Hi everyone! My study’s have been going well. I’m at a point now where I sometimes understand a full (granted basic) spoken sentence. I’m really proud of that but, now, I have a bit of advice to ask…
That Japanese is probably awful! The website I use for grammar checks cut me off for today haha! I’ll hide what I wanted to say incase any of y’all wanna try and grammar check what I said as practice.
What I meant to say:
I’m going to a Japanese restaurant with friends soon. I can speak Japanese with the staff there! Is there any helpful vocabulary (that you’ve found) that I could learn?
You definitely seem to have improved since last time!
Taking a look at your sentence (because I was too tired to recognise your actual question haha ), there are some grammatical and word choice issues, but it’s understandable. In particular take a look at how you could rephrase your second sentence. Also do note that even though website like bunpo-check.com will correct directly-incorrect grammar, it won’t correct word choice per se.
Take everything I say with a grain of salt by the way, I’m not fluent yet. とはいえ, sticking closely to your English version I would phrase it more like:
近々、友達と日本食のレストランに行きます。（そこでは）店員さんと日本語で話せます！役に立つ*語彙を知っていれば、教えてくれませんか？
Though maybe in a more natural way it would be like:
近々、友達と日本食のレストランに行きます。店員さんと日本語で話せます！役に立つ語彙があれば、教えてくれませんか？
Though the 近々 still feels kinda odd, but since I’m not yet 上手 enough I don’t know what else to say.
I would say your main problem here is that you are trying to translate everything too literally form your native language. The best way to solve this problem is to just engage in as much Japanese content as possible.
outside of japan i would stick to the basics - thanks, ご馳走様、ordering off a menu maybe. there’s nothing worse than trying to speak japanese to staff you assume are japanese speakers only to be met with a confused look and then they start barking mandarin back behind the counter. vary depending how friendly your chef/server is but yeh
It’s not in Japan so I fully expect that lol, I plan to ask “hey what’s your first language!” And go from there… all the best restaurants locally (no matter the genre) are run by Chinese immigrants, so I’ll be ready for disappointment!
I’ve been pretty careful about that, I sorta run what I’ve formulated though google translate to double check meaning… I’ve also gotten “hi native” which has been really fun! Thanks for the advice! It’s definitely a product of being so new to the language, despite how obsessively I’ve been studying! (Started mid December)
Edit to my edit: I’ve just realized you acknowledged the last bit I said in this post and gave me a really nice complement!! Thank you
I don’t know when you’re going since you said you’re going to the restaurant soon. I want to piggyback off of Jintor’s comment with prepare for no Japanese people working there, but also while at work be prepared that you might not have any time to talk to them even if they do speak Japanese while they’re on the clock working.
Regarding your question in Japanese,
You could use 近日 instead of 近々, but I would say instead of 近々 (because in my experience I have never heard this said here in Japan unless it was like a formal meeting) you can use 行くつもりです/ 行く予定です to indicate future plans or just use 行きます because Japanese present tense can also be interpreted as future tense as well. There are also words like そろそろ、まもなく、もうすぐ、すぐに etc. but they all read as something that will happen at least within the same day/within a few hours to me.
For the answer to your question:
ありがとうございます、 すみません、 ごちそうさまでした、おいしかったです、また来ます、and then read the menu items? If you want you can ask おすすめは何ですか？which means what do you recommend? but outside of these common phrases I don’t think there are that many special words/phrases that would be necessary to know if it’s a restaurant in your country.
I see! I (despite my advice being not to directly translate) was looking for a directly translated word for “soon”, but it stumped me because there really isn’t a good word for this in Japanese (that I know of), at least not one which can be used in the same way. Thanks a lot haha!
), there are some grammatical and word choice issues, but it’s understandable. In particular take a look at how you could rephrase your second sentence. Also do note that even though website like 