Explaining a problem and asking for help in Japanese

Level A2

Explaining a problem and asking for help in Japanese

You walk into a pharmacy with a headache and need to explain what's wrong. In this lesson you explain a problem with 頭が痛いんです and give the reason before a request with 頭が痛いので、薬をお願いします. The central idea: the plain form of 痛い or of a verb, with no です or ます, takes んです to present the problem as an explanation; 痛い takes ので to give the reason before a request, and お願いします closes the request.

Warm-up: what you'll reuse

The forms in these sentences come back soon, even if this is the first time you see them. 大きい (おおきい, “big”) and 小さい (ちいさい, “small”) are い adjectives: they end in い and take です in polite speech. 行く, 飲まない and 飲んだ are plain verb forms, the dictionary, negative and past ones used among friends: “go”, “don't drink”, “drank”. もう一度お願いします asks someone to repeat, and ゆっくりお願いします asks them to speak slowly. Keep an eye on those forms with no ます and no です: they are what goes before んです.

Words for the problem

頭 (あたま) is “head”. 痛い (いたい) means “sore, painful”: in Japanese it's an い adjective like 大きい, where English uses the verb “hurt”. 薬 (くすり) is “medicine”, and it goes with 飲む, the “drink” verb: 薬を飲む is “take medicine”. The card のだ is the base form of んです, and in this lesson you use んです, the spoken polite form. ので follows a reason and works like “since”.

Model: at a pharmacy

Listen once without reading. Someone with a headache comes into a pharmacy and the pharmacist asks a question. Nobody says “my head”: 頭が痛いんです needs no “my”. In 昨日飲んだんです the medicine is understood, and so is the head in 今日も痛いので. 今日 (きょう) is “today” and 昨日 (きのう) “yesterday”. ご飯を食べて、それから… uses the て form and それから, “then”, to put two actions in order; ご飯 here means “a meal”. When you miss something, もう一度お願いします gets it repeated, as in the fifth line.

Explaining with んです: 痛い + んです

To present a problem as an explanation, put んです right after 痛い: 頭が痛いんです. Other い adjectives work the same way: 小さい gives 小さいんです. There's no です before ん; the politeness sits in the final です. You may also hear のです, a more careful form of んです. English often has no word for it, so a translation may add “you see”, or nothing at all. This link is for い adjectives: きれい is a な adjective and joins differently, like nouns, and that's for another lesson.

頭が痛い／今日も痛い／このカフェは小さいんです

Stating a fact or explaining

頭が痛いです and 頭が痛いんです both say your head hurts, and English can translate them the same way. 頭が痛いです states a fact: it's the direct answer to どこが痛いですか, “Where does it hurt?”, which you only need to recognize. 頭が痛いんです ties that fact to the situation: you've come up to the counter, the other person doesn't know why, and the sentence explains. That's why it opens a request for help so well. Use it where there's something to explain, not on every line: repeated all the time, it sounds insistent.

With a verb: 行く + んです

Verbs follow the same plan: plain form + んです. 行きます becomes 行くんです, 飲みません becomes 飲まないんです and 飲みました becomes 飲んだんです. Don't leave ます before ん: say 行くんです, not 行きますんです. The difference is the one you just saw: 明日も仕事に行きます only informs, while 明日も仕事に行くんです explains, for example why you want to feel better today. In the same way, コーヒーを飲まないんです explains why you're turning down a coffee. On its own 行く is for friends, but 行くんです is polite because of the final です. In this lesson, use just these three forms.

行く／飲まない／飲んだんです

Reason, then request: 痛いので、…お願いします

ので comes after the reason, and what follows from it comes next: 頭が痛いので、薬をお願いします. It's the same order as ですから, which closes a reason like “because”, but ので goes straight after an い adjective, with no です: 痛いので, 小さいので. 頭が痛いですから is still correct; ので just sounds softer when you ask something of someone you don't know. After ので you can put a request, a decision or a suggestion: 今日は家で働きます, 駅のカフェに行きましょう. In a request, お願いします follows the thing you want, with を: 薬を, 水を. ゆっくり and もう一度 take no を, because they say how, not what.

頭が痛い／このカフェは小さいので、薬をお願いします／今日は家で働きます

Your turn, and a summary

Picture a hotel where you wake up with a headache and go down to reception. Cover the lines below. Get the receptionist's attention and say what's wrong, give the reason and ask for water, then ask them to speak slowly when the answer comes too fast. Only then check. If you ask for 薬 instead of 水, that works too. In short: plain form + んです explains the problem, 痛い + ので gives the reason before a request, and お願いします closes the request.

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