Lesson 12 · これ・それ・あれ — pointing at things
This, that, and that over there
Six of today's words are already on a grid you drew in lesson 6 — you learned the questions then and the answers arrive now. What is genuinely new is one decision: whether a noun is coming next.
Yesterday's chapter was forty-two words that had nothing to do with each other. Today's are mostly objects in one room, which changes what the lesson has to do: you can point at these. Most of the page is a tour, and the first section is the finger.
About the kanji on this page
Twenty-nine characters appear in the 漢字 column and twenty-four are new; you have already met 何 日 時 本 気. They are for recognition only, exactly as in lessons 10 and 11 — enough to tell two words apart on a page. There is no stroke order, no writing practice and no kanji system here, and the kana is still the form to learn. Section 3 shows the two that repeat.
1.Two rows, and the only question that matters
The six new pointing words are two rows of three. Every one of them is a distance prefix — こ, そ, あ — plus an ending, and the ending is what decides which row you need.
The grid needs JavaScript. The same sets are laid out on the question-word reference sheet.
The ど column is lesson 6's, and it has been sitting there for six lessons waiting for the other three. Read across and you learn a row; read down and you learn a distance.
Trick 1 · れ stands alone, の needs a noun
これ is the noun — it is the whole subject of the sentence and nothing may follow it. この is not a word you can finish a thought with: it must have a noun behind it, and without one the sentence is unfinished in the way English “this…” is when you trail off.
So the test is not how far away. It is am I about to say what the thing is called? If yes, use the の row. If you are only pointing, use れ.
Trick 2 · この is こ + の, and it is the same の you already know
The row ending is the linking particle from chapter 11 — the one in わたしの. So この ほん is built exactly like にほんごの ほん: something, then の, then the noun it belongs to. Nothing new is being learned here; a particle you have is being attached to a prefix you have.
2.It is territory, not distance
The middle word is the one every course gets asked about, because “that” in English covers both of the last two. Japanese is not measuring metres. It is asking whose side of the conversation the thing is on.
Trick 3 · Arabic marks the middle one with the word you
Traditional Arabic grammar sorts اسم الإشارة into three ranks, not two: القريبة near, المتوسطة middle, البعيدة far. And the middle rank is not defined by distance at all — it is defined as the forms carrying كاف الخطاب, the kāf of address, which is the second-person you stuck on the end. ذَا plus a you gives ذَاكَ. The far rank then adds لام البعد, the lām of distance, on top: ذٰلِكَ.
So both languages encode near you with a dedicated piece, and Arabic's piece is literally the word you. When you reach for それ, you are doing what ذَاكَ already does.
Trick 4 · Arabic uses one word for both rows, and moves the work onto the noun
Where Japanese has two shapes, هٰذَا does both jobs — and what tells them apart is whether the noun is definite:
- هٰذَا كِتَابٌ — this is a book. Indefinite noun, no article, so the sentence is a statement.
- هٰذَا الْكِتَابُ — this book. The الـ makes it definite, and the phrase becomes one thing you can then say something about.
Japanese puts the distinction in the demonstrative (これ / この); Arabic puts it on the noun. Same distinction, opposite end of the phrase — which is why the word cards for この, その and あの carry the الـ.
3.Two characters that repeat
Recognition only, as the note at the top says. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine are new, and almost all of them appear once — worth meeting, not worth hunting. Two do the work of five words between them.
| Kanji | Sense | Where it turns up here |
|---|---|---|
| 語 | language, word | 英語 · 日本語 · 〜語 |
| 本 | book, origin | 本 · 日本語 the one you had |
The sheet gives 〜語 its own row, which means the third line is the rule for the first two: a country plus ご is that country's language. Chapter 11 did the identical thing with 〜じん for nationality. You now have both halves of 日本語 — 日本 came yesterday — and can read the word for the language you are learning.
One character on the lecture sheet is wrong
めいし is printed with the kanji 名詞, which means noun — the part of speech. A business card is 名刺: same reading, and the second character is 刺, not 詞. Both are ordinary words, so nothing about the page looks odd; the English and Bangla columns have it right. Learn 名刺.
4.The walk
All forty-two words, in four scenes, each word in exactly one of them. Unlike yesterday's, this one is a place rather than a story — the desk, then the bag, then the machines at the back — because these words are things you could point at in a single room. Read it through once. Then press Hide on a scene and say the Japanese from the English; the gaps keep the width of the word they cover, which is a fair clue and not the answer.
The walk is rendered from assets/story12-data.js and needs
JavaScript. Every word it contains is also on a card in section 5 below.
