User:Elaeum/Testbed/Japanese/Retropunk/Lesson2

=Lesson 2 第二課: Greetings and Will you be my friend?=

日本語:

 * やまだ（山田）さん:　スミスさん、ご出身はどこですか.
 * スミスさん:　ロスアンゼルスです. 　山田さん、ご出身は.
 * 山田さん:　出身は横浜です. 　いいところです. 　ご職業は何ですか.
 * スミスさん:　私の職業は営業マンです. 　山田さんのは.
 * 山田さん:　 作家です. エスエフのです.
 * スミスさん:　あ、そうですか？　もしろい仕事ですね.

English:

 * Mr. Yamada: Where are you from Mr. Smith?
 * Mr. Smith: Los Angeles. And you Mr. Yamada, where are you from?
 * Mr. Yamada: My home town is Yokohama; a great place. What do you do for work?
 * Mr. Smith: I work as a salesman. How about you Mr. Yamada?
 * Mr. Yamada: A writer; science Fiction.
 * Mr. Smith: Is that so? That is a very interesting job.

Dialogue 2
ダイアログ 2

第二課

山田さん:　スミスさん、家族を紹介しましょう. 私の妻は知恵です. やまだ、ちえ（山田知恵）さん:　はじめまして. よろしくお願いします. スミスさん:　こちらこそよろしくお願いします. 子供がいますか. 山田知恵さん:　はい. 息子と娘がいます. （子供たちに）　恵美、件！

Translated:

Mr. Yamada: Um, Mr. Smith, Allow me to introduce you to my family. This is my wife, Chie. Mrs. Chie Yamada: How do you do, I am pleased to meet you. Mr. Smith: 　The pleasure is mine. Are there any children? Mrs. Chie Yamada: Yes. (to the children) Emi, Ken!

Family
plain vs polite, etc.

The topic particle
Japanese, unlike English, is a topic based language. In Japanese, the topic is what the speaker is talking about. The topic is always preceded by a は (pronounced 'wa').

Topics are different from the part of speach known as a 'subject' in the English language in many ways, some of which are very subtle and difficult for English speakers learning Japanese to understand. Below are a few of the important differences:
 * A Japanese sentence may have both a Topic and a Subject.
 * When a topic is set, it remains the topic until a new topic is set. Topics may span sentances, paragraphs, or (rarely) pages.

Notice how the は marks the subject of the sentence: (I/me) in the first sentence, and (Smith-san) in the second sentence. Also, remember back to the first lesson where です was identified as the copula, which roughly equates to 'is'.

The possessive
To mark a noun as possessive,　a の is appended to the noun. This is equivalent to an apostrophe-s ('s) in English.

The の particle can also be used to make a noun more specific, or describe a noun with another noun. In this case, the most general noun should always be first, and the most specific noun should be last. Nouns may be strung together in this manner, but be warned, although four or five nouns strung together in this manner is grammatically correct, a Japanese speaker may consider such a statement to be annoying to listen to.

Particles
In Japanese, word ordering is much looser than in English. To help the listener understand what the speaker is saying, particles are used to mark different parts of the sentence. You have already learned three particles, the は-particle, which marks the topic of the sentence, the の-particle, which marks possessive noun, and the か-particle, which marks a sentence as a question. There are many more particles, which will be discussed in later chapters.