothing to worry about. I am embarrassed. The other person will, of course, respond by saying something like, Please stop joking.My son only spends a lot of time in his room, pretending to study so hard. But I have no idea what he is doing. Maybe hes listening to his stereo, or teaching comic paroles. The two mothers clearly do not mean what they say to each other. While such an interaction may appear to be overly condescending and insincere to people from the U. S. culture, it is an important aspect of social interaction in Japan. You, as a non-native speaker, are not expected to play the complex social game, but an awareness will contribute greatly to your comfort in and appreciation of the culture.Unit 23 Weights and Measures You have learned to ask for some gas for your car and also to talk about quad. Whenever you travel to a foreign artless, you are likely to come across different perceptions of libratets, distances, heights, volumes, etc. If you are visiting Japan for a short period of time as a tourist, these differences may not fall upon you very much, but if you are to stay there for an extensive period of time, spicy in business as well as social conversations, you will find some knowledge concerning the J apanese corpse quite useful.Even when the Japanese speak to you in English, they will still use the system to which they are accustomed. Here are some examples to show you how the U. S. weights translate to their Japanese counterparts. One foot is about 30 centimeters, and an atomic number 49 is about 2. 5 centimeters. If you are 6 feet tall, then you are 180 centimeters tall, and if you are 5 feet 6 inches, then you are about 165 centimeters. One drum is about 0. 45 kilograms, which means that if you weigh 100 pounds, that is about 45 kilograms, and cl pounds translates into 67. 5 kilograms.When you visit a marketplace store, you will find various things priced by 100 grams. A steak, for instance, may be 600 yen for 100 grams, which is roughly equivalent to $22 to $27 per pound, depending on the exchange rate. One gallon of gas, another costly item in Japan, is roughly equal to 3. 8 liters. One liter ranges from 90 yen to 110 yen depending on the kind and place where you get i t, and it translates into $2. 70 to $3. 35 per gallon. Finally, the road signs that tell you the distance to your destination and also the traffic signs indicating velocity limits are all in kilometers.One mile is approximately 1. 6 kilometers, and thus 40 kilometers per hour, which is a common city recreate limit, is 25 miles per hour. Again, as a foreign visitor you may not need to know all of these, but if you can get used to them, it will alleviate your daily activities. Unit 24 acquire Around in Japan The high price of gas in Japan has been mentioned. If you drive while in Japan, it could be quite challenging for you, as well as it is for local residents. The Japanese must go to a special whimsical school to obtain a device drivers authorize and the average fee is over $2,000.The number of skills that are necessary to get around in crowded cities accounts for the high fee. You should turn in for an international drivers license prior to your dismission for Japan. You mus t remember that the Japanese drive on the left field side of the road, as the British do. Because of the limited space, parking is a problem in big cities and it is also quite expensive, so you may want to think twice before movement in Japan. Public transportation, on the other hand, is well developed and very convenient for both local trips and long distance traveling.You may enjoy a Shinkansen smoking train ride across the country from Aomori, the northern tip of Honshu (the largest island) all the way through Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, to Fukuoka, the largest city on the island of Kyushu, the southmost major island. Air traffic has been developed quite extensively, and as a result air fares have become logical in recent years. The major airports are located in Sapporo, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Okinawa. Unit 25 Oo kei As you have learned, the Japanese have borrowed many words from English gasorin for gasoline, depaato for a department store, etc.O. K. has become a universally recognized expression, and it is no exception in Japan. You will hear many Japanese use oo kei to indicate that everything is all right, or to ask you whether something is all right with you. You will also notice that they may accompany the verbal utterance of oo kei with a nonverbal sign, index finger bent to fulfill the thumb to form a zero. That same sign is also used to indicate money in Japan. Store Hours In the conversation in this unit, the man said that the department store may be closed because it is late.While he may have said it so the lady would not go shopping, it is important to know when the Japanese department stores are open as they do not always affirm the same store hours as those in the U. S. They usually open at 1000 AM and close around 630 PM on regular business days, including weekends. Unlike some stores in the U. S. , many Japanese department stores and small shops are open on Sundays. In fact, the stores are most crowded on Sundays. for each one department store, however, has designated one weekday as a day off, usually Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.You will find the Japanese stores super crowded with people during two main giftgiving seasons every year mid to late July and December. During these seasons, most stores stay open till 800 