What do you think about "keigo"?

Business Japanese

Make the following e-mail message to formal/business style.

田中さん
こんにちは。
明日の打ち合わせの時間ですが、１４時に変えてもらえませんか。
すみません。
スミス

↓ ↓ ↓

田中様
お世話になっております。
明日の打ち合わせの時間ですが１４時に変更させていただけませんでしょうか。
直前の変更でご迷惑をお掛けして申し訳ございません。
よろしくお願いいたします。
スミス

たなかさま
おせわになっております。
あしたの うちあわせの じかんですが １４じに へんこうさせていただけませんでしょうか。
ちょくぜんの へんこうで ごめいわくを おかけして もうしわけございません。
よろしくおねがいいたします。
スミス

★Point★

お世話になっております : You usually write this sentence first for the business e-mail to someone NOT from your company.
For an e-mail among co-workers, お疲れ様です should be used instead.

～させていただけませんでしょうか : causative verb + いただけませんでしょうか → Would you mind if I…?
～させてもらえない？ is for a casual conversation.

Yes, keigo is very difficult and the rules are quite complicated.
Honorific, humble, polite, special verbs… whatever.
I personally think the important point is how you show your respect for the person.
Super complicated keigo is not always necessary.
We, Japanese people don’t really say よい週末をお過ごしください (Have a great weekend) in a business e-mail, but I would feel good if someone write to me something like that.
Emphasize what you want to write to the person so that your e-mail will never be rude. :-)

Special gift wrapping for you

Have you asked a shop clerk to gift-wrap in Japanese when you buy a gift for someone?

For gift-wrapping, you would ask
プレゼント用にお願いします。
(purezento youni onegaishimasu)
Please make it gift-wrapped.

When it's for yourself, i.e. you don't need gift-wrapping,
自宅用です。
(jitaku you desu)
It's for my own.

If you ask them to gift-wrap, they usually wrap it with beautiful paper/bag and a ribbon or sticker.

Do you know there is another option for gift-wrapping in Japan?

It's のし (noshi).

Noshi is a gift wrapping paper printed the type of gift and your name.

Noshi is usually used for a formal gift as a traditional style like wedding gift, baby gift etc.
There are some very strict rules for using the design like how many strings there should be for wedding gifts. The number of strings for wedding gift is different from the one for baby gifts. The way of tying the strings, the color...
http://www.kataoka.com/enjoy/gift/wrapping/

Most of Japanese people can't explain the detailed rules and actually recently we don't really use noshi.

It's just a very traditional Japanese gift style.

BUT! On the other hand, I think if you give a gift to your friend using noshi, it must be super cool.
The type of gift and your name is printed on a Japanese traditional paper and it's usually free! Cool, isn't it.

Let's try to ask a shop clerk to gift-wrap with noshi and give the special present for your friend!

I'm asking noshi for my friend's birthday present today.

Let's go!!

Most of department stores offer noshi wrapping service. (Casual shops might not offer it.)
You can buy anything you want but sometimes they charge you for a gift box because they usually need a box when they wrap with noshi.
I recommend you go to a food department and choose a box of assorted sweets so that they won't ask you about a box.

1. Choose a gift.

「すみません、これ、お願いします。」
(sumimasen kore onegaishimasu)
Excuse me, I'll have this one.

2. Ask のし wrapping service. (The most important part!)

「プレゼント用にお願いします。のしをつけてもらえますか。誕生日プレゼントです。」
(purezento youni onegaishimasu. noshi o tsukete moraemasuka. tanjoubi prezento desu.)
Please make it gift-wrapped. Could you put noshi on it please? It's a birthday present.
 
3. The clerk confirmed me if the title is OK with 誕生日御祝(tanjoubi oiwai) "birthday celebrating"

「はい、それでお願いします。」
(hai, sorede onegaishimasu)
Yes, please make it so.

*You don't need to know the detailed rules for noshi I mentioned above. They will choose an appropriate one depending on your purpose.

4. The clerk asked me what name I want them to print there.
The shop I went had a special paper for ordering noshi and I just wrote my name there.
(There are three boxes here because sometimes you want to give a gift with some other people.)

Some shops don't have this kind of paper but they usually ask you to write (not "say") your name on a paper anyway.
Kanji, hiragana or katakana, anything would be fine.
(Usually you put your full name or family name there.) 
I asked to print あこ (Ako) this time.
I'm sure alphabet would be OK, too but I guess they will ask following questions like if it's OK to print it as vertical writing or something.

5. The clerk goes somewhere to print your noshi and finally you can get a special original gift!


In addition to a birthday present, these are some other choices for a casual gift you might want to know.

御出産祝 (goshussan iwai) baby gift
御結婚祝 (gokekkon iwai) wedding gift
母の日 (haha no hi) Mother's Day
父の日 (chichi no hi) Father's Day
 
The staff I talked today asked me if I was sure I wanted noshi instead of a birthday message card because using noshi for a birthday gift is not so common.
But actually there are so many choices for using noshi and it's up to you unless the situation you give the gift is very formal.

