Japanese for Absolute Beginners: Master the Basics in Under 1 Hour! - Taka Sensei

Hey you! I'm so happy you decided to start learning Japanese with me My name is Taka and let's begin this lesson with Yōkoso because Yōkoso means welcome In this course, for absolute beginners, we'll be studying basic phrases in Japanese Now, if you want to be able to say them I count on you to repeat after me every time we study a new one So let's start with the greetings Greetings in Japanese is Aisatsu Just to make it easier I'm showing the romaji but please don't rely on it too much because what can happen is that you'll be reading it with the American intonations Konnichiwa, for example The stress is not at the same spot Konnichiwa and Konnichiwa Can you tell the difference? Konnichiwa and Konnichiwa You'll probably come across content about pitch accents In Japanese, we call that Kōtei akusento It's slightly different than the English stress because it's not just one stressed syllable but Kōtei means high and low So each syllable will either be high or low and it's debated if it's relevant to learn it as a beginner knowing the fact that the accent changes a lot from one region to another So I would not recommend worrying about it too much If you listen and repeat, you should be fine That being said, you've studied Hiragana with me and you might notice that the last character is not WA but HA There is a historical reason for that but this is not a history lesson and so I'll just give you a short answer You'll have to remember When HA is used as a particle it's always going to be pronounced WA What is a particle? Well, Japanese is what we call an occludinative language That means you add affixes to words in order to give them an additional meaning or their purpose in the sentence WA is called the topic particle and if I had to translate it literally it would be AS FOR It's very similar to the subject particle but it's also different If you've studied a little bit of Japanese you might have heard Watashi wa at the beginning of sentences to say I and it's not exactly the case as subjects work a little bit differently in Japanese and because you can get rid of them when they're obvious But you might be wondering Why is there a topic particle to say hello? Well, that's because Konnichiwa doesn't really mean hello but today or AS FOR TODAY That's because it's the shortened version of the sentence Konnichiwa, go kigen ikaga desu ka? which means How are you feeling today? As time passed the sentence was shortened to the first bit Konnichiwa I'll emphasize on both levels of formality and politeness because one thing you should know about the language is that humility is a big deal and having manners has a great importance in everyday interactions Now that you know the origin of Konnichiwa you should know when to use it properly It's actually the equivalent of good afternoon in English so you'll use it between noon and sunset If you want to say good evening that'll be Same thing here HA is read WA for exactly the same reason because the original sentence was So we've just learned how to say good afternoon and good evening but you also learned how to say today and tonight but just a little clarification Konnichi used to be pronounced like that to say today but now the language has evolved and with the same kanji or Chinese characters we would read them You remember when we studied the hiragana when U is placed after O it makes a long O sound There is a more formal variation that is That's what I mean by the importance of formality in Japan It's like having two words to say today So if you absolutely wanted to literally translate how are you feeling today we would use All this to say that Konnichiwa is now usually written in hiragana and will only be used in this context to say hello So that was the first word I'm just kidding We'll go faster from now But I believe it's relevant to explain a little bit about the culture and the history behind the Japanese language as it's so far from English as opposed to Spanish or German that use the same alphabet Konban, however, is also used to say this evening I know that in English the distinction between night and evening is a bit blurry in the sense that there is a moment after sunset when you can use them interchangeably like in the sentence I'm having people over tonight In Japanese, I believe the distinction is a bit clearer So I would say that is from sunset to around 11 p.m and then after that it becomes Though you would still use to say hello until around midnight I guess that's also a gray area in every country But in the morning, you would say You can see that the structure of this phrase is slightly different There is no particle ha read wa which means being early So literally, you're saying it's early But of course, what you mean is good morning Now, is the polite way of saying good morning If you want to make it more casual just get rid of at the end which gives Make sure to remember that last bit because almost every time you'll see it you'll just need to get rid of it to go from formal to casual It literally means there is or it is Now, if you watched my video about hiragana I explained that some characters could be devocalized depending on their position or the character that follows Because I've seen learners with an intermediate level correct beginners or even trying to correct teachers saying that devocalizing it is the proper pronunciation But it's not necessarily true The kana is su So if you really wanted to be proper you would say That would actually sound even more polite But yes, 95% of the time people tend to devocalize it even in formal settings So you'll sound more natural saying instead of Good night is not really a greeting phrase but I thought I'd still add it Now, one thing to keep in mind is that in Japanese the longer it is the more polite it's going to