Genki Lesson 1: Greetings – Japanese with Video Games

hello everyone my name is matt and welcome to the game gengoo genki course so in this video series we're going to be going through all of the language that you need to know in order to master the genki textbook whether you're studying by yourself or studying universally with a class this video series will help you give real contextual examples of exactly how the language is used so that you can get a really strong feel for not only remembering the language because you can help remember with the scenes and the characters but also you can get a stronger feel for exactly how it's used so that you know when you should use it or when not to use it so the first thing that we're going to be covering in this video series is greetings this is the very first piece of language that you're going to come across in your genki textbooks now just a quick warning i will not be using any romaji in this video series because i believe it's actually a hindrance to learners to rely on romaji so i really recommend that you try and learn hiragana and katakana as soon as you can it is going to be so so beneficial to you to pick them up as quickly as possible if you need some help remembering hiragana and katakana in a fun way then check out my hiragana and katakana videos that can hopefully give you a little bit more of a fun atmosphere to learn them in i also have an anki deck to help you to really want to just cram it into your head as quickly as possible so check out this video right here in order to get that anki deck in the video description there's also going to be japanese subtitles available down below if you just click the subtitle button and that way you can take the language at your own pace so let's get started with lesson one greetings so the first piece of language that we're learning here in the genki textbook is ohayou now ohio this means good morning but it's kind of a more casual way of saying it kind of like morning right oh now sometimes you see the ohio with the o you'll see that sometimes and often you might actually see it just cut like oh a little bit quicker so like we just saw one of the characters used the fool ohio and the other one said a little bit more of a slang casual way of saying this is a really useful expression to say good morning everyone can use it it's not rude to use at all it's just a nice way of saying good morning the next piece of language we have is the longer version of ohio and here is ohio gozaimasu and this is a more polite way of saying the exact same thing good morning so if you want to be a little bit more polite maybe you're talking with someone you're not super close with then this is the version you might opt to use so like we can see in this example here the boy is being polite as he's talking to the girl this is actually a kind of trope that they have in the game that he keeps on being too polite to her and you can see that here because he uses the polite version ohio gozaimasu here we can see the robot referring to the main character with ohio zaimasu so the robot is being quite polite as a robot would be likely to be programmed it wouldn't be super rude it would be polite right so ohayo gozaimasu [Music] this next example is quite interesting because you can see this politeness difference between one character who's saying ohayo gozaimasu and he's bowing and the other one just gives a little bit of a head nod oh so you can see here that the politeness level perhaps the guy character here is in a position a little bit lower if you have a look at her body posture she does look like she's a little bit more of a bossy kind of character perhaps she's some sort of master or something so you see here that she doesn't feel the need to be as polite so she just says ohio however he does so he says oh hyogazaimasu the next super useful piece of language here is konnichiwa now be careful it's not konichiwa it's konnichiwa pay attention to this second character the um hiragana right here konnichiwa it has that kind of nichiwa the length and sound very very important konnichiwa so like here in animal crossing shizure is welcoming us and she says so this is the normal way of greeting someone whether you're out in the street or whatever saying hello to someone this is the stock standard expression to say hello you can use this in the day and even the afternoon the next piece of language we have here is and this means good evening so this as opposed to konnichiwa which is used during the day and the afternoon komba this is used when it starts to get dark there isn't a general time that you must use this after it's just more that when it starts to get dark when your surroundings are a little bit more dark you would use kombawa instead of konnichiwa so like you can see here in boko harasumi clearly it's night time and so the two are saying hello to each other using konba oh oh yeah and just like here in yakuza 0 you can see it a kind of nightclub right so they're not outside it's not necessarily dark but it is dark it's night time they're at a club is the normal expression to use to say hello [Music] finally in final fantasy vii remake it's very clearly night time and earth is trying to find someone around and so she says combo trying to see if anyone's around [Music] the next piece of language here is quite a tricky one we have sayonara now this is often taught in textbooks meaning goodbye but you're actually probably better off kind of remembering this meaning farewell because that's more how it's used when you kind of compare with the english counterpart you can use sayonara simply to say goodbye to someone who's leaving that you might not see for a while you can use it as a way of saying farewell like you know that you're never going to see each other again and so this is the expression to say that you know goodbye forever this is often used to quite a dramatic effect in movies and cinema when it's kind of this really impactful emotional scene that's kind of really drawn out they'll use to be really really dramatic [Music] um and we can see here in persona 4 that it's quite interesting where the character says which means that he doesn't really feel like saying goodbye farewell he's saying goodbye he has his bags he's leaving but he doesn't want to say sayonara because he doesn't want to say farewell to kind of like saying this isn't goodbye more like see you later and that's why he doesn't want to use sayonara so what do you use instead well this next expression is the one that you should be most likely using with friends and family and things like that or even super super useful way of just saying see ya right see you later you're not necessarily saying farewell audio goodbye you're just saying see ya so this is a super useful expression right here as we can see as this character gets off the phone she says goodbye with ja mata so that's a way of saying goodbye when you're getting off the phone you can see two friends talking together in final fantasy viii and zell here says so this is a way of saying well see ya we have the na here as kind of more of a masculine way of saying [Music] you don't have to say the fool ja mata you could actually just say ja like here cloud from final fantasy vii he's kind of the cool guy he doesn't want to speak too much so here being very abrupt with jhana is kind of a way of just saying well see you then you can also use mata by itself like seen here in 13 sentinels where she says sometimes you might even see it connected to words like this sorry [Music] and just like we can see here in bravely the fault too so all of these uses of ja matane matane this is all very very very very similar language just different levels of kind of casualness probably