日本語 - Week 10 (Contemporary Japanese Vol. 1)

The book I am using is Contemporary Japanese Vol. 1 by Eriko Sato from the Tuttle Language Library. Volume 1 of the book has 61 lessons. Target end date is March 20, 2012.

MONDAY: Lesson Twenty Three – デパアトにいきまえんか

Today we do suggestions. There are two ways. The first one is by adding the suffix ~ませんか which would give the meaning of “How about ---“. In short, a suggestion. 食べませんか would roughly translate to How about we eat? The other one, the suffix ~ましょう means “Let’s!” It also is a suggestion but more of an invitation as opposed to the other one which is more like a question. 食べましょう means Let’s eat! How do you decline? Remember ちょっと? It means “a little”. Use that. It would automatically mean to the other person that the idea is a bit off for you.

TUESDAY: Lesson Twenty Four – カラオケバーにはよく行きますか

Adverbs of frequency were the grammar lesson for today. We have a total of four. For the positive ones we have often よく and sometimes ときどき . For the negative ones we have seldom あまり and never ぜんぜん . Here is the catch. For the two negative adverbs, we have to use the negative form of the verb, which would really be a source of confusion for English speakers. For that, when you want to say that you never go to university, you have to say 大学にぜんぜん行きません instead of大学にぜんぜん行きます which they consider to be ungrammatical. Your brain might then translate the grammatically correct sentence as “I never don’t go to university”.

WEDNESDAY: Twenty Four – カラオケバーにはよく行きますか

We use でも after one sentence to introduce a contrasting statement that follows. In that case, it seems to be the equivalent of the English but/however. The second grammar point is about particle combinations. The particle ~に could combine with either ~もor ~は. However, both ~が and ~を could not. Why? I don’t know. The book says so.

THURSDAY: Lesson Twenty Five –大学には何で来ますか

Today we have proportional frequency to discuss! We only have two so stay with me on this one. The first one means always and it is written as いつも while the other one means usually and is written as たいてい. How do you use them? The same way you use the adverbs of frequency. They usually come in second place in terms of word order, meaning they follow whatever the subject is. I don’t know if it could be more flexible than that. I am guessing that as long as it comes before the verb, it would be fine. But don’t take my word for it. Last, we have a filler that denotes sequence in a series of events. If you are telling a story and you would like to say next, say それから before saying the next sentence.

FRIDAY: Lesson Twenty Five –大学には何で来ますか

We go back to particles as the last lesson for this week. We have three! ~間 is one of the new Kanji of the day presented in the video. This is added as a suffix to a period of time (minutes, hours, take your pick!) to mean how long. In short, duration. 2時 is two o’clock but 2時間 means two hours. See the difference? ~ぐらい means approximately and usually follows phrases formed with the first suffix we discussed for today. Almost two hours would be 2時間ぐらい. The last one means by/with/in/at and is represented by the suffix ~で. In Japanese is 日本語で, in the room is へやで, with chopsticks is はしで.

                                                                                                                                                  

For next week I would be covering lesson twenty six until the first half of lesson twenty eight. We can do this guys! The goal is to pass the N5 examination of the JLPT in December 2012! =)