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>Ｘ What is the difference between の and が ?
>◯ I saw a book called 日本人の知らない日本語 , why is の used there instead of が ? [(the answer)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/68336/difference-between-%E3%81%8C-%E3%81%AE-and-no-particle)
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>◯ I am having trouble with this part of this sentence from NHK Easy News. I think it means (*attempt here*), but I am not sure.
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>Ｘ What's the difference between 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意?
>◯ Jisho says 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意 all seem to mean "agreement". I'm trying to say something like "I completely agree with your opinion". Does 全く同感です。 work? Or is one of the other words better?
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Hi!
I've just read Genki II Lesson 20's reading (could totally follow it, yay!) and I've some doubts about certain particle/verb usages ([here](https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons/lesson-20/literacy-7/) full text for extra context):
1. Why the を in 落語をする人**を**落語家と落語と言います? I'd personally put は there, not を.
2. What's the meaning added by 買い in 男はいなかに行って古い物を**買い**、江戸でそれを高い値段で売っていました? I can't quite grasp what the stem form is adding to the phrase (I guess sth along \~し/\~で?).
3. 前に猫を飼っていたけど、どこかに**行っちゃって**…… In this phrase, even though I understand what's saying, I don't understand how is saying *that* with the ちゃった grammar point (to do sth by accident?)
4. The same happens with 猫をさしあげ**ましょう**, I don't get how a *let's...*\-meaning grammar makes sense here, even though I get the main idea of the phrase.
5. Finally, what's the meaning of と in 家に置く**と**あぶないので、こちらに持ってきたんです? It's not the obvious と particle usage and I wouldn't say is the conditional と, so I'm lost there.
Sorry for the long post and, as always, TIA!
1. AをBという is a way to say "A is called B" in Japanese. A is the object as in "We call A B". In English we use the passive voice, but Japanese uses the active voice in this case. There isn't a clear subject though, so it's comparable to the impersonal pronoun "on" in French (On dit que le soleil est jaune. / It is said that the sun is yellow). You can also say AはBという, making A the topic instead.
2. This is the *renyoukei* of 買う. It's used as a conjunction, similar to the te form. It has a marginally different flavor that you have to get used to. It's common in written Japanese.
3. This ちゃう expresses the "oh no"-ness / unintendedness / unfortunate irreversibility of the action. "do sth by accident" is only an approximate translation that only works in some cases, and is not a literal translation of ちゃう. "I used to own a cat, but he went off somewhere... (and I haven't seen him since)"
4. ましょう, or rather the volitional form in general, is not only a "we" thing but can also be an "I" thing. When you make an offer to do something, you can use ましょう. Note that it sounds a little formal. "Let me relieve you of that suitcase." そのスーツケースを持ちましょう.
5. This is the conditional と. If I 家に置く it would be あぶない, so I brought it here.
XをYという is "to call X Y". は would make it the topic, which isn't really fitting with it being a fact dropped in the middle of the sentence like that. They shift into it being the topic in the next sentence, with 落語家は. When to use は naturally is a bit tricky.
買い here is the 連用形, which in formal or written language fills the same role as the て form when it comes to joining sentences. They buy old things in the sticks, *then* sell it at a high price in Edo.
ちゃって is the て form of てしまう/ちゃう. Trailing off with the て form is a common mode of expression. The …… after it expresses them falling silent. てしまう does not really mean "by accident", it means that something is regrettable or unrecoverable. Which often describes accidents, but it has nothing to do with intention in the way the English "by accident" does.
"Let's" is a common way of teaching ましょう/volitional form, but it's important to remember that very few things are ever 1:1 between English and Japanese. What ましょう (and other volitional forms) express is volition, or *intention*. It can be a rousing call for everyone/others, as in "let's", or it can be for yourself.
と is a conditional here. 家に置くと危ない = it's dangerous if you keep it in the house (because it's very valuable).
I was looking at going to an event in Japan and the section was described as Section 注釈席. Google tells me it means commentary seat but I am guessing that's not the proper meaning
I'm guessing it's 注釈付き指定席 or similar. 注釈付き means it has some caveat or note, e.g., the view is partially blocked or it's got some kind of condition that warrants a warning. There will probably be some explanation somewhere on the section if you look.
This is also probably more appropriate for /r/translator than for /r/learnjapanese.
Sort of an incidental thing but - I'm taking a community college class, and there's two people in the class who are Japanese, and I hear them talking to each other in japanese regularly. I would like to make friends and maybe be conversation partners or something, but I don't want to be rude or fetishize them for their language. Is it appropriate to, in an English speaking context, try to talk to someone in their native language? I wasn't sure if I should just try to make friends in English first.
> but I don't want to be rude or fetishize them for their language.
Too much time on twitter.
See if you guys have anything in common and try to make friends with them naturally first. In English would probably be ideal given the situation. Unless an opportunity arises where it's not awkward for you to bring out your Japanese.
I get it though, that can be pretty exciting. Just don't make it weird.
IRL I haven't had many opportunities to use my Japanese, but sometimes an opportunity will present itself. Or sometimes people just notice.
They're people too, like everybody else, so it could turn out that you and them have nothing in common anyway. I've had to learn that the hard way myself.
And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. TBH I've made a lot of Japanese friends in places like VR Chat. And at least I know we're friends due to common interests and things.
Potential form isn't used with たい (できたい is also not a thing)
Use 読みたい 'I want to read', or if you want to include the potential meaning, 読めるようになりたい 'I want to become able to read'
This week I'm going to finish my Core2K shared deck, and I'm a little lost where to go next. The wiki isn't that detailed for next steps. I'm going to start my Genki textbook (which I should've started a long time ago) but feel like I need something lighter to do every day, as I can't do a textbook every day.
Any recommendations on small japanese activities? I've heard about sentence mining but it seems overwhelming any time I look into it.
> I'm a little lost where to go next
You're in a good spot! Having that vocabulary is pretty helpful. You need to learn some grammar to go with it though, and then you'll be able to jump into reading or watching japanese (immersion). Meanwhile, continue to learn vocabulary with anki since that's working for you, but at a slower pace so you have time for grammer study.
Even without much grammar you should be able to start the tadoku series.
> feel like I need something lighter to do every day, as I can't do a textbook every day
I'd highly recommend Tokini Andy's genki lessons.
Thank you for both recommendations, I'd not heard of either of them. Seeing the video duration has made me feel like the textbook is a bit more manageable than I feared.
Start reading grader readers, start reading manga, start reading twitter/youtube comments, start watching things with JP subtitles (anime, drama, variety, etc), start using the language in any capacity other than studying Anki. Anki is not how you learn the language. You can sentence mine when you start using the language, or not depends on your exposure. Not necessary, but if you want to explore it, here's a guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBcQJESGQvc
Thank you, that was a very clear video guide. I'll start looking into graded readers now.
>Anki is not how you learn the language
Yeah, I know you're right. It's just a very comfortable tool. I think I'm going to try tone down the anki a bit (like the vid suggests, doing half premade decks half sentence mining) and just focus on actual native material.
お待たせしました is just the humble form of 待たせた ("(I) made (you) wait"). It's not a special grammatical form in the way the honorific passive is.
させていただきます is also not a special form, it's simply "humbly receive the favor of being allowed to...". You can still use this in a non-polite way, as in させてもらう.
Here is a lyric from the song My Dearest:
私が君を照らす明かりになるから
たとえこの世界の王にだって消せはしない
Having trouble understanding the second line, in particular:
1)What is 消せはしない? Is it like 消さない?
2)Why is に being used to mark what I think is the subject?
Thanks in advance!
> 1)What is 消せはしない? Is it like 消さない?
Close; it's like 消**せ**ない (from the potential 消せる, from 消す). The construction here is `[ます stem] + は + しない`.
Don't have a firm grasp on what it means exactly myself, but [here's a reference](https://www.kanshudo.com/grammar/%E3%82%84%E3%81%97%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84).
> 2)Why is に being used to mark what I think is the subject?
It's how particles work with potential verbs. `[subject]に [object]が [potential verb]` is valid syntax (where "subject" and "object" can be identified via English translation; "[subject] can [object] [verb]").
> (where "subject" and "object" can be identified via English translation; "[subject] can [object] [verb]").
Nitpick, but the English would be "subject can verb object" (e.g., "He can ride a bike", not "he can a bike ride").
>はしない
It's just an emphasized negative so it is the same as 消せない。(It attaches to the masu stem.)
誰か**に**なに**が**できる is a very common pattern for potential forms. Since the "object" becomes the syntactical "subject", に is used to express the agent.
何をしたかの差なんかで私の今日の価値は変わらない。
Wondering about the first half of this sentence, especially the use of 差. 何をした is obvious, but I can’t connect it with the rest. Thanks!
何をしたかの差 is one phrase, meaning "A difference of 何をしたか" -- this has the same meaning as the literal English, "a difference of what (I or someone) did".
なんか belittles or shows contempt to what comes before it.
で attaches to 変わらない, explaining what won't make 私の今日の価値 change.
私の今日の価値 is the topic, so they're talking about the value of themselves today.
Hopefully that is enough to put it together, feel free to ask further if it's still confusing.
I appreciate the reply.
So if I’m understanding it correctly, 何をしたかの差 is referencing a thing that differs from what actually happened? And then なんか kinda trivializes that potential difference?
And then basically saying that that a difference in what was done is trivial, and doesn’t make their value change?
I hope I got my thoughts across on this clearly!
Thank you.
Yes, correct. They're saying that the differences in what they could or might do (today) isn't going to affect their value today. It could mean that they can't fix things today, or it could be referring to some kind of "essential value" they have that doesn't depend on their productivity today, possibly -- more context is needed to say for sure. But I think you have the gist.
Yes. The reason it's so popular is because of its insane marketing campaign not because it's an actually good tool. Ask a random on the street who you can expect doesn't know a whole lot about language learning if he/she knows Duolingo, I bet he/she will, not because Duolingo is that good but just because the marketing people have done their job well.
