This lesson introduces Japanese language learners to narrative by analyzing simplified sentences from a familiar story, demonstrating how to combine learned grammatical structures and introducing new ones like the te-form for clause connection and expressing actions for another's benefit.
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Konnichiwa.
We've now completed ten lessons and it's time for a change of pace.
We've learned enough now that we can start looking at some real narrative.
It'll be a little simplified at first, but we can use this to
bring together the things we've learned so far.
We'll also be learning new structural elements because even in the simplest story we're going
to encounter things that we need to learn.
But I think this may be a more interesting way of doing it.
So please let me know what you think in the comments below.
All right.
Now let's go into a story that I believe we all know.
"Aru hi Arisu-wa kawa-no soba-ni ita."
Now, this is a simple sentence.
The word "kawa" means "river", and "soba" means "beside" and it's a noun.
So "kawa-no soba" is "the beside of the river".
Just as we put something on the "on" of the table or the "under" of the table and we also
always mark it with -ni, so the "beside of the river" is where Alice was.
"Aru" means "a certain", so "aru hi" is like "one day" or "a certain day", and let's notice
that what's happening here is what we've seen before.
"Aru" is the verb that means "exist" or "be", and what we've done here is what we've seen
in the video lesson on so-called adjectives.
We can make any engine into an adjective.
So, "aru" is an "A does B" engine, an u-engine, so if we say "hon-ga aru" we are saying,
"There is a book / a book exists".
And if we move that "aru" engine to the other side of the book, we turn it white
and it becomes a descriptor, an adjectival.
So we're saying "aru hon" – "an existing book / a certain book / a book that there is".
And it's the same: "aru hi" – "a certain day".
"Aru hi Arisu-wa kawa-no soba-ni ita."
Now, the next sentence is going to be a little bit more complex, but don't worry, it's always easy
when there's a fully-functioning android to help you.
(Actually, I'm not quite fully-functioning, but for the purposes of showing you Japanese I am.)
