Japanese Read & Answer: #3 [Level 1]

This is another post in my Read & Answer series of articles where I give a short dialog in Japanese followed by one or more questions to test your understanding. You can see more about this series here, and a list of the other articles in it here.

This will be Level 1, which is the easiest level and targets those who have only studied Japanese a few months to a year or so. Having said that, some of the vocabulary words (or Kanji) I use may not be words commonly learned in the first few months. Because of that I’ve given a list of Kanji words and some of the non-Kanji words with their definitions below the answer choices, so you only need to be able to read hiragana and katakana for this exercise.

For more advanced students, I suggest trying to answer the questions without looking at the word readings and meanings.

Passage

僕は六人家族で、妹二人あってお兄さん一人います。お兄さんは一人暮らしです。

Question 1

How many people are in the speaker’s family?

Answer Choices 1

a) 4

b) 5

c) 6

d) 7

Question 2

Does the speaker live with his older brother?

Answer Choices 2

a) Yes

b) No

Question 3

How many younger brothers does the speaker have?

Answer Choices 3

a) 0

b) 1

c) 2

d) 3

 

*Bonus Question:　If you were to fix one part of the text (make it more natural), what would it be?

 

Word readings and meanings

僕：boku (first person pronoun, “I”)

家族: kazoku (family)

六:  roku (the number “6”)

二人: futari (two people)

お兄さん: oniisan (older brother)

一人暮らし: hitori gurashi (living alone)  (暮らし comes from the verb 暮らす (kurasu, “to live”))

 

Correct answers

Q1:  c) 6

Q2: b) No   (一人暮らし means the older brother lives alone, so he does not live with the speaker)

Q3:  a) 0    (assuming he lives with his two parents, 6(total) – 2(parents) – 2(younger sisters) – 1(older brother) – 1(himself) = 0)

BonusQ: 二人あって would be more properly written as 二人いて。 Generally it is best to use the verb いる（居る) instead of ある when talking about living beings. There are exceptions, however, like sometimes parents can use ある when talking about their children.

 

If you enjoyed this please comment and/or like this post so I know to write more! Also let me know if you want more difficult or more easier text.