Lesson 4 of 16
This, That and the Mystery Umbrella
about 11 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Point out an object near you or near someone else, and say whose it is or is not.
Words this lesson teaches
- かさ
- umbrella
- だれ
- who
- かばん
- bag
- ほん
- book
- ペン
- pen
- でんわ
- phone
- これ
- this one (near me)
- それ
- that one (near you)
What it explains
これ, それ, あれ
Japanese splits "this and that" three ways by who is near it: これ is near you, それ is near the person you are talking to, あれ is near neither of you. English collapses the last two into "that", which is why これ and それ take a while to feel automatic.
X の Y
の links two nouns with the owner or category first: あきさんの かさ is Aki's umbrella, にほんごの ほん is a Japanese-language book. It is the same particle doing both jobs, and word order is the opposite of the English "of".
じゃありません
The negative of です. わたしの かさです becomes わたしの かさじゃありません. In more formal writing you will see ではありません — the same thing, with じゃ being the spoken contraction of では.
The scene itself is in the app.
Lesson one of this track is free to read in full. From lesson two on, the story, the audio and the review are part of a free account.