the safest one for you to use would be very very casual normal thing to use with friends and family or acquaintances to say goodbye next we have this piece of language now shitsure is kind of to be rude and then shimasu is to do we'll learn more about that later but right now this piece of language excuse me this is used as a way of kind of politely excusing yourself from a situation or a room like seen here in astral chain the character says dewa so this is like saying well then see you so this is a really useful expression that when you're leaving a room and you're not wanting to be rude this is one of those expressions that you would use let's say for example you're in your teacher's classroom and you're leaving maybe you had a conversation with them and you're leaving and you want to say well then see ya right you're leaving the door then this is a really nice polite piece of language that you can use when you're leaving the room just say dewa as we can see here in final fantasy 7 remake it can also be used as a way of entering the room right so it's almost like you're preemptively saying i'm sorry preemptively excusing yourself oh i'm very sorry right so you can also use this maybe you don't want to suddenly bump in the way and kind of be rude just charging in all of a sudden talking so this is a way of just kind of politely entering a room as well just like we can see in judgement here this character is coming down these two people are talking sitting together and then this one character comes down with some tea and so he doesn't want to be rude by just sitting down and boom there's the t so he makes this a little bit softer and he says oh excuse me here with [ __ ] and then finally as we can see here again in the same game we can see the character leaving in a polite way so as he's walking away he says next we have the word oyasimi this simply just means good night this is kind of a casual way of saying good night as is actually a longer expression that we'll see next and so this is the word that you use to say good night when you're in kind of casual situations like friends and family [Music] now we have oyasumi nasai and this makes it a little bit more of a polite expression the general rule in japanese is that if an expression is longer it has more politeness to it that's very broadly speaking however but when things are shorter things are a little bit more casual so here we have oyasumi just like before but it's followed by nasai so oyasuminasai and so like for example in this clip from final fantasy vii remake we see tifa saying the fu oyasumi nasai and then cloud just says oyasumi so you can see that tifa is perhaps being a little bit more polite in the way that she's speaking but cloud you know he's not a very polite guy he's kind of a more rough rude straight to the point the cool guy and so he just says oyasumi now oyasumi's not rude um i just want to make that clear but it just is a more straightforward shorter version it's not polite it's the casual form if you want to speak politely oyasuminasai is the expression that you want to use [Music] [Music] now on to a super common word that i'm sure most of you already know here we have arigato now arigato here is the expression that you use to say that you're showing appreciation to someone thanks so it's a pretty straightforward piece of language so in this super heart-wrenching scene here from attack on titan poor mikasa she's thanking aaron for all of these kind of things ishoni te kurete thanks for teaching me about how to live thank you for wrapping us muffler which is a scarf around my neck oh man ah sad so here we see arigato is used to say thank you and so just like previously where we have oyasumi and oyasuminasai the same thing here we have arigato and arigato gozaimas [Music] now the long version here is arigato gozaimasu so it's just like arigato but then it's followed with gozaimasu you'll be learning more about gozaimasu later but right now all you need to know is that it's a polite expression that's known as khan kego and it's just making arigato thanks as a much more polite version like thank you very much so you can see here talking to the crowd using both the combination of arigato and arigato gozaimasu all like in final fantasy 10 we see this character here bowing to auron saying thank you very much let's go so this next piece of language sumimasen is a super useful piece of language it's one of the pieces of language you're most likely to use really um when i first came to japan this was all i used all the time and sumimasen is just a way of saying excuse me or pardon now you can use this as both a way of saying i'm sorry like here in demon slayer sumimasen i'm very very sorry but it can also be used as just kind of a way of getting attention excuse me [Music] next we have a super easy piece of language hi now you've probably already heard this but this just means yes it's a way of kind of showing confirmation about something hi yes but it doesn't have to be just yes it can also be okay like seen here in persona 5 with the teacher saying hi hi it's like all right all right you can even use it to say when your name gets called out in class you can say hi kind of like a here present that type of thing the opposite of hai yes is yet no so we see it's so the e kind of gets this lengthened sound and that means no or that is not correct so like we can see here in metal gear solid we have naomi saying no snake however you can actually even contract this yeah into just simply yeah this is exactly the same meaning it's just a little bit more casual as i said previously making long things short makes it casual in japanese [Music] now moving on to some really useful expressions when you're kind of leaving your house or even coming home here we have a super useful expression here ittekimasu which means i'm off see you later now i don't want to get too complicated right now but this is actually a combination of iku to go and kuru to come so it means to go and to come back and we can see here it's an expression used for when you're leaving and you're going to return somewhere usually your house or something like that so this can be both seen as ittekimasu or it can be itekuru the mass is just a polite form and so as we just saw this girl's leaving her house and so she says ittekimasu i'm off on the other side of things when you're saying to someone goodbye as in someone just said it and they're leaving the house you can say it this is kind of like have a good day take care so here this is used when someone else is leaving maybe you're a parent and you're seeing off your kids you might say it now this is actually very similar in the way that items can be kind of broken down into ite this is the te-form of iku and then we have irashi and this is a kind of honorific way of saying kuru so here you're talking about someone else's actions so it's being a little bit more honorable so it's actually got a very similar meaning in a way that you know you're you're going and coming back but here you're talking about someone else's actions so go and come back as in please come back safely right so that's kind of where the origin here of take care comes from so when you're seeing someone off and they're probably going to be back later on in the day you can say it [Music] okay so you've had a really big day and finally you've made it back home so you can use this next piece of language tadaima this means i'm back i'm home tadama often you'll see this used as soon as someone comes back home and they open the door they'll say tadaima but as we can see here in dragon quest it doesn't necessarily have to be actually coming back home it can just be coming back to a place right so it's saying i have returned.