sound In is the honorific prefix comes from the verb meaning to rest and means please do so please rest well If you want to be casual just get rid of which makes Now, speaking of informal greetings let's see how you can say hi to your friends of the same age or younger which already sounds familiar in English Another one that I sometimes personally use is When I was younger I thought it was a reduction of But later on I heard another theory that it actually came from karate Something else you should know about the Japanese society is that even though gender roles tend to be more flexible over time the same can be said about the language Some words and speech styles sound more manly while others sound more feminine This interjection is only for men And I don't know if you noticed but I took the lowest voice to make it sound even more manly So now if you want to sound more girly or simply cuter you could say I'm not sure about the origin of this word Does it come from Mario Kart? Anyway, just know that it exists if you ever hear it To sum it up in a neutral or formal context we'll say In a casual context you'll say At any time of the day you could be more manly by using or a friendly vibe with Do you remember how to say greetings? If you don't, that's fine Don't worry about it Forgetting is also part of the learning You'll have to frequently review everything you've studied and bit by bit it's gonna stick to your long-term memory Greetings is And now that we saw how to say hello let's learn what to say when you introduce yourself When you meet someone for the first time you'll start by saying which literally means it's the first time so you're just acknowledging that fact Make sure you've never seen that person before because a friend of mine met a girl in a club and fate made them meet again as he started his first day in a new job Apparently her makeup was so different that he didn't recognize her so when he said she got upset So there is a second way to express nice to meet you in Japanese which is could be translated to please Now, yoroshiku is a bit of a magical phrase that has several meanings In this case, it means something like take good care of me Here, the i sound can be re-vocalized so yoroshiku becomes yoroshiku Incidentally, yoroshii means good yoroshii desu ka? means is it good? in a very polite way is another way to say please onegai literally means a request or a favor and shimasu is from the verb suru which means to do or to make if you really need to distinguish douzo and onegai shimasu douzo is like please go ahead as in this way please or here, please take this whereas onegai shimasu is more please in the sense would you please do that for me? sometimes it can even mean I'm begging you Okay, so now that you've remembered this sentence douzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu keep in mind that it's used in very formal exchanges and if you want to be even more polite you may replace by and since onegai and itashimasu respectively end and start with the same vowel they're going to merge but this is very polite and perhaps too polite in most contexts so I would use this level of politeness when I deal with Japanese clients or VIPs so that was the hard part now in a slightly less formal context you could skip the douzo and simply say this is actually the most common way to use the phrase if you're an American tourist and you're hired Japanese guide or if you start taking lessons you could say that to your teacher so I said that you could get rid of douzo to make yoroshiku onegai shimasu well you could also get rid of onegai shimasu which makes now just keep in mind that the longer it is the more polite it's going to be but in a neutral context all right now in a casual setting you could only keep and if you meet someone who's clearly younger than you and you feel like you're going to like you could add a little at the end to add a little complicity so as I mentioned the shorter it is the more casual it's going to sound so this review all the expressions we learned I know it's a lot to process and if you had to only pick one I would say you can't go wrong with the standard neutral which is still polite now what's a reply if the other person says it first well you could simply say but one thing that's very important to keep in mind is that you don't always repeat what the other person says always ask yourself where are you in the hierarchy if your boss who's much older than you says you can't repeat you'll have to show respect and say now if you absolutely want to have a reply version after someone said it to you you could say kochira literally means this side where I am so my side and it's a polite way to talk about yourself koso is a bit difficult literally to translate but in this context it means me too now yoroshiku onegaishimasu usually starts a relationship so you'll use it in most common interactions but what if you finally meet your favorite celebrity you could say the first word starts with o which is the same as in onegai we just saw the honorific prefix ai comes from the verb au which means to meet dekite means to be able koe means honor and here you have to be careful because it's two long vowels it's not kouei or koe which means voice it's koe desu here we could translate it to it is so literally it is an honor to be able to meet implying you another expression is aete is the same as oaidekite it's slightly less formal ureshii means to be happy and again we have desu so literally the entire sentence means happy to have been able to meet by now you should have probably noticed that we didn't literally use me and you that's because when the subject of a sentence is obvious we could get rid of it and it's not very polite to directly say you in this context when you're saying nice to meet you it's pretty obvious what's happening so let's now recap the main phrases