

He repeated this process again and again, finally choosing an apple that was acceptable–though by no means ideal. He returned it and picked up another one, examining it in the same way. There was just something about it he didn’t like. He inspected it from various angles under the lighting. Next, he went to the fruit case and took out an apple. But I thought that a single paragraph wouldn’t hurt (: Although I am big fan of Murakami, I have purposefully stayed away from translating his work since I’m fairly certain it is all either translated and published or licensed to be so.
Meaning of mou japanese full#
The part in bold means “when used as an adverb, can also signify ‘ a little’ “.Īnyway, the author of the article in question had asked me how I would translate this, and since I didn’t want to translate just a sentence I thought I would do the whole paragraph to get full context. However for the latter, if you look in the dictionary you actually see this meaning: (there is a total of 12 meanings there, wow!)ģ. This is ironic, since this meaning isn’t directly in the common usages of もう (already) or ひとつ (one). I asked a Japanese person about this and was told it means something like “a little”. However, that second definition doesn’t seem to fit the context here, where the speaker is picking up an apple (the first one, presumably) and trying to examine it. When I read this, I was caught off guard by the usage of “もうひとつ” (mou hitotsu), which is a set phrase that is frequently used to mean “one more”. However, if you look in the dictionary you will see it also means “a little more” (もう少し). While I am not going to go into that book in detail in this post, in the the article I found there was a short passage quoted (bold was added by me): Recently I was reading an interesting blog which contains reviews of Japanese books (in English), and I came across an article about the Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) book “After Dark”.
Meaning of mou japanese free#
If you can get a few of these phrases under your belt, you should be ready to face any new situation you encounter during your first online Japanese lesson!īut remember, you don’t need to be perfect before your first lesson… lessons are for practising, and making mistakes so you can learn as much as possible.Ĭlick here to find out more about Japanese lessons via Skype, or contact me to arrange a free consultation. Teacher: 週末はどうでしたか。Shuumatsu wa dou deshita ka? (How was your weekend?) You could also ask “ wa eigo de nan desu ka” (“What is in English?”) ” For when you need to say exactly what you don’t understand! You can answer this question with “wakarimashita” (I understand I got it). “Wakarimasu ka?” means “do you understand?” Your teacher may ask you this. Perfect for if you didn’t quite catch what your teacher said. So “Mou ichido onegai shimasu” means “please say that again.” “Mou ichido” means “once again”, and “onegaishimasu” means “please”. “Miemasu ka” means “Can you see me?” Use this phrase if you want to check with your teacher that your video is working ok. If you have Japanese lessons via Skype, it’s important that you can see the teacher, and they can see you! It’s a good way to check your mic is working at the start of a lesson! So in the context of a phone call or Skype lesson, “kikoemasu ka” means “Can you hear me?” “Kikoemasu” means “to be heard” or “to be audible”. You can also say “moshi moshi?” if the line cuts out and you want to check that the other person can hear you. When you answer the phone in Japanese, say “moshi moshi”. “Moshi moshi” is another way to say “hello”, but it’s usually only used on the phone. But all new situations need some new vocabulary! And when you start having one-to-one lessons online, you might need some new words and phrases you haven’t come across before. In some ways, a Skype lesson isn’t that different from a face-to-face Japanese lesson. Can you say “can you hear me?” in Japanese?
