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Lesson Transcript
| Hi everybody! Hiroko here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher where I’ll answer some of *your* most common Japanese questions. |
| The question for this lesson is… |
| How often should I use WATASHI WA? |
| So when I introduce myself, I can ‘Watashi wa Hiroko desu.’ or just say ‘Hiroko desu.’ without saying ‘watashi wa.’ Either of them means “I’m Hiroko.” and both are grammatically correct. |
| So what’s going on with this? |
| If I introduce myself as simply “Hiroko desu.”, it would because it’s obvious I’m introducing myself.When a subject or topic is obvious, we tend to omit it in the Japanese language. If you are with a group of strangers and you decide suddenly to introduce yourself , you can say ‘watashi wa’. |
| But after you introduce yourself, you would continue talking without ‘watashi wa’ since it’s obvious you’re talking about yourself. |
| So, what do you say when you introduce yourself to new friends? ...I’d say ‘Hajimemash*te, Hiroko desu. Nihon kara kimash*ta. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.’ I don’t say ‘Watashi wa Hiroko desu.’ but just ‘Hiroko desu.’ and not ‘Watashi wa Nihon kara kimash*ta.’ but ‘Nihon kara kimash*ta. No ‘watashi wa’s at all! Because of the ‘Hajimemash*te’ it’s obvious I’m introducing myself, so I just said ‘Hiroko desu.’ |
| So when *should* you use Watashi wa in a self introduction? |
| I join a party and my friend introduces his friend, Hiromi, to vme. I notice she has a similar name to me. In this case I’d say ‘Hiromi-san hajimemash*te. Watashi wa Hiroko desu.’ with ‘watashi wa.’ |
| I’m emphasising the ‘I am’ in “I am Hiroko.” because our names are so similar. |
| I hope this makes sense to you and you can tell the difference between when “watashi wa” is necessary and not from now on! |
| Do you have any more questions? Leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them! |
| またね！ |
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