Japanese Phrases – Forget The Textbook and Learn Everyday Japanese
You might have gone to Japanese lessons or studied your textbook and you think you are all set to exercise your Japanese. You might be in Japan and ...
You might have gone to Japanese lessons or studied your textbook and you think you are all set to exercise your Japanese. You might be in Japan and felt all prepared after studying hard, but can’t take in anything around you. What’s the trouble? The problem is, that daily conversation is different to that you learnt in the classroom or from a book. When learning Japanese you will get going with the polite forms of phrases and words and it is only when you get to Japan or try speaking to your Japanese associates that you learn ‘real’ Japanese.
Read on to find out some tips to make your Japanese less like from a textbook and more ‘real’. You could have learnt that some whole sentences in Japanese that are asking a question end with ‘desu ka?’. For instance to ask ‘How are You?’ you can say ‘O Genki Desu ka?’. In ‘real’ Japanese, the ‘o’ and ‘desu ka’ is dropped and you would just say ‘Genki?’. Another point is when asking questions using just one word is that it is spoken with a rising tone, with this rising intonation taking the meaning of the question form. One more example is ‘Is it hot?’ can be shortened to ‘Atsui?’ with a rising intonation.
The word for ‘Me’ and ‘You’ that is typically in the textbook is ‘Watashi’ and ‘Anata’. These words are often learnt first as they can be used by both men and women. If you listen to casual Japanese conversations, you will come across a few more terms that used for ‘Me’ and ‘You’. In casual speech, males will refer to themselves with ‘Boku’ or ‘Ore’ and women ‘Atashi’. For ‘You’ girls will say ‘Anata’ or the condensed form ‘Anta’. ‘Kimi’ or ‘Omae’ are used by guys. You have to be cautious if you are going to use some of these words however, as ‘Omae’ has a strong and rough kind of meaning and is better not used unless you know when it should and shouldn’t be used.
You may have learnt the usual ways to say ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, using ‘Hai’ and ‘IIe’. Well when you listen to real casual Japanese, you may hear some other terms instead. In fact there are some other ways to say the same thing. Additional ways to say ‘Yes’ are ‘Un’ and ‘Ee’. For ‘No’, there are ‘Iya’ and ‘Uun’ (a longer sounding version of ‘Un’ for ‘Yes’.
To impress your friends, throw in some real casual Japanese. You may even get compliments. If you do, you want to be able to understand the compliment. If a Japanese person is amazed at your Japanese ability, here are some ways they may express it. ‘Nihongo jozu da ne’, ‘Nihongo umai ne’ or ‘Nihongo Pera Pera’, all mean your Japanese is outstanding.
Of course you have to know how to pronounce the language. To learn and the correct pronunciation, visit
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