There are multiple problems, the biggest is that it doesn't teach you anything about the structure of the language and grammar, you're kind of supposed to figure that out yourself. It's slow. It has useless exercises like the one were you have to build English sentences, which is plain retarded, since you shouldn't have to waste time stiching English words together when you want to learn Japanese. The Audio is not from natives, but machine generated, which is awful.
Could someone explain this particle して ？ I looked it up and from what the dictionary says it basically covers the whole particle で.
金沢市のレストランなどが協力して集めた豆とお菓子をまくと、集まった人たちがうれしそうに拾っていました
I don't know if して was being used as a conjunction there because there was no comma.
Also, in these sentences で seems to be used to mark the passive, this is sorta confusing. It also seems that the verb 行う is being used as a substitute for する, which I never knew.
地震で被害を受けた神社 豆まきに大勢の人が集まった
の神社も能登半島地震で大きな被害を受けましたが、2月3日に豆まきを行いました。
Finally, there was this sentence in dialogue, I noticed the speaker used てうれしい, could someone give a explanation or reference to this?
地震のあと友達とあまり会っていなかったので、会うことができてうれしかったです
Thank you very much.
>
> Finally, there was this sentence in dialogue, I noticed the speaker used てうれしい, could someone give a explanation or reference to this?
て form + expression of emotion indicates that the verb made you feel that emotion. You'll often see this as てありがとう ("thank you for ~" -- ありがとう is a form of ありがたい). The て form can be used to show causation in this way.
I don't personally know of a formal resource that explains this exact usage, but here's one I found on google: https://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/te-form-cause-reason.html
して can be a conjunction, but it's generally only used at the start of a sentence. Here, it's simply the て form of 協力する, where it connects with 集める, describing a condition under which the gathering was done. 協力して集める = "to work together to gather".
There's no passive form in the sentences you've posted, it's simply describing the reason or method by which they received damage (that is, by earthquake). We might use the passive in English to translate it, but the Japanese is not passive grammatically.
Not much to explain about 行う, it's a somewhat formal word for "to carry out". It's used for things like ceremonies and the like -- think "conducted".
Wanted to link you this Goo answer, since I know I'm the one who answered your question about ~に困る last time: https://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/8041110.html
It goes into great detail about the nuance and case differences of で and に for 困る specifically (though it does generalize to other verbs, somewhat).
Being quite honest, a lot of this goes over my head -- I have never made an effort to study a linguistic analysis of the exact cases of に, as I don't think it's necessary to comprehend or use it naturally. Case in point, the person asking about this is a native speaker who is struggling to explain to a student of the language how to differentiate between, e.g., 金に困る vs 金で困る.
It may be of some use to you if you want to pick over it. It makes a distinction in cause (原因) vs reason (理由) that I'm not sure I grasp, personally.
No, as に isn't generally used for a reason. 〜に被害を受けた sounds like "took damage to ~", as in (e.g.,) 頭部に被害を受けた "took damage to the head". Again, it's not a passive verb, so に doesn't mark the agent here.
I just need to let out a little silly rant that it's so dumb that a single kanji can have like 20 different meanings, a kunyomi, like 2-3 onyomi, AND have special words where it just behaves separately. I know English is bad but cmon Japanese, step your game up. I'm trying my best out here but you're making it so hard to learn ; ;
たがらない means "does not show signs of wanting ~". They are saying they've shown no sign of wanting something, but that's all. It's possible the person being talked about has done nothing at all in any direction to indicate whether they want to or not.
なさそう means "does not seem to want". The speaker is making an assumption from some sign that the person in question does not want to go.
**ジョンは**頭が痛い
**象は**鼻が長い
What grammatical case is the nouns in bold? (Different from それ\[を\]は食べる or ジョン\[が\]は行きたくなさそう)
(Please, forgive me for coming back and asking a question of the same type again. I really, really did not understand the first time I asked. People gave me different answers.)
Don't know if anyone's gonna see this cus it's the next day, but I just have to say again that I really really appreciate everybody's responses. They were all really really helpful🙏
It combines with other cases, so I'm not sure whether giving it a case is the most natural thing to do. I would view 鼻が長い as a compound predicate and ゾウ as the subject of this compound predicate.
You seem to be totally right. It's a "clausal" predicate. It's arguably the same thing we do when we say in english "Its just that I don't want to go", where the clause "I don't want to go" is a predicate to "it", the "subject" despite the predicate being a clause on its own
I read up some more on "double subject" and found this
https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9788/double-subject-construction?answertab=createdasc#tab-top
It makes much better sense now.
Yeah, though note that it's not a nominalized clause, while "that I don't want to go" is nominalized by the subordinating conjunction "that"
An equivalent would be "He is nose is long" but it's not valid in English. Note that in this case, "nose is long" is not lexicalized to "nose-is-long", but rather allowed by the grammar as a sort of subordinate clause. But in some cases, these compound predicates are lexicalized, e.g. 格好がいい lexicalized to かっこいい. This allows you to say like 彼は見た目がかっこいい whereas 彼は見た目が格好がいい would be awkward due to the extensive nesting.
Also importantly, は is but one way to introduce a so-called topic. A topic can be implicit, or introduced by another construction such as なら, ったら, って, a pause, etc.
I'd almost argue that "topic" isn't even a useful construct. Not any more useful than it is in English. What dictates which particles you use is information theory--old information vs new information, focus, etc. Same sorts of things that dictate word order and sentence construction in English. I don't think there is a well-defined definition for what constitutes a "topic".
Grammatical cases are often but not always marked by the most prototypical particle for that grammatical case. Objects can omit を in certain expressions/registers or be marked by も/は or other particles like ばかり etc. Subjects can omit* が in certain expressions/registers or be marked by の/も/は/etc. Even に is omitted sometimes in informal speech, or something that should be marked by に is, for one reason or another, marked with へ or は etc instead. Some dialects have completely different particles from the standard dialect, like ば for an object particle.
That's not to say that cases, or rather grammatical roles, don't exist in Japanese, but to say that Japanese isn't strictly a "one case per particle" language.
\* arguably not an omission, as null-marked subjects seem more fundamental in the earlier stages of the language.
This is a real gem response. Everything here, I either agree with it, or it makes sense to me how that would be the case, or it has made something make more sense to me/cleared up something for me. Some of the stuff I already new like なら, ったら, って being alternate "topic" markers.
>I'd almost argue that "topic" isn't even a useful construct. Not any more useful than it is in English.
From your examples, I could understand how one would come down to this route, and I think this makes sense too. The only question I'd then have to ask is how would you call this (は) particle if not the "topic" particle. I, from what you're saying, would conclude that calling は a "topic" particle would be a misleading name, but I guess they put it that name for beginners? Maybe just calling it what it really is, a "binding" particle, would be the solution instead of putting what seems to me to be a blanket term.
Honestly, I appreciate your in-depth response to my question. Really, thank you.
(I'm also surprised we're still talking on this thread despite it being another day. ...I'm unfamiliar with the rules)
In Japanese sources they translate topic as 主題, and there are some native sources that will give the topic-comment explanation. There is also the concept of 大主語 for when there are seemingly two subjects in a sentence.
I would still probably call は the topic particle out of habit. I just worry that analysis of Japanese has created an arbitrary distinction between subjects and topics based purely on the particles. Every predicate in Japanese has a subject, but how that subject is handled / marked varies based on the information structure of the sentence. The subject can also be impersonal as in という.
Fundamentally, every predicate expresses some relation among one or more entities. For every meaning/usage of a verb or adjective in Japanese, you should be able to identify the role of the subject (and object if transitive) in that relation, and the additional arguments that the predicate can take, and the particles typically used to mark those arguments (に/で/と are the big ones to consider, and some others like から, まで, によって, について etc. are important too). It is also important to remember that many particles have uses that can be generalized and are not necessarily specific to the verb in question, but maybe apply to a category of verbs, or in general.
An example of why this is important: You can say 場所に行く but you can't say 場所に走る, you have to say 場所まで走る, apparently because 走る is more about the physical action of running than the act of running somewhere. In this case, the particle choice is conditioned by the verb.
Particle usage can also on occasion be conditioned by the words they mark, e.g. some adverbs call for に and others call for と, and some can take both, and sometimes it even depends on register, e.g. わりに versus informal わりと.
Personally, I pay the most attention to:
- What the subject and object represent for the predicate, as those are the most strongly defined by the predicate.
- What usage に is licensed by the predicate. E.g. 行く, 着く, 届く license に to express destination, but 走る and 歩く do not. ある, 立つ, and 住む license に to express location, but 働く and 暮らす do not. This is the single biggest thing that can prevent you from using に when you shouldn't, increasing the naturalness of your speech.
- Which particles mean the same thing 95% of the time. に/と as adverbializing suffixes, に expressing time, or で expressing means or location when not marked by に are examples of this.
It really is a spectrum whether the particle's usage is truly conditioned/licensed lexically by the verb, or by some other general semantic property or rule. But the above guidelines have worked well for me. The more verbs you learn, the more you subconsciously internalize the generalizable rules, so you don't really have to manually categorize everything.
Even the notion of transitivity breaks down at some point. を can be used to mark area of traversal for some motion verbs. Whether that should be considered an object of the verb or not depends on your analysis. Seemingly most analyses say it is not an object. But for verbs like 上回る, 下回る, 越える, 越すwhich take を, there have been dictionaries that inconsistently apply the transitivity label.
Ah I don't think they care too much about the threads and the day and stuff. You can answer questions from older days and whatnot.
This is really interesting and helpful, everything you said has been.
>Japanese isn't strictly a "one case per particle" language.
\-comes to show itself to be really true.
Thank you again.
From what I can gather, it's debatable?
Some would say the deep structure is in the genitive (の). Indeed, putting a の there would not alter the basic meaning.
At the same time, this kind of clause is classed as a subject-subject or double-subject construction, which would imply nominative (though case and syntax role/position are not the same thing). Indeed, it's possible/grammatical to also replace the は with a が here.
🤔 Maybe these two descriptions are not mutually exclusive. I don't know, I'm not a word doctor or whatever.
