Classroom Commands: Culture and Reading Hiragana (y-/w-)

A department store clerk assists a customer with a gift in a blue and white box It's time to learn more about Japanese culture and writing.

Image note: customer service in Japan is extremely important. People who work with customers use a very specific honorific tone and keep careful track of their body language. Let's learn a bit about what happens if you don't have something being sought.

Culture

Polite responses when one does not have what is asked for

In Lesson 11 you learned how in Japan it is considered impolite to directly refuse another person’s request by saying Iie. If you must refuse a request, what is one polite way to do it? Just say, “Aa, chotto,...” Chotto means a little bit. When used in a refusal, it just means that now is not a good time and asks the listener to be patient and understanding.

This lesson presents a similar situation which calls for an indirect and more polite response than Iie. When you do not have what someone has asked you for (___-ga arimasu-ka?), it is impolite to respond with Iie, arimasen. Use the following instead, letting your voice trail off apologetically.

Arimasen kedo...
- There aren’t any, but...
- I/we don’t have any, but...
Chotto... - It’s a little bit...
Sumimasen... - Excuse me...

In stores and other businesses you will hear these polite responses as in the following example.

Customer: Aoi nekutai-ga arimasu-ka? Do you have blue neckties?
Sales clerk: Arimasen kedo... We don’t have any, but...

The clerk is avoiding Iie, arimasen, which, although grammatically correct, would be perceived by the customer as very abrupt and impolite. The clerk responds politely with the less direct Arimasen kedo and allows her voice to trail off. The unspoken end of the sentence could be:

...we do have green ties.
...is there something else I could help you with?
...perhaps another store would sell them.

Juku (“cram schools”)

The word juku is sometimes translated as cram school or school after school. There are thousands of juku throughout Japan. Juku classes are generally smaller than public school classes. Parents enroll their children in these special classes so that they can receive additional instruction in the basic subjects of math, science, Japanese language, and social studies. This type of juku is known as gakushuu juku. Juken juku offer students intensive preparation for junior high school and high school exams. These are extremely important as passing the entrance exams for a “good” junior high school, high school, and eventually university determines in many cases one’s financial future in Japan. The third type of juku is one which offers more “cultural” instruction in the arts, foreign languages, soroban (abacus), and other areas.

Writing Japanese

Incomplete lines in the hiragana chart

Since the beginning of this course, you have been learning lines of the hiragana chart, each of which has five different hiragana (-a, -i, -u, -e, -o). The one exception has been ん (n) which stands alone in the final line of the chart. This lesson introduces you to two lines of the chart which in modern Japanese are now incomplete.

Reading Hiragana (y-/w-)

**Hiragana y-/w-**
y-	や (ya)	--	ゆ (yu)	--	よ (yo)
w-	わ (wa)	--	--	--	を (o/wo)

In some systems of Romanization, を is written as wo since at an earlier time it was pronounced that way. In this course we are using the roomaji -o for the hiragana を. Regardless of which system of Romanized Japanese is used, this hiragana is always shown on the wa-line to which it historically belonged.

Writing the particle -o

You have not yet been formally introduced to the particle -o which will be fully explored later in the course. Please note: The particle -o is always written as を (never as お).

You have, however, already encountered the particle -o in some expressions such as:

あ-o kaite kudasai - Please write あ.
Kore-o mite kudasai. - Please look at this.

In this lesson you will hear more classroom commands with the particle -o.

Benkyoo-o shite kudasai. - Please study.
Shukudai-o dashite kudasai. - Please take out (your) homework.

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