Introducing Yourself
“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.“ - Unknown
Based off of what you’ve learned so far, you can now actually introduce yourself without learning anything new. Sweet!
One question I’ve gotten before (and I thought I’d answer it right here, in case you were wondering too) is:
“Why don’t you teach introducing yourself at the beginning? Every other textbook does this.”
Well, this is no ordinary textbook. Up until this point, you wouldn’t have been able to understand how the grammar in an introduction works. Sure, you could learn the sounds and string them together like a monkey, but I think it makes a lot more sense to be able to understand the underlying meanings. That way, you’re not memorizing, you’re thinking. Thinking is always good in my book.
Why don’t you take a look at the following sentence. I bet you can figure it out all on your own – if not, there’s more explanation on it below.
a わたし は こういち です
There, now you know who I am, what about you? Who the heck are you? Let’s take a look at the sentence above, piece by piece.
わたし – This is the (standard) word for “I.” You just learned this word (hopefully) a couple pages ago, in this very chapter.
は – This is the particle は, which you learned to mean “is, am, are,” etc., depending on the situation. In this case, the particle は would translate to “am” in English.
こういち – that’s my name (Koichi)
です – Indicates that this sentence is present tense.
Do you see how all these pieces fit together? Does it make sense why you’re learning this now (and not before?). You’ve learned everything here already! Now you just have to practice putting things together. In fact, the entire pattern of the sentence reminds me of something… Does “A は B です” ring any bells?
Now it’s your turn. First, take a look at the pattern. All you have to do is replace the blank with your name (no さん on the end of your own name, remember?).
a わたし は ＿＿＿＿＿＿ です
What? Don’t know what your name would be in Japanese? Hit me up and send me an email. Happy to let you know.
Now, this pattern isn’t limited to our own names either. You can use this with other people when talking about their names as well. To do that, though, I think it’s time to learn a bit about name-enders like “さん.”