Ordering Food

Let’s Get Some Food!

Being out and about eventually leads to hunger, hunger leads to restaurants, and once you’re sat down at a restaurant you need to be able to ask for things off of the menu (and even the menu itself! This lesson is all about making people do things…er…politely asking people to get you things.

Vocabulary

Kanji	Kana	English
下さい	ください	Please give me
お願いします	おねがいします	Please give me
	どうぞ	Here
	〜を	Direct object marker

を Particle

The particle を is very important in Japanese. It marks what the verb is acting upon. When you “buy a book,” it’s the word “book” that this particle goes after. This isn’t something English has, but it’s very important to Japanese grammar.

Please Gimme

Let’s start with the basic way to ask for something: 〜をください. This is a polite way to ask someone to get something for you and is generally used when you can see the thing you’re asking for. Asking for items behind a counter at a deli or a menu at a restaurant are examples of this being used.

Please Gimme…But Different

The second way you ask for something is using the phrase 〜をおねがいします. This phrase is inherently more polite and is used when asking for things you can’t see. Like, asking for an item off of a menu or (ANOTHER EXAMPLE).

Side Note: You can use をください for either situation, things are just more common this way, but if you don’t know which of these phrases to use, feel free to use をください for any situation where you’re asking for something.

Examples

Kanji	Kana	English
お水をください。	おみずをください。	Water please.
	メニューをください。	Menu please.
これをお願いします。	これをおねがいします。	This one please.

What Is a どうぞ？

Alright, you asked for the food and now it’s here! The server drops the food at your table and says どうぞ. Oh no! You don’t know what to do! Just kidding, you know exactly what to do; you  reply with a slick どうも because you planned ahead and studied on Katsukats! This is a very common polite exchange of phrases used like “Here you go” and “thank you” in English. Anytime you hand someone something or want someone to take something from you you can say どうぞ and anytime someone hands you something you can reply with どうも, which is a short way to say thank you. どうぞ and どうも, got it?

Before You Move On…

…Make sure that you’re comfortable asking for things. At your current level you don’t need to be able to do much more than the English equivalent of “this one please” but be able to do at least that much!