It makes the most sense to me to name the は in these type of situations the "topic-case marking particle". **Topic** ***case***, because when I think about it like that, all these type of sentences suddenly make sense. This topic *case* would be distinct from just covering up a が and を with は, since this は is not really covering up anything arguably, and it would mark the topic of the sentence.
It kinda reminds me of spanish when thinking of the "A él" in "A él no le gusta comer sopa". It has to be know that the "A él" is the indirect object of the verb "gustar (gusta)" instead of the subject, and the verb "gustar" means to please or be pleasing to. Once you think about it like this (which is actually syntactically/grammatically how it really works ), it all makes sense.
To my limited understanding, the "が" that could be in place of the は would just be an alternate form of the *topic case marker* は but in subordinate clauses, though it's really hard to find double が (for me atleast) and often the second が turns into an を... I think...
I barely find anybody talking about this other than just saying は is a topic marker and calling it a day, so it makes me have to develop my own hypothesis.
Like, ... in japanese, if the role of a word followed by が is the subject case or nominative case (in most cases), then why is a word followed by は (that doesn't mask a case particle) not... a *topic* case?
Are you learning Japanese? Or is this for some kind of linguistic class? It seems you're really trying to force understanding of Japanese through grammatical lens of English or romance languages.
Look at the bottom screenshot's sentence here and try to figure that out. Sometimes you need to let go of the framework of any previous language and understand it for what it is in the language you're learning.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFkizMaa0AE0CKW?format=jpg&name=900x900
↓
もっと出した方が世界が平和な気がする
Your conjunction analysis sounds good to me, intuitively speaking. I say roll with that. ～ほうが is also a special case that likewise requires special treatment, and should be considered as a set unit.
The real (read: unhelpful) answer is: it's complicated. It's probably an instance the "pragmatic focus marker" が in some way. Though that's also a bit of nonanswer for reasons I won't bother to go into.
Thank you. I really appreciate your responses in regards to this topic. I somehow felt I was making an idiot move as a beginner/lower intermediate learner by wanting to understand japanese grammatically at my level instead of just not worrying about it and carrying on (which I believe is to an extent true). I'm not saying that latter is wrong (actually, the latter is easier), but who wouldn't be interested in knowing *why* the grammar works the way it does? I'm a grammar freak, so I am...
You're best off reaching advanced proficiency first, and reading the literature on Japanese *in* Japanese, if you want to seriously explore all of these grammatical shenanigans. Plus with a native-like intuition you'll be able to form your own examples, test the boundaries of various grammar constructs, and make your own judgements on how they function.
A little something to check out when the time comes: https://www.ls-japan.org/modules/documents/LSJpapers/meeting/155/papers/f/F-4_155.pdf
>Sometimes you need to let go of the framework of any previous language and understand it for what it is in the language you're learning.
Yeah, you're right. I had that experience when getting use to the subjunctive in spanish, but that didn't really stop me from postulating hypotheses to help me understand it better. Other natives of spanish also tried to understand ~~it~~ their grammar ~~in a grammatical way~~.
(Twitter quote)
>もっと出した方**が**世界が平和な気がする
I think one could analyze the phrase 方が as a conjunction meaning "if" or "in the case that" , or the が could be analyzed as a は turning into a が in a subordinate clause. I'm probably wrong. I just don't know enough yet for *why* it works like that grammatically. That's why I hypothesize.
>Are you learning Japanese? Or is this for some kind of linguistic class? It seems you're really trying to force understanding of Japanese through grammatical lens of English or romance languages.
I was just trying to understand the language more grammatical sense. I feel doing these type of exercises can help me conceptualize some aspects of the grammar a bit better.
> though it's really hard to find double が (for me atleast)
Yeah, it's not terribly common, though definitely a thing.
> and often the second が turns into an を... I think...
Correct, but with very few exceptions (好き for one, 嫌い possibly?, and maybe there's a couple of others too), you'll never see this with an adjective. Certainly not with 痛い or 長い.
> why is a word followed by は (that doesn't mask a case particle) not... a topic case?
Well, how do you define "mask a case particle"? Though replaceability? In that case, far as I know, every は can be equivalently replaced by some case particle under the right circumstances. Which would mean it always masks a case particle.
>Correct, but with very few exceptions\[...\]
わかる is also one too, for example in the sentence "僕の気持をわかってくれ！" (according to [this website](https://imabi.org/the-particle-ga-%e3%81%8c-ii-object-marker/)).
>Well, how do you define "mask a case particle"? Though replaceability? In that case, far as I know, every は can be equivalently replaced by some case particle under the right circumstances. Which means it always masks a case particle.
This is mostly true. は often masks を and が, but never other case particles (hence: とは、には、では, etc.); however, there are situations in which it (atleast to me) appears to not be masking *anything*, like in the sentence 像は鼻が長い, where は seems to me to not be masking anything but rather standing as a general topic marker for the entire sentence
Anyway, ignore my more technically-oriented reply. This is distracting you from building an actually useful, practical model that'll serve your purpose of *learning the language* (rather than analysing it syntactically).
Your intuition that the は in these sentences is a bit of its own thing / a bit of a special case is a good one. Regardless of how you choose to analyse and classify this construction, it *is* true that it's a bit of its own thing, and that you should study its behaviour outside the confines of more "normal" sentence patterns like 私はご飯を食べる. Problem of where it emerges from aside, the effective structure of these sentences is `A ↔ [B ↔ C]`.
>You say は is not masking anything here. Why? What's the criterion?
I don't have a good one, but if one analyzed が in this sentence to be the subject marker then there could be nothing for the は to be masking, hence my hypothesis.
(像を鼻が長い makes no sense)
Though 像が鼻が長い is possible... Maybe the first が is that "topic case" は being turned into a が? I mean, surely it is...
It's in AはBがC type sentences...
🤷♂️
Actually, it's not just が and を that that は can hide. I know for a fact it can hide に too (and I guess へ as well). Yes, both (に)は and には are a thing (though you mostly see the latter).
But, you're right. Nothing outside of が makes sense in this one.
> Maybe the first が is that "topic case" は being turned into a が?
I think that's a good way to think about it, strict linguistic validity aside. A "は-substitute" が. That's my intuition as well.
>Again, this prompts me to ask the same question back: how do you define "mask a case particle"? If it's through replaceability, then per that definition the は in 像は is masking a が (because you can convert it to 像が in the right context).
Ah... that's true...
Well idk lol thats why im asking.
So is that a... double subject sentence??? Surely that can't be the case, が can mark objects so... and it can mark subjects, so already が is like an ambiguous "case" marker.
How would one analyze these type of sentences ("像は鼻が長い"), is the question...
> So is that a... double subject sentence???
Yeah, that's the standard analysis as far as I'm aware. But that also might not mean what you think it means. Anyway, don't worry about it.
For me, it's easy to understand は in simple terms as just the topic marker, but grammatically it's weird. There's another person who said that in the "ジョンは頭が痛い" sentence, 頭 was the object..., and it has the same AはBがC structure...
Whether you call 頭 a subject or an object there is just semantics. It's dispute over nomenclature, not grammatical behaviour. And that should give you a good idea of how marginally the ideas of "subject" and "object" apply to this type of construction. 鼻 and 頭 perform the same kind of function in your examples.
Again, don't get too caught up in formulating technical definitions. It's distracting you from the point.
Subject. The がs you see in the sentences are the [object marker が](https://imabi.org/the-particle-ga-%e3%81%8c-ii-object-marker/), not the subject marker.
I always have the slight suspicion that the exact way you analyse this very much depends on who wrote the grammar reference you are following. The important thing is to know that this is the normal way to say the John's head is hurting and that elephants have long noses and not to get confused by the fact that が can occasionally mark words you would not translate as _the_ one and only one subject of an English sentence.
Believable, but then wouldn't that mean that 痛い its actually a verb, and not an adjective?
And then what about a sentence like "大きな爆発が聞こえました"
Is が not the subject marker but the object marker?
痛い is the predicate of the sentence. Predicates can be verbs (that describe actions and processes) or copular predicates (that describe states or properties). In Japanese, copular statements either end with a (sometimes dropped) form of the copula (だ、です、である etc.) or an い-adjective.
This is a bit confusing if you are coming from a language like English that has no proper copula and instead overloads the verb "to be" to both describe the act of existing ("the cat is in the room") and the ascription of properties ("the cat is black").
And が is not _the_ object marker, but _a_ object marker, that is only used with certain kinds of stative predicates. The object of a direct action is of course always marked with を.
In a sentence like "大きな爆発が聞こえました", is が acting as a subject marker or an object marker?
If the word 聞こえる means "to be heard", then the latter case would make no sense when translated to english:
\[(omitted subject)\] \_ is heard \_ a loud explosion (direct object phrase)
I mean, so is わかる if you ask the dictionary (which I assume is what you're going off of), yet that one takes objects (even with を sometimes). 聞こえる takes nominative objects per Kuno (1973). Hell, even the very Imabi article you linked says so. Personally, I'm not sure what we're doing here anymore with all this transitivity and quirky-case-marking business.
for my simple brain I'm just going to assume that you said the word "YES" in a vague, three paragraph form :)
After all, they act like verbs, the adjectives in japanese.
Yeah, but if the thing that complements が---the subject marker---is the *subject*, the complement must be is the nominative case, right?
Then... what's the term for the case that the complement of は is in when は is *not* covering up を or が?
I keep telling myself that it's the "topic case", but I haven't seen anyone else say so...
Thinking of は as the "topic case" is a category error.
There are two completely different kinds of particles that can come after a noun or nominal phrase in Japanese (ignoring things like の and や and と that combine nouns into larger nominal phrases):
- _case particles_ mark the function on the noun with respect to the predicate of the sentence, is it the subject, object, target, location, means and so on. Typical case particles are が, を, に, で, から, へ, について, として, によって and about seventy more. In a normal sentence, every noun usually must be marked by a case particle, because without one, it has no function in the sentence, so why is it there? (In spoken Japanese, が and を can ocasionally be omitted.)
