Hi, guys! I hope you are enjoying your weekend. For those who have difficulties to deal with the listening test in JLPT, the articles in the following two weeks might be your cure. I’m going to show you 6 types of trap that emerge in the listening test often.
Trap 1: the meaning of the sentence is affirmative, though, it contains a negative expression
The negative form of Japanese is “…ない” or ” …ではない/ありません” etc. However, the positive form expressed by the double negation happens a lot in the test. Let’s have a look at the following examples.
Example 1: この企画(きかく)、やっぱり諦(あきら)めるしかないよね – We have to give up this plan.
The point here is to correctly understand the verb+しかない, which mean “have to do something”. Thus, if you don’t familiar with the construction and answer questions by only hearing “… ない”, the result of your test could be painful.
Example 2: 今日(きょう)のプレゼン、林(りん)さんの助言(じょげん)がなければうまくいかなかったよ – Today’s presentation won’t be done if without 林(りん)さん’s advice.
The negative expression here is “なければ” and “うまくいかなかった”. “なければ” is a form of assumption means “if there isn’t”. “うまくいかなかった” is from “うまくいく(goes well)”. Thus, this a typical form of double negation which represents a positive meaning.
Trap 2: the tone doesn’t rise in the end of the interrogative sentence at the end tone not rise
A large part of questions in the listening test is to use a questioning tone to express negative meanings. The point here is to make sure if the tone at the end of a sentence goes up or down.
Example 3: 君(きみ)、問題(もんだい)が起(お)こったら起(お)こったで、すぐ報告(ほうこく)してくれないと困(こま)るじゃないか – If a problem has happened and you don’t report me, doesn’t it trouble me?
Without seeing the explanation, do you think the speaker is being annoyed or not being annoyed? “じゃない” is a negative expression, however, there is a “か” behind it, then it turned out to be that “the speaker is being annoyed”.
Trap 3: express a negative meaning by using a positive sentence
A sentence with negative meaning doesn’t have to end up with “…ない”. Instead, some particular vocabularies containing negative meaning will do the job.
Example 4: お客様(きゃくさま)、こちら は従業員(じゅうぎょういん)専用(せんよう)のエレベーターで、ご利用(りよう)はご遠慮(えんりょう)いただいております – Excuse me, since this elevator is for staff only, the usage by customers has been declined. The key is to understand the meaning of “遠慮”.