Ad Text in Japanese:

Upper Left:「出先で急に出張が決まった。」

Orange Tag:「スグ！ケータイで予約！」

Below Image:「東海道・山陽新幹線の会員制ネット予約。」

Hey guys, it’s everyones favorite (okay, so mine) Japan talent! Yukie Nakama! Again.

This time she is doing advertisements for JR… I’m telling ya she’s everywhere these days.

Time to get the learn on!

「出先で急に出張が決まった。」

「出先」means “destination” as translated by Breen’s online dictionary. Of course it is used a bit differently than we usually do in English. It is usually used in work situations, when someone leaves their home office to go visit a customer, or something like that.

「急に」means “suddenly”. This a very useful phrase. You can say things like, 「急に電車が止まって乗っている人が全員倒れた。」”The train stopped suddenly and everyone riding fell!” Or, 「今週は急に忙しくなったから疲れたよ。」”I suddenly got really busy this week so I’m tired.”

「出張が決まった」

「出張」is a business word which means “business trip”. For example when I would go to work in Tokyo while I was based in Osaka, that would be a 「出張」. The verb is 「決まった」which means, “was decided”. The meaning of this is that the fact that Yukie Nakama needs to take a business trip was decided. Probably decided by her boss.

All together, this means “While I was out of the office, it was decided that I have to go on a business trip.”

The point here, is that this new service that is being advertised allows you to make bullet train reservations via your cell phone. So even if she is away from the office, she can book the train for that trip!

「スグ！ケータイで予約！」

「スグ！」means, immediately. Usually it is written 「すぐ」in Hiragana. The Katakana here is the emphasis that we are all so used to now. 「すぐ」is a very useful word. You can say things like, 「すぐ行くから待ってて」to tell someone to wait, because you’ll be there in a second.

「ケータイ」simply means cell phone, as in 「携帯電話」, and 「予約」is reservation, in this case the train reservation. The particle 「で」in this case is showing “by means of”, so by means of cell phone, make a reservation.

「東海道・山陽新幹線の会員制ネット予約。」

「東海道」and 「山陽」are two different routes for the bullet train. The bullet train, or Shinkansen, is 「新幹線」The 「山陽」(wiki article in Japanese on Sanyo Line) route runs from Shin-Osaka to Hakata, including Tokyo. and 「東海道」runs Tokyo Osaka. Basically the 「山陽」is just an extension for the 「東海道」so often they are referred to together, as the 「東海道・山陽」. Japanese wiki on 東海道 here.

On another note, I have a British friend who walked the entire route from Tokyo to Osaka. It took weeks, but apparently was a great experience!

「会員制」A 「会員」is a “member”, and a 「制」is usually some type of system. As in 「制度」. So this is saying the net reservation 「ネット予約」is available only for members.

That’s all!

Personally I have never used this Keitai based Shinkansen reservation system… I probably won’t end up giving it a try either… It’s easy enough to buy it from the machines at the JR stations even right without a reservation!

- Harvey