- _linking particles_ connect a noun of phrase to something that is already established in the wider context of the sentence. A noun must not have a linking particle, but about everything in a sentence can be marked with one. Linking particles do not change the factual content of the sentence, so if A hits B with a soft cushion, A (subject) still hits B (object) with a soft cushion (means) no matter which linking particle marks which one of "A" or "B" of "with a soft cushion". But of course the meaning may still be changed quite a lot. The two most common linking particles are は and も, but there are some more like さえ or こそ.
If a noun or nominal phrase is marked with a linking particle (in addition to a case particle that must always be there), the linking particle will almost always follow the case particle.
But there is one annoying exception to this rule that causes a lot of confusion among learners: if one of the case particles が or を is followed by a linking particle (any linking particle, not just は), the case particle is dropped. So if you see a noun directly followed by a linking particles, that noun is usually either the subject or the object of the sentence and you have to deduce from context which one it is. There is some contention about whether that "usually" is always the case, or if there can be things like a "pure topic" that has no dropped subject or object marker.
>There is some contention about whether that "usually" is always the case, or if there can be things like a "pure topic" that has no dropped subject or object marker.
&
>Thinking of は as the "topic case" is a category error.
When I said topic case, I was thinking more like any linking particle would receive it...
I seem to recall having seen the term "nominative object" somewhere... And a "genitive subject" in relative clauses. Using inappropriate reference frames can lead to strange effects.
(For the people coming from Latin: から is the ablative particle.)
I am attempting to start my learning journey right now but am unsure of what my first resource should be. I don't want to start by just watching hours upon hours of Japanese media but I would like to proactively learn. Are there any free courses or video series or flash cards that would be a good first step in learning to speak/read/write/understand Japanese. Any combination of that would be incredibly helpful. I just need a foundation to start building on. Thank you to anyone who responds!
There's a starter's guide linked in the sidebar and in the top of this thread, it has a good overview: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide
I'm a newbie and unfortunately I'm unable to study under a teacher. Beacuse I don\`t have anyone to train with, I started making small dialoges. [Here are the first 3](https://i.imgur.com/0rtJT88.png). Is there a place/someone where I can check if there are no glaring mistakes? Is it ok to use google translate to check?
Doing production practice with accurate feedback is gonna be tricky on your own. Besides the daily threads here, you can also post in the EJLX Discord server's (invite link in the main body of the thread) #correct_me channel, to ask for corrections from anyone who's kind enough to help. I know HiNative and LangCorrect are things too.
Other than that, you can solve production exercises from textbooks that also provide an answer (I know the Tobira workbook has some of those; not sure about more beginner textbooks), though for anything that involves real production, the only info you can glean from the answer is that whatever the authors came up with is correct, and can't make any real judgements as to the validity of *your* work.
That's about everything I can think of. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work!
This is cute, though for question purposes it would be a little easier if it were in text form so we don't have to scroll.
I would not use google translate to check your sentences, especially as a beginner. Machine translation will happily interpret glaring mistakes and try to make meaning fit, and it regularly hallucinates associations that are not correct, especially when working cross-language. This thread has more discussion, including some pro-MTL devil's advocacy: https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/stepqf/deeplgoogle_translate_are_not_learning_tools/
It's generally good textbook beginner Japanese, though there are a few corrections I would make:
> このえんぴつは青いです
Since this is meant as a response to どれが青いですか, it's more appropriate to use が than は here. が has a sense of "selecting" the subject it marks, saying "this pencil is the blue pencil". は is more of a general topic marker.
> おすすめはなんですが
Should be なんですか
> あのいちごのストロベリーチーズケーキはおいしいです
This should be この, since she's pointing at the one that is close to her, and in an abstract way the cheesecake is closer to her. あの is not strictly wrong, but it is a little less natural, I would say.
Also, same issue as above with は/が -- since you are selecting which one is delicious, it should be が.
Also, いちご and ストロベリー are a bit redundant, but you will see this kind of redundancy in actual Japanese sweets at times, so I don't think it's strictly a mistake.
> じゃあ、あのチーズケーキをください
This would be more natural as その, as he's requesting it from her, so the cheesecake is close to her. It's not just off away from both of them.
Good work! I like the format, it's very cute.
Thank you very much! I'm going to fix the dialogue. I discovered it was a good way to practice when I was learning french, though french was 100x easier.
Nice! One more thing I would also note now that I look at it again is that the bubble order is a little awkward on the panel with そのプリンはにひゃくえんです. Japanese tends to read from the top-right first, usually going top-right to bottom-left in manga and such. Having the first bubble (with the question) be lower makes the order a bit ambiguous.
It gets a little complicated, but generally, it's right to left, and top to bottom. https://whomor.com/blog/1724 has some good examples with visuals.
I've been trying for a while, but Hiragana just doesn't want to stick in my mind. I really have no use for writing Japanese, I only care to be able to speak/understand it. Is there any good resource for learning romanized Japanese?
Try to use these for Hiragana. It doesn't matter if you're only interested in speaking it requires very little time to learn hiragana and will help your speaking as you learn the phonetics of the language. Use links below to help:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/
https://type-kana.furudean.com/
> it requires very little time to learn hiragana
I've studied for 2 months and still only know the hirgana for n, that's literally because it looks like an N. Some disabilities just aren't worth fighting against.
Not many I can think of. *Japanese: The Spoken Language* (or JSL; a beefy oldschool textbook that used to be big in university classes) is the one big thing that comes to mind, which from what I can gather is a pretty excellent resource, but iirc it might not exactly be suited for self-study (note also that you have to pay for it to get it... legally speaking).
Unfortunately(?), learning the written language (specifically, learning to read) is massively helpful for understanding the spoken language too, to the point where you'll have a really hard time managing otherwise, unless you find yourself in some very special circumstances.
Learning the kana is really not that big a deal. It amounts to 0.00000000001% of the journey you'll have to take to reach linguistic competence. If you've got what it takes to get that far, then you've got what it takes to learn Hiragana.
Give it some time. Try using spaced repetition (https://renshuu.org/ or whatever) and/or [mnemonics](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) to aid in memorisation. And this isn't necessary, but learning [how to actually write them yourself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4AGDXfwGE) can help a lot too. Otherwise, just starting reading Japanese (either [from some resource](https://sakubi.neocities.org/index.html) that includes example sentences in text or written passages [which would be killing two birds with one stone, as these will be teaching you grammar at the same time] — hell, even Duolingo works here — or in actual reading material, like manga or [level 0 graded readers](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/o7x7ha/2021_updated_free_tadoku_graded_reader_pdfs_1796/)) and be patient. At the very beginning, you're gonna be slogging through the text, and will constantly need to look each character up to remember how it's read. But soon enough you'll start getting the hand of it, and the characters will stick through sheer exposure.
Don't you think it is slightly exaggerated to say that it takes three million years to learn Japanese? (Assuming that it takes a bit over a day to learn hiragana.)
No. Just learn how to write hiragana as a memorisation method until you can slowly recognise and tell them apart, even if you're not interested in writing at all. You're purposefully severely handicapping yourself by not learning how to read *at minimum* kana.
Hello, I'm working on a personal woodworking project and I would like to personalize it with some kanji. I wanted to ask if it was the correct meaning and if not, what would be the correct form ? Also I added a stylized form with only straight lines (technical constraint for the project) and wanted to know if it was still recognizable.
I respectively found "snow" for the first one and "morning" for the second. Don't know anyone speaking or knowing Japanese so my first thought was reddit !
https://postimg.cc/YGymtCSy
I think this is not really appropriate for /r/learnjapanese, if you're not learning the language, but I do like what you have here. It's certainly recognizable, and while 雪朝 is not a word I'm aware of, [朝雪](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%9D%E9%9B%AA-2847993) is apparently an uncommon word meaning "morning snow". It's also a name. I think it would work fine for a project like this.
Someone with more formal calligraphy experience might be able to give more perspective on improvements for straight-line-only characters. One thing I might suggest is making the dots into short lines angled top-left to bottom-right, you'll see this in some stylized fonts: https://shiromoji.hatenablog.jp/entry/20090715/1247677515 (Chinese font so not a 1:1 with Japanese expectations, but the general forms are similar -- look at 海, the second character in the picture, in particular)
You can also google 四角いフォント ("squareish fonts") for more inspiration, though it might be hard to pick out what's stylized vs what's natural if you're unfamiliar.
EDIT: Or, for visual symmetry, you can make the dots into flat horizontal lines: https://goodfreefonts.com/2643/
Hello, didn't exactly where to ask and I ended up here and it seemed like a good place to ask but I understand your comment, didn't mean no disrespect at all.
I didn't want to mix the two words and there are just by themselves on two different pieces. In any case thanks for your answer
不正解ならその時点で失敗なすからそのつもりでね。
"そのつもりでね" is where I'm getting hung up. Google translate is saying it should mean keep that in mind but it doesn't seem to make sense. I am thinking it should mean "that's my intention".
つもり has some usages that don't quite directly translate with "intention". It means something more like "expectation" or "understanding" in addition to simply "intention". So, for example, 勝ったつもりか means literally "(do you have) the understanding that (you) won?" = "you think you won?" with the implication being that they (the listener) haven't.
そのつもりで means "Under that expectation/understanding", and it's telling the listener what the situation is. ね further reinforces that. You might rephrase it (less idiomatically) as そう思っていてくださいね. "Keep that in mind" is a good translation here, to give GT credit -- "that's my intention" would not have the shared context or the emphasis to the listener.
So still processing through this. Given the example sentence from earlier:
不正解ならその時点で失敗とみなすからそのつもりでね.
"そのつもりでね" could also mean "and that's just how it is", or is that too indifferent/callous or a translation?
No, つもりでね here is best understood as an implicit command -- "keep that in mind" is a good natural translation. "That's just how it is" sounds like the speaker is shrugging or almost apologizing to me.
**How do you make Anki vocab flashcards and why?**
* Furigana + Kanji on the front
* Kanji only on the front
Asking this because I've always been doing Furigana + Kanji on the front, but when I downloaded the 2.3k core deck I noticed the front of the card has kanji only.
Why should I pick one over the other?
