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| Lesson 4 - Shopping http://bbs.noneedfortenchi.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=5032 |
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| Author: | Akira Takahashi [ Fri May 13, 2011 12:01 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Lesson 4 - Shopping |
Okay, the lesson is mostly complete now, save the vocab deck. Remember, it's okay to comment, ask questions, point out any mistakes I've made, etc. I've put this one off for way too long! Story Mary is walking through Akihabara, sporting some Sailor Moon cosplay accessories. She isn’t too terribly bothered by the stares she gets as she happily trots down the street. 小さい人：あの子が見て！外人だ。 あのこがみて！がいじんだ。 多き人：そうです。不思議… ふしぎ Suddenly, Mary comes across a figurine stand, and, being an otaku, she decides to look. メアリー：これは幾らですか。 これはいくらですか。 店の人：三千円です。 さんぜんえんです。 メアリー：高いです。じゃあ、それは？ たかいです。 店の人：五百円です。 ごひゃくえんです。 メアリー：未だ高いです。あれは？ まだたかいです。 店の人：これですか。小さいフィグアは二百円です。 ちさいフィグアはにひゃくえんです。 メアリー：そのフィグアを下さい。 店の人：どうぞう。 So, this one definitely comes off as a little boring, but numbers are boring, unless you’re The Count, but most of us aren’t, as much as I like that little Muppet. This will also be my first lesson with cultural notes. Feel free to debate! |
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| Author: | Akira Takahashi [ Fri May 13, 2011 12:03 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lesson 4 - Shopping |
Vocabulary General あの子 あのこ That kid, that girl 外人 がいじん Foreigner, outsider 幾ら いくら How much 未だ まだ Still, yet 高い たかい Expensive 下さい ください Please 不思議 ふしぎ Strange, mysterious 店 みせ Store, shop, establishment Numbers 一 いち One に 二 Two 三 さん Three 四 よん・し Four 五 ご Five 六 ろく Six 七 なな・しち Seven 八 はち Eight 九 きゅう・くう Nine 十 じゅう Ten 十一 じゅういち Eleven 二十 にじゅう Twenty 百 ひゃく One hundred |
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| Author: | Akira Takahashi [ Fri May 13, 2011 12:06 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lesson 4 - Shopping |
Grammar I tried to keep vocabulary and such down because, if you’re anything like me (and I hope you’re not), numbers require concentration. Numbers are annoying things that you hate, and therefore, if you have other grammar to be paying attention to, you’ll never ever get the hang of numbers. I’d also like to note that, since numbers get tricky in Japanese, I’m dividing up the number lessons. I’ll only be teaching one counter this lesson, and we’ll only be learning numbers up to the hundreds. No thousands, millions, or any of that stuff until some other time. Counters Before I go line-by-line, I’d like to talk for a second (or write if you want to get technical) about counters. This counter we’re learning today (the counter for yen) is very easy because every country uses counters for their currency. However, when we go beyond that, you’ll see that the Japanese use counters for a lot of things, such as days, hours, minutes, people, flat objects, spherical objects, etc. There are counters you use when counting living things and inanimate things as well. This can be annoying, so we’ll take it one step at a time. 小さい人：あの子が見て！外人だ。 Small Person: Look at that girl! She’s a foreigner! I’m trying to ease you into kanji, so if you want the romajii, you’ll have to scroll back up to the top. First of all, 小さい人 (chiisai hito) means “small person” literally. There’s a lot we’re going to be covering on adjectives, and I wanted to kind of introduce them in this lesson. I’m not going to teach you how to use them until next time, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expose yourself to them! The other interesting bit of this sentence is the verb 見て (mite). I haven’t covered any verbs at all, but I’ll tell you that this is a command to look at something. Again, I’m just exposing you to how they’re used (always at the end, if you remember), but I really want to just focus on the numbers this time around. And, of course, 外人だ. If you ever plan on going to Japan, I guarantee you will hear this phrase, although it might not be said directly to you. Remember how you can leave the subject out if it’s clear who or what you’re talking about? That’s what’s happening. Through あの子 we’ve already established the subject, and even if we hadn’t, it’s fairly uncommon to come across non-Japanese people in Japan, so context provides the subject. We’ll deal more with the perceived racism of Japanese people towards non-Japanese in one of the future cultural lessons I’m planning. Note that だ is the informal です. 多き人：そうです。