Hobbies & Interests
I like games, but how do I say that in Japanese?
Recap
In my previous blog post titled Introductory Phrases – I wrote about some useful phrases and studies I done around them.
Study Notes
Homework
At the end of the first lesson, my tutor set me homework to do so I can try out some of the new things I’ve learned and look into other areas I’ve not studied yet.
My homework was to write about what I liked and then get feedback on my grammar in the next lesson.
So I sat down and wrote this in English:
I like programming because it’s challenging/hard, and I play a lot of games.
From the previous lesson, I knew how to write out part of this.
I like programming.
Watashi wa Puroguramingu ga suki desu.
Wa-ta-shi wa pu-ru-gu-ra-min-goo ga su-ki des
わらし わ ぷろぐらみんぐ が すき です
I broke this down a bit so I could further understand what I was writing.
“Ga” is a subject marker that is placed immediately after the thing that is liked (In this case, programming)
“Wa” doesn’t translate to English and it is a particle which are topic markers.
“Car wa red is” the “wa” shoes that the car is the subject “I wa happy is” is like saying “I am happy”.
In the previous lesson, I learned about the word “Totemo” which is used to exaggerate something, so this was added to my sentence.
Watashi wa Puroguramingu ga totemo suki desu.
Now I needed to write the next part:
I play a lot of games.
I broke the sentence down and wrote it following the patterns of the grammar from the previous sentence, and I’ve written:
Watashi wa gemu ga asobimasu takusan desu
I then need to write the reason I like programming:
I like programming because it is challenging/hard.
Watashi wa Puroguramingu ga suki soreha hado kara desu.
I put this all together and the final sentence I had was:
I like programming because it is challenging hard and I play a lot of games.
Watashi wa Puroguramingu ga suki soreha hado kara desu to watashi wa gemu ga asobimasu takusan desu.
Homework Feedback
It’s great that I went away and done this homework by myself, as I was able to do some research into different phrases and learn some stuff.
I knew I wasn’t entirely right with the sentence I wrote, so the feedback which I got was really important!
The first sentence which I wrote about liking programming because it’s hard/challenging should’ve been written:
Watashi wa puroguramingu ga suki desu.
Nazenara, muzukashi-kara desu.
“Naze” translates to why, and “Nara” translates to because, we can then use “Nazenara” to say because, but it’s usually put at the start of sentences!
“Muzukashi” means difficult.
“Suki” means like, but, if you put “Dai” (which means big) in front of Suki to make “Daisuki” that is like saying love!
And a bonus word! “Tanoshi” means fun, or interesting!
For the other sentence I wrote about how I play a lot of games, I should’ve wrote:
Watashi wa takusan game wo shimasu.
In this sentence, “shimasu” means do, but it’s a formal way of saying do, so if you wanted to say do in a more casual way, you can instead use “suru”. In the example, “game wo shimasu” directly translates to “do game”.
In my previous sentence I have done for my homework, I used the word “asobimasu” and this is a formal way of saying play, but not the type of play like playing on video games that I wanted to say. Asobimasu is more like children’s play. A casual way of saying this word is “asobu”.
The word “takusan” is used here as well, and this was something I had put in my original sentence. “takusan” means a lot, or many, and is used to emphasise, and in this case, it’s used to emphasise the fact that I play a lot of games.
Now, how would I connect these sentences?
“to” is how you can say “and” in Japanese, but this is used for connecting nouns. “dashi” is how you can connect sentences, it also means “and”, and it replaces where you would put desu when connecting these.
So now, the sentences can be linked like this:
Watashi wa puroguramingu ga suki desu. dashi, watashi wa takusan game wo shimasu.
Asking and answering about hobbies
When talking about video games to your friends, or colleagues, you may want to ask them about what they like! You can ask this by saying:
What kind of game do you like?
Nan no game ga suki desuka?
なに の ＿＿＿ が すき ですか？
And you would reply to this by saying
I like __ games!
Watashi wa ___ ga suki desu!
わたし わ ＿＿ が すき です！
I like puzzle games, so I could say “Pazuru game”
Puzzle
Pazuru
ぱずる
When someone replies to that, they could say “That sounds good” and to say that in Japanese it would be:
That sounds good!
iidesune
We can break this down into two parts.
Ii + desune
いい ですね
“Ii” means good, but if you wanted to say bad, that’s “Warui”, so you could instead say:
Warui + desune
わるい ですね
Asking about favorites
Someone might ask you, or you might want to know what their favorite game is in that genre and you can ask by saying:
What puzzle game is your favorite?
Pazuru game no ichiban no okiniiri wa nan desuka
ぱずる ゲーム の いちばん の おきにり わ なに ですか？
You could reply to this a few different ways:
A short way is to just say –
It’s Zelda
Zelda desu
A longer way you can say this is –
Zelda is my favorite.
Watashi no okiniiri wa Zelda desu
わたし の おきにいり わ Zelda です
Some words mentioned above aren’t too familiar, so let’s start with “Ichiban” which means “Number 1”, where “ban” means “number” and “Ichi” means “1”
So! If you want to say “Number 2” it would just be “Niban”... “Number 3”, “Sanban”… “Number 4”, “Yonban”
Asking if they've played today
Another question someone might ask you, or you might want to ask is:
Did you play Zelda today?
Kyo (wa) Zelda wo shimashita ka?
きょ わ Zelda を しました か？
If we break this down “Kyo” means today, “Shimashita” means did in past tense, adding “ka” at the end of “Shimashita” makes it a question “Shimashita ka?” means “did you do?”
You would reply to this question by saying:
Yes, I did
Hai, shimashita
はい、 しました
Asking how much they've played today
After this, they might want to know, or you might want to know how much time has been spent playing the game:
How many hours of Zelda did you do?
Nan jikan Zelda wo shimashita ka?
なん じかん ＿＿ を しました か？
In this question, “Jikan” means time/hours, but if you wanted to ask how many minutes, you would say “hun”, and seconds would be “byo”
And here’s a reply which you or someone else might say:
I did 3 hours.
___ jikan shimashita. / San jikan shimashita
さん じかん しました
Or you could instead say:
I played a lot
Takusan shimashita
たくさん しました
During this lesson, my tutor told me that I had done a good job!
To say good job in Japanese, you can say:
Otsukare sama deshita!
おつかれ さま でした！
amy.elliott2002@yahoo.co.uk
Portsmouth, United Kingdom