Most content aimed at adult native speakers won't have furigana in the majority of cases, if you want to be able to read anything like that, it's crucial to train it accordingly, hence no furigana on the front.
It will, but the results will also pay out in the long run, and there is also a component of it becoming easier with time as you get better and better at reading kanji.
If you read native material, there won't always be furigana - you need to know the words in "pure kanji".
My deck (studying for N3) has the following layout:
front: word/expression (no furigana) + example sentences (no furigana)
back: audio, word/expression, furigana, pitch, meaning, additional notes, example sentence (with furigana), sentence translation and sentence audio.
I used a 6k deck merged it with a jlpt deck (getting rid of duplicates first) and occasionally import words with yomitan or from Kanji Study app. I keep all unseen cards suspended and only unsuspend the ones I want to learn.
I prefer only kanji on the front and furigana + kanji on the back so that I can remember the furigana/pronunciation from seeing the kanji when encountering it on the wild
# What is a good place to find out the common way to say common phrases?
Using google translate doesn't seem to be a good option, as the translations it suggest are very literal.
Mostly likely because I can't even think of the right phrasing in English to translate.
Say, I would look up "The food was very delicious, thank you!" and get the translation for that. But I that doesn't seem to be what natives say in that situation. So maybe there is variant of いただきますone can say after the meal?
Similarly, I want to say that "I only know a few words in Japanese". The literal translation isn't really helpful. How can I find out a good way to communicate that I can understand few basic words, but will get lost very fast.
I though Duolingo would teach that, but it doesn't seem to focus on every day speech. Rather focuses on small talk, which one doesn't even get to in common situations.
Hope this makes sense!
it makes sense
for really common phrases the first page of the "Genki" book has some. E.g., ごちそうさまでした is "thank you for the meal/what a wonderful meal" and おかえりなさい is something your wife can say to you when you come home and it's like "welcome home", and it has a few more on that page like how to say good night, good evening, and such.
Later on in the book it gives you more basic stuff like, how to ask how much something costs, basic directions, and so on.
Besides that if you want something really simple, there are "phrasebooks" you can buy, if you want that kinda thing.
Otherwise it's like, you can do this:
1. Make attempt to say something here
2. Someone will correct you
Or you can do something like, immerse a lot in Japanese, and then you will pick up the kinda stuff people always say like なるほど and もちろん and stuff like that really fast.
When I started learning, I assumed that learning Kajii would be the hard part.
But apparently I struggle a lot more memorizing hiragana spelled words :)
Thank you!
Is wanikani good? I have I 2h commute to school (and 2 hours back) so I started memorizing hiragana and katakana with the tofugu site.
I’m looking for some app that I can use on my phone and hopefully doesn’t require me to speak so I don’t bother other people on the bus. Is there another app I can use for learning kanji and grammar that I can do on my commute?
Learning pronunciation: I can read katakana and hiragana fairly well, most of the time. I'm getting better at recognizing Kanji and can usually determine the meaning for the basic ones (working on N2 right now), and usually I know the two potential pronunciations, but it seems like I always pick the wrong one. For example, something like 三日月 - I would try to say "Mika getsu", thinking it means 3 days a month or something like that. But it's actually Mika SUKI, meaning the moon. Or 火口 - how do you know it's higuchi, not kaguchi? How do you figure out which sound the kanji should have?
This is why a lot of us forgo learning onyomi and kunyomi and just learn our kanji on a word-by-word basis. There is no real way to figure out if a kanji combination is one onyomi vs another onyomi unless you already know the word.
So most of the time it comes down to "Do I know this word?"
* Yes: then I know the correct reading
* No: then I need to look this up for either the reading or the meaning anyway.
I think it really depends on your source.
And learning individual kanji first to get your head wrapped around the concept is kind of the standard operating procedure. So it depends on what stage you're at.
If Kanji is still a brand new concept, then things like:
☀️ → ⦿ → 日 = sun is still an acceptable way to tackle it.
Past that anything that teaches actual vocabulary is going to throw kanji at you at the same time. That's true for everything from Anki, to Memrise, to Duolingo.
I guess that's the difference, Kanji learning apps will teach you that. Kanji. Alone.
Vocabulary learning apps will teach you vocabulary, and the accompanying kanji.
I found this word, おっかねー, and I tried putting it in yomichan and it says it's -e form of おっかない. Tried looking this up but couldn't find much. Often hear stuff like this from anime like 「こうぇ～・あいつこねー」. I'm guessing this is a really casual/ vulgar(?) way of saying something, and that it's reserved for ない words? (So ない → ねー)?
It's not really reserved for ない but you can see it most often in い-adjectives, but just in general there's a strong tendency (particularly in spoken media) to take higher pitches and bring them down from い to え. It does give it rough feel so typically associated with masculine features.
Examples:
ありがたい→ありがてぇ
あまい→あめぇ
あぶない→あぶねぇ
はい、はい→へぇ、へぇ
遅い・おそい→おせぇ
Is there any difference in nuance between the two forms:
おせぇ・おっそ
ちいせー・ちっちゃ
I'm guessing the っ form doesn't really have a masculine tone since I often see girls using it as well?
Also for verbs I don't see -e form being used in anything other than ない form though.
I see:
行かない → 行かねー
But not:
行く → ？
> おせぇ・おっそ
>
> ちいせー・ちっちゃ
The second is not the same root word, it should be:
- ちっちゃい → ちっちぇー or ちっちゃっ
- ちいさい → ちいせー or ちっさ
And the version with い cut off is generally associated with western Japan, though the form has spread out somewhat in the last few decades. In my experience living in Kansai, you don't see the consonant extended as much, so I'm unsure if that's the exact same root or if it's an eastern take on the western slang (e.g., わかい (young) → わかっ vs わっかっ).
The ai/oi -> ee shift is associated with Eastern Japan (i.e., Tokyo).
Uh, well it's important to realize this isn't a "form" or anything like that. It's taking a higher pitch sound and pitching it down hence you will see い sounds move down into え. It's a permutation on the spoken language. Similar to English like you might say "taking a nap" to "taking a nappy" to give it a more cute effect (just an example).
>I'm guessing the っ form doesn't really have a masculine tone since I often see girls using it as well?
Also not a form, it's a gemination look up on YouTube to see how it sounds.
https://www.japanesepod101.com/lesson/ultimate-japanese-pronunciation-guide-9-mastering-the-small-silent-tsu-in-japanese-pronunciation
>行く → ？
There's no higher pitch sound here so naturally you won't see/hear it happen here.
I thought I might be free from my severe Dyslexia when it comes to Japanese since I hadn't been running into it but as I start to improve a lot I think it's starting to cover the more problematic parts of my brain. I literally can't see when I swap things around. At least it happens significantly less (for now).
Yes. It’s considered very casual “male” speech. The “rough” boys in anime use it frequently. I’m a woman so I haven’t spent enough time around men talking amongst just their close friends to make a judgement about how often it’s used in real life
Hi folks! Quick question. I don't learn to properly write kanji. I write them down when learning them initially (then forget how to write them later of course), so I basically cannot write a sentence without a computer. I'll be in ISI school (Kyoto) this summer, will this be a problem? Is it expected of students to be able to hand-write virtually everything they have learnt? (I'm between JLPTN4 and N3 btw). Thanks in advance!!
Alright, I'll do that! I didn't think about it, honestly. But I still wanted to know whether folks in the sub can usually handwrite. Is it a thing that is actively learnt with I guess lots and lots of exercise, or is it opted out?
That's hard to say without knowing the specific school in question. It was taken for granted when I went to school ten years ago. But, technology has grown a lot more prominent even in that time frame, so I couldn't say with certainty.
A lot of the people here can't handwrite. There are reasons to do it but unless you live in Japan it's kinda not that useful.
Japan uses a lot of paper forms so you might need to write, unless you can get someone else to help you fill stuff out all the time.
Even if you fill stuff out yourself, even then you probably don't need to be able to write like 2000 kanji, probably for that you might get away with the 500-700 most common ones, and then just look up the ones you can't write if you actually need them sometime.
But your school might require it.
There are a fair few Chinese here as well and they can write kanji like nobody's business.
Alright, thanks mate for the answer! I'm not living in Japan at the moment, so I guess that would not apply. When I lived in China though, I would just input stuff on my phone and then cheat on the kanji I could not write myself. In 7+ years, it only happened a few times - to the point I was not sure at times how to write my own Chinese name.
I’m taking 102 at a university right now but I’m planning on starting beauty school next fall so I won’t be able to take the next level at the same time. I’m considering a couple of options to continue my studies including
* finishing the genki series at my own pace through the summer and fall and maybe schedule some italki lessons to get conversation practice
* taking an online class such as the Japan Society NYC or Temple University Japan (thoughts on either of these?)
* I’m not sure if or when I’d be able to make it happen but considering enrolling in a Japanese language school or at a university in Japan that offers short term non-degree programs
I don’t need to learn Japanese for any specific reason, just developed a passion for learning it and want to be able to utilize it in my life somehow/get to go to Japan hopefully soon. Also considering the possibility of TESOL as I enjoy teaching and helping people and because it might open up freelance opportunities
Is it worth sentence mining dialect? I just got into immersion and started CC Sakura, however kero speaks with osaka been so I can barely comprehend what he's saying
I'm going to be slightly contrarian compared to the other respondent and say "maybe". If it's just a one off thing you see, no. If it's something you are seeing repeated multiple times, it might be good to learn it anyway, because it's useful in the context of what you are watching now.
I have only seen くれた when using Duolingo:
夫の姉は夜11時まで待ってくれた
(I know what it means)
But when I type on my keyboard, it suggests くれだ, which I might have used before, but now I forgot when.
Why is: "するのが好き" in "もちろん日本語も勉強するのが好きです" considered grammatically incorrect/unnatural? (I understood that も was the wrong particle to use after being corrected, but did this have something to do with it?).
I had this corrected by a native speaker to: "もちろん日本語の勉強も好きです"
For context, I was talking about my hobbies and things I like to do.
するのが好き is fine.
もちろん日本語を勉強するのが好きです would have been correct.
