(4) Donna (not *Dōiu どういう) samui toki de mo jogingu o shimasu.
どんな寒い時でもジョギングをします。
I jog no matter how cold it is.
In (3), either donna どんな or dōiu どういう may be used because “what kind” is the issue; in (4), however, only donna is correct because dōiu どういう cannot mean “how” in the sense of “to what degree.”
Donna hito どんな人 What kind of person?
Although donna hito どんな人 and dōiu hito どういう人 are both translated into English as “what kind of person,” they are not really synonymous. For example, although (1a) and (1b) both mean “What kind of man did Ms. Tanaka marry?,” the answers will probably be different.
EXAMPLES:
(1a) Tanaka-san donna hito to kekkon-shita no.
田中さんどんな人と結婚したの。
(1b) Tanaka-san dōiu hito to kekkon-shita no.
田中さんどういう人と結婚したの。
Question (1a) is asking about the man’s looks, personality, etc.; the answer will be something like (2a) and (2b).
EXAMPLES:
(2a) Sugoku hansamu na hito yo.
すごくハンサムな人よ。
A really handsome man.
(2b) Hansamu ja nai kedo, yūmoa ga atte omoshiroi hito yo.
ハンサムじゃないけど、ユーモアがあっておもしろい人よ。
He’s not handsome, but he’s a fun guy with a sense of humor.
Question (1b) is asking about the man’s background; the answer will most likely be like (3a) or (3b).
EXAMPLES:
(3a) Tōdai dete, Gaimushō ni tsutomete-iru n desutte.
東大出て、外務省に勤めているんですって。
I hear he’s a University of Tokyo graduate and works for the Foreign Office.
(3b) Kanojo no kōkō-jidai kara no tomodachi na no yo.
彼女の高校時代からの友達なのよ。
He’s a friend of hers from her high school days.
Dō
Dōzo どうぞ by itself is most often used when one invites someone to do something, e.g., when a host or a hostess invites a guest to come in, or when 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