不思議… Big Person: So she is. Strange… Since the last one meant “small” person, you can probably get that this one meant “big” person, literally. This is another adjective. “そうです、”is a standard phrase. I’m certain you’ve heard it before in anime, as it’s used a lot in it. Basically it’s a phrase indicated that you agree, and we’ll be coming upon different variations of it as we progress through these lessons. This is the standard, “So it/she/he/whatever is.” You could also translate it as, “Yes it is,” or something along those lines. The last one, “不思議”, is another adjective meaning “strange” or “mysterious”. メアリー：これは幾らですか。 How much is this? Review! Remember Japanese word order? This wa how much desu ka. “This” is the subject of the sentence, so it’s followed by “wa”. Also remember that the “ka” at the end of the sentence makes it a question. This is polite speech. 店の人：三千円です。It is three thousand yen. Using the grammar and vocabulary chart above, you should be able to figure out 店（みせ）の人（ひと） There, I made it easier. This is your first counter! We’ll worry about 三千（さんぜん）at the end of the lesson, but right now let’s focus on the 円（えん）. Remember that Japanese doesn’t have a “ye” sound, so “yen” is actually “en” and you put it at the end of numbers when counting money. It’s really no different than counting money in any other country, making this counter the easiest to learn! メアリー：高いです。じゃあ、それは？ That’s expensive! Then, what about that? First off, “高い” means “expensive” in this case. The price is high. “じゃあ” is a nice little word that you come across all the time in anime, manga, and real life. It’s kind of like the English equivalent of “well…” or “then…” The harder part of this sentence is the second half with the それは bit. Japanese sentence tend to be kind of vague. I hesitate to say that, because the language really isn’t as vague as linguists and the Japanese themselves perpetrate, but this is an example of a perfectly acceptable incomplete sentence. It basically means, “How about that?” or “What about that?” Presumably the character is pointing at something. I’ll be talking about directions next time, but “sore” means “that” and it refers to something near the listener rather than the speaker. There’s another word for things that aren’t near either the speaker or listener. 店の人：五百円です。Five hundred yen. メアリー：未だ高いです。あれは？ That’s still expensive. How about that? It seems that Mary is really cheap. 500 yen isn’t nearly as expensive as it sounds, but Mary says that it’s still expensive. Notice that she doesn’t have to say the word “that’s”, as the Japanese find that redundant. The order or this sentence goes “Still expensive is.” Remember when I said that “sore” referred to things near the listener? Well, “are” refers to objects that are far from both the speaker and the listener. She’s wondering the price of something that isn’t near either of them. 店の人：これですか。小さいフィグアは二百円です。This? This small figure is 200 yen. “Kore” refers to objects close to the speaker. He’s saying “this?” after, from what we can gather from dialogue alone, he’s moved over to the object in question. The “desu ka” is an emphatic way of saying “this?” It’s kind of an old anime now, but in the first episode of The Vision of Escaflowne, Hitomi’s potential lover points out what a nice pendant she has to which she replies, “これですか.” To give you a better example of how it might be used let’s look at this piece of English dialogue. Gentleman: My, you’re wearing a lovely dress today!” Lady: Oh this? It’s just something I threw on this morning. Crap! I went and used an adjective again! Oh well, the next sentence shouldn’t be hard to figure out. If you need help, say so and I’ll elaborate on it. I should go ahead and warn you, though, that 200 yen figures probably don’t exist. メアリー：そのフィグアを下さい。I’ll take that figure, please. Okay, “sonofigua” is a little hard to understand right now and I’ll get to it next lesson. For now, I just want you to know that it translates to “that figure”. New particle alert! There needs to be an emoticon for that. Anyway, を is direct object modifier. Does that make any sense to anyone who doesn’t do computer programming? Well, let’s look at it this way. If the figure is the object, then kudasai is what we want to do to the object. It’s technically a verb. We are kudasaing the figure, if that makes sense. It’s like eating rice: rice wo eat. Basically, this is how you ask for something. You state what you want followed by “wo kudasai”. 店の人：どうぞう。 Here you are. “Douzou” is a polite way of offering something, whether it be business cards or just allowing someone to come into your home or restaurant. |
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| Author: | Akira Takahashi [ Fri May 13, 2011 12:07 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lesson 4 - Shopping |
