N4 · UNIT 3

Experience & Lists

Talk about what you've done in your life, たことがあります, and sketch a day in loose strokes with たり…たり. Plus んです, the little ending that makes everything sound like a reason.

About this unit

Two of the most useful shapes in spoken Japanese arrive together. たことがあります turns the past tense into a life résumé, have you ever…?, and たり…たり lets you list a weekend without pretending it was a schedule. Underneath both runs んです, the explanatory tone every native speaker uses constantly and no textbook explains well. The setting: Maria's first Japanese karaoke box, where all three get a workout.

語彙 · Vocabulary 36 words · 10 kanji

1

Read the words

Read straight down the list once, out loud if you can. Don't grind them here, the Anki deck at the bottom does the memorizing. Right now you only want the shapes and sounds to feel familiar.

WordReadingMeaning
karaoke
song; tune
music
band
concert
movie
movie theater
world
Tokyo
Mt. Fuji
once; one time
not even once (with negative)
many times
experience
to collect; to gather
hobby
piano
guitar
to play (a stringed/keyed instrument)
professional
bad at; unskilled
good at (one's strong suit)
manga; comics
anime
video game
dance
to dance
studying abroad
to study abroad
foreign country
to ride; to board
unfortunate; a shame
amazing; incredible
like; resembling
by the way
memory (of an experience)
2

Learn the kanji

The 10 kanji for this unit. Tap any card to flip between its meaning and its readings, and say the reading aloud as it flips.

capital
reflect; project
picture; stroke
degree; time (occurrence)
sound
fun; music
song
gather
world; generation
boundary; world
3

Read it in context

Everything above, working together. Read the conversation top to bottom, out loud. Every line is built only from words and kanji you have already met, so resist the English, tap a word only if you are truly stuck.

Show English

Friday after class. Yuki, Maria's friend from the beach trip, has decided it's time for a rite of passage, and Mr. Tanaka is coming too.

ゆき
Maria, have you ever been to karaoke in Japan?
マリア
Nope, not yet. I've only done it once, back home.
ゆき
Then shall we all go today?
たなか
Sounds great. I love singing. On weekends I listen to music, practice songs, that kind of thing.
マリア
Wow, so you must be a good singer, Mr. Tanaka.
たなか
Oh no no. By the way, Maria, what things have you done in Japan?
マリア
Let's see. I've been in a hot spring. I've ridden the shinkansen too. But I still haven't seen Mt. Fuji.
ゆき
Really? Then shall we go see it together this summer?
マリア
I'd love to! (at karaoke) Whoa, Mr. Tanaka, amazing! You're like a pro!
たなか
I was born in the country that invented karaoke, lucky me.
マリア
Japanese karaoke is so fun, you can sing, eat, drink, all of it.
Notice: 行ったことがある asks about Maria's LIFE, not her Friday, the plain past + ことがある turns any verb into an experience. And hear Maria's まだないんです, that んです isn't grammar decoration; it says “here's the situation,” answering the why behind Yuki's question.
Stop, learn the vocabulary before the grammar

These units are short on purpose. The grammar only clicks when the words are already automatic, so front-load the deck here, and let spaced repetition do the memorizing while the lesson does the teaching.

  1. Import this unit's deck. Generate it with npm run content:deck, then import n4-unit3-deck.apkg into Anki or Migaku. (SRS connection status lives on your dashboard.)
  2. Learn all 36 words as new cards. Get through the whole deck in a sitting or two, you're aiming for recognition, not mastery yet.
  3. Review daily until every card reaches a 3–5 day interval. When the whole deck has settled at that spacing, the words are holding on their own and won't fight you during the grammar.
  4. Then come back. You'll read the patterns instead of decoding the words, and that's when a "small" unit actually soaks in.
Anki open with AnkiConnect? I can confirm the deck for you.

Tick the box above once the deck is soaking in, then the grammar unlocks.

文法 · Grammar 4 patterns

Take one pattern at a time. Read the rule, then read each example out loud until the shape feels obvious. The words should already be automatic from your deck, so all you are learning here is how they lock together.

