Lesson 12: Adjectives continued - Pointing things out

Words to Indicate People, Places, Things, Locations.

Little by little we learn how to be more specific. Do you remember in way back in primary school when you forgot to bring your pen to class and you had to ask someone to lend you one? If they were having a bad day, the conversation might have gone something like this:

You: Can I borrow a pen?
Him: Which color?
You: Um, blue I guess.
Him: Sorry, I ain't got blue.
You: Can I borrow a black one then?
Him: Sure.
You: .... Well can I have it?
Him: Which one do you want?
You: The black one. I just said so.
Him: I have four black ones.
You: I don't care. Gimme any one.
Him: You choose.
You: (suck in breath) OK. That one.
Him: Which one?
You: That one.
Him: This one? (evil grin creeps on face)
You: No! That one there! (muscles in face tense)
Him: Oh, you mean this one?
You: NO! I said that one right there! The one withh the green cap!
Him: Ohhhh, you want this one right here, right?
You: AAAARRRRGGGGHHH! (pencils and pens fly across the room, nose blood is spilled)Teacher: You two over there! Down to the Principals office, pronto!

Well, if you get your indicators specific the first time, you could avoid this test of your patience.

We talked in a previous lesson about kore (this), sore (that), are (that over there) which relate to things. There are parallel words when you want to relate to places:

koko - (here, this place) - is for places closer to the speaker than the listener
soko - (there, that place) - indicates locations near the listener than the speaker. It also indicates a relational proximity to the listener, not always a physical proximity.
asoko - (over there, that place over there) - is used for places that are at a distance from both the speaker and listener.
doko - (where) - fits into this class as well and is used to ask questions.

1. Toire wa koko de wa arimasen. (The toilet is not here.)
2. Hachi wa soko desu yo! (The wasp is right there, by you!)
3. Keisatsu-kan wa asoko desu ka? (Is the police station over there?
4. Toire wa doko desu ka? (Where is the toilet?)

You can make your Japanese a little more formal by replacing koko, soko, asoko and doko with kochira, sochira, achira and dochira. And you can make your Japanese even more informal by replacing koko, soko, asoko, doko with kocchi, socchi, acchi, docchi.

If you were in the Honolulu Hilton, you might hear:
O-tearai wa kochira desu. (The restroom is this way.)

But if you were in the Hanoi Hilton (if they spoke Japanese at all), it would probably be more like:
Benjo wa kocchi. Omae no neru tokoro. (The pit is here; where you sleep.)

When you pick up the phone, usually you would ask:
Dochira sama desu ka? (Who is calling, please?)
(we put -sama at the end of people's names to give them respect.)

Kore, sore, are can stand alone as a pronoun but the words kono, sono, ano which have a similar meaning must be in front of the nouns they modify:

1. Kono jamu wa mazui desu. (This jam is terrible.)
2. Sono hyaku doru shihei wa boku no desu. (That hundred dollar bill by you is mine.)
3. Ano hito wa baka desu. (That person over there is stupid.)

There are a few words which indicate position. These actually act as nouns and are used differently from English. In English we might say next to X, but in Japanese we would say X no tonari. Here is a list of a few other position words.

chikaku - nearby
mae - in front
naka - inside
ushiro - back, behind (people, buildings, etc. opposite of mae)
ura - reverse/other side, behind (rear side, buildings, etc. but not people)
ue - on top, above
shita - underneath

Time for a few examples. I hope this lesson isn't putting you to sleep yet...

1. Toire wa asoko no ginko no chikaku desu. (The toilet is near that bank.)
2. Same wa saafaa no ushiro desu. (The shark is behind the surfer.)
3. Honya-san wa soko no kissaten no ura desu. (The bookstore is behind that coffee shop.)
4. Kaijuu wa ano beddo no shita desu. (The monster is under that bed.)

Next Lesson: Lesson 13: Renshu makes perfect - adjectives