I’m working through the Pimsleur Japanese courses and one of the lessons has us asking someone if they would like tea.
What I hear is “お茶しませんか” (“ocha shimasenka”) apparently without a discernible particle. I would expect to hear the お particle but really can’t hear it.
Is my hearing poor? Or are there cases in polite Japanese in which the particle can actually be omitted?
4 comments
The verb is お茶する
You can basically turn any noun into a verb in japanese by adding suru at the end
Also, while this is not the case, you’ll find that in casual speech some particles are sometimes dropped entirely
To answer your final question, を and が do not need to be used in all cases in speech, even polite speech. Polite does not mean formal; you can speak politely but still use normal features of spoken language. This is often wrongly described as “dropping” the particles, but using a “zero particle” (or nothing) to mark subjects and objects has been standard practice in Japanese for as long as we have written records of the language. It’s only very recently that formal written Japanese has required the particles to be included.
(In some cases, adding a が or を can even change the meaning from a zero-particle.)
You got some good answers here, but If you aren’t, I really recommend getting more grammar study on the side. Pimsleur by itself just isn’t very good at getting down to why thing work the way they do.