Essential Japanese Vocabulary. Akira Miura
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EXAMPLE:
(1) Ashita no gogo mata kite-kudasai.
あしたの午後また来てください。
Please come again tomorrow afternoon.
Gogo 午後 also means “P.M.,” but unlike “P.M.,” which follows the time (i.e., “2 P.M.,” “3 P.M.,” etc.), it precedes the time.
EXAMPLE:
(2) gogo ni-ji
午後二時
2 P.M.
(See also GOZEN.)
Go
In a narrow sense, gohan ご飯 means “cooked rice.”
EXAMPLE:
(1) Gohan o mō ip-pai kudasai.
ご飯をもう一杯ください。
Please give me one more bowl of rice.
In a broader sense, gohan ご飯 means “meal.”
EXAMPLE:
(2) Mō sorosoro ohiru da kara, gohan ni shimashō.
もうそろそろお昼だから、ご飯にしましょう。
Since it’s almost noon, let’s have lunch.
The fact that the same word may mean both “cooked rice” and “meal” points to the important role cooked rice used to play in the traditional Japanese meal. The names of the three daily meals are, most commonly, asa-gohan 朝ご飯 “breakfast,” hiru- (or ohiru-) gohan 昼 （お昼）ご飯 “lunch,” and ban-gohan 晩ご飯 “dinner.”
Men sometimes use the word meshi 飯 instead of gohan ご飯, especially in informal situations. Meshi, like gohan, means both “cooked rice” and “meal.” There is another word meaning “cooked rice,” i.e., raisu ライス from English “rice.” This word, however, has a very limited range of meaning, referring only to cooked rice served on a plate in a Western-style restaurant (Miura, p. 128). It never means “meal.”
Go
Gokurō-sama ご苦労様 is an expression of thanks for service rendered such as delivering things or running an errand, and “is most often said to newspaper boys, porters, bellboys, delivery men and the like ... as a verbal tip” (Mizutani and Mizutani, 1, p. 117). It should not be used when someone “has done something for you out of sheer kindness” (ibid.), or when someone does something for his own good (e.g., someone who is studying hard for an examination or jogging for his own health and pleasure).
This greeting may sometimes be directed to a person of higher status. Since it is difficult to predict its appropriateness in a given situation, however, it might be safer to avoid the expression when addressing a person of higher status.
Go
When visiting a Japanese home, you first ring the bell and wait for someone to answer. But what should you do if the bell is not working or if there is no bell at the front door? In that case, the best thing would be to shout out Gomenkudasai! ごめんください, which literally means “Please excuse me” but is used in the sense of “Is anybody home?” If the door is not locked, you can even open the door (this is accepted behavior in Japan though totally unacceptable in the U.S.) and shout out Gomenkudasai! (see GOMEN-NASAI.)
Go
Gomen-nasai ごめんなさい “Sorry!” is an apology used mostly at home between family members, especially by children apologizing to parents (Mizutani and Mizutani, pp. 14–15). Outside the home, too, Gomen-nasai is used mostly by children. An adult may say it, in informal situations, to someone lower in status. In formal situations, adults use Shitsureishimasu 失礼します or Shitsurei-shimashita 失礼しました (see SHITSUREI-SHIMASU).
-Go
-Goro ごろ is a variant of koro ころ “about, approximately” and is used exclusively as a suffix attached to nouns indicating points in time.
EXAMPLES:
(1) go-ji-goro
五時ごろ
about 5 o’clock
(2) san-gatsu-goro
三月ごろ
about March
Because of the Japanese speaker’s reluctance to be precise or exact, -goro ごろ is used more frequently in Japanese than “about” is used in English in reference to points in time. For example, instead of using Nanji desu ka 何時ですか to mean “What time is it?” many Japanese speakers ask Nanji-goro desu ka 何時ごろですか “About what time is it?” In English, however, “About what time is it?” is much rarer than “What time is it?”
Some speakers use koro ころ instead of -goro ごろ to mean the same thing.
EXAMPLE:
(3) san-gatsu koro
三月ころ
about March
When not preceded by a noun, koro ころ, not -goro ごろ, is the correct word. In the following sentence, therefore, -goro cannot be used.
EXAMPLE:
(4) Wakai koro (not *-goro ごろ) wa yokatta!
若いころは良かった！
Ah, those good old days when I was still young!
(See also KONOGORO and KORO.)
Go
Gozen 午前 is the opposite of gogo 午後 meaning “P.M.” (see GOGO).
EXAMPLE:
(1) Gozen san-ji desu ka, gogo san-ji desu ka.
午前三時ですか、午後三時ですか？
Do you mean 3 A.M. or 3 P.M.?
Whereas gogo 午後 is often used adverbially, gozen 午前 is not. For example, while sentence (2) below is perfectly normal, (3) is a little unnatural.
EXAMPLES:
(2) Ashita no gogo kite-kudasai.
あしたの午後来てください。
Please come tomorrow afternoon.
(3) ?Ashita no gozen kite-kudasai.
あしたの午前来て下さい。
Please come tomorrow morning.
When used adverbially gozen 午前 usually takes the suffix -chū 中 “during.”
EXAMPLE: