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Dialogue for Presentation 4 (Supplements for the textbook Click here to listen to the entire dialogue. Click on the links below to listen to each individual sentence. John is out in a restaurant and he is looking at a menu. There is something in the menu that he does not recognize so he decides to ask about it. John： (pointing to a picture in a menu) Sumimasen, kore wa sakana desu ka? Waitress：それですか。いいえ、さかなじゃありません。とんかつです。 Sore desu ka? Iie, sakana ja arimasen. Tonkatsu desu. John： とんかつ？ なんですか。 Tonkatsu? Nan desu ka? Waitress: にくです。 Niku desu. John: あ、にくですか。おいしいですか。 A, niku desu ka? Oishii desu ka? Waitress: はい、おいしいですよ。 Hai, oishii desu yo! John: じゃあ、とんかつをおねがいします。 Jaa, tonkatsu o onegaishimasu. Notes: In the first line, John says すみません to get the attention of the waitress. He points to the menu and asks if what he is pointing to is fish. The word さかな sakana means fish. The waitress uses an echo question to confirm which thing he is talking about. She tells him that it is not fish, it is a とんかつ tonkatsu. Tonkatsu are pork cutlets that are covered with breading then deep fried. Because they are so tasty, they are very popular and relatively inexpensive in Japan. John does not know the word tonkatsu, so he says asks “tonkatsu?” with a rising question intonation, repeating it to himself. This is a sentence fragment (not a complete sentence). Sometimes in Japan, when people do not recognize a word but are trying to get a grasp it, they will repeat the word out loud to help get it into their head. If he used the echo question とんかつですか “tonkatsu desu ka?” (It’s a pork cutlet?”), the implication would be that he understood the meaning of the word tonkatsu. John, however, does not know what tonkatsu is, so he asks the question, “What is that?” The waitress tells him that it is meat. (にく＝meat.) A light bulb of understanding goes on over John’s head as he uses the echo question あ、にくですか (A, niku desu ka? “Oh, it’s meat.”). He asks if it is delicious. おいしい oishii is an adjective that means delicious or tasty. The waitress tells him emphatically that it is delicious! At the end of her sentence, she uses the particle よ yo, which is used in Japanese for emphasis. It is somewhat like an exclamation point, emphasizing what comes before it. She is saying, “yes, it IS delicious!” John decides to order the new food. He says, じゃあ (jaa), which means something like “well then” or “in that case…” おねがいします onegaishimasu is an expression meaning “I request…” To request a noun, you should put the noun first, then follow it with the particle を (about which more will be said in future lessons) and then おねがいします onegaishimasu. In other words, XXX をおねがいします (XXX o onegaishimasu). This means, “I request XXX” or “I’ll take XXX.” It has more or less the same meaning as XXX をください (XXX o kudasai), which we practiced in dialogue 3. If anything, the expression XXX をおねがいします (XXX o onegaishimasu) sounds politer. Back to the homepage of Jeffrey Angles Updated |
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