Apologies for the lack of puzzle the last two weeks. Here’s the answer to the previous puzzle, which you can find here. 

When all the teachers gave their self-introductions at the welcome party, they gave all the basic information – where they’re from, what school they were teaching at previously – along with some other interesting tidbit. One of my JTEs added that she had three boys and would be taking a lot of time off – finally, a realistic teacher – and the other boasted that he had never once been ill.

Another of the new teachers joked that he got called names because he is heavy; then he added that he is trying to diet and that he “nearly weighs 0.1 kilograms” – yup, he’s nearly made the scale go one full circle.

Here is last week’s sentence, that teacher’s interesting tidbit, written normally: 「まもなく０．１キロになるところです。」

The key part of the phrase this week is the ending – 〜ところです。This phrase is incredibly useful to help explain to someone what you are doing, going to do, or just did. ところ is often translated as “place” or “location,” but in this case it also has a definite time aspect to it. My professor used to refer to it as a “moment of space-time.”

There are three different ways to use ところです.

〜するところです。
〜しているところです。
〜したところです。

Let’s use a specific verb so that it’s clearer:

食べるところです。         I am about to eat.
食べているところです。    I am eating.
食べたところです。         I just ate.

So ところ is used to describe the space-time moment that you currently occupy. Depending on the conjugation of the verb in front of it, you are about to do something, currently doing something, or just having done something.

This is an especially useful way to communicate the fact that you are currently occupied with something.

e.g.
今運転しているところですが。        I’m driving at the moment…
今料理を作っているところですが。    I’m cooking at the moment…
今寝るところですが。                   I’m about to go to sleep…

(In Japanese people often add ですが onto the end of a sentence to soften the blow of whatever they just said. It only sort of means “but,” so I translated it as the ellipsis on the end of those sentences. It’s implied that you are currently doing whatever you are doing and therefore unable to do whatever is requested of you.)

This teacher? He said, “I am very shortly going to weigh 0.1 kilograms.”

まもなく is a time-based adverb that means “soon” or “shortly.” You’ll hear it a lot while waiting on train platforms. I translated it in the above sentence as “very shortly.”

れいてんいち in Japanese is the way that they say 0.1. It’s the same as in English: zero (れい) point (てん) one (いち).

The Japanese literally means, “become 0.1 kilograms,” but I put it into the more natural “weigh” in English.

So, while this guy hasn’t gone full circle just yet, he’s off in Okinawa for the school trip, probably snacking it up with the other teachers. When he’s back, I’m sure he will be able to say, 「０．１キロになったところです。」 – “I just hit 0.1 kilograms.”

Robin was so close with a few of his guesses, but his official answer ("One of the party games involved attaching a radio transmitter to a tanuki and placing bets on how far it would go. The teacher was informing everyone that it was about to hit the 0.1 kilometer mark") is disqualified for implied mistreatment of tanuki. So no winner this week.

Due to the paucity of puzzle submissions (I only received one) and due to the fact that I can’t be asked to write a puzzle on the day that I’m leaving for China, I’m going to extend last week’s puzzle for another week. Get back to work, ya phargin bastiges!

For those who can’t be asked to scroll down, the puzzle is here.

Also, I plan on posting the answer to this puzzle on April 26, a Saturday, so you have another full week to think about it. 

This is a fantastic expression I heard used by a teacher at the welcome party for new teachers a week ago:

「まもなくれいてんいちきろになるところです。」

I have endeavored to present this phrase as accurately as possible, but there was booze involved at this welcome party, so you’ll have to forgive me some minor editing. I have also provided ONLY HIRAGANA this week in order to reduplicate it as I heard it. (Does one hear kanji? Methinks not.)

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

– explain the meaning of this phrase
– attempt to guess the context in which it was said (in addition to the welcome party, duh)

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.

The goal this past week was to show you the flexibility of the verb する. It’s always introduced as “to do,” but there are plenty of cases where it acts as something other than do. The initial phrase I was thinking of was 〜顔をする. “Make an X face,” where X could be nearly anything – silly, stupid, funny, strange, mysterious. I eliminated food examples because we so automatically associate the English “make” with food, thus the Japanese 料理する, which would have been far too easy.

There were four correct answers:

友達と約束をしました。 – I made a promise with a friend.

私は学校をきれいにする。 – I make the school clean.

きみはいつも僕を幸せにする。 – You always make me happy.

これをもう少し安くしてくださいませんか。 – Could you make it cheaper for me please? (An exceptionally useful phrase, especially to cheapos like JETs.)

The final three all use the same pattern: X + を + 副詞 (adverb) + する → make x more adverb.

Here is how you form the adverb:
安い→安く
幸せ→幸せに
きれい→きれいに

The one small gripe I have is that for sentence three I would say 幸せにしてくれる to emphasize the fact that it is something that きみ is doing to/for 僕.

One submission I got suggested that that セックスをしました could be used for “made love,” but セックスをしました is a bit too straightforward to be translated to something as idiomatic as “making love.” You could probably translate that する into something interesting like “perform” or “undergo,” especially if “coitus” followed either of those words.

The winner this week by random selection (you can confirm the randomness with the other teacher in my town) is Robin – he’s now halfway to a six-pack.

For this week’s puzzle I want to mix things up a little. I’ll provide you with certain conditions, and you provide me with Japanese that satisfies the conditions. I’ll select the winner randomly from any entry that satisfies all the conditions.

Please give me a Japanese sentence where the verb する could be translated into English as “make” ("making," "made" etc). The one other condition is that food must not be involved. So please send me two sentences – a Japanese sentence using する and the English translation where する is accurately translated as “make.”

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.

This is a phrase that a sixth grader said to me once:

「虫は、いいです。」

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

– explain the meaning of this phrase
– attempt to guess the context in which it was said

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.