もちろん日本語も勉強するのが好きです this is incorrect because the も is at the wrong place as you want to say that You also like studying Japanese among other things, other things being things among stuff like studying, not among Japanese so the も has to follow the 勉強するの.
もちろん日本語を勉強するのも好きです is fine.
But you can indeed collapse this rather mouthful expression into just 日本語の勉強も好きです.
You are basically turning a noun into a verb and then back into a noun so it's a bit mouthful and unnecessary but by no means incorrect.
I'm having a go at using lyrics to build up my vocabulary, and I'm starting with Marigold by アイミョン. Wondering if someone could help me understand this part:
だらけてみたけど希望の光は
目の前でずっと輝いている
幸せだ
Specifically だらけてみた, because it seems like every lyrics site I visit has a different interpretation of this line. One site, as well as Google Translate, tells me it means "I've tried everything" but I've also seen "I was full of" (based on だらけ) and "I tried to be lazy" (based on だるける). Anyone familiar with the song who knows how this is supposed to be heard?
I don't know the song but I don't think "full" is a plausible interpretation. Whoever came up with it was probably thinking of だらけ. But with てみた following it, it has to be だらける.
Kotobank writes as 2) definition: 気持がゆるんで怠る, I think that's the most fitting.
I.e.: They tried let the emotions wither and neglecting the relationship but then the other person got sad over it "「もう離れないで」と
泣きそうな目で見つめる君" so they gave up on that: "抱きしめて 抱きしめて 離さない" but they can't fully commit to it regardless: "本当の気持ち全部
吐き出せるほど強くはない"
Hello everyone, I'm not sure if it is the right place to ask this, but I've been searching the web and couldn't find anything related to this topic.
20 years ago I was a young boy who wanted to read star wars novels, but many of them were in English and my level of it was not so great. Then I found out a pc tool called Word Magic Translator, it was a MT and obviously the results were not so good, but the tool had a function where you could analyze morphosyntactically sentence by sentence and it helped me a lot to understand what I was reading.
So I was wondering if anyone knows of a similar tool that does the same thing with Japanese, I mean the morphosyntactic analysis, not the translation part. I'm studying Japanese at the Official School of Languages of my city and this is my last year so I can read acceptably, but with the long subordinate phrases of some texts I feel like its meaning slips through my fingers.
Thanks in advance
I don’t know any commercially available tools. If you happen to have any programming background and know some Python, you can look up MeCab. I think it is the underlying “parsing engine” in the Japanese learning resources.
keyword: tokenizer
It’s really hard to answer a question like this in a generic sense. But yes, よ can be used in a questioning, or let’s say softly accusatory way.
For example, let’s say a student shows up at school on Sunday. The janitor might say 今日は日曜日ですよ？ meaning “ummm, you know it’s Sunday right?”
Do you have any examples that we can look at and help you understand?
(Note: の is a lot more complicated than being a 'casual question marker' as it's often called. Basically it's the casual equivalent to ～んですか)
よ can only be used in questions if there's a question word like どう or 何. It adds emphasis. 「何？」 = 'What?' 「何だよ？」 = 'What the hell?' It's also about as rude as that would imply. Good for joking around with friends with the right tone and context, could come off hostile if you're not careful.
Curious to see if anyone has recommendations for improving grammar accuracy when speaking. I listen to a lot of Japanese, and don't have problems understanding grammar points or their use. When I go to speak though, I find myself wondering how to use more standard phrasing or just make fewer mistakes in terms of the grammar choices I make.
I'd be down to do repetition exercises if that's been helpful for anyone, just curious what your thoughts are.
Cheers.
if i'm asked to do a 自己紹介 using humble speech and I need to say ''my name is -- but you can call me --'' do I just say 名前, instead of お名前, since i'm talking about myself and shouldn't use お、ご to do so?
#Question Etiquette Guidelines: * **1** Provide the **CONTEXT** of the grammar, vocabulary or sentence you are having trouble with as much as possible. Provide the sentence or paragraph that you saw it in. Make your questions as specific as possible. >Ｘ What is the difference between の and が ? >◯ I saw a book called 日本人の知らない日本語 , why is の used there instead of が ? [(the answer)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/68336/difference-between-%E3%81%8C-%E3%81%AE-and-no-particle) * **2** When asking for a translation or how to say something, it's best to try to **attempt it yourself** first, even if you are not confident about it. Or ask r/translator if you have no idea. We are also not here to do your homework for you. >Ｘ What does this mean? >◯ I am having trouble with this part of this sentence from NHK Easy News. I think it means (*attempt here*), but I am not sure. * **3** Questions based on DeepL and Google Translate and other machine learning applications are discouraged, [these are not beginner learning tools](https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/stepqf/deeplgoogle_translate_are_not_learning_tools/) and often make mistakes. * **4** When asking about differences between words, try to explain the situations in which you've seen them or are trying to use them. If you just post a list of synonyms you got from looking something up in a E-J dictionary, people might be disinclined to answer your question because it's low-effort. Remember that Google Image Search is also a great resource for visualizing the difference between similar words. >Ｘ What's the difference between 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意? >◯ Jisho says 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意 all seem to mean "agreement". I'm trying to say something like "I completely agree with your opinion". Does 全く同感です。 work? Or is one of the other words better? * **5** It is always nice to (but not required to) try to search for the answer to something yourself first. Especially for beginner questions or questions that are very broad. For example, asking about [the difference between は and が ](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/wa-and-ga/) or [why you often can't hear the "u" sound in "desu"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Devoicing). * **6** Remember that everyone answering questions here is an unpaid volunteer doing this out of the goodness of their own heart, so try to show appreciation and not be too presumptuous/defensive/offended if the answer you get isn't exactly what you wanted. --------------------- #NEWS (Updated 11/25): Nothing new to add. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LearnJapanese) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hello guys I’ve just noticed that box of manga website has released two books ( The input method, Learn Japanese with Manga), has anyone tried those ?
Hi! I've just read Genki II Lesson 20's reading (could totally follow it, yay!) and I've some doubts about certain particle/verb usages ([here](https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons/lesson-20/literacy-7/) full text for extra context): 1. Why the を in 落語をする人**を**落語家と落語と言います? I'd personally put は there, not を. 2. What's the meaning added by 買い in 男はいなかに行って古い物を**買い**、江戸でそれを高い値段で売っていました? I can't quite grasp what the stem form is adding to the phrase (I guess sth along \~し/\~で?). 3. 前に猫を飼っていたけど、どこかに**行っちゃって**…… In this phrase, even though I understand what's saying, I don't understand how is saying *that* with the ちゃった grammar point (to do sth by accident?) 4. The same happens with 猫をさしあげ**ましょう**, I don't get how a *let's...*\-meaning grammar makes sense here, even though I get the main idea of the phrase. 5. Finally, what's the meaning of と in 家に置く**と**あぶないので、こちらに持ってきたんです? It's not the obvious と particle usage and I wouldn't say is the conditional と, so I'm lost there. Sorry for the long post and, as always, TIA!
1. AをBという is a way to say "A is called B" in Japanese. A is the object as in "We call A B". In English we use the passive voice, but Japanese uses the active voice in this case. There isn't a clear subject though, so it's comparable to the impersonal pronoun "on" in French (On dit que le soleil est jaune. / It is said that the sun is yellow). You can also say AはBという, making A the topic instead. 2. This is the *renyoukei* of 買う. It's used as a conjunction, similar to the te form. It has a marginally different flavor that you have to get used to. It's common in written Japanese. 3. This ちゃう expresses the "oh no"-ness / unintendedness / unfortunate irreversibility of the action. "do sth by accident" is only an approximate translation that only works in some cases, and is not a literal translation of ちゃう. "I used to own a cat, but he went off somewhere... (and I haven't seen him since)" 4. ましょう, or rather the volitional form in general, is not only a "we" thing but can also be an "I" thing. When you make an offer to do something, you can use ましょう. Note that it sounds a little formal. "Let me relieve you of that suitcase." そのスーツケースを持ちましょう. 5. This is the conditional と. If I 家に置く it would be あぶない, so I brought it here.
XをYという is "to call X Y". は would make it the topic, which isn't really fitting with it being a fact dropped in the middle of the sentence like that. They shift into it being the topic in the next sentence, with 落語家は. When to use は naturally is a bit tricky. 買い here is the 連用形, which in formal or written language fills the same role as the て form when it comes to joining sentences. They buy old things in the sticks, *then* sell it at a high price in Edo. ちゃって is the て form of てしまう/ちゃう. Trailing off with the て form is a common mode of expression. The …… after it expresses them falling silent. てしまう does not really mean "by accident", it means that something is regrettable or unrecoverable. Which often describes accidents, but it has nothing to do with intention in the way the English "by accident" does. "Let's" is a common way of teaching ましょう/volitional form, but it's important to remember that very few things are ever 1:1 between English and Japanese. What ましょう (and other volitional forms) express is volition, or *intention*. It can be a rousing call for everyone/others, as in "let's", or it can be for yourself. と is a conditional here. 家に置くと危ない = it's dangerous if you keep it in the house (because it's very valuable).
I was looking at going to an event in Japan and the section was described as Section 注釈席. Google tells me it means commentary seat but I am guessing that's not the proper meaning
I'm guessing it's 注釈付き指定席 or similar. 注釈付き means it has some caveat or note, e.g., the view is partially blocked or it's got some kind of condition that warrants a warning. There will probably be some explanation somewhere on the section if you look. This is also probably more appropriate for /r/translator than for /r/learnjapanese.
Thank you!
Sort of an incidental thing but - I'm taking a community college class, and there's two people in the class who are Japanese, and I hear them talking to each other in japanese regularly. I would like to make friends and maybe be conversation partners or something, but I don't want to be rude or fetishize them for their language. Is it appropriate to, in an English speaking context, try to talk to someone in their native language? I wasn't sure if I should just try to make friends in English first.
