N4 発話表現: The Right Line, One Level Up
The picture-arrow-utterance question (5 items) returns from N5 with new territory: workplace rituals, trouble reports, and permission requests with real stakes. The official samples define the register: leaving before colleagues → お先に失礼します (with distractors おじゃまします and お大事に — set phrases from the WRONG ritual); a broken hotel TV → テレビがつかないんですが (the trailing 〜んですが complaint). Master the situation→line catalog and the three distractor recipes, and these five points bank themselves.
1. The Official-Sample Situations (Anchor These)
| Situation | Correct line | Why the distractors fail |
|---|---|---|
| Leaving work before colleagues | お先に失礼します。 | おじゃまします = entering someone's home; お大事に = to a sick person — right politeness, wrong ritual |
| Hotel: TV won't turn on | すみません、テレビがつかないんですが…。 | The trailing んですが reports trouble and requests help without demanding; note つかない — intransitive (つく), because the TV won't turn on by itself! |
Both samples teach the same meta-lesson: set phrases belong to specific rituals, and the exam's wrong options are correct phrases from neighboring rituals.
2. The N4 Situation Catalog
Trouble reports (the 〜んですが family)
| Situation | Say |
|---|---|
| Device broken (hotel/office) | エアコンがつかないんですが…。／こしょうしているんですが…。 |
| Wrong item arrived / size issue | これ、ちょっと小さいんですが、大きいのはありますか。 |
| Lost something at a facility | すみません、電車にかばんを忘れたんですが…。 |
| Feeling sick at work/school | すみません、気分が悪いんですが、早く帰ってもいいですか。 |
Permission & requests (N4 grammar in the mouth)
| Situation | Say |
|---|---|
| Borrow the teacher's pen | ペンを貸していただけませんか。 |
| Ask someone to check your writing | 作文を見てもらえませんか。 |
| Want a day off (to boss) | あした、休ませていただけませんか。（させて＋いただく!） |
| Ask to take a photo | ここで写真を撮ってもいいですか。 |
| Window seat is hot; ask to close curtain | カーテンを閉めてもいいですか。／閉めましょうか。(who benefits decides!) |
Rituals & set phrases
| Situation | Say |
|---|---|
| Entering someone's home | おじゃまします。 |
| To a sick/injured person | お大事に（してください）。 |
| Receiving a gift | ありがとうございます。いただきます。 |
| After long absence | お久しぶりです。お元気でしたか。 |
| Congratulating | おめでとうございます。 |
| New neighbor introduction | となりに引っ越してきた田中です。よろしくお願いします。 |
| Someone helped you | おかげさまで、助かりました。 |
| Meal offered at a home | いただきます。／ごちそうさまでした。 |
3. The Three Distractor Recipes (N4 Edition)
- Neighboring ritual: お先に失礼します／おじゃまします／お大事に — all polite, each locked to ONE scene. Learn phrases WITH their scenes, never as a list of "polite things to say."
- Role reversal: the shopkeeper's いらっしゃいませ offered to the customer's arrow; いってらっしゃい given to the person staying. Check whose mouth the arrow marks.
- Grammar direction: 貸してください (lend me) vs 借りてください (✗ "please borrow"); 休ませてください (let me rest) vs 休んでください (you rest — said TO someone). The causative/receiving machinery from the grammar course decides who acts.
4. Worked Example
（Picture: an office at 6 p.m.; the arrow marks a woman with her bag, colleagues still working.）
Narrator: 仕事が終わって、先に帰ります。何と言いますか。
① お先に失礼します。
② おじゃましました。
③ いってきます。
Walkthrough: leaving the office before others = ①. ② closes a visit to someone's home; ③ leaves YOUR home. Three "leaving" phrases, three different doors — the whole question type in one item.
5. Training Routine
- Flashcards by SCENE: picture-prompt (office exit / sickbed / doorway) → say the line aloud. Scene→line is the exam's direction.
- Drill the 〜んですが melody until automatic — it solves half of all trouble situations politely.
- For each catalog line, name who acts (me? them?) — the direction check inoculates against recipe #3.
Summary & Key Takeaways
- N4 発話表現 (5 items): workplace rituals, trouble reports, permissions — official anchors: お先に失礼します and テレビがつかないんですが.
- Set phrases are scene-locked; distractors are correct phrases from neighboring scenes.
- The trailing 〜んですが reports trouble and invites help — the politest complaint in Japanese.
- Direction grammar (貸す/借りる, 〜させてください vs 〜てください) decides who acts; check the arrow, then the verb.