Everyday scenes in Japan, from introductions to a visit to the bank. In each one you say your role’s lines out loud.
みちあんない
Evening, an unfamiliar neighbourhood: you are due at a friend’s housewarming by six and still have no flowers. The first person you stop on the street has lived here only a month and doesn’t know the area — all they remember is a flower shop somewhere in front of the station, and whether it is still open they cannot say.
すみません、近くに花屋さんはありませんか。
shortabout 2 min
みちあんない
A visitor stops you on the street at dusk: they have an exam tomorrow and have been looking for the city library for a while now. The road is the right one, but there are two traffic lights ahead — and when they repeat the directions back, they turn at the wrong one.
すみません、市立図書館はこの道でいいですか。
shortabout 2 min
あいさつ
A student from your year strikes up a conversation before class: it turns out you are taking the same course, the talk moves on to where you learned your Japanese, and it ends with an invitation to the Japanese club on Friday.
はじめまして。二年の田中です。こちらは初めてですか。
shortabout 2 min
あいさつ
You run into a former colleague after three years: what you do now, what has changed at the company and when everyone will get together.
あ、田中さんじゃないですか。お久しぶりです。もう三年になりますね。
shortabout 2 min
レストラン
It’s your first time at this restaurant and there is far too much on the menu to choose from. Your friend recommends the set they had here last month — but you don’t eat meat. The fish one is cheaper, only the portion is more than you could finish, and your friend offers to order a single dish for the two of you.
この店は初めてなんですが、メニューが多くて選べません。何がおいしいですか。
mediumabout 3 min
レストラン
You come in for a quick meal before the film, but every table is taken: an hour’s wait will not work, and the host offers two seats side by side at the far end of the counter, where the food comes out faster too.
二人ですが、席はありますか。七時半の映画までに食べたいんです。
shortabout 2 min
かいもの
An evening at the convenience store: a bento and a coffee, no heating and no paid bag, chopsticks and a wet wipe, a loyalty card left at home and payment by card.
いらっしゃいませ。
shortabout 2 min
かいもの
You are choosing a present for your mother’s sixtieth: the assistant asks about her, offers gloves, then a scarf — light brown, and pricier than you planned — and wraps it for Sunday.
何かお探しですか。
mediumabout 4 min
えき
You are meeting a friend at six and you have never been in this station before. The attendant names your platform, points out where to buy a four-hundred-yen ticket and does the arithmetic: twenty-five minutes on the train — you will make it if you hurry.
すみません、東京に行きたいんですが。
shortabout 2 min
えき
Your flight is at one and the next express gets there too late: a station attendant works out another route, corrects you about the transfer and warns that the train leaves in five minutes.
お客様、何かお探しですか。
mediumabout 3 min
びょういん
You have been coughing for a week, and in this room it is already settled: the examination is over, it is a bad cold, and a strong cough medicine is being written out. One thing about you is not known here — you spend your whole working day behind the wheel, and this medicine makes you drowsy. Only you can say so, and it has to be said now, before the appointment ends.
ひどい風邪ですね。咳によく効く薬を出します。
shortabout 2 min
びょういん
You called a colleague about work yesterday, and his wife answered: he is in the hospital, the surgery was on Tuesday, and nobody at the office knows. You stopped by after work — not to visit him, but because the materials he was handling are due on Monday. You offer to take the work over, and he asks for something else: bring him his laptop and he will do it himself. You cannot simply agree, and you cannot simply refuse.
きのう仕事で電話したら、奥さんに入院だと聞きました。びっくりしました。
mediumabout 3 min
ホテル
You land on a morning flight and reach the hotel by midday, with a suitcase and after a night without sleep. The booking is there, but check-in starts at three, and the room will not be yours before then. So there is something else to settle: where to leave the suitcase, and what to do with those three hours.
早く着いてしまったんですが、今チェックインできますか。
shortabout 2 min
ホテル
It is morning, the second night of four behind you. The people next door talked until late, and you barely slept. You go down to the desk to ask for another room — there are two more nights to come. But nothing is free today, and the night that has to be got through is tonight.
隣の部屋が夜遅くまでとてもうるさかったんです。あまりよく眠れませんでした。
mediumabout 3 min
でんわ
Morning, and you are the first one in: the shop opens at half past nine, the delivery comes at nine, and that driver will not wait. Then the manager rings. He is on his way in, but his train has stopped between stations after an accident, and the key to the shop is with him. Nobody knows when it will move again. Neither of you can find a way out alone: he knows half of what is needed, and you know the other half.
はい、田中です。
mediumabout 4 min
でんわ
Evening. You and a friend are travelling together tomorrow, the meeting time has changed, and you ring her at home to tell her. Her father picks up: Sakura is out until around ten, and you have already tried her mobile with no answer. The call could end there, but her father knows more about his daughter than he was asked, and each time he says a little more than the answer required. The message will have to go through him — and in the end it won’t only be the time.
もしもし、田中ですが、さくらさん、いらっしゃいますか。
shortabout 2 min
ゆうびんきょく
A parcel came while nobody was home, so here you are at the post office counter with the slip. Except the parcel isn’t in yet: the van gets back around six, and you work until eight. Delivering again tomorrow won’t work either — tomorrow morning you leave on a week-long business trip. Both ways are closed, and the answer isn’t yours to find.
