PART 2 · LESSON 14 OF 30 · 32 MINUTES

The Lost Traveller

Tuesday the twelfth of December, twenty twenty-eight, eleven in the morning, the foot of the great staircase at Kyoto station, and a head count that comes to seven. Mister Doyle, seventy-four, has gone to photograph something. Ben's first emergency as a leader, the station office at five past eleven, a man of about seventy in a red coat described to a clerk, an announcement over the whole station in the formal keigo of a railway, and ten minutes later the clerk's phone, the tenth floor, a street of ramen shops and a bowl half gone. Noon, Miss Nishimura's verdict, every tour has one. Three o'clock, the Tsukiya's doorway, Kyoto's welcome, eight pairs of shoes and the bath rules in English, twice; eight o'clock, tea in the inn's kitchen, and Ben's day for Yui in one sentence. Learn to say that one person is missing (hitori, tarimasen), describe a person to a station (nanajussai kurai no, akai kooto no dansei desu; nihongo wa, hanasemasen), hear that he has been found (mitsukarimashita), apologise for the trouble (gomeiwaku o okake shimashita), and hear a station announce a name and a Kyoto inn say welcome (okoshiyasu). The fourteenth lesson of Advanced Level 1.

Audio instruction: English