Japanese A1.1 Listening Practice: Verb Last
Listen to a A1 Japanese dialogue about verb last, with audio, transcript, and grammar notes for language learning.
Podcast listening pages are in beta while chapter audio, transcripts, and discussion flows are still being completed.
Level
A1.1
Audio
1m 5s
Transcript
12 segments
A short Japanese listening chapter with transcript.
You start with the shape of Japanese: topic first, verb or desu last. The goal is not vocabulary volume. It is feeling how the sentence waits until the end to finish.
Read while you listen.
1. Native Speaker 1
Doko desu ka?
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2. Native Speaker 2
Watashi wa koko desu.
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3. Native Speaker 1
Gakusei desu ka?
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4. Native Speaker 2
Hai, watashi wa gakusei desu.
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5. Native Speaker 1
Sou desu ka.
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6. Teacher
Welcome to ChickyTutor. Let's break down that conversation. First, let's look at how we say 'I am here': Watashi wa koko desu. 'Watashi' means 'I', 'koko' means 'here', and 'desu' is our sentence-finishing word meaning 'am'.
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7. Student
So the verb 'desu' always goes at the very end of the sentence, unlike in English?
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8. Teacher
Exactly! Japanese always saves the state-of-being word, like 'desu', for the end.
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9. Teacher
Next, let's look at: Watashi wa gakusei desu. This means 'I am a student.' Here, 'gakusei' means 'student', and 'desu' finishes the sentence.
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10. Student
Do we always need to say 'watashi wa' if it's already obvious we are talking about ourselves?
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11. Teacher
No, you can actually drop it! Just saying 'gakusei desu' is perfectly natural and means 'I am a student.'
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12. Teacher
Keep listening for that sentence-ending 'desu' as you practice. Happy learning!
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