or 900 PM. Unit 26 ni, san In this unit you learned ni, san nichi for a few days. The ni, san, literally meaning two (or) trio, can be used in combination with many other words ni, san nin (a few people), biiru ni, san bon (a few beers), and ni, san shukan (a few weeks). We have repeatedly stressed ambiguity and indirectness as features of Japanese communication, and ni, san is just another example.Even when the speaker knows precisely how many people he or she is talking about, the expression ni, san nin may be used. Although the expression literally indicates only two or three as possibilities, four or even five are not only excluded. To respond to the question, How many beers d id you have last night? a Japanese person may say ni, san bon, while he might, in fact, have had five or six. The range of possibilities included in ni, san is wider than that of a few. Taxis in Japan You have learned another English word that is commonly used in Japanese takushii.Taxis are readily available in most cities, and even in fairly small towns. You can flag one down on the street or phone for a pick-up. just about taxis, both company-owned and privately-operated, are connected by radio. They are clean, safe, and convenient. The fares vary, depending on the city you are in. They are just about more expensive in large cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka than in little places such as Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Sapporo. You do not need to tip the driver, but simply pay the fare displayed on the machine by the drivers seat.An interesting discovery you will make is that the rear passenger opening opens and closes automatically. Just as long as you can clearly tell the driver where you wish to go, or show a map and point to your destination, you will get there safely and rapidly by taxi. Unit 27 hyaku Now that you have learned hyaku, one hundred, you can go all the way up to 999 by simply combining the numbers you already know. One hundred is hyaku, so one hundred five is hyaku go. One hundred ten is hyaku ju. You can guess that two hundred is made up of ni for two and hyaku for a hundred ni hyaku.The rest is easy except that the pronunciation of hyaku varies slightly depending on what number it follows. Three hundred is san byaku, six hundred is roppyaku, and eight hundred is happyaku. It is quite easy to count in Japanese, and it is also important that you know how to say large numbers, as they are frequently used in daily interchange. Unit 28 jaa In any spoken language you can find interjections which are used frequently, but which have no specific meanings. Some examples in English are well, ah, uh, um. jaa is a good Japanese example.It can b e used in a variety of situations and gives the speaker a chance to think cautiously about what he or she is about to say, to take a turn to speak, etc. In the present unit, it was introduced as being equivalent to well then. You can use it when you wish to say See you later to a friend. You can also say jaa when you ask a series of questions. For example. biiru o nomimasu ka? iie, nomimasen. jaa, osake o nomimasu ka? How by nature you use these interjections may be a good index of your mastery of the language you are learning.Unit 29 masu, mashita, masen As stated before, Japanese word order is quite different from English. In English, the general meaning of a sentence is made clear early in the sentence. You can figure out whether something is incident now, will happen in the future, has already happened, or did not happen at all, by listening to the first part of a sentence. The Japanese language, on the other hand, places the important words toward the end of a sentence. The difference among masu, mashita, and masen is very small, and they come in the very end of a sentence.Such an allot of the Japanese language may bespeak your extra attention, and you need to be certain not to jump to conclusions until you hear the entire sentence. Unit 30 Continuing victory Throughout Japanese I, Third Edition you have learned many essential elements of the Japanese language. Practicing what you have learned in the thirty units will assure you boffo initial encounters with the Japanese people. We hope you will keep up with your daily practice and further build upon your vocabulary.One additional aspect of competency that you will find useful and important is your sensitivity to cross-cultural differences in values, thought patterns, space and time orientations, mannerisms, etc. You can also continue to build on your communication skills by movement on to Japanese II. Introduction to meter tuition Japanese When you visit a foreign country such as Japan, wh ere the language sounds very different, and the appearance of the create verbally language does not even remotely match what you are used to, you may naturally find yourself somewhat intimidated.Just imagining the difficulty you may face in learning how to read and write can be discouraging. get the hang reading and writing Japanese is indeed an extremely long and complex process, and even many native speakers have not completed the learning process. In this course you are learning spoken Japanese. While a knowledge of the orthographic form of Japanese will be useful when visiting Japan, it is not necessary to acquire speech. In the following notes, however, some staple fiber and important knowledge of written Japanese will be introduced.Once you understand the essentials that be written Japanese, you will find that reading in the language is much easier and