and so if someone says to you tadaima what do you say back do you just go huh no you use this really useful expression here okay or okay and this means welcome back this kitty part here is actually the verb to come home and then the first part oh is like a polite suffix to add on to things to make other people's actions be honorable show respect towards their actions complicated right now but just keeping it very simple okay means welcome back as in a polite form of you have come back welcome back and again we can see it can be used when you're literally coming back to your home and someone says oh welcome back homer or it can be used like in near replicant where you're just coming back to where you originally set out from okay so now moving on to language that you can use when you're eating super super super super useful expression right here to use when you're beginning to eat a meal itadakimasu thank you for the meal now this expression is used before you eat not afterwards before you eat kind of think of it like a japanese grace right where you say before something you say ah grace it's the same thing here in japanese itadakimasu super simple breakdown of this language is it's actually kegel for to receive something so you're saying i will receive as in i will receive this food [Music] oh now that was a really good meal you've finished eating and so what do you say or gochisour summer destiny this means that it was a delicious meal this is what you say after a meal to be like oh that was delicious right oh god now as you may have noticed i've been saying both got so summer and gosh so samadeshta deshta is just the past tense form here in the polite both of them are fine but if you want to be a little bit more polite you might use the full expression now finally the last couple of pieces of language that you're going to be learning here is how to introduce yourself these two expressions are super useful when you're first introducing yourself the first one here is hajime [Music] nice to meet you so this is an expression that you only use the first time because it's literally for the first time that's the kind of breakdown of what this actually means hajime is the beginning the first time hajime it is the first time right so nice to meet you so be careful if you accidentally use this with someone you've already met they'll be like hey what do you mean we've met before so this is usually the first part of your introduction when you're getting to know someone the very first thing you'll say is nice to meet you right you're kind of leaving a good impression then after all of the information that you've given in your introduction like for example nice to meet you i'm matt well you want to finish off with a nice little feeling to kind of end the introduction to kind of have this nice feeling between you and the person and so this piece of language is super useful to do that function here we have yoroshiku onegaishimasu now this is a difficult one to translate please treat me well is kind of something you might see often as a translation and it is kind of a good way of looking at it because it's something that you use at the end of a greeting to show that you're wanting to kind of get along together in the future like from this point onwards let's get along well together that's kind of like this yoroshiku onegaishimasu now there's actually a casual form of this like you'll notice in a lot of japanese you can just say yoroshiku and that just means the same thing but more casually or you could be even more honorific and you could say something like yoroshiku onegai tashimasu but we'll get into more of that later but just so you know this expression here is something that you end your introduction with to kind of say please treat me well let's get along together and congratulations you've now finished the first part of lesson one for genki so i'll be covering more and more of this textbook so that you can learn absolutely everything in the textbook so you can ace your exams at university or even just for your own personal studies so you can improve your japanese i hope you guys enjoyed this video and hopefully this extra context has kind of helped give you a clear picture for exactly how it's used i know personally as a learner it's very difficult to get that image of how japanese is used and so that's one of my aims here at game gengo to really help give you this fun and clear picture for exactly how japanese is used so you can get more of a native feel for japanese if you want to check out any of the games that were in this video then check the video description and if you want to join us on the game gengo discord community then consider joining us on patreon i'm almost always hanging around on the discord so if you want to have a chat i'm probably around right now so feel free to say hello i want to give an enormous thank you to all of the supporters on patreon for keeping this channel alive thank you so much guys i'm so glad you're enjoying the videos and i hope this is helping you enjoy learning japanese as always thank you very much for watching and i'll see you again next time you

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