Languages / Japanese / Level 1 · Unit 2

何が好きですか — Expressing Food Preferences

Lesson 7 of 170 · Level 1 of 6All lessons
In this lesson

You are learning expressing food preferences: you will read the scene it happens in, learn 10 words and phrases, take apart the pattern behind them (好き/嫌い (suki/kirai) — liking and disliking), hear them in a conversation, rehearse them, and finish by saying one thing out loud to be graded.

The scene

At the izakaya menu, which may be a laminated page, a scroll on the wall, or a tablet. Your companions want to order for the table. You need to express what you like — and what you can't eat.

「何でも食べます」· "I Eat Everything"

The izakaya owner in Nakameguro has been running the restaurant for twenty-three years. He knows immediately which customers are adventurous and which will order karaage and nothing else. The adventurous ones get the special dishes — the ones not on the menu.

The stranger sits at the bar and the owner asks what they like. The stranger says: 「何でも食べます。おすすめを全部ください!」 — Nandemo tabemasu. Osusume o zenbu kudasai.

The owner's expression changes. He turns and begins talking to the kitchen in rapid Japanese. Twenty minutes later: raw octopus with yuzu kosho, grilled sardines, a small bowl of horse meat sashimi with ginger, pickled ume and tofu that dissolved on the tongue.

"Nandemo tabemasu" is a key that opens a different kitchen. The stranger did not know this. Now they do.