Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

59 悪くないですよ。 Michael: Motto yasui no wa arimasen nee. There isn’t one that’s cheaper, is there. やす もっと安いのはありませんかねえ。 Honda: Chotto muzukashii desu nee. That would be a little difficult, wouldn’t it. ちょっとむずかしいですねえ。 Vocabulary juugo じゅうご 十五 fifteen ban ばん 番 (ordinal) number juugo-ban じゅうごばん 十五番 number fifteen ikura いくら how much? rokuman ろくまん 六万 60,000 nanasen ななせん 七千 7000 en えん 円 yen (currency of Japan) rokuman-nanasen-en ろくまんななせんえん 六万七千円 ¥67,000 warui わるい 悪い bad waruku nai わるくない 悪くない not bad motto もっと more motto yasui もっとやすい もっと安い cheaper no の one(s) muzukashii むずかしい 難しい difficult, hard ＋ doru どる ドル dollar ＋ yasashii やさしい easy, kind Grammar Notes 3-2-1 Numbers and Classifiers (~ en , ~ doru , ~ ban ) Japanese numbers are listed at the end of this lesson. Note that numbers 4, 7 and 9 have alternating forms: yon, yo and shi for 4, nana and shichi for 7 and kyuu and ku for 9. The form depends on what classifier is combined with the number (See below for classifiers). In Japanese, numbers with five or more places are counted in groups of four places ( ~man, ~oku, ~chou ). On the other hand, in English these numbers are counted by groups of threes places (thousands, millions, billions). So, ten thousand in Japanese has a special name man , and succeeding groups of four places have the names ~ oku, and ~chou . Traditionally a comma was inserted every four places (10,000 was written 1,0000). Note that 10, 100 and 1000 do not require ichi, but 10,000 does. In another words, you need to say ichi only for the last place in each four-place group.