Hello Everyone,
In today’s lesson we are going to learn how to ask the location of objects or persons and how to answer using kosoado. Let’s go!
Where is it?
Tor ask someone the location of some object or person in Japanese, one will state the searched ochect or person followed by the question “どこ です か。” [doko desu ka. ] /where is it?/. For instance, if you are looking for your glasses, you will ask:
/Where are my glasses?/
Quite simple isn’t it?
If you want to sound more casual, you can strip down the polite ending and just say: “めがね は どこ？” , and sound even more casual by stripping down particles: “めがね、どこ？”.
Your glasses are here/there/over there…
We will now see how to give an answer to such question by indicating the position relatively to our interlocutor and ourself. This will be achieved by using the 3 locators of the kosoado (as in the lesson What’s This?):
- ここ [koko] /here/, indicating a place close to the person who answers,
- そこ [soko] /there/, indicating a place close to the person who asked the question,
- あそこ [asoko] /over there/, indicating a place away from both the person who asked the question and the person who answers.
So if you were asked the question above and the glasses are laying on a table close to you you would answer:
Or more casually just: ここ。
If there could be some ambiguity in the answer, for example if both you and your interlocutor have glasses, or if you heard your interlocutor muttering about some lost object and asking “どこ？” or “どこ です か。”, you could precise the topic of your answer:
/Your glasses are here./
Now if the glasses are nearby your interlocutor you will answer: “そこ です。”.
And if the glasses are on a table away from both you and your interlocutor you will answer: “あそこ です。”.
With a little bit of practice you will quickly understand the difference between ここ, そこ and あそこ and answering such question will become trivial.
Exercises
Have a look at the picture above.
Vocabulary:
| アリス | [ARISU] | /Alice/ | Alice |
| 白兎 |
[shiro usagi ] | /white/rabbit/ | the White Rabbit |
| 帽子屋 | [bo~shi-ya] | /hat/shop/ | the Hatter |
| 本 | [hon] | /book/ | book |
| 帽子 | [bo~shi] | /hat/ | hat |
白兎
: 本 は どこ です か。
アリス: The book is here.
白兎
: Where is the hat?
アリス: 帽子 は、そこ です。
白兎
: Where is the Hatter?
アリス: The Hatter is over there.
Here it is with this lesson. I hope you enjoyed it!
Cheers,
Stéphane
