Dialogue Translations
 

Hi, I'm doing some studying and I'm trying to create a simple Japanese dialogue. It's a situation where a customer (A) wishes to purchase a good from a seller (B) from a store.

The English is the "guide" to which I should base my creation of the dialogue into Japanese.

I need to check for accuracy of the dialogue, grammar wise and what not. I get confused with sore, kore, are, sono, kono and ano as a well as high figure numbers (10,000+ etc). Please note I am mostly interested in getting the dialogue simple and correct as possible.

For simplicity, hiragana is used throughout my translation (i.e. no Kanji nor katakana). Romaji is placed under to assist me in speaking the specific dialogue aloud.

Any input, corrections, insights or helpful hints are welcome. Thanks :)

sore means it.
kore means this.
are means that.

sono, kono, and ano use with noun.

sono+noun means it noun.
kono+noun means this noun.
ano+ noun means that noun.

for example.　
watashi ha are ga hoshii desu.
I want that.

watashi ha ano kamera ga hoshii desu.
I want that camera.

I believe you're somewhat mistaken. (although the correction that follows is probably close enough to what you said, and I'm just being a little picky on the semantics)

Kono - this.
Sono - that.
Ano - 'that over there'.

Also the particle in 'watashi ha ano kamera ga hoshii desu' is incorrect. It should be 'wa' and not 'ha'. . . I can't say I study usin romaji often, but I have never seen the particle translated as 'ha' before.

Edit: To Lenigod, Sansa is right that 'kore, sore, are' are used as kind of abstracts, when talking about 'this, that, that one' without there being a noun in the sentence. 'kono, sono, ano' are used as specifics, when dealing with a noun. So when you say 'B: Say you’ll take “this”. Ja, sono wa kudasai.' I think you mean 'Ja, kore wa kudasai'.

I'm not exactly fluent, so I'd wait for someone with better skills to reply before you take my word, or Sansa's.

sorry, you are right. watashi wa is correct. I don't use romaji in my life, so I mistook. and thanks.

I don't exactly know the idea of it, that, this, that over there in English. so my comment may be wrong. RobinMask's one is better to explain them.

A. Welcome (B)
いらっしゃいませ。
Irasshaimase.

B: Ask to see “that” (near A) small video camera.
その　ちいさい　びでおかめら　を　みせて　ください 。
Sono chiisai bideo-camera wo misete kudasai.

A: Ask which one.
どれですか？
Dore desu ka?

B: Say it’s “that” (near A) red video camera.
その　あかい　びでおかめら　です。
Sono akai bideo-camera desu.

A: Say what is appropriate as you hand B the video camera.
はい、どうぞ。
Hai douzo.

B: Ask how much “this” is.
これは　いくら　ですか？
kore wa ikura desu ka?

A: Say it’s 43,600 yen. Say it’s Korean.
よんまんさんぜんろっぴゃく円です。　これは　かんこ くの　です。
yon man san zen roppyaku en desu.　kore wa kankoku no desu.

B: Say you’ll take “this”.
じゃあ、これを　ください。
Jaa, kore wo kudasai.　

A: Thank B.
はい、どうもありがとう　ございます。
Hai, doumo arigatou gozaimasu.

B: Ask if it’s all right to pay by credit card.
かーど　でも　いい　ですか？
Cardo demo ii desu ka?

A: Say it’s fine.
はい、　けっこう　です。
Hai, kekkou desu.


you find where I correct by yourself.

If fluency is the matter, are you aware that Sansa is a Japanese-speaker?

No, I wasn't aware, but thank you for pointing it out :)

I just thought some of their corrections were a little off. I could be wrong, I admit that, but to be fair they did admit they weren't aware of some of the subtleties of English, so there was room for error on their part too.

I did actually think that they were a Japanese speaker at this point, but I was still a little uncertain of some of the corrections. I just thought it best that someone fluent in both languages reply, someone who was more certain - not that Sansa isn't fluent, of course, but as they showed some uncertainity I guess I was just looking for someone else's opinion who was more certain, if that makes sense?

Sorry, I don't think I'm being very clear, I'll stop now, lol.

Cool, thanks for you help guys. I got more dialogues which I wanna get completed too, but not right now. I have a question about this line though:

Why isn't there a particle after dore?

A very good question.

In the phrase どれですか, どれ is NOT the subject. The subject is hidden here as is the case with many Japanese sentences. The hidden subject is "the product you are referring to".

You must already be familiar with the following sentence structure.

ＡはＢです。

The どれ in どれですか is the equivalent of B in the sentence above, not A. Thus, no particle following どれ.

To build on what Sashimister has said, question words are never followed by は. They are only followed by が when marking it as the topic.

Think about it this way: は is a topic, not subject marker. A question word can never be the "topic" of conversation, right? I mean, it's a nonexistent concept.

It can, however, be the subject of a sentence. Hence why が is OK but not は.

To explain another way, a way of translating Xは is "As for X." So for なにはおもしろいですか。 you would have a translation of As for what, it is interesting?" This makes no sense in English! Let this help you remember that it similarly sounds wrong in Japanese.

The correct way to put this would be なにがおもしろいですか。What is interesting?