No.819 Bad Day







Joel: Hey, Michele.

Michele: Hi.

Joel: You don’t look very happy. What happened?

Michele: Oh, well, I’m a little bit frustrated.

Joel: Why?

Michele: Well, I went to the bank today and I couldn’t communicate well because my Japanese wasn’t good enough and the bank teller didn’t speak English.

Joel: What were you trying to do?

Michele: Well, I’ve ordered a ticket to go to Australia and I have to send the money to the travel agency and they only accept one form of payment.They want me to send a bank transfer.

Joel: OK.

Michele: So, I have a post office account and I can’t do it through the post office, so I went to the bank and I started to explain that I want to send…. do a bank transfer.

Joel: Right.

Michele: And because I’m a foreigner, I think she thought I wanted to send money abroad and she was saying, "Oh, I’m sorry, you can’t do that here" but I had to explain, "No, no. I just want to send it within Japan," but I don’t know, because I don’t have an account at that bank there was some sort of problem and she wanted me to fill out a form and I didn’t really understand it.

Joel: Right, and then the form is in Japanese.

Michele: Yes, so now I have the form. I guess I’ll have to go find a friend to help me with…

Joel: You never solved the problem.

Michele: No, no. I just took the form and said, "OK, I’ll take it and come back."

Joel: How long were you there?

Michele: Not too long, maybe five or ten minutes. There weren’t many people in the bank but I still felt like, oh I’m taking up too much time here or something.

Joel: So, you just gave up and…

Michele: Yes.

Joel: Well, I’ll have to take you over to my landlord here. This Japanese woman is really nice and she’ll… I’m sure she’ll help you fill out the form.

Michele: Oh, really.

Joel: And take care of you. Yeah.

Michele: Oh, that’s great.



I couldn’t communicate well

I couldn’t communicate well enough.

When we ‘can’t communicate well,’ that means people don’t understand us.  This can be because we don’t speak the language well or because we are not explaining ourselves very well.  Notice the following:

  1. He couldn’t communicate well in Tokyo.
  2. My biggest problem was that I couldn’t communicate well.

one form of payment

They only accept one form of payment.

Here, ‘one form’ is similar in meaning to ‘one kind’.  Notice the following:


post office account

I have a post office account.

A ‘post office account’ can be used in similar ways to an account at a bank.  Notice the following:

  1. You can’t use a post office account in some countries.
  2. Does your country offer post office accounts?

bank transfer

I want to send a bank transfer.

A ‘bank transfer’ is a way of transferring money from one person or bank to another.  Notice the following:

  1. Can I do a bank transfer?
  2. Both banks charge fees for a bank transfer.


I’ll take you to my landlord.

A ‘landlord’ is the person who owns the house, condo or apartment we rent.  Notice the following:

  1. I’d hate to be a landlord.
  2. Our landlord lives in the building.

Learn more!

communicate • one form • post office • bank transfer • landlord
  1. There is only of payment: cash.
  2. I am having some problems with my account.

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