one offers someone something such as food, a beverage, or a cigarette. (Offering something to someone is really like inviting that person to have and enjoy the item offered.)
Dōzo どうぞ by itself rarely functions as a request. It may, however, be attached to a request.
EXAMPLES:
(1) Dōzo onegai-shimasu.
どうぞお願いします。
Please do me this favor.
(2) Dōzo okamai naku.
どうぞおかまいなく。
Please don’t bother.
English-speaking students of Japanese often make the error of assuming that dōzo どうぞ makes requests more polite, as does “please” in English. Adding dōzo to a request, does not make it any more polite—it just intensifies it. For example, in (1) above, the politeness lies not in the word Dōzo, but in the verb onegai-shimasu お願いします (lit., “I humbly request”), which is the polite-humble form of negau 願う “to request.” In fact, Japanese polite requests are uttered more often without dōzo than English polite requests are made without “please.”
E
E 絵 means “picture,” but only in reference to a drawn or painted picture. Unlike English “picture” it cannot refer to a movie or a photograph. A movie is an eiga 映画, and a photograph is a shashin 写真. E may mean “photograph” only in the compound e-hagaki 絵はがき “picture postcard.”
E
Ee ええ is a more conversational version of hai はい. Use it, however, only as a response to a question.
EXAMPLE:
A: Are wa Ueda-san deshō ka.
あれは上田さんでしょうか。
Might that be Mr. Ueda?
B: Ee, sō desu yo.
ええ、そうですよ。
Yes, it is.
Do not use ee ええ as a response to a knock on the door or the calling of your name. For that purpose, only hai はい is appropriate.
Eiga 映画 movie
English has several words meaning “motion picture,” but Japanese has only one, eiga 映画. A movie theater is eigakan 映画館. “To go to a movie” is eiga e (or ni) iku 映画へ（に）行く, but not *eigakan e (or ni) iku 映画館へ（に）行く. Until the 1930s or so, movies were called katsudō-shashin 活動写真 (or katsudō 活動 for short), which literally means “motion picture.” It was a very common word until it was gradually replaced by eiga 映画, which is now the only term for “movie.”
Enpitsu 鉛筆 pencil
In English, not only a regular pencil but also a mechanical pencil may be called a pencil. In Japanese, however, enpitsu 鉛筆 refers to a regular pencil only. A mechanical pencil is called shāpu-penshiru シャープペンシル, or simply shāpen シャーペン, which is traceable to “Eversharp,” the brand name of the first U.S.-made mechanical pencil.
E
In his Zoku Nihonjin no Eigo (1990), Mark Petersen describes erai 偉い as one of those common Japanese words that are extremely hard to translate into English. First, erai means “great.”
EXAMPLE:
(1) Ryōshin o hontō ni erai to omotte irareru kodomo wa shiawase da.
両親を本当に偉いと思っていられる子供は幸せだ。
Children who can think their parents are truly great are fortunate.
Sometimes, erai 偉い means “of higher rank.”
EXAMPLE:
(2) A: Boku-tachi koko ni suwatte mo ii?
僕たちここに座ってもいい？
May we sit here?
B: Soko wa erai hito-tachi no seki da kara dame.
そこは偉い人たちの席だからだめ。
No, you can’t. Those seats are reserved for VIPs.
Such translations as “praiseworthy” and “admirable” make it sound as though erai 偉 い is indeed a big word reserved for special occasions, but it is not so at all. In fact, it is used all the time on ordinary occasions. For example, if a child brings home a good report card from school, his or her mother might say,
EXAMPLE:
(3) Erakatta ne!
偉かったね！
Good for you! (lit., That was great!)
If a little child falls and skins his or her knee but tries not to cry, his or her mother will definitely say,
EXAMPLE:
(4) Erai, erai! 偉い、偉い！
Good boy/girl!
Fudan ふだん usual
Fudan ふだん means “usual” in the sense of “occurring at normal times or in everyday situations.” Sentence (1) is, therefore, correct, but sentence (2) is not.
EXAMPLES:
(1) Fudan kara benkyō-shite oku to, shiken ni natte mo komaranai.
ふだんから勉強しておくと、試験になっても困らない。
If you keep studying (normally), you won’t have trouble with exams.
(2) *Kenji wa fudan no seinen da. *健二はふだんの青年だ。
Kenji is an average young man.
In (2) above, fudan ふだん should be replaced by futsū ふつう, as in (3).
EXAMPLE:
(3) Kenji wa futsū no seinen da.
健二はふつうの青年だ。