we studied to say nice to meet you aete ureshii desu now the order in which you'll use them is first just like in english you'll start by saying hello konnichiwa and then you'll acknowledge the fact that it's the first time you meet hajimemashite then you'll say your name which we'll study in a second and you can end the introduction with yoroshiku onegaishimasu or oaidekite koe desu so in my case i would say konnichiwa hajimemashite takahide desu yoroshiku onegaishimasu all right so now let's see how you can give your name literally my name is would be watashi no namae wa your name and then desu so with my name it'd be watashi no namae wa takahide desu watashi means i no is the possessive particle it's like of in english so watashi no together makes my namae sounds similar to its english translation name namae then we have the topic particle wa that we already studied then you give your name make sure to adapt it in katakana so that it's easier for japanese people to pronounce followed by the final desu or desu so you can already see that the place of each word in the sentence is very different from english literally it's me of name takahide it is now do you remember when i said that in japanese we could get rid of the subject when it's obvious well most of the time when you're introducing yourself it will be obvious so you could simply say namae wa then your name followed by desu namae wa takahide desu now here is a little variation that we also have in english instead of saying my name is taka i could also say i am taka so we could definitely replace namae wa by watashi wa watashi wa takahide desu and again since we can get rid of the subject when it's obvious we could also get rid of watashi wa and only keep the final desu in my case takahide desu now because we've pretty much removed everything in the sentence let me quickly go back to the syntax in japanese it's subject that you can get rid of when it's obvious and then we have the object and finally the verb and of course the longer the sentence the trickier it gets i'm not trying to scare you here but it's good to keep in mind as early as possible because it's one of the biggest challenges for english speakers now in a more formal conversation you could give your name followed by now keep in mind that in japanese we give our last name before our first name just so you know when they introduce yourself to you so let's pretend your name is Sherlock Holmes you would normally say as you can see transforming your foreign name into japanese make it sound very different so if you could adapt yours it's going to be easier for them to pronounce and remember now in case they're confused i'll also teach you how to say first name and last name so family name in japanese is so say your last name followed by so we already saw wa or hot red they have a similar grammatical role but they're slightly different in some cases you'll have to use one and add the other in other cases they'll be interchangeable there are actually theses about the difference between the two particles but this is of course for absolute beginners so i don't want to make it too confusing but just know that they exist and the more you listen to japanese the more you'll get used to it so means family name and then we have this to end the sentence politely so for example and for our first name we could use but to be even more precise we'll say means down or below no is the possessive particle so together it literally means lower name that's because traditionally japanese used to be written vertically and the first name was below the last name now if you want to combine the two sentences just skip the final su in the first one that gives my family name is potter and my first name is harry and by replacing the final su with a comma you can technically combine as many sentences as you want all right so let's recap the main sentences we've studied to give your name now most of the time where both parties introduce themselves you wouldn't need to but just in case let's see how you can ask someone's name if you ask google translate it's going to give you it's not grammatically wrong anata means you no is the possessive particle we know namae and again wa the topic particle to finish with desu ka so we know desu and by adding ka we make it a question but in reality you would never use that expression unless you speak to a five-year-old kid why is that? well as mentioned when a subject is obvious we'll get rid of it but there is another reason in japanese saying you is way too direct do you remember we used in well a polite way to say you is which you guessed it literally means your side or your direction so you could definitely say and we added a little honorific prefix o before namae to be more polite but if we can get rid of the trouble of finding a suitable way to say you let's take it it even makes it easier for you so without it makes as mentioned it's not considered very polite to be direct and being firm in your sentences i know it's very difficult for american people because we're educated quite the opposite way but in japan you don't want to force your opinion and so not finishing sentences follows that logic it's very common it's going to make you sound more natural and it's a way for japanese people to somehow feel connected with each other even if obviously we might not have the same views so the most natural way to ask is simply and leave a silence i know that in english it might sound awkward but trust me in japanese it's considered polite now what to do in a situation where you don't have any choice well if you go to japan you'll notice that people call each other by their name usually the last name which we could definitely translate to mr or miss but keep in mind that in japanese it's a suffix and it should be placed after the name so let's say you meet an adult called you'll be