This is free "noshi printing" service
http://www.noshi.jp/
See 3.上書きを選ぶ and you'll see so many types of noshi there including 御誕生日祝い birthday wishes.

If you try to ask noshi wrapping, let me know how it goes please.
Also if there is a special wrapping system in your country, let me know about it, too!

1,000yen cookies look pretty gorgeous now, don't they!

Discount, discount, discount!

割(wari) means "discount".

学割(gakuwari) "student discount" is common but it seems offering an original discount ○○割 is quite popular recently.

I went out to look for posters of a number of different discount and took pictures!


学割(gakuwari) student discount is a standard discount for mobile companies now.

 

 

 

 

 乗り換え割(norikae wari) "transfer discount" is another popular discount.

"If you will switch to our company from another company, we will give you a discount."

 

 

平日割(heijitsu wari) "weekdays discount" if for people who use their service on weekdays not weekends.

 

パック割(pakku wari) "package discount" is for people who buy more than two of their items.

まとめ割(matome wari) "putting together discount" is same as パック割(pakku wari).

 

 

学生家族いっしょ割(gakusei kazoku issho wari) "student and family together discount" by Docomo and 家族の学割(kazoku no gakuwari) "family's student discount" by Softbank is that not only students, but also the students' family will get a discount.

 

 

 

Finally, this is みんな割(minna wari) "everyone discount" (!)
If you buy an item with someone else like your family, friends, boyfriend or girlfriend, you will get a discount.

What kind of discount have you gotten?
I think there are more different types of discount. If you find any, let me know please!

JLPT

I took TOEIC last month and got the result for it today.
My score this time was 910 (Listening 440 Reading 470) and this is the best score of mine. Yay!

I don't think TOEIC is a perfect test for checking one's English skills.
They don't have open questions, most of the topics are about business, new style reading section (answering questions reading two documents) is too complicated etc...
How about TOEFL or 英検(eiken) ?
They are not perfect tests either I think.

I sometimes hear the opinion that having a good score for TOEIC (or other tests) doesn't mean anything. Well, I agree that the score doesn't prove one's English level exactly.

For me, the most important point of taking a test is that I'm motivated to study English by taking it.

When I started teaching Japanese as a freelance teacher 12years ago (12years ago!!) my English level was much lower than now and I had a hard time communicating with my students.
I couldn't understand English e-mails from my students, it took forever to reply them.
I didn't have any native English speaker friends and there wasn't any convenient dictionary App at that time.
I still remember I was feeling it seemed I couldn't communicate with my clients at all forever and used to cry often in front of my computer. (!)

Since then I've studied English but I hardly ever feel my English skills have improved.
I always feel "I can understand some English but I'm not a bilingual at all"
I guess most of intermediate - advanced learners (except for super advanced learners maybe) feel the same.

Keeping motivated to study a language without feeling an improvement is very hard.

Now I take TOEIC about once a year and I feel very good when I know my score gets better.

What do you think about taking a language test?
How do you motivate yourself to keep studying a language?

Have you ever tried the JLPT Japanese language proficiency test? This test is not a perfect test either but still I think this is a good examination for checking your Japanese skills.

There are 5 levels for JLPT from N1 to N5 and each level has reading part and listening part.
All of them are multiple-choice questions.

The next JLPT will be held on July 6th and the application period for it will be until April 30th.
See their official website  https://www.jlpt.jp/e/index.html for details.

JLPT is held only twice a year. Don't miss this chance!

Shouganai

There are some (actually a lot of!) Japanese words which are difficult to translate to English.

I've written about the greeting お疲れ様(otsukaresama) before.
http://nihongonihongo.blogspot.jp/2005/10/are-your-friends-tired.html

Today, let's talk about the expression しょうがない(shouganai).

"Shouganai" is very Japanese expression and one of the most difficult words to translate.

I would describe

"I can't do anything, so I give up"

"Shouganai" is used in those situations.

-She was going to coming to our party but her schedule has been changed and she canceled. It's "shouganai".

-The shoes I wanted to buy were sold out when I went to the shop. I should've been there earlier. It's "shouganai".

-I have wrinkles on my face and I don't like them. It's "shouganai".

If the topic is very serious like earthquake or someone's death, you don't say "shouganai".
"shouganai" sounds too light for those serious situation.

When I wrote this topic on Twitter, some people suggested their ideas of translation for it.

"whatcha gonna do?"
"it can't be helped."
"It's not worth complaining about."
"That's just the way it is."

Since I don't really understand the actual nuance of those English words, I can't tell which is the "best answer" but discussing this kind of topic is always very interesting.

Oh, by the way, there are polite ways to say "shouganai", too.

Casual
しょうがない(shouganai)
↓
Polite
仕方ない(shikatanai)
↓
Extremely polite
致し方ない(itashikatanai)

Having different polite level for one expression is complicated?
It's... shouganai!


Special thanks to Japan This, Billy and Richard on Twitter conversation!

Here is the website about Japan "Japan This". 
Check his informative and cool blog!
http://markystar.wordpress.com/