店員

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 店員 is a noun read てんいん, referring to an employee who serves customers and handles sales-related work in a store.
• Basic usage: Use 店員に尋ねる when asking a clerk a question and 店員が…渡してくれる when the clerk hands something to the customer as a helpful action.
  • 店員に商品の場所を尋ねた。 describes asking a store clerk where a product is located; その店員は笑顔で包みを渡してくれた。 describes the clerk handing over the package with a smile.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• 店員に尋ねる
  • に marks the store employee who receives the question.
• 渡してくれた
  • てくれる presents the clerk's handing action as done for the speaker or someone on the speaker's side.
• 店員 and 店長
  • 店員 broadly means an employee working in the store, while 店長 is the manager responsible for the store.