calling that person and the thing is even if you don't speak japanese just calling a japanese acquaintance or client with the suffix would show that you know a little bit and they'll appreciate the effort so if you want to say what about you to mr naruto uzumaki you would say i know it sounds a bit weird in english but it's 100% natural in japanese if you're speaking to a child you can skip the son and just say the first name now let's learn how to share where we come from and just like in english there are two main ways to say that i come from canada and i am canadian let's start with i come from you'll first give the country you're originally from followed by means from and kimashita is the past tense of which means to come so literally come from again we noticed that i didn't use the pronoun i here and of course you could start the sentence with it's grammatically correct because i know it's frustrating for us english speakers to skip the pronoun but not only will you sound way more natural by skipping subjects when they're obvious saying could give the impression that you're self-centered so keep it simple so if you're from the states you'll say unfortunately even though there are more than 30 countries in the american continent japan has been heavily influenced by the usa in the sense that america is more often used to talk about the country rather than the continent now let me give you a few countries to practice with and because i can't go over all the countries in the world you can use google translate for the rest it works well for isolated words i'm not saying that it doesn't work but from the previous parts we already saw that it's more natural to get rid of the subject when it's obvious that the place of each word in a sentence is not the same as in english and that the level of politeness and formality is very important that's too many variables for google to give you a natural translation that would match your context but yeah so we have for canada that one is very easy france for france and then for spain so if i want to say i come from canada if i want to say i come from france now here are some interesting ones we have for england and then we have for germany because it comes from now for asian countries it gets a little trickier because we'll use kanji the chinese characters so for japan it's there is a variation which is actually nippon sounds slightly more patriotic and you might hear it more in sports or political events but when japanese people say i come from japan they'll use ni is the character for sun and hon is the origin which makes the origin of the sun pretty close to its english nickname the land of the rising sun china is be careful with the long vowel chu means middle and goku is country so literally the middle country or the central country korea is so that was how to say i come from but let's say you're originally from another country or your parents come from a different country and you don't identify with the country you were born in you'll be saying the name of the country followed by which by itself is read is the character for human or person and again which is the neutrally polite way to state a fact so let's say you want to say i'm american that would be i am english could you guess how to say i am japanese? now if you want to be more precise and say i was born you'll say the name of the country followed by is the particle used to indicate the place where an action or event takes place is the past tense of the verb which means to be born or more literally to be given birth if you want to say born and raised it's going to be the name of the country or the city followed by you know it mo here is the particle to say also so literally you'll be closer to born and also raised the conjugation here is slightly different these forms make them nouns if you were born in a country and you grew up in a different one you would say the name of your birthplace followed by than the name of the place you grew up followed by so even if you're american if your family has been moving around you could say i was born in new york but i grew up in la if you're born and raised in the same place and you want to keep it simple you could also use watch the double consonant it's not it's the first character is to leave or exit and is the character for body so if you want to say i'm originally from the kansai area in japan you would say so let's now recap the main sentences to express where you come from now let's ask the question where are you from in order to do that we'll simply take what we already learned and make it a question so the question is is the word for where just like in english this sentence can be confusing because it could literally mean where did you just come from normally with the context the person you're speaking to should understand what you mean but note that they could reply i just came in from the back door i would say that is a rather neutral sentence if you want to be more polite you could say this sentence means exactly the same thing we just replaced a few words with more polite ones so kara stays the same but if you've been to japan and you went to a restaurant there as you should you might be familiar with all the staff shouting that's exactly the same verb and it's the polite way to say come in we also saw how to give your nationality with jin and the question for that would be if you watch anime you probably already know that nani means what so what nationality are you but to be honest with you i don't really recommend using that expression when you're asking someone directly because it sounds a little too direct to be polite but you could use it when you speak about someone else who's not part of the conversation means that person over there in order to avoid any confusion with the proper level of formality i personally prefer asking the question with so in