Shops, prices and service Japanese for JFT-Basic

A large share of JFT-Basic questions are set in shops, restaurants and convenience stores. This is deliberate: they are the interactions a newly arrived worker has on day one, before they have colleagues or routines.

The vocabulary is small and it repeats.

What the staff say to you

You are expected to understand these, not produce them:

Japanese	What it means
いらっしゃいませ	Welcome (no reply needed)
～円になります	That comes to ~ yen
ふくろは ごりようですか	Do you need a bag?
あたためますか	Shall I heat it up?
ポイントカードは おもちですか	Do you have a point card?
おまたせしました	Sorry to keep you waiting

Several of these are fixed phrases that sound nothing like the dictionary forms of their verbs. That is why they are tested - they must be learned whole.

What you say

Short, and mostly built from three patterns:

• ～を ください - please give me ~. The workhorse.
• ～は ありますか - do you have ~?
• ～を おねがいします - I would like ~ (slightly softer than ください)

And the two replies that decide questions: はい、おねがいします (yes please) and だいじょうぶです / けっこうです (no thank you). Candidates routinely pick the polite refusal when the situation calls for acceptance. Read the situation line carefully.

Numbers and prices

Prices are where listening questions are won and lost. Practise until these are automatic rather than calculated:

• The hundreds: ひゃく、にひゃく、さんびゃく、よんひゃく、ろっぴゃく、はっぴゃく
• The thousands: せん、にせん、さんぜん、よんせん、はっせん
• 千 and 万 together: 一万五千円

The sound changes marked in bold are the ones that catch people. Japanese numbers and time drills them.

Then there is the discount trap: a clip gives the original price and the reduced one, and the question asks which the customer paid. Hold both.

Counters

Shops are full of counters, and JFT-Basic tests them: ひとつ/ふたつ for general items, ～まい for flat things, ～ほん for bottles, ～こ for small objects, ～にん for people.

You do not need the whole system. You need the six that occur in shops and offices - see Japanese counters.

Where this appears in the exam

All four sections. A shop sign in Reading, a price in Listening, a request in Conversation, a word in Script and Vocabulary.

That makes it efficient revision: an hour spent on shop language pays across the whole paper. Test whether it has stuck with the free practice test, which explains every answer in your language, or sit the full exam demo under time pressure.