Japanese Learning: Sentence expressing where something/someone is; “[Something/someone] wa [Place/location] desu.”

Yesterday’s we learned a sentence construction that expresses where the place is, using one of “Ko-so-a words”.

1. [Name of a Place] wa [Ko-so-a word for place] desu.

example ; Toire wa asoko desu. (The toilet is over there.)

This construction can be interrogative as below

example ; Toire wa doko desuka. (Where is a toilet?)

Since “koko”, “soko”, and “asoko” are pronouns for places, they don’t tell you what kind of the place there is. Let’s learn a sentence telling what is where with a noun describing place/location.

2. “[Something] wa [Place/location] desu.”

– Shokudou wa Ni-kai desu. (The dining room is on the second floor)

Shokudou; a dining room

Ni-kai; the second floor. Note that floors are counted with the same way as US, but different from British.

3. [Someone] wa [Place/location] desu.”

– Satou-san wa Kyoushitsu desu. (Ms. Sato is in the classroom.)

Practice and remember the following sentences;

A : Satou-san wa doko desuka. (Where is Ms. Sato?)

B : Satou-san wa Shokudou desu. (Ms. Sato is in the dining room.)

For the answer of person B, it is better not to use “Kanojo” that is corresponding to “she” in English. Using “Kanojo” is sometimes okay, but it’s better to use her name “Satou-san”. Note that the word “Kanojo” is quite often used to mean a girl friend who is very intimate.

＜説明事項の漏れを防止するために、当ブログの”Japanese Learning”では、スリーエーネットワーク、”みんなの日本語 初級I 第2版”の練習Aを参照しています。今日は第3課のA3に関連しています。＞