Japanese for Beginners. Learning Conversational Japanese

always occurs directly after nouns, adjectival nouns, adjectives, verbs or
adverbs.
Ara, kore okurimono kashira?
(N)
Naomi-san, genki kashira?F
(Adj N)
Kore ōkii kana?M
(Adj)
Buraun-san kuru kana?M
(V)
Naze kashira?/Naze kanā? /M
(Adv) (Adv)
Oh, I wonder is this a present?
I wonder if Naomi is okay?
I wonder is this too big?
I wonder if Mr. Brown is coming?
I wonder why?
“HEY THERE”—USING YĀ
When running into friends or acquaintances, Yā is used as a greeting like “Hi”
or “Hello.” Yā has a very masculine sound. It is used only by men.
Yā, Buraun-san!M
Yā, hisashiburi da nē!
M
Hello, Mr. Brown!
Oh hi, I haven’t seen you for a long time!
USING THE PREFIXES GO— AND O-In the dialogue, notice the words
gokazoku and otomadachi. The go— of gokazoku and o— of otomodachi are
polite prefixes. (Sometimes ois just used to make sounds gentler.) The
prefixes go— and o— are added to a noun, and they add a level of politeness
to one’s speech. These prefixes cannot be added to just any noun, and they are
also not interchangeable. You have to know the right one to use with whatever
word you are saying. Normally gois added to a word if it has a Chinese
reading, and ois added to a word if it has a Japanese reading. So it is easier
to distinguish the usage of these two prefixes if you understand kanji
characters. (See the sidebar on page 3.) Look at these examples: