7.6 Buying a train ticket — Epoché
What you will be able to do Ask what a ticket to a named place costs, and how much a journey will come to. Ask whether you have to change trains. Read the four words on a ticket machine that decide the purchase. Say that you have lost your ticket, in two registers. Prerequisites : lessons 7.5 and 7.3 — the street, and prices. Almost nobody buys a train ticket from a person any more. The machine is the interlocutor, and it is a good one: every machine in the country has an English button, usually top right, and pressing it solves most of this lesson. What the English button does not solve is the fare map on the wall above the machine, which is in characters and numbers and tells you what to pay; the words said to you at the gate when something is wrong; and the questions worth asking at the window when the journey is complicated. Those are what the lesson is for. The first exchange At a ticket window, for a journey long enough to be worth asking about. Traveller ボストンまでのきっぷはいくらですか？ [1] — How much is a ticket to Boston? Traveller のりかえるのですか。 [2] — Do I have to change trains? Clerk あなたのきっぷよ。 [3] — Here's a ticket for you. Traveller きっぷをなくしちゃった。どうしよう。 [4] — I lost my ticket. What should I do? The first line is the frame to keep: a place, the particle meaning as far as , then the word for ticket and the price question from 7.3. Any place name goes into it. The second is one of the three questions that actually matter, and the last is the plain-form version of losing your ticket — contracted, and the kind of thing you say to yourself. The second exchange On the platform, between friends. Plain throughout. Friend あなたはどのでんしゃにのるの。 [5] — What train you are going to take? Traveller あのでんしゃにのらなきゃならないんだ。 [6] — I have to catch that train. Friend ああ。でんしゃがおくれている。 [7] — Oh, the train is being delayed. Friend ここまででんしゃできたの？それともバス？ [8] — Did you come here by train or by bus? The verb for boarding takes the particle meaning onto , not the object particle — you get on to a train — and this is worth fixing now because it is the same for buses, aeroplanes and bicycles. The third line is the sentence you will hear on a platform announcement, in a politer form, and the last shows the means of travel marked with the particle meaning by . Who is speaking to whom The machine has no register and the staff have a great deal. Station staff speak in the honorific forms of volume 5, at speed, over a public address system. You will not parse it. What you can do is recognise three things — a station name, a number, and the word for delay — and that is enough to know whether the announcement concerns you. At the window, the polite form and a place name is a complete transaction. You do not need the full question. The place, the particle meaning as far as, and the request phrase from 7.4 will get you a ticket. Adding the number of people, with the counter from 4.11, covers the rest. The plain forms in the second exchange are for the person beside you. Note the contracted ending in the traveller's line, which means have to and is built from a double negative; it is extremely common in speech and is dealt with properly in the second phase. Recognise it as urgency. Saying it another way Six more. The first two are the two different cost questions, and the difference between them is worth having: one asks the price of a thing, the other what something will take. Japanese English When セゴビアまでのきっぷはいくらですか？ [9] How much is a ticket to Segovia? the same frame with a different place — this is the whole pattern くうこうまではいくらかかりますか。 [10] How much will it cost to get to the airport? asking what a journey will come to, rather than what a ticket costs これがかえりのきっぷだ。 [11] Here's my return ticket. the return half, which in Japan is usually a separate ticket きっぷをなくしてしまったようだ。 [12] I think I've lost my ticket. losing your ticket, said politely to a member of staff こうくうびんだといくらかかりますか。 [13] What's the airmail rate? the same cost question about a service rather than a journey トムは、でんしゃのとりこだ。 [14] Tom is obsessed with trains. and the reason there are so many people on the platform end What is going on The four words on the machine. Before you press anything, four things are on the screen and all four decide what you get. The word for adult and the word for child sit side by side and the default is adult. The word for ticket distinguishes an ordinary fare from a commuter pass and from a reserved seat. The word for cancel is the one to find first, because you will press the wrong thing. And the English button, usually in a corner, switches the whole interface. Find that one before you find any of the others. The card makes all of this unnecessary. A stored-value card — there are several, they now work nationwide, and they can live in a phone — turns every journey into touching a gate twice. It also pays for buses, lockers and convenience stores. If you are in Japan for more than a day, buy one in the first hour and never read a fare map again. Paying too little is not a problem. If you buy the cheapest ticket and travel further, the gate will refuse you and you pay the difference at a fare adjustment machine beside it, which also has an English button. This is a designed part of the system, used by everybody, and there is no penalty and no embarrassment. Knowing it exists removes most of the anxiety from the fare map. Keep the ticket. It goes into the gate on the way in and comes out the other side; it goes in again on the way out and is swallowed. Losing it in between means paying the full fare from the furthest possible station, which is why the lines about losing a ticket are in this lesson. New words Word Meaning Notes きっぷ ja kippu ticket Part of speech noun Note for English speakers For trains and buses. A ticket to an event is a different, borrowed word. ボストンまでのきっぷはいくらですか？ — How much is a ticket to Boston? あなたのきっぷよ。 — Here's a ticket for you. のる ja noru to board, to get on Part of speech verb Note for English speakers Note: takes the particle meaning onto