6.3 Worked Transcript Practice

How to Use These Transcripts

On the real test you hear these once; here you can slow down and see the decisive cue. Read each Japanese line aloud, check the romaji, then confirm the English. The bold cue in every walkthrough is the word an examiner planted to separate the right answer from the distractors.

The four transcripts below are chosen so that each of the N5 listening question types appears exactly once, in the order you meet them on the test. Transcript 1 is a task-comprehension item that asks what a shopper will buy; Transcript 2 is a point-comprehension item that hinges on a headcount; Transcript 3 is an utterance-expression item where you pick the right thing to say; and Transcript 4 is a quick-response item where you choose the best reply. Work through them slowly, because the reasoning you rehearse here — decide what the question wants, then hunt for the one cue that answers it — is exactly the reasoning you must compress into a few seconds on the real audio. Do not just read for the answer; read for the method that produced the answer, so that the same method transfers to a dialogue you have never seen before.

Transcript 1 — 課題理解 (Task): What Will She Buy?

Japanese

女の人：すみません、りんごを みっつと、ぎゅうにゅうを ひとつ ください。 店の人：はい。たまごは いいですか。 女の人：あ、たまごは うちに あります。だいじょうぶです。 しつもん：女の人は なにを かいますか。

Romaji

Onna no hito: Sumimasen, ringo o mittsu to, gyuunyuu o hitotsu kudasai. Mise no hito: Hai. Tamago wa ii desu ka? Onna no hito: A, tamago wa uchi ni arimasu. Daijoubu desu. Shitsumon: Onna no hito wa nani o kaimasu ka?

English

Woman: Excuse me, three apples and one milk, please. Clerk: Certainly. Would you like eggs (too)? Woman: Oh, I have eggs at home. It's fine (no thanks). Question: What will the woman buy?

Choices: 1) three apples and one milk 2) three apples and eggs 3) milk and eggs 4) apples, milk and eggs

Walkthrough → Answer 1. The task is what she buys, so track each item. She asks for みっつ (three) apples and ひとつ (one) milk. The clerk offers eggs, but she declines with 「うちに あります。だいじょうぶです」 — a positive-sounding phrase that actually removes eggs from the list. The one-cue lesson: in 課題理解 the first request is rarely the whole answer; a later 「だいじょうぶです」 or 「けっこうです」 subtracts an item.

Transcript 2 — ポイント理解 (Point): How Many Are Certain?

Japanese

A：パーティーに なんにん きますか。 B：たなかさんと やまださんと わたしで、さんにんです。でも、すずきさんも くるかもしれません。 A：そうですか。 しつもん：パーティーに かならず くるのは なんにんですか。

Romaji

A: Paatii ni nan-nin kimasu ka? B: Tanaka-san to Yamada-san to watashi de, san-nin desu. Demo, Suzuki-san mo kuru kamoshiremasen. A: Sou desu ka. Shitsumon: Paatii ni kanarazu kuru no wa nan-nin desu ka?

English

A: How many people are coming to the party? B: Tanaka, Yamada, and me — three people. But Suzuki might come too. A: I see. Question: How many people will definitely come?

Choices: 1) 2 people 2) 3 people 3) 4 people 4) 5 people

Walkthrough → Answer 2 (3 people). The wh-word is なんにん (how many people), and the question adds かならず (for certain). B names three confirmed guests, then hedges with 「でも … くるかもしれません」 — but Suzuki MIGHT come. かもしれません = a possibility, not a fact, so Suzuki is excluded. The certain total stays さんにん = 3. Cue lesson: でも and かもしれません are cancel-words; count only what is stated flatly.

Transcript 3 — 発話表現 (Utterance): Entering a Friend's Home

Situation (spoken by narrator): 友だちの いえに はいります。なんと いいますか。 — Tomodachi no ie ni hairimasu. Nan to iimasu ka? — "You are entering a friend's house. What do you say?" (You would see a picture of someone stepping into a doorway.)

Spoken choices (no printed text):

1．おじゃまします。 — Ojama shimasu. 2．いってきます。 — Ittekimasu. 3．おだいじに。 — Odaiji ni.

Walkthrough → Answer 1. 発話表現 asks for the right thing to say in the pictured situation. 「おじゃまします」 literally "I will intrude" is the set phrase said when entering someone else's home. Choice 2 「いってきます」 is what you say when you leave your own house ("I'm off") — right domain, wrong direction. Choice 3 「おだいじに」 means "get well soon," said to a sick person. Because the three options are only spoken, hold all three and match the situation verb はいります (enter) to the correct greeting.

Transcript 4 — 即時応答 (Quick Response): What Time Is It?

Prompt (spoken): すみません、いま なんじですか。 — Sumimasen, ima nanji desu ka? — "Excuse me, what time is it now?"

Spoken replies:

1．はい、そうです。 — Hai, sou desu. 2．さんじはんです。 — Sanji han desu. 3．あそこです。 — Asoko desu.

Walkthrough → Answer 2. 即時応答 rewards matching the question word to the reply type. The prompt asks なんじ (what time), so the natural answer is a clock time: 「さんじはんです」 = it's 3:30 (はん = half past). Choice 1 「はい、そうです」 answers a yes/no question, and choice 3 「あそこです」 answers where (どこ), not what time. The distractors deliberately fit some other question — always map the reply to the wh-word you actually heard.

The Common Thread

Across all four types the decisive information is a single spoken cue: a counter (みっつ, さんにん), a cancel-word (かもしれません), a situation verb (はいります), or a question word (なんじ). Because the audio runs once, your job is not to translate every sentence but to lock onto that one cue and let it point to the answer. Notice, too, that the same four cue-families recur across every topic: a shopping errand, a party headcount, a doorway greeting, and a time question all reduce to number, negative, situation-verb, or wh-word, so mastering these handful of cues generalises to any N5 prompt you will meet.

Turning Transcripts into Ear-Training

Reading a transcript you can already see is far easier than decoding audio in real time, so do not stop at comprehension. For each dialogue above, run a three-step drill. First, cover the English and read the Japanese aloud at natural N5 speed until the meaning arrives without your translating it. Second, cover everything and listen to a recording of the same type once, forcing yourself to catch only the decisive cue — the counter, the negative, or the set phrase — and to ignore the surrounding words. Third, look at which distractor you were tempted by and ask why; almost always it echoed a word from the prompt or answered a different question type. Logging these near-misses builds a personal list of trap patterns, and after a few weeks you will hear 「かもしれません」 or 「けっこうです」 and flag it as an answer-changer before your brain even finishes parsing the sentence. Combine that reflex with the format knowledge from 6.1 and the spoken cues from 6.2, and the once-only audio becomes predictable rather than intimidating.

Cue recap — the word that decided each answer