NUMBERS! Okay, so now we get to look at numbers. Numbers one through ten are nice and easy, and I’m pretty sure you guys have them down fairly well. Now, numbers 11-9,999 are easy, too. Isn’t that great! After we hit 十（じゅう）how do we say “eleven”, you ask? 十一（じゅういち）. The kanji here makes it really easy to understand because it’s just 10 and 1 side by side. Let’s list off 11-19 十一 じゅういち 十二 じゅうに 十三 じゅうさん 十四 じゅうよん 十五 じゅうご 十六 じゅうろく 十七 じゅうなな 十八 じゅうはち 十九 じゅうきゅう Did you catch the pattern? Simple, right? Just say “ten” plus the number “six” to make it sixteen, “eight” to make it eighteen and so on and so forth. I’m sure you’ll catch the pattern for numbers 20-30. 二十 にじゅう 二十一 にじゅういち 二十二 にじゅうに 二十三 にじゅうさん 二十四 にじゅうよん 二十五 にじゅうご 二十六 にじゅうろく 二十七 にじゅうなな 二十八 にじゅうはち 二十九 にじゅうきゅう 三十 さんじゅう Catch that pattern? It’s extremely easy all the way up to 100, which is 百―ひゃくー and you can guess the pattern from there. Well, that’s enough about numbers for now. My brain hurts thinking about them. However, if you really want to get excited about numbers, go watch a little independent film called Cube. Apparently, if you don’t know advanced math, you’ll wind up dead. That’ll make you appreciate numbers, at least temporarily… |
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| Author: | Akira Takahashi [ Fri May 13, 2011 12:23 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lesson 4 - Shopping |
Cultural Notes Some of you might have found if rude that the two people (remember the vocab word for that? 二人) pointed out that Mary was a foreigner. After all, we live in a multicultural society (well, not in Minnesota where I live, but other parts of America do) and we don't just point out people whom we suspect to be foreign, unless, of course, they're doing something that's just plain weird. I liken traveling to Japan to stepping foot in Vvardenfell in the game "Morrowind", which is the third game in the Elder Scrolls series. For anyone who's played it, did you get annoyed that everyone called you an "outsider" and occassionally (Vivec) would treat you like a second-class citizen or worse? Well, Japan typically doesn't get down to Vivec levels, but the fact of it is, you're considered foreign to them. They live in a society that consists of mostly Japanese, and you will appear exotic to them, even if you're another Asian or a Japanese-American who wasn't born in Japan. Now, that's not to say that Japan is racist. I will argue that Japan isn't racist, and they won't discriminate based on race, and most Japanese are extremely welcoming of foreigners. They're extremely friendly (kind of like Minnesota Nice), but you have to work to earn their friendships most of the time. Unless, of course, you're a foreign male looking for a Japanese girlfriend. However, there are some Japanese who don't care for foreigners. It's not because you're black, white, Mexican, Chinese, etc. they just don't care for foreigners. Oh, and you'll be stopped by police more often in Japan because they seem to distrust foreigners. Now, some is this is because Americans in general have this bad habbit of spreading the "ugly American" stereotype all over the world. I don't know why this is, but Americans very seldom adhere to another's culture when visited, assuming that everyone should act and think like an American (I blame our schools and foreign policy). This wouldn't be bad, except that some people get offended, especially when they notice that the only people getting into bar fights are Americans. My economics/geography teacher in high school once told us a story about his visit to Japan. He begged his host to take him into Tokyo, but her schedule just didn't allow it. He then insisted that he would drive himself to Tokyo, but, given that Tokyo is the largest city in the world, she was against that idea. In the end, he just went and drove himself into Tokyo. Later on, he heard her talking with a few of her friends. They were telling her, "I can't believe you let him go into Tokyo alone!" to which she replied, "He's an American. They do what they want." My teacher, smiling, proudly told us, "We're Americans, and we do do what we want! Why? Because we're free and independent!" I was floored. He worried and offended his host with his arrogance and then went on to tell us that stepping on the rules and boundaries of others is the American way. I beg to differ, I'm afraid. Why did I tell you that story? Because there's a moral. If you want the respect of the Japanese, or the people of any other country you visit for that matter, please, please, PLEASE, don't run around acting like you're in charge. Adhere to the culture. You won't be perfect, but they appreciate the effort. Debate! |
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