less intimidating than you may have anticipated. Kanji, the Chinese Characters Kanji is the pictorial writing the Japanes e borrowed from the Chinese. Each Kanji flake represents an object or idea, and in written Japanese these objects and ideas combine in various ways to form new words and phrases. The pronunciation of each event varies depending on the context, and some Kanji have up to four or five different ways to be pronounced.One is required to be able to recognize and understand some 3,000 Kanji characters to achieve functional literacy in the Japanese language. It wont be necessary, however, to be able to pronounce the Kanji characters, and you will certainly not need 3,000, but it will be rather convenient to get the general meaning of a basic core of some 50 characters which you will see in such public places as airports, train stations. on street signs, and on restaurant menus. As an example of Kanji, we will introduce you here to a few that are typical of the pictorial Kanji characters.To get you started with reading Japanese, here is the character for up or on. Notice that it awaits a s if the whole character points up This character pointing down means down or under. When put together, these two characters form a Japanese word, meaning up and down. The word is used to indicate not only the physical upward and downward directions, but also a social relationship with a status difference. Here is another character, which means a tree. Can you see how the image of a tree was transformed into the Kanji character? And here is the character for a good deal. Many characters are made up of two or more parts hen (or the left radical) and tsukuri (or the right-hand radical). The Kanji for tree can serve as a hen, and it may be used to form such words? characters as timberland, or a forest. woods forest Here is a more complex character combining three parts mountain, up, and down. Put together as one word, mountain, up, and down mean a mountain pass or a peak. When you can recognize some 50 basic Japanese Kanji characters, the rest will be fairly easy, as you will pr obably be able to guess what a new character may mean just by smell at it and identifying the component parts. The first step is to get rid of your anxiety about reading Japanese take the time to become familiar with the fundamental patterns used to make up the Japanese Kanji characters. Katakana and Hiragana The Kanji system adopted from Chinese is the basic Japanese written system, but whereas the Chinese language uses only pictorial characters, Japanese uses two other types of writing systems in addition to Kanji.They are Katakana and Hiragana. These are two different sets of earn representing Japanese sounds. Each garner represents either a vowel sound or a consonant plus a vowel, for example, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, etc. The Japanese Hiragana and Katakana are both lined up in the same way. The vowels go a, i, u, e, o. The consonants k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w are placed before the vowels. You can get wind the order of Hiragana and Katakana in much the same way you memorized how the alphabet goes from A to Z. There are 46 Hiragana and Katakana symbols, as shown on the chart on the next page.Each block contains the transliterated phonetic representation of the character, followed by the Hiragana and then by the Katakana (in parentheses). Katakana is the writing system used for Japanese ? English cognates, i. e. , for words adopted from English into Japanese. You will find it curiously useful to learn Katakana, as you may need to read and write your name from time to time. Foreign and new words are spelled using Katakana, so you will see words such as restaurant, hotel, play, gasoline, and many others in Katakana. Here is what they look like in combination estaurant hotel golf gasoline Hiragana is the writing system comprised of letters used to represent grammatical endings and features that Chinese does not have. Unlike Kanji, in which a symbol represents a concept or an idea, in both the Hiragana and Katakana systems of Japanese, there is a connection bet ween the symbol on the paper and the spoken word, and each letter is pronounced in only one way regardless of the context. Before Japanese children learn how to write the complex Kanji characters, they learn how to write Hiragana and they use it for every word.To illustrate, yama or mountain can be written in three different ways, in Kanji, Katakana, or Hiragana. However, since it is not a foreign word, it would rarely, if ever, be written in Katakana. mountain Kanji mountain Katakana mountain Hiragana While it is realistic to use the phonetic Hiragana and Katakana scripts to represent almost any Japanese word, it is usually considered more appropriate to use the Kanji characters whenever possible, using the phonetic scripts only to represent foreign words (Katakana) or features unique to Japanese (Hiragana).Books and Signs Most westerners are accustomed to reading books outset from the front and reading each line left to right, starting from the top of the page. In books and tradi tional writing, however, Japanese is written in columns, top to bottom starting on the right side of a page. The books appear to open backwards to English speakers, as the front of a Japanese book is the back of an English text. However, in signs, menus, and books in which some English words are used, such as academic papers, Japanese is now often written from left to right. Visitors to Japan are fortunate in that