Absolute Pimsleur’s Japanese I - Lesson 12 Transcript

Lesson 12 of Absolute Pimsleur's Japanese I focuses on teaching you numbers for use with currency, in this case, in yen. It's actually a pretty easy set of new vocabulary and the hardest part this time around is with the previous lesson's vocabulary they use for the majority of this lesson.

I just want to remind everyone, I try to translate this the exact way Pimsleur's does, but sometimes I'm slightly off or more liberal with the English translation. Also, I try to provide alternate phrasings or additional words to help flesh out a proper English translation whenever possible. If a translation uses a "/" between words, those are two definitions that could be interchanged for that sentence. If it uses a word(s) between "[ ]", those are additional words that a literal translation would not include and are things I feel flesh out and provide a better translation for English audiences. Japanese is very context sensitive and they leave out lots of words and some sayings don't carry over in literal translations, in my opinion. You can choose to use or ignore these additions if you wish.

Intro Conversation

もしもし。いとうさんですか。

Hello, is Ito-san there? (lit. It's more like "Hello, is it / this Ito-san?", In English, it'd probably be what I wrote or "Can I speak to Ito-san?" or something similar, but that's no where near what is actually said.)

はいいとうです。

Yes, it is / I am Ito. (again, kind of odd in English. I'd use "Speaking" or "This is she" or something similar, but not even close to a literal translation)

すずきです。こんにちは。

[This is / I'm] It's Suzuki. Good afternoon / day.

ああ。。。すずきさん。こんにちは。

Ahhh...Suzuki-san. Good afternoon / day.

いとうさんこんばんわたしとばんごはんをたべませんか。

Ito-san, won't you have your dinner / supper with me this evening / tonight? (Ito-san could be subbed at the beginning or end here when translating to English, as could the "this evening / tonight" part)

すみません。こんばんはちょっと。。。

Sorry, this evening / tonight is a little...

じゃああしたのばんは。

Alright / then, [how about] tomorrow evening / night?

あしたのばん。なんじ。しちじ。

Tomorrow evening / night? [At] What time? Seven o'clock?

はちじは。

[How about] Eight o'clock?

ええいいです。

Ya, that's fine / good / alright.

じゃああしたのばんしちじわたしのところで。

Alright / Then, tomorrow night / evening, eight o'clock at my place. (I'd probably use "At my place tomorrow night at eight o'clock" for a more liberal translation. Almost the same thing, but a few words that weren't used in Japanese and some order changing for English speakers.)

はいわかりました。

Yes, understood. (see Notes)


Previous Lesson's Vocabulary

じゃあ

in that case/ then / alright

きいてください

listen please / please listen

もいちどきいてください。

Please listen one more time / Please listen again. (note the one more / again in this version)

くりかえしてください。

Please repeat [after me] / Repeat [the following] please.

きいてくりかえしてください

Please listen and repeat. (please could go at the beginning or end)

こんばん

this evening / tonight

ばんごはん

evening meal / dinner / supper

あした

tomorrow

きょう

today

じゃあまたあした。

See you tomorrow.


New Vocabulary

もしもし

hello (only used when answering the telephone)

いくら

how much

いくらですか。

How much is it?

¥　or 円　or えｎ

yen (see Notes)

せん

1000

にせん

2000

さんぜん

3000

よんせん

4000

ろくせん

6000

ななせん

7000

"X"えん

"X"¥ (fill in any number for "X")

"X"えんです。

It's "X"¥. (fill in any number for "X")

"X"ですか。

Is it "X"¥? (fill in any number for "X")

いいえ。"X"えんです。

No, it's "X"¥. (fill in any number for "X")

"X"えんじゃありません。

It's not "X"¥. (fill in any number for "X")

"X"えんじゃありませんか。

Isn't it "X"¥? (fill in any number for "X")

そして

and, and then / also (see Notes)


Notes

はいわかりました。

Like I said in other posts, this is a Japanese thing and most English speakers would never say "Yes, understood." in any conversation, especially to end one the way this is. A more liberal translation would be "Got it." or "Sounds good." or some variation of that. We're all a little too inexperienced to go adapting the translations to sound better in English, so I'll leave it as it is.


¥ or　円　or えん

¥ is the currency symbol for yen, much like $ is for dollars. 円 is the kanji for yen and would be the equivilent of writing out 'dollars' in English (it's a little different than that, but for simplicity sake, go with the crude metaphor). えん is simply the hiragana based pronounciation of 円. 円 can also mean circle or round object (like a coin, hence it's also the name of their money or, at least, that's where I surmise the useage came from), but, as far as I know, Pimsleur's never goes into that useage of the kanji, so you can pretty much ignore everything except the yen part of it for now.

Also, I'll be using ¥ in the English translations and えん for the Japanese.


そして

The narrator says this is only "and" when used for counting, but it's always used in that way. The actual English translations for it would be "and, and then, after that, and also". An example sentence could be, "I went to Kanji-Step, Nihongo o Narau and then Kirby no Nihongo." where the bolded green text would represent そして.

I think the reason he distinguishes it for numbers only is that there are a couple version of "and" in Japanese and they eventually end up using the other version in later lessons. For reference, it's simply the particle と, as in さけとビール, which would be "sake and beer". There's a slight difference in their useage, so I'd stick with what Pimsleur's is telling you for the time being, as you'll only confuse yourself later if you try and force a strict definition on it or argue semantics this early in the game.

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