the most polite way you should ask here we added the honorific prefix go in front of shushin to make it more polite you don't use it when you talk about yourself but you would use it to show respect to the person you're speaking with and just like we saw with you could definitely do the same with this sentence and simply say and leave a silence so let's now recap the main sentence to ask where are you from now let's see how to say bye in japanese if you look it up on the internet you'll probably find or sometimes you'll also hear it with a short yo and most of the people here in the US know this expression because it's been popularized in movies and tv shows just like which incidentally is also not the first way to say bye among spanish speakers but my point is if you do use it try not to pronounce it the american way you might be used to but it's and the reason why it's not often used in japan is because it implies that you're not going to see the other person again whether it's because you're not planning to which is rude or because fate might choose otherwise so let me teach you a more natural way to say it which is and this is actually two-in-one because it actually means excuse me shitsurei means being impolite and shimasu is the conjugation of suru which means to do or to make actually it means more than just that the more you learn japanese the more you'll learn verbs and adjectives with so you should get used to it and its conjugations so shitsurei shimasu you're literally saying i'm being impolite meaning may i be excused or would you excuse me this is also the most common way to say bye when hanging up the phone and it's actually pretty funny because in phone calls it's rude to be the first one to hang up so you'll see people repeating like three or four times if you are in a social context or at work and you're leaving the group you might want to add here osaki means before ni is the spatiotemporal particle so basically you're saying something like excuse me for leaving before you all speaking of working environments you'll hear colleagues say sometimes as a parting phrase o is the honorific prefix tsukare means fatigue sama is the honorific suffix and deshita is the past tense of desu so literally you acknowledge the fact that it's been a hard working day time to go home and actually when you meet your colleagues during the day you can use it in the present tense to greet them so that's literally we're working hard if you're the boss and you're older than your employees you can skip the deshita or desu and simply say so if it's too rude to literally say bye just like in english it's something closer to see you so here we have is like well then and mata in this context means again implying see you again it's like when you say bye then now if you want to adapt that for a more casual context dewa becomes which makes and if you want to sound a bit more intimate you can add the exclamation suffix me at the very end which makes and if you're very close to the person you can get rid of which makes and the ultimate contraction would be to also remove ja or mata which makes either now as I said the USA had a great influence and in a casual context a lot of people would simply say now if you're living with people and you're leaving your home in the morning you'll say itte comes from the verb iku which means to go and kimasu from the verb kuru meaning to come so literally you're saying I'm going and coming back if you're the one staying at home you'll reply watch the double consonant here and it simply means go and come back now when you come back home you'll say which literally means just now and just like konnichiwa it comes from an entire sentence meaning I just came back it's also a good way to check if there is anybody home and if you're the one at home you can reply and it means welcome back or simply o is the honorific prefix and kaeri means return so literally you're just saying return that's how you say bye in Japanese now let's recap and when you're leaving and coming back home tadaima now let's learn how to say please we actually learned it in the magical sentence is the general way to say please when you ask for a favor again in a casual setting just drop shimasu to only keep onegai if you want to request an action or a specific object you'll ask the object in question followed by so for example if you want to ask for water you would say o is the honorific prefix and mizu means water in a casual context replace kudasai by choudai so if you want to say give me rice or give me a bowl of rice you'll say here again the go in front of gohan is honorific so by now you can tell that there is respect towards things like food in Japan it's good to know that part of the culture and it goes without saying that you shouldn't be playing with your food this brings me to the next phrase which is if you watch anime you might already know this one it's usually said before eating a meal but not only it comes from the verb itadaku which means to humbly accept or receive so you can also use it when you receive a gift actually just another cultural note here in Japan when you receive a gift the etiquette wants you to refuse at least once or twice the last one is when you want to invite someone and we actually saw that one it's so if you want to say please sit down it's going to be so again the honorific prefix o followed by suwari which means sitting and you notice that the sentence ends with kudasai so to recap the different ways to say please now let's learn how to say thank you we'll start with the longest version which is you can't go wrong with this one it's very polite and you can use it in pretty much every situation where you need to show your appreciation now that you've done the hardest part let's see how we can play with this phrase now because it's pretty long the most common way would be to remove