5.Forty-two words
The same words as cards, grouped the way the walk moves through them. Wrong answers in the drill come from inside a group, so the hard calls are the genuinely hard ones: ノート against てちょう, カード against めいし, and all three pens.
The word cards need JavaScript. Every word on them appears in the walk above.
Drill them for meaning
The drill needs JavaScript. Every word it asks about is in the list above.
6.One question, two answers
No new grammar is needed to use any of this. The frame is chapter 6's question and chapter 11's です, with today's なん dropped into the middle.
これは なんですか。
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| これは なんですか。 | What is this? |
| それは じしょです。 | That is a dictionary. |
| あれは わたしの かばんです。 | That over there is my bag. |
| これは にほんごの ほんです。 | This is a Japanese book. |
The last two lines are the same shape. わたしの かばん and にほんごの ほん both link two nouns with の, and so does この ほん from section 1. One particle, three jobs that are really one job.
Asked a yes-or-no version of that question, there are two replies and you will use almost nothing else:
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| それは じしょですか。 | Is that a dictionary? |
| はい、そうです。 | Yes, that's right. |
| いいえ、ちがいます。 | No, that's wrong. |
そう is the そ of this chapter's own set — literally that way, your way. Answering そうです is agreeing with the shape the other person put the question in, which is why it only answers a question ending in a noun plus ですか. ちがいます means it differs: Japanese corrects the statement rather than the speaker, and that is why it lands more softly than a flat “no”.
Trick 5 · The shorter the kana, the less it tells you
Three of today's words are traps in kana alone, and the dictionary makes the point better than any argument could:
- ご — one mora. The first four entries are 五 five, 後 after, 碁 the board game, and only then 語.
- そう — the sense this chapter wants, 然う, is fifth, behind 僧 a monk and three others.
- なん — 難 difficulty comes before 何 what.
This is the honest answer to why the lecture sheet carries a 漢字 column at all, and it is chapter 11's かんこく catch sharpened: kana records the sound, and a short sound belongs to a great many words.
7.Being given something
Five set sentences, in the order they are actually said. Together they are the whole of a small gift changing hands — which in Japan is a scripted exchange, and the script is short enough to learn in one sitting.
-
1.It's nothing — a token of my gratitude. Said while handing it over.
Japaneseほんの きもちです。
hon no kimochi desu
Arabicهٰذَا شَيْءٌ بَسِيطٌ.
hādhā shayʾun basīṭ
-
2.Thank you very much.
Japanese［どうも］ありがとう［ございます］。
dōmo arigatō gozaimasu
Arabicشُكْرًا جَزِيلًا.
shukran jazīlan
-
3.I see. / Is that so? — the whole of Japanese listening, in four beats.
Japaneseそうですか。
sō desu ka
Arabicآهِ، فَهِمْتُ.
āhi, fahimtu
-
4.I shall be in your care from now on. Said on joining a company, a class or a family.
Japaneseこれから おせわに なります。
kore kara osewa ni narimasu
Arabicأَرْجُو حُسْنَ رِعَايَتِكُمْ.
arjū ḥusna riʿāyatikum
-
5.The pleasure is mine — the reply to yesterday's どうぞ よろしく.
Japaneseこちら こそ よろしく。
kochira koso yoroshiku
Arabicبَلِ الشَّرَفُ لِي.
bali sh-sharafu lī
Phrase 5 is the useful one, and it only makes sense next to yesterday's page. どうぞ よろしく おねがいします was chapter 11's closing line; こちら こそ よろしく is what the other person says back. こちら is こそあど again — the こ member of the same ちら set as どちら, so this side means me. Two lecture sheets a day apart turn out to be two halves of one conversation.
8.Sources
- Jisho.org, serving JMdict/EDICT — every reading, gloss and commonness tag on this page, and the source of all three catches in Trick 5. Read this one if you read only one, and look up ご yourself: seeing four commoner words ahead of the one you wanted is the argument section 3 is making.
- Tofugu — こそあど for the grid in section 1, and for why そ is the listener's territory rather than a middle distance. It is the source lesson 6's grid was built from.
- Minna no Nihongo I, 3A Corporation. This chapter's word list is that textbook's lesson 2, word for word and in the same order, including the brackets around カセット and ございます.
- Demonstrative for three-way systems being person-oriented rather than distance-oriented, Arabic grammar for the morphology of ذٰلِكَ, and اسم إشارة for the traditional three ranks and كاف الخطاب. They do not agree with each other; Trick 3 says where.
- en.wiktionary, 語 and 名刺 — the second is the check behind the correction in section 3.
- Question-word sheet — the full こそあど grid, of which this chapter fills in two rows. One day, every word is the course-wide version of section 4's walk.