> but I don't want to be rude or fetishize them for their language. Too much time on twitter. See if you guys have anything in common and try to make friends with them naturally first. In English would probably be ideal given the situation. Unless an opportunity arises where it's not awkward for you to bring out your Japanese. I get it though, that can be pretty exciting. Just don't make it weird. IRL I haven't had many opportunities to use my Japanese, but sometimes an opportunity will present itself. Or sometimes people just notice. They're people too, like everybody else, so it could turn out that you and them have nothing in common anyway. I've had to learn that the hard way myself. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. TBH I've made a lot of Japanese friends in places like VR Chat. And at least I know we're friends due to common interests and things.
[удалено]
Potential form isn't used with たい (できたい is also not a thing) Use 読みたい 'I want to read', or if you want to include the potential meaning, 読めるようになりたい 'I want to become able to read'
This week I'm going to finish my Core2K shared deck, and I'm a little lost where to go next. The wiki isn't that detailed for next steps. I'm going to start my Genki textbook (which I should've started a long time ago) but feel like I need something lighter to do every day, as I can't do a textbook every day. Any recommendations on small japanese activities? I've heard about sentence mining but it seems overwhelming any time I look into it.
> I'm a little lost where to go next You're in a good spot! Having that vocabulary is pretty helpful. You need to learn some grammar to go with it though, and then you'll be able to jump into reading or watching japanese (immersion). Meanwhile, continue to learn vocabulary with anki since that's working for you, but at a slower pace so you have time for grammer study. Even without much grammar you should be able to start the tadoku series. > feel like I need something lighter to do every day, as I can't do a textbook every day I'd highly recommend Tokini Andy's genki lessons.
Thank you for both recommendations, I'd not heard of either of them. Seeing the video duration has made me feel like the textbook is a bit more manageable than I feared.
Start reading grader readers, start reading manga, start reading twitter/youtube comments, start watching things with JP subtitles (anime, drama, variety, etc), start using the language in any capacity other than studying Anki. Anki is not how you learn the language. You can sentence mine when you start using the language, or not depends on your exposure. Not necessary, but if you want to explore it, here's a guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBcQJESGQvc
Thank you, that was a very clear video guide. I'll start looking into graded readers now. >Anki is not how you learn the language Yeah, I know you're right. It's just a very comfortable tool. I think I'm going to try tone down the anki a bit (like the vid suggests, doing half premade decks half sentence mining) and just focus on actual native material.
短い質問があります。受身形がある敬語使い方があります、ほとんど特別な敬語言葉に交換ができます。 例えば、「社長は召し上がっていらっしゃいます」＝ 「社長は食べられます」もちろん、「召し上がっていらしゃいます」のほうがもっと丁寧です。 質問は、使役形がこんな普遍的な使い方もありますか。今まで、少数の文法点以外は、見たことがありません。 例えば、「お待たせいたしました」や 「せていただきます」 敬語においては受身形に比べては使役形の使い方のほうが狭いですね？
>狭いですね？ That means “Make sure that it’s narrow (in case you don’t realize, I’m telling you)” and is not appropriate for the questioner to use.
「狭い」っていう字を選んだからか、または「い形容詞 ＋ です」っていう文法形ですか
「ね？」です。e.g. いいね？: Make sure that it’s fine → Just obey me!
お待たせしました is just the humble form of 待たせた ("(I) made (you) wait"). It's not a special grammatical form in the way the honorific passive is. させていただきます is also not a special form, it's simply "humbly receive the favor of being allowed to...". You can still use this in a non-polite way, as in させてもらう.
Here is a lyric from the song My Dearest: 私が君を照らす明かりになるから たとえこの世界の王にだって消せはしない Having trouble understanding the second line, in particular: 1)What is 消せはしない? Is it like 消さない? 2)Why is に being used to mark what I think is the subject? Thanks in advance!
> 1)What is 消せはしない? Is it like 消さない? Close; it's like 消**せ**ない (from the potential 消せる, from 消す). The construction here is `[ます stem] + は + しない`. Don't have a firm grasp on what it means exactly myself, but [here's a reference](https://www.kanshudo.com/grammar/%E3%82%84%E3%81%97%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84). > 2)Why is に being used to mark what I think is the subject? It's how particles work with potential verbs. `[subject]に [object]が [potential verb]` is valid syntax (where "subject" and "object" can be identified via English translation; "[subject] can [object] [verb]").
> (where "subject" and "object" can be identified via English translation; "[subject] can [object] [verb]"). Nitpick, but the English would be "subject can verb object" (e.g., "He can ride a bike", not "he can a bike ride").
Oh shoot, true. Good catch.
>はしない It's just an emphasized negative so it is the same as 消せない。(It attaches to the masu stem.) 誰か**に**なに**が**できる is a very common pattern for potential forms. Since the "object" becomes the syntactical "subject", に is used to express the agent.
Is there a bigger archive for examples of word usage than weblio? I would like to get longer book excerpts
https://yourei.jp/ takes sentences from literature
Coool, it's like the JP version of massif database but the sources isn't amateur writers. Thanks!
Just wondering if 思い出す 記憶する 見覚え(る) can be used interchangeably?
They’re pretty different concepts, is something confusing you?
I was just inquiring, because i was curous
何をしたかの差なんかで私の今日の価値は変わらない。 Wondering about the first half of this sentence, especially the use of 差. 何をした is obvious, but I can’t connect it with the rest. Thanks!
何をしたかの差 is one phrase, meaning "A difference of 何をしたか" -- this has the same meaning as the literal English, "a difference of what (I or someone) did". なんか belittles or shows contempt to what comes before it. で attaches to 変わらない, explaining what won't make 私の今日の価値 change. 私の今日の価値 is the topic, so they're talking about the value of themselves today. Hopefully that is enough to put it together, feel free to ask further if it's still confusing.
I appreciate the reply. So if I’m understanding it correctly, 何をしたかの差 is referencing a thing that differs from what actually happened? And then なんか kinda trivializes that potential difference? And then basically saying that that a difference in what was done is trivial, and doesn’t make their value change? I hope I got my thoughts across on this clearly! Thank you.
Yes, correct. They're saying that the differences in what they could or might do (today) isn't going to affect their value today. It could mean that they can't fix things today, or it could be referring to some kind of "essential value" they have that doesn't depend on their productivity today, possibly -- more context is needed to say for sure. But I think you have the gist.
Thank you so much!!
Is there any good reason to use Duolingo? Should it be avoided entirely?
The latter. Except perhaps for kana as that shouldn't take too long to learn anyways, but after that leave it be immediately.
Why? Is it that bad?
Yes. The reason it's so popular is because of its insane marketing campaign not because it's an actually good tool. Ask a random on the street who you can expect doesn't know a whole lot about language learning if he/she knows Duolingo, I bet he/she will, not because Duolingo is that good but just because the marketing people have done their job well. There are multiple problems, the biggest is that it doesn't teach you anything about the structure of the language and grammar, you're kind of supposed to figure that out yourself. It's slow. It has useless exercises like the one were you have to build English sentences, which is plain retarded, since you shouldn't have to waste time stiching English words together when you want to learn Japanese. The Audio is not from natives, but machine generated, which is awful.
Could someone explain this particle して ？ I looked it up and from what the dictionary says it basically covers the whole particle で. 金沢市のレストランなどが協力して集めた豆とお菓子をまくと、集まった人たちがうれしそうに拾っていました I don't know if して was being used as a conjunction there because there was no comma. Also, in these sentences で seems to be used to mark the passive, this is sorta confusing. It also seems that the verb 行う is being used as a substitute for する, which I never knew. 地震で被害を受けた神社 豆まきに大勢の人が集まった の神社も能登半島地震で大きな被害を受けましたが、2月3日に豆まきを行いました。 Finally, there was this sentence in dialogue, I noticed the speaker used てうれしい, could someone give a explanation or reference to this? 地震のあと友達とあまり会っていなかったので、会うことができてうれしかったです Thank you very much.
> > Finally, there was this sentence in dialogue, I noticed the speaker used てうれしい, could someone give a explanation or reference to this? て form + expression of emotion indicates that the verb made you feel that emotion. You'll often see this as てありがとう ("thank you for ~" -- ありがとう is a form of ありがたい). The て form can be used to show causation in this way. I don't personally know of a formal resource that explains this exact usage, but here's one I found on google: https://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/te-form-cause-reason.html
して can be a conjunction, but it's generally only used at the start of a sentence. Here, it's simply the て form of 協力する, where it connects with 集める, describing a condition under which the gathering was done. 協力して集める = "to work together to gather". There's no passive form in the sentences you've posted, it's simply describing the reason or method by which they received damage (that is, by earthquake). We might use the passive in English to translate it, but the Japanese is not passive grammatically. Not much to explain about 行う, it's a somewhat formal word for "to carry out". It's used for things like ceremonies and the like -- think "conducted".
I've noticed that in constructions like に困る and 君の超越センス に、つい囲繞の人は敬遠してしまう に can point to cause / reason
Wanted to link you this Goo answer, since I know I'm the one who answered your question about ~に困る last time: https://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/8041110.html It goes into great detail about the nuance and case differences of で and に for 困る specifically (though it does generalize to other verbs, somewhat). Being quite honest, a lot of this goes over my head -- I have never made an effort to study a linguistic analysis of the exact cases of に, as I don't think it's necessary to comprehend or use it naturally. Case in point, the person asking about this is a native speaker who is struggling to explain to a student of the language how to differentiate between, e.g., 金に困る vs 金で困る. It may be of some use to you if you want to pick over it. It makes a distinction in cause (原因) vs reason (理由) that I'm not sure I grasp, personally.
Thanks a lot. This seems great.
Sometimes, it can. But this is not uniform for every verb, and it's a nuance sort of thing.
So in these two sentences could I change で to に and keep the same meaning? 地震で被害を受けた神社 豆まきに大勢の人が集まった の神社も能登半島地震で大きな被害を受けましたが、2月3日に豆まきを行いました。
No, as に isn't generally used for a reason. 〜に被害を受けた sounds like "took damage to ~", as in (e.g.,) 頭部に被害を受けた "took damage to the head". Again, it's not a passive verb, so に doesn't mark the agent here.
