From the course: Japanese for Absolute Beginners

Asking questions

From the course: Japanese for Absolute Beginners

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Asking questions

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In this lesson, you'll learn how to ask questions. Yes, no questions only. Not WH questions. It's just, are you, is he, are they? Okay. Now, this conversation takes place at the office. What's the name of the company? Style U. It's a hair salon slash fashion coordinating company. The conversation is between two people. So desu. That's right. Kimu Mion and Higashi Haruhito. The names Naomi-sensei just gave you are in reverse order. Last name, first. First name? Last. Now, they're meeting for the first time, so the speakers are not friends yet. Therefore, the speakers will be speaking in... Formal Japanese. Oh, my name is Kimu Mion. So desu. Su-gi wa eigo ga ha-i-imasu. O-ha-yo gozaimasu. W-wata-sh wa Kimu Mion desu. In-terne desu. Do-zo, yoroshiku o-negaishimasu. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Kim Mion. I'm an intern. It's very nice to meet you. Ah, o-ha-yo gozaimasu. Kimu... Oh, good morning, Kim Mion desu. It's Mion. Mion san desu ka. Mion? Hai, Mion desu. Yes, that's right. I'm Mion. Etto... Higashi Haruhito desu. Higashi desu. Mion san wa... ...アメリカ人 desu ka? Oh, I'm Haruhito Higashi. Call me Higashi. Are you American, Mion? Hai, so desu. Yes, I am. First, we have a phrase. O-ha-yo gozaimasu. Good morning. O-ha-yo-go-za-i-masu. O-ha-yo gozaimasu. Next word. Intern. Intern. Intern. Next word. San. Mr. or Mrs. San. San. Next word. Amerikajin. American person. American. A-me-ri-ka-jin. Amerikajin. Next. Hai. Yes, that's right. Hai. Hai. The grammar point for this lesson is yes-no questions. Can we have a sample sentence from the dialogue? Mion san wa... ...アメリカ人 desu ka? Is Mion American? Are you American, Mion? So, let's take a look at the components. First, we have... Mion. Which is the first name. Followed by... San. Polite suffix. It's quite interesting. If you don't know the person and the name is ambiguous, there's no way to know if they're male or female. Hmm, so desu ne. So, if I was to see Mion san, if I wasn't Korean or I didn't know about Korea, I wouldn't know if that person is male or female. In this case, Mion is a female. That's followed by... Topic marking particle. And throughout teaching Japanese, I kind of came up with my own way of thinking of the topic marking particle wa. Think of it as a pause. Hmm. Mion? Are you American? So, that pause in there. So desu ne. Followed by... Amerikajin. American? Desu. The Coppola? Question marking particle. Now, we're about to introduce you to probably the easiest grammatical structure in all languages. Forming questions in Japanese. Because we're going to look back at the previous lesson. And everything's going to stay the same except for that ka we just introduced. In the previous lesson, we learned, Watashi wa something something desu. That sentence structure. I am something. Watashi wa Amerikajin desu. I'm American. Now, Naomi-sensei, how would we say, Mion is American? Mion san wa Amerikajin desu. Same sentence pattern. Instead of Watashi, we have Mion's name. Mion is American. Same exact pattern. Now, if you want to change this sentence into a question, the only thing you have to do is add... Ka at the end of the sentence. That's it. Everything is exactly the same. It's not like English where the word order changes. Sometimes you have to guess the right verb. None of that. You simply add... Ka. And that's it. So the question, Is Mion American? Or Are you American, Mion? Is... Mion san wa Amerikajin desu ka? Now, again, Japanese is very situational. So the literal translation here is, Is Mion American? But since the person speaking to Mion, the translation is actually, Are you American, Mion? So desu ne. Right. We have a word, you, which is anata in Japanese. But using anata is a bit too direct. And direct in Japanese can be, well, it's a bit rude. So desu ne. You could say, Anata wa Amerikajin desu ka? Are you American? But it's a bit strong. In this case, most likely the anata wa would be dropped. So desu ne. And someone would say to you, Amerikajin desu ka? Are you American? With the you implied by the speaker. So that would be a case if the person didn't really know your name or kind of forgot it. In most cases, what happens is, Anata, the pronoun you, is replaced by the person's name. So desu ne. For example, Peter san wa Amerikajin desu ka? Are you American, Peter? Peter san wa Amerikajin desu ka? Hai, so desu. Yes, I am. Naomi sansei wa Amerikajin desu ka? Are you American, Naomi? Me? American? No. No, I'm not. I'm Japanese.

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