Rainy-Day Announcement: Which Instruction Applies to You?
You are a Year 12 exchange student at a high school in Nagano. It is a rainy Tuesday in June and the morning PA announcement is played once at normal speed. You catch these fragments: きょう、雨なので、体育祭の練習は中止です。二年生は、午後一時半に体育館へ来てください。上ばきを持ってきてください。プールへのバスは、三時十五分に正面ゲートから出ます。三時四十五分ではありません。昼ごはんは教室で食べてください。 The announcement moves on to other year levels before you can write everything down. You are not sure whether the bus is at 3:15 or 3:45, because 十五 and 四十五 are easy to confuse in fast speech. A classmate says the pool trip is cancelled, but you did not hear that word. You have a club meeting at 4:00 and need to know whether you can attend both.
1. At 1:30, where should you go and what should you bring? Explain how the announcement signals that this instruction still applies to you even though practice is cancelled.
Read the worked answer
Go to the gym (体育館) at 1:30 and bring indoor shoes (上ばき).
Reasoning:
- The cancelled item is specifically 体育祭の練習 (sports-festival practice). The next sentence, 二年生は、午後一時半に体育館へ来てください, is a separate instruction addressed to Year 2.
- 上ばきを持ってきてください is attached to that instruction, so it is not optional.
- The trap is to hear 中止 and stop listening. In a school announcement, a cancellation is often followed by a replacement instruction. Wait for the ～てください after the cancellation before deciding you are free.
- Because the announcement was played once, confirm the room on the notice board, but do not skip the 1:30 meeting.
2. A classmate says the pool trip is cancelled. Based on the fragments, is that likely? What evidence would you use?
Read the worked answer
Not likely. The announcement gives a departure time (三時十五分), a place (正面ゲート), and even corrects a wrong time (三時四十五分ではありません). A cancelled trip would not need a meeting time or a correction. However, not hearing 中止 is weaker evidence than hearing positive travel details, because you may have missed a word. The safe judgement is: assume the pool trip is still on, but confirm with the teacher or the notice board before 3:00.
3. How should you decide between 3:15 and 3:45, and what is one listening strategy for next time?
Read the worked answer
Choose 3:15. The speaker first says 三時十五分に…出ます, then explicitly rules out 三時四十五分ではありません. The negative correction is the key: ではありません marks the wrong number, not the right one. The two times differ by よんじゅう (forty) before ご (five).
Listening strategy: write the digits as you hear them, mark any じゃない/ではありません correction, and repeat the final version back silently. If still unsure, check the front gate notice or ask a classmate, not the PA speaker.