Five for Five
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Hello fellow Japanese learners!
Emily here, and I’ve just made it through lesson five in both JapanesePod101.com’s survival phrases and SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese podcasts and PDF files. I learned about Japanese restaurant phrases, Japanese basic greetings, and about the magical “wa”.
This is an example of one of the high-tech toilets I have seen. In this case, the operating system is on the wall. This one was neat in that the toilet lid opens automatically when a sensor catches you coming in. It also makes the sound of running water to help you out. [Photo by Emily Carsch]
Perhaps the most interesting was the overlap between the lessons. In basic greetings, we learned how to say good morning, afternoon, and goodnight in Japanese. In the Magical “Wa” we learned that adding the Japanese suffix, “wa“, to a word is like putting a question mark to the end of the phrase.
Notice that good afternoon in Japanese is “konnichi wa“. Konnichi, meaning afternoon, and the magical wa at the end is almost like saying, “how is your afternoon?”, or “how is it going this afternoon?” and thus, “good afternoon”, “konnichi wa“. The same goes for goodnight, or “konban wa“.
Another interesting point made in the SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese lesson #4 was that Ohayou Gozaimasu, meaning good morning, can also be used at any time of the day when first meeting someone. Today, on day six in Tokyo, after having met several people, I have found this fact to be true, and did not understand it until having listened to this podcast.
Posted by emily carsch in Tokyo Intern | 6 Comments »