Quick suggestion: write these patterns down by hand as you read them. It is the one habit that textbook learners and self-taught immersion learners both swear by, and a notebook is the cheapest memory upgrade there is. Not required, just recommended.
Life experience: plain past + ことがあります = "I have (at some point) done." Negative: たことがありません, never done it. Question: たことがありますか, have you ever?
Have you ever been in a hot spring?
I've never once seen Mt. Fuji.
Note: Don't confuse with the plain past: きのう、すしを食べました is what happened yesterday; すしを食べたことがあります is a fact about your whole life. 一度も＋negative = never once.
A sampler, not a schedule. Plain past + り, repeated, closed with する: 聞いたり、歌ったりします, I do things like listening and singing. The list implies "among other things."
On weekends I clean, go shopping, things like that.
At karaoke we sang, ate, and so on.
Note: The final する carries the tense: したり…したりしました (past), したりしています (habit). Using て-form chains here (歌って、食べて) states a strict sequence instead, たり keeps it loose.
Two actions, one person, same moment: ます-stem + ながら + main verb. 音楽を聞きながら、べんきょうします, I study while listening to music. The verb after ながら is the main one.
I run while listening to music.
I cleaned while singing.
Note: One body, two actions, ながら can't join two people's doings. And the SECOND verb is the star: テレビを見ながら食べます means eating is the main event, with TV on the side.
The explanation tone. Plain form + んです wraps a sentence as background or reason, answering a real or imagined "why?". In questions, んですか asks for the story behind what you see.
“What's wrong?” “(The thing is) I have a headache.”
(You see) I've never been.
Note: です／ます states a fact; んです offers context. どうして来なかったんですか presses for the story. Nouns and な-adjectives take なんです: 好きなんです. In casual speech it's の／なの: どうしたの？

文化 · Culture note

A short read on the world these words live in. Nothing to drill here, just the context that makes the grammar feel like something people actually say.

The Karaoke Box

Karaoke in Japan is not a stage in a crowded bar, it's a private room rented by the hour with your friends, a touch-panel songbook, two microphones, and a phone for ordering food and drinks. The word itself is から (empty) + オーケストラ, empty orchestra. Rooms are cheap on weekday afternoons and packed at night; フリータイム flat rates run until morning, which is why the last train's departure quietly decides many evenings.

The etiquette is simple and real: don't skip other people's songs, don't sing over someone else's turn, and put at least one song in even if you're shy, refusing entirely reads as refusing the group. Nobody expects you to be good. The salaryman butchering a ballad to warm applause is the whole point of the institution: karaoke is where Japan's social reserve goes to take a break.

And solo karaoke, ヒトカラ, is completely normal. Chains offer one-person booths with headphone mixes where people practice, decompress after work, or record themselves. For a language learner this is the single best output gym in the country: lyrics with furigana scroll by, the mic is honest, and nobody is listening. Ghost drills with a backing track.

Try it: Learn one Japanese song, just one, well enough to sing without reading. It will teach you more about pitch, rhythm, and mora timing than a month of textbook audio, and you'll never be a dead weight at a karaoke night again.

生教材 · Immersion 3 assignments · real Japanese, on rails

This week in the wild

Music is the most repeatable immersion there is, nobody minds hearing a song thirty times. This week's missions turn one song into a pronunciation coach and let you eavesdrop on real people listing their weekends.

You will not understand everything, that is the point. Success is recognizing this unit's patterns in the wild, not full comprehension. Tick what you tried and move on.

発話 · Speaking 8 ghost drills · say it out loud

Ghosting

Experience questions are instant conversation, everyone likes talking about what they've done. Ghost the lines, then answer the prompts with your OWN truth; the grammar only sticks when the sentences are really yours.

Three passes per line: listen, speak along with the voice (that's the ghost), then speak alone. Out loud, whispering doesn't build the muscle. Prompt drills show English first: answer in Japanese before revealing.

Have you ever been to karaoke in Japan?
I've done it just once.
The thing is, I still haven't seen Mt. Fuji.
On weekends I listen to music, practice songs, that kind of thing.
Say it in Japanese: I have ridden the shinkansen.
Hint: Plain past + ことがあります.
Say it in Japanese: I have never eaten natto.
Hint: Negative experience, ことがありません.
Say it in Japanese: Yesterday I cleaned, shopped, stuff like that.
Hint: たり…たり, with the final しました carrying the past tense.
Say it in Japanese: I study while listening to music.
Hint: ます-stem + ながら; the main action comes second.

Audio uses your browser's Japanese voice. If you hear nothing, your system may need a Japanese voice installed, read the lines aloud from the text instead; the ghost pass still works.

練習 · Worksheet 9 exercises

Type each missing word in hiragana, then check your answers.

Check your answers to continue, it doesn't matter how many you miss.

Unit Quiz JLPT FORMAT

Pass mark 80% · instant explanations · passing unlocks the next unit