Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

11 Rise and Fall: aRIgatou ‘thanks’ shiTSUrei-shimasu ‘Excuse me’ suMIMASEn ‘Sorry’ If a word has only one syllable, a fall or a rise occurs with the following word. HA desu . ‘It’s a tooth.’ ha DE su. ‘It’s a leaf.’ A note on the cultural significance of pitch is in order. As you learn Japanese, pay attention to pitch at the sentence level as well as the word level. A slight change in pitch may indicate a subtle but significant change in meaning or mood. It is observed in many, if not all, languages that speakers tend to raise their pitch when talking to babies or when trying to sound gentle. Japanese is no exception in this regard. Talking in a high pitch is generally associated with politeness in Japanese. Women tend to talk in a higher pitch, but regardless of the gender, sales and customer service personnel, receptionists, waiters, etc. speak in overall higher pitch. Remember that when something is the norm and expected in a culture and you don’t follow it, you may be sending a certain message inadvertently. Just to be safe, bow, smile, and talk gently. Drills & Exercises A. Listen to the audio. Following the first two model exchanges, respond to each cue. Cue: Guree desu. I’m Grey. グレーです． Response: Guree-san desu ka. Hajimemashite . Ms. Grey? How do you do? グレーさんですか。はじめまして。 Cue: Honda desu. I’m Honda. ほんだ 本田です。 Response: Honda-san desu ka. Hajimemashite . Ms. Honda? How do you do?’ ほんだ 本田さんですか。はじめまして。 B. Say it in Japanese. Say it in Japanese yourself first, listen to the audio for the model answer, and then repeat the model. Practice building up and expanding sentences. 1. Good evening. 2. Good morning. (to a friend) 3. Good morning. (to a teacher) 4. Ms. Honda, good morning.