カテゴリー: 日本語学習

We have already learned two types of interrogatives;

1. Yes-No questions

A : Koukousei desuka. (Are you a high school student?)

B : Iie, watashi wa koukousei dewa arimasen. (No, I am not a high school student.)

A : Ja, Daigakusei desuka. (Then, are you a university student?)

B : Hai, Watashi wa Daigakusei desu. (Yes, I am a university student.)

2. Wh-questions

A : Ano hito wa dare desuka. (Who is that person?)

B : Ano hito wa Sato-san desu. (That person is Ms. Sato.)

Today we are going to learn another type of interrogative sentence. It is one of multiple choice questions, but with the least number of choices.

3. Multiple choice questions

A : Sore wa Hon desuka, Jisho desuka. (Is it a book or a dictionary?)

B : Kore wa Hon desu. (This is a book.)

The sentence A is a “Two-choice question”. When you are asked by the A, you cannot answer with “Hai (yes)” or “Iie (no)”. You need to choose one of the two, and to answer by saying the nouns that was used in the question. Perhaps there may be a situation in which you would say like the follows;

B’ : Iie, Hon demo Jisho demo arimasen. Nohto desu.

(No, this is neither book nor dictionary, but a notebook.)

But I want you to learn one at a time. Don’t care much about the answer B’. What you need to learn today is the question A and the answer B.

Yesterday we learned “Kore”. Kore, Sore, and Are are pronouns and one of the word groups of “Ko-So-A words”. Yesterday I wrote that Kore, Sore, and Are are corresponding to “This”, “It”, and “That”, respectively. Another definition is like; Kore is a thing here or near, Sore is a thing in middle distance, Are is a thing that is in distant place. However, “Sore” is not so simple. If a speaker and a listener are together in limited space like inside taxi, the definition “Sore is in middle distance” is okay. But in many situations, what is Sore for a speaker can be Kore for a listener.

– Kore : a thing very near to the speaker and the listener

– Sore : a thing a little distant from the speaker but very near to the listener

– Are : a thing far from both of the speaker and the listener

Suppose that there is a dictionary on the table. Person A and B are standing by the table and they are face to face.

A : Kore wa nan desuka. (What is this?)

B : Kore wa Jisho desu. (This is a dictionary.)

This is yesterday’s conversation.

Different from the situation above, suppose that Person A and B are standing face to face with the distance of 2 meters (6 feet) between the two. The person B has a smartphone on her hand.

A : Sore wa nan desuka. (What is it?)

B : Kore wa Sumaatofon desu. (This is a smartphone.)