昼に荷物が届いたようなんですが、留守でした。これ、今受け取れますか。
shortabout 2 min
ゆうびんきょく
Your friend abroad has a birthday next Friday, and the box with her present is already on the counter at the international post office. Airmail takes about a week, so it would get there in time. But no parcel goes abroad without the clerk asking what is inside, and inside, among the sweets, there is perfume — and perfume is not carried by air at all, while by sea it takes two months. The rule will not bend and Friday will not move, so the way out is yours to find.
友達の誕生日が今度の金曜日なんです。この荷物、間に合いますか。
shortabout 2 min
かいもの
A week ago you bought your son shoes here. He tried them on at home — they pinch his toes; he hasn’t worn them outside. You threw the receipt away and came for your money anyway. The owner remembers you, so the receipt isn’t needed, but the money isn’t coming back: only an exchange. And a bigger pair is no answer — he will tell you why. Your son has a school outing on Friday, and the conversation turns from which size to which day.
先週、息子さんの靴ですね。どうしましたか。
shortabout 2 min
えき
Morning, pouring rain, the trains have stopped — and you are due at work by nine. A station attendant walks down the platform past the people waiting; you stop him, and it turns out that nobody can say when the trains will run again. So you will have to get there another way. And at work words alone will not do — you need a piece of paper: he knows what it is called, you know how much time ought to be written on it.
あのう、電車が止まっているんですけど、九時までに会社に行きたいんですが。
shortabout 2 min
おわび
Before your trip, you borrowed a camera from someone a year above you in your seminar group. You dropped it on some temple steps, and now it won’t work. You’ve come to give it back — and the first thing they ask is how the trip went.
旅行はどうでしたか。写真、たくさん撮れましたか。
shortabout 2 min
おわび
The meeting was moved to another room and an email went round about it, but you were out all morning and never saw it. The usual meeting room was empty, and by the time you found the right one, the meeting was over. The person who called it is still there: you need to apologise and find out what was decided without you.
遅れてすみません。いつもの会議室に誰もいなくて、中止かと思ったんです。
shortabout 2 min
さそい
Mori is leaving at the end of the month, and you are organising the farewell. You have already asked everyone else which days suit them and picked the last Friday of the month. Mori hasn’t been told a word — it is meant to be a surprise. All that is left is to invite the one who has lunch with Mori every day — and who knows something about Mori’s last days that you don’t.
森さんの送別会を、最後の金曜日にするんですが、一緒にどうですか。
mediumabout 3 min
さそい
A small group of colleagues goes out to see the blossom every year, and this year you are being asked along for the first time. The day is already settled — next Saturday — and nobody is going to move it. Except that the park you walk past every morning is in bloom already: the year is early, and by Saturday there will be nothing left to look at. You are the only one who knows, and it has to be said now.
来週の土曜日、みんなでお花見に行くんですが、一緒に行きませんか。
shortabout 2 min
おことわり
You once mentioned having a car, and a colleague from the next department remembered. Now it’s the lunch break, and the conversation turns to that very car. Only the car is your dad’s, not yours — and lending it isn’t your call.
車、持ってるって言ってましたよね。
shortabout 2 min
おことわり
Everyone is staying late tonight: the table for tomorrow’s meeting has to be checked, and it was only decided today. But today is your day to pick up your child — and that has to happen before six-thirty. You need to tell the person running the preparations now, before the working day is over.
今夜の残業のことなんですが、きょうは私が子どもを迎えに行く日なんです。
shortabout 2 min
おねがい
On Saturday afternoon you have a job interview, for a job after graduation. But you’re also down for a shift at your part-time job that day, and you can’t leave halfway through. It’s your break, and a coworker from your shifts is here — someone you don’t know well enough to just ask outright.
土曜日って、バイト入っていますか。
shortabout 2 min
おねがい
Next year you’re going to study in Canada for a year on a scholarship, and the application needs a letter of recommendation from a language teacher. You’ve been taking the same English class for two years — but the teacher knows you only from class, nothing more. It’s a weekday, and you stop by the office to ask.
先生、留学のことで、書いていただきたい書類があるんですが。
mediumabout 2 min
ざつだん
Evening, the street in front of the house. You moved in a month ago, and every evening you hear a noise from the direction of the shrine — and long ago settled it in your own mind as something going on at the school. Someone who has lived on this street for years is standing by their door and speaks first: doesn’t the evening noise bother you? It turns out to be the children rehearsing — there’s a festival at the end of the month, and they rehearse every evening all month long. Where you lived before, a festival was something you went to watch, and who put it on you never knew.
こんばんは。先月越してきたかたですよね。夜の音、うるさくないですか。
mediumabout 3 min
ざつだん
Morning, rain since dawn. The train ran fifteen minutes late and you had to run from the station. Your colleague by the door has been riding the same line for years and isn’t surprised by the news — only asks whether it was late again. To you it was one unlucky morning; here it turns out to be a property of the line that everyone has known about for a long time. And with it comes the explanation for something you had been explaining to yourself another way: why, on rainy days, your colleague is always in ahead of you.
ひどい雨ですね。電車が十五分遅れて、駅から走ってきたんです。
shortabout 2 min