Helpful Japanese phrases to confirm information
When talking to native speakers, many will not be able to catch up or don’t know what they are saying, especially to those who are not fluent in Japanese. How to understand the other person better? Learn Japanese Daily will help you with that by providing you these sentence patterns below. Let’s learn some helpful Japanese phrases to confirm information.
Requests to confirm
These patterns are used to request the other person to repeat when you couldn’t hear clearly. There are some very polite and helpful Japanese sentence patterns such as.
もう一度言ってください。(Mō ichido itte kudasai) Please repeat once again.
すみません。おっしゃったことが聞き取れませんでした。(Sumimasen. Osshatta koto ga kikitoremasen deshita.)
Pardon me, I didn’t catch that.
もう一度言っていただけますか？(Mō ichido itte itada kemasu ka?)
(More polite: もう一度言っていただけませんか）
Can you please repeat that one more time?
If you’re more careful, ask them to slow down, or explain it in simpler words. For example.
もう少しゆっくり話していただけますか？(Mō sukoshi yukkuri hanashite itadakemasu ka?)
（More polite : もう少しゆっくり話していただけませんか)
Can you please slow dow a little bit?
それをより簡単な日本語で説明していただくことは可能ですか？(Sore o yori kantan’na nihongo de setsumei shite itadaku koto wa kanōdesu ka?)
Can you explain it in simpler Japanese?
Requests to explain
When not understanding the meaning of a word or phrase, we can ask the other person what that means. A common way is to use: “どういう意味ですか” (Dō iu imidesu ka – What does it mean?)
Structure: Words/phrases that you don’t understand + はどういう意味ですか？(…wa do iu imi desu ka?) What does…mean?
Vice versa: If the one receives the question is you and you want to explain what you mean, you’ll answer:
….. という意味です。…To iu imi desu (add the explanation at the beginning)
It means….
Another similar structure: …って何ですか？(Tte nan desu ka?) What is…. ? or…って何？(tte nani?) has the same meaning.
For example. 寿司って何ですか？(sushi tte nan desu ka?) What is Sushi?
You can also ask them to choose a synonym that you can understand.
日本語で同じような言い回しがありますか？(Nihongo de onajiyōna iimawashi ga arimasu ka?)
Is there any synonym/expression of this word in Japanese?
Requests to write it down
In case you have completely no idea what they are talking about, especially when you need detailed information such as directions, phone number or other important and complicated information, ask them to write it down. That’ll be much simpler and faster than to keep asking them to repeat themselves. Some helpful sentence patterns in this situation will be:
書いて下さい。(Kaite kudasai.)
Please write it down for me.
hoặc 書いていただけますか？(kaite itada kemasu ka?)
Can you please write it down?
今おっしゃったことを書いていただけますか？(Ima osshatta koto o kaite itada kemasu ka?)
Can you please write down what you have said?
(スカイプの）チャットボックスに入力していただけますか？(Sukaipu no) chatto bokkusu ni nyūryoku shite itada kemasu ka?)
Can you send what you have said to my email (chat box or skype)?
Even when you’re fluent in Japanese, those above sentence patterns can be helpful if you’re talking to people from different areas. Japan, as well as many countries around the world, have areas with very distinctive vocabulary, pronunciation, and intonation. If you’re a beginner or have arrived in Japan, these helpful Japanese phrases to confirm information can come in handy, you should memorize right away to use when necessary. Learn Japanese Daily hopes to accompany you in your journey of learning Japanese. Wish you all the best.
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