and simply keep watch out that it sounds like now some people might also hear when they're leaving a restaurant for example they'll just remember it like that and repeat it as is is the past tense of and they each have a proper timing so when you're leaving a restaurant waiters thank you for your visit and the food you ate which is in the past but when you receive a gift make sure to show your appreciation in the present tense in a casual context you don't need to worry about that because you can just get rid of the final and simply say another short way to say thank you which is more polite than simply is to keep only the first part if you want to say thank you so much you may say or and as you can hear i'm really insisting when i'm saying it so use it for very big gifts or services another very natural way to say thank you is to actually say sorry which is it comes from the verb meaning being enough or to be complete i would usually use that one with an act of service like a waiter at the restaurant pouring water and as you can probably hear gets reduced quite easily and so most of the time instead of now this expression is the equivalent of i'm grateful in english so you'll usually use it in a speech kansha means gratitude and you see by adding from the verb it makes it a verb now if you want to sound cool or cute you can just use the one borrowed from english but make sure to adapt your accent to japanese just a little note about linguistic diversity in japan if you visit the kansai area which you should that's where osaka and kyoto are located you might encounter people saying to say thank you it's good to know if you want to impress the locals we saw itadakimasu before starting your meal and after finishing it you'll say and that one you'll only use with food so we have the olympic affixes means a treat or a feast and so you're literally saying it was a feast and it's a way to thank the cook for the meal so let's recap the main ways to say thank you itadakimasu so here are different ways to receive credits or not because many ways to express that is actually to refuse the thanks so first we have which literally means no no i guess we wouldn't logically need to say no twice but it's now part of the cultural way to speak and actually some people say it four times another is to say don't worry about it which is ki in this case means the attention ni is the particle and shinai is the negative form of suru in the present tense de is the type of conjugation because again it's the shortened version of a bigger sentence which is that you could use just like that but it sounds as natural to just say another way that we also use in english is it's nothing in japanese we say in a casual conversation just skip this and simply say nah that's nothing don't mention it the great thing is that you can combine these with and say you're gonna sound so natural saying that in japanese you might know that japan is very big on gifts if not you should see how much effort they put in wrapping them so when you give a present and the other person likes it you can say is the past tense of which means to be good or great though in english it's a bit weird to say it was great when the other person shows that you got the perfect gift in japanese it's used to say glad you like it now how to say you're welcome the standard way you'll probably learn in textbook is but as you can hear it's pretty long and so it's usually going to be in a formal exchange still good to know though so let's recap the main ways to say you're welcome now let's see how to say yes in japanese the most standard way to say it is it's formal but you'll hear it all the time and be careful with this one because it means more than just yes for example when people didn't hear you or didn't quite understand your point they'll also say it's all in the intonation and i guess it's a more polite way to say now we also use it to show that we're listening to you but it doesn't necessarily mean that we agree usually this type of hi will be repeated a couple of times like this so when in doubt especially if you're doing business with japanese people don't take hi as a definite yes in a more casual conversation you can replace hi by but to be honest first u will almost always be very light and sometimes you won't even be able to hear it some people will use but you know what? if you really want to be lazy you could just open your mouth and make a sound which is going to sound like now in english we might not realize it but we use yes in so many different contexts and hi will be applicable in most of them but as we saw sometimes you need to be more precise for instance if you want to say that's right or that's correct you'll say you can actually combine it with hi which makes it if you want to make it casual replace this by da or simply remove it and replace hi by if you want to emphasize on the fact that you understand the message you can say which literally means understood if you're a client in a restaurant you might hear the humble form which is in a professional context you might also hear which is closer to the english roger or got it otherwise you can use the universal okay but with a japanese accent so there's a double consonant and it doesn't end with the i sound but it's a long vowel but we need to be polite we'll even add desu at the end of course is to which you can also add this if you want to be more polite so let's recap the main ways to say yes now how to say no in japanese the standard way you'll find in textbook is sometimes we'll remove one i just like we saw to say you're welcome another variation of ye is and we use that more like an interjection to say no yeah the word exists but as i said it's culturally rude to be direct and so we tend to diplomatically find ways to make the other person understand that we're refusing so for example we saw to say