At what point is a choice made?

cloa513 · 29 Jun 2023

From 安全マスターN4聴解
Excellent practice for some of the extremely difficult exam questions that are sure to be included:

A lot more in this particular question but this is key part:
......

男：ほかの金曜日はどうですか
市役所の女：えーと 16日、23日、３０日、午後。ですよね。午後なら九日もひとつ空いています。
男：じゃ、おねがいします。
At what point was it clear the man chose 九日 or had no options other than九日 or is it just to be assumed that he chose the last mentioned date?

mdchachi · 29 Jun 2023

It's more or less the same in English.

"I have 16th, 23th, 30th, available. Oh and one on the 9th."
"Ok, I'll take that."

cloa513 · 30 Jun 2023

mdchachi said:
It's more or less the same in English.

"I have 16th, 23th, 30th, available. Oh and one on the 9th."
"Ok, I'll take that."

At which point,. the council worker would ask which one?

mdchachi · 1 Jul 2023

cloa513 said:
At which point,. the council worker would ask which one?

Or they'd say, "Ok the 9th, right?" I agree it's not 100% clear but, anyway, given no other information, the best answer is the 9th.

Majestic · 1 Jul 2023

Yes, as with the other answers, and given the very limited information that is supplied, we are left to choose the best out of some possibly inadequate options.

In this case, the City Hall staff worker lists a bunch of options, and then provides one more specific option at the end. The man then says, "OK I'll take it", and we are left to assume he picked the last option, since that was the one that seemed to provoke his response. Plus, it would be illogical to assume he was selecting one of the middle options. The best possible answer for us, is that he chose the last option offered.

But in real life, if a City Hall staff gives 5 different options, and the person says, "OK I'll take it", the City Hall person would for sure clarify which one, or would repeat the selection back to the person to insure no error was made.

So, again, from the context its reasonably clear he is selecting the last option.

cloa513 · 1 Jul 2023

ほかの金曜日 is in regard to 9日、

Majestic · 1 Jul 2023

Sorry, I'm not quite following you. The speaker wants to make an appointment on a "another Friday". From the context its not entirely clear what day today is, but it doesn't really matter.

The person at the city hall lists the options for all available Fridays. Then, at the end the city hall person says there is one spot left on the afternoon of the 9th. The customer says "I'll take it".

It doesn't seem particularly confusing. You may be tripping over the word ほか, but from the context that word doesn't really matter too much. The city hall staff is listing all Friday options, and at the end lists the very limited option of the one spot left on the 9th, and the person says he'll take it.

mdchachi · 2 Jul 2023

cloa513 said:
ほかの金曜日 is in regard to 9日、

It sounds like you didn't give us the whole dialog. If you're saying they were originally talking about the 9th, he couldn't get a (morning?) appointment on the 9th and then asked for other Fridays, then the clerk gives him all the options but says they're all afternoons and says "if afternoon's ok there an afternoon appointment on the 9th too" then that actually reinforces the answer if his original intent was to get an appointment on the 9th in the first place. Did he ask for a morning appointment at first?

cloa513 · 4 Jul 2023

mdchachi said:
It sounds like you didn't give us the whole dialog. If you're saying they were originally talking about the 9th, he couldn't get a (morning?) appointment on the 9th and then asked for other Fridays, then the clerk gives him all the options but says they're all afternoons and says "if afternoon's ok there an afternoon appointment on the 9th too" then that actually reinforces the answer if his original intent was to get an appointment on the 9th in the first place. Did he ask for a morning appointment at first?

I said that at the top that "A lot more in this particular question"

At what point is a choice made?

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