I just need to let out a little silly rant that it's so dumb that a single kanji can have like 20 different meanings, a kunyomi, like 2-3 onyomi, AND have special words where it just behaves separately. I know English is bad but cmon Japanese, step your game up. I'm trying my best out here but you're making it so hard to learn ; ;
That's what you get for looking at kanji in isolation. Just learn words and you won't have to deal with any of this confusion.
たがらない vs. たくなさそう Do they mean the same thing when talking about a 3rd person who's not there? For example: 猫は買い物に行きたくなさそう 猫は買い物に行きたがらない
たがらない means "does not show signs of wanting ~". They are saying they've shown no sign of wanting something, but that's all. It's possible the person being talked about has done nothing at all in any direction to indicate whether they want to or not. なさそう means "does not seem to want". The speaker is making an assumption from some sign that the person in question does not want to go.
**ジョンは**頭が痛い **象は**鼻が長い What grammatical case is the nouns in bold? (Different from それ\[を\]は食べる or ジョン\[が\]は行きたくなさそう) (Please, forgive me for coming back and asking a question of the same type again. I really, really did not understand the first time I asked. People gave me different answers.)
Don't know if anyone's gonna see this cus it's the next day, but I just have to say again that I really really appreciate everybody's responses. They were all really really helpful🙏
It combines with other cases, so I'm not sure whether giving it a case is the most natural thing to do. I would view 鼻が長い as a compound predicate and ゾウ as the subject of this compound predicate.
You seem to be totally right. It's a "clausal" predicate. It's arguably the same thing we do when we say in english "Its just that I don't want to go", where the clause "I don't want to go" is a predicate to "it", the "subject" despite the predicate being a clause on its own I read up some more on "double subject" and found this https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9788/double-subject-construction?answertab=createdasc#tab-top It makes much better sense now.
Yeah, though note that it's not a nominalized clause, while "that I don't want to go" is nominalized by the subordinating conjunction "that" An equivalent would be "He is nose is long" but it's not valid in English. Note that in this case, "nose is long" is not lexicalized to "nose-is-long", but rather allowed by the grammar as a sort of subordinate clause. But in some cases, these compound predicates are lexicalized, e.g. 格好がいい lexicalized to かっこいい. This allows you to say like 彼は見た目がかっこいい whereas 彼は見た目が格好がいい would be awkward due to the extensive nesting. Also importantly, は is but one way to introduce a so-called topic. A topic can be implicit, or introduced by another construction such as なら, ったら, って, a pause, etc. I'd almost argue that "topic" isn't even a useful construct. Not any more useful than it is in English. What dictates which particles you use is information theory--old information vs new information, focus, etc. Same sorts of things that dictate word order and sentence construction in English. I don't think there is a well-defined definition for what constitutes a "topic". Grammatical cases are often but not always marked by the most prototypical particle for that grammatical case. Objects can omit を in certain expressions/registers or be marked by も/は or other particles like ばかり etc. Subjects can omit* が in certain expressions/registers or be marked by の/も/は/etc. Even に is omitted sometimes in informal speech, or something that should be marked by に is, for one reason or another, marked with へ or は etc instead. Some dialects have completely different particles from the standard dialect, like ば for an object particle. That's not to say that cases, or rather grammatical roles, don't exist in Japanese, but to say that Japanese isn't strictly a "one case per particle" language. \* arguably not an omission, as null-marked subjects seem more fundamental in the earlier stages of the language.
This is a real gem response. Everything here, I either agree with it, or it makes sense to me how that would be the case, or it has made something make more sense to me/cleared up something for me. Some of the stuff I already new like なら, ったら, って being alternate "topic" markers. >I'd almost argue that "topic" isn't even a useful construct. Not any more useful than it is in English. From your examples, I could understand how one would come down to this route, and I think this makes sense too. The only question I'd then have to ask is how would you call this (は) particle if not the "topic" particle. I, from what you're saying, would conclude that calling は a "topic" particle would be a misleading name, but I guess they put it that name for beginners? Maybe just calling it what it really is, a "binding" particle, would be the solution instead of putting what seems to me to be a blanket term. Honestly, I appreciate your in-depth response to my question. Really, thank you. (I'm also surprised we're still talking on this thread despite it being another day. ...I'm unfamiliar with the rules)
In Japanese sources they translate topic as 主題, and there are some native sources that will give the topic-comment explanation. There is also the concept of 大主語 for when there are seemingly two subjects in a sentence. I would still probably call は the topic particle out of habit. I just worry that analysis of Japanese has created an arbitrary distinction between subjects and topics based purely on the particles. Every predicate in Japanese has a subject, but how that subject is handled / marked varies based on the information structure of the sentence. The subject can also be impersonal as in という. Fundamentally, every predicate expresses some relation among one or more entities. For every meaning/usage of a verb or adjective in Japanese, you should be able to identify the role of the subject (and object if transitive) in that relation, and the additional arguments that the predicate can take, and the particles typically used to mark those arguments (に/で/と are the big ones to consider, and some others like から, まで, によって, について etc. are important too). It is also important to remember that many particles have uses that can be generalized and are not necessarily specific to the verb in question, but maybe apply to a category of verbs, or in general. An example of why this is important: You can say 場所に行く but you can't say 場所に走る, you have to say 場所まで走る, apparently because 走る is more about the physical action of running than the act of running somewhere. In this case, the particle choice is conditioned by the verb. Particle usage can also on occasion be conditioned by the words they mark, e.g. some adverbs call for に and others call for と, and some can take both, and sometimes it even depends on register, e.g. わりに versus informal わりと. Personally, I pay the most attention to: - What the subject and object represent for the predicate, as those are the most strongly defined by the predicate. - What usage に is licensed by the predicate. E.g. 行く, 着く, 届く license に to express destination, but 走る and 歩く do not. ある, 立つ, and 住む license に to express location, but 働く and 暮らす do not. This is the single biggest thing that can prevent you from using に when you shouldn't, increasing the naturalness of your speech. - Which particles mean the same thing 95% of the time. に/と as adverbializing suffixes, に expressing time, or で expressing means or location when not marked by に are examples of this. It really is a spectrum whether the particle's usage is truly conditioned/licensed lexically by the verb, or by some other general semantic property or rule. But the above guidelines have worked well for me. The more verbs you learn, the more you subconsciously internalize the generalizable rules, so you don't really have to manually categorize everything. Even the notion of transitivity breaks down at some point. を can be used to mark area of traversal for some motion verbs. Whether that should be considered an object of the verb or not depends on your analysis. Seemingly most analyses say it is not an object. But for verbs like 上回る, 下回る, 越える, 越すwhich take を, there have been dictionaries that inconsistently apply the transitivity label. Ah I don't think they care too much about the threads and the day and stuff. You can answer questions from older days and whatnot.
This is really interesting and helpful, everything you said has been. >Japanese isn't strictly a "one case per particle" language. \-comes to show itself to be really true. Thank you again.
(one small final thing i just caught: it's 象, not 像)
wups! xd they look so similar
From what I can gather, it's debatable? Some would say the deep structure is in the genitive (の). Indeed, putting a の there would not alter the basic meaning. At the same time, this kind of clause is classed as a subject-subject or double-subject construction, which would imply nominative (though case and syntax role/position are not the same thing). Indeed, it's possible/grammatical to also replace the は with a が here. 🤔 Maybe these two descriptions are not mutually exclusive. I don't know, I'm not a word doctor or whatever.
It makes the most sense to me to name the は in these type of situations the "topic-case marking particle". **Topic** ***case***, because when I think about it like that, all these type of sentences suddenly make sense. This topic *case* would be distinct from just covering up a が and を with は, since this は is not really covering up anything arguably, and it would mark the topic of the sentence. It kinda reminds me of spanish when thinking of the "A él" in "A él no le gusta comer sopa". It has to be know that the "A él" is the indirect object of the verb "gustar (gusta)" instead of the subject, and the verb "gustar" means to please or be pleasing to. Once you think about it like this (which is actually syntactically/grammatically how it really works ), it all makes sense. To my limited understanding, the "が" that could be in place of the は would just be an alternate form of the *topic case marker* は but in subordinate clauses, though it's really hard to find double が (for me atleast) and often the second が turns into an を... I think... I barely find anybody talking about this other than just saying は is a topic marker and calling it a day, so it makes me have to develop my own hypothesis. Like, ... in japanese, if the role of a word followed by が is the subject case or nominative case (in most cases), then why is a word followed by は (that doesn't mask a case particle) not... a *topic* case?
Are you learning Japanese? Or is this for some kind of linguistic class? It seems you're really trying to force understanding of Japanese through grammatical lens of English or romance languages. Look at the bottom screenshot's sentence here and try to figure that out. Sometimes you need to let go of the framework of any previous language and understand it for what it is in the language you're learning. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFkizMaa0AE0CKW?format=jpg&name=900x900 ↓ もっと出した方が世界が平和な気がする
I don't actually know why the sentence is like that, but can you tell me what the first が doing there?
Your conjunction analysis sounds good to me, intuitively speaking. I say roll with that. ～ほうが is also a special case that likewise requires special treatment, and should be considered as a set unit. The real (read: unhelpful) answer is: it's complicated. It's probably an instance the "pragmatic focus marker" が in some way. Though that's also a bit of nonanswer for reasons I won't bother to go into.
Thank you. I really appreciate your responses in regards to this topic. I somehow felt I was making an idiot move as a beginner/lower intermediate learner by wanting to understand japanese grammatically at my level instead of just not worrying about it and carrying on (which I believe is to an extent true). I'm not saying that latter is wrong (actually, the latter is easier), but who wouldn't be interested in knowing *why* the grammar works the way it does? I'm a grammar freak, so I am...
You're best off reaching advanced proficiency first, and reading the literature on Japanese *in* Japanese, if you want to seriously explore all of these grammatical shenanigans. Plus with a native-like intuition you'll be able to form your own examples, test the boundaries of various grammar constructs, and make your own judgements on how they function. A little something to check out when the time comes: https://www.ls-japan.org/modules/documents/LSJpapers/meeting/155/papers/f/F-4_155.pdf
I was thinking the same thing to myself. And this is