that's right the opposite is and you could add iya before which is going to make you sound more natural it goes without saying that giving your opinion like that would definitely be in a casual conversation another natural way to say that's wrong in the sense that this fact is incorrect is to which again you could add when it's not used as a negating interjection so you'll hear which is typically what a girl who's not interested in a guy or a difficult child who doesn't want to eat his vegetables you know it's funny and it's going to be very subtle but we use to say yes but we use to say no so here it's all in the intonation so i know i said that in the japanese culture we tend not to be direct but you know there are situations where you don't have any other choice so a rather polite way to be direct is now if you're trespassing if you're smoking somewhere you're not allowed to or if you're just not following the rules in general japanese people will tell you in a polite way but they will tell you and the way to say that is it's like you can't or you're not allowed to now let's recap the main ways to say no now let's see a few ways to say sorry we already saw to say excuse me when leaving but you can use it every time you're disturbing or interrupting someone if you want to use this expression to apologize you'll have to conjugate it in the past tense which makes we also saw as a way to say thank you but as it literally means sorry of course you can use it for that too and just like you can use the past tense so what's the difference between well they can be interchangeable in most cases but if you're unsure keep in mind their literal meaning is when you deliberate action led to an incident or if you feel like you didn't do enough to prevent something bad from happening is more something unintentional but you apologize because you realize you caused trouble when more serious damage was done and you need to formally apologize for that the most polite way would be this is rather formal more neutral way to apologize is in a casual setting and if you're talking to someone way younger you could add the affectionate particle i've heard young people use the reverse slang but to be honest with you not showing respect to the language kind of says it all it would be difficult to take such an apology seriously so i recommend not using it in an intimate context where you did something really wrong like lying to your girlfriend it might still sound too formal or the opposite not strong enough or just weird to say so in this case we would use it comes from the adjective which means bad so basically i was bad meaning i'm to blame or it's my fault it might not seem like an apology at first but what matters in this situation is how the other person feels and if you trust them well it should count as an apology so let's recap the main ways to say sorry now let's learn some affectionate words in japanese and i was thinking about starting with i love you it's funny because in japan being too emotional shows that you're not in control of yourself but this doesn't mean that japanese people don't feel anything in fact it's quite the opposite but we channel our emotional energy into arts whereas in the usa people tend to be overly emotional they give high fives and hugs to everybody and i'm not saying that one is better than the other but think about it we use the word love for pretty much everything i love food i love you man i love this language course but we'll make a big deal when it's about saying it to our romantic partner so it's very subtle and it doesn't make it easier for english learners now in japanese we have different words for that the universal love is and if you want to say i love you google translate is probably going to give you but this is really intense way more than when we say it in english in a romantic relationship when we talk about romantic love there is the word so you could definitely say to say being in love or falling in love and koi is also the one you'll use to talk about your girlfriend or boyfriend we'll say which literally means loved person actually you can put koi and i together and it becomes which is the passionate love but the more natural way to say it among young people in their honeymoon phase is so here you can devocalize the just like if you want to be polite it might sound weird to you but if the person you like is older than you it's not uncommon to stay polite towards that person in the way you speak and throughout the whole relationship actually and if you want to say i really like you you can say now another affectionate word is which is the equivalent of i miss you but it literally means i want to meet you it's from the verb meaning to meet and conjugated with the tai form which makes want to meet and again the context makes it obvious that you are missing the person you're talking to so here is how it works if you've been going out with a person for a couple of months or a year you'd say and then during the relationship if your romantic partner is away you can say then after a couple of years of ups and downs you get married well you could say but i feel like you still need to prove yourself so wait until your wife is pregnant and she goes through the process of giving life go through many more years of hardship and then you can say but at that point you understand each other so well that you don't even need to say it thank you so much for watching this entire video i hope you enjoyed this little introduction to the japanese language so please keep in mind the level of formality getting rid of anything that's obvious from the context and also the differences with the north american mindset which involves for example being direct if you found this helpful please let me know with a thumbs up or in the comments and don't forget to share and subscribe for more content like this