The Part Where…

How was your weekend? I hope no one was too badly affected by the typhoon. We got some very strong winds and rain here in Gifu, but it was nothing too serious. Actually, I went running at the peak of it. As you know, I run barefoot now, and it was an amazing feeling running in the rain.

A few months ago, I think we had a discussion about a particular use of “where” that a lot of you said was new to you. In modern English (especially in conversation), “where” can be used as a replacement for “in which.” “Where” is often used in this way to talk about TV shows. In fact, the American show “Friends” used to use this structure as the title for the episodes. For example, Season 1 had episodes called “The one where Nana dies twice” and “The one where Rachel finds out.” This was a kind of joke by the writers, who knew that this would be the way people would refer to the episodes in conversation anyway.

“Where” is also commonly used in this way to talk about parts of a movie or song. After they have just watched a movie, you will often hear people say to their friends, “I loved the part where…” or “I loved the bit where….”

Because this is a very useful structure that a lot of Japanese people are not familiar with, I thought it would be fun to talk about our favourite parts of movies this week. As you can see from the image, one of my favourite movies is the 1980s hit “Dirty Dancing.” My favourite part of the movie is the part where all the actors get together in a big song-and-dance scene at the end. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey are dancing together to the song “Time of my Life.” In the slow bit of the song, Patrick Swayze mouths the lyrics as he looks at Jennifer Grey, and then he puts real emphasis on the part where they sing “And I owe it all to you.” It still brings a tear to my eye when I think about it now!

In my explanation, I used the present tense. This is possible because you can still watch the movie now if you want to, but it would also be fine to use the past simple (I loved the part where he said to her….)

A lot of our recent topics have been very “content-focussed,” so I think it will be nice to concentrate more on the use of language for a change. I hope everyone (not just the high-level regulars) will take the challenge. Start with “My favourite movie is…,” and then say, “My favourite part of the movie is the part/bit/scene where….”

Look forward to reading your comments.

PS Now I’ve written about it, I’m going to have to go and watch it on YouTube again! Here it is, for those of you who are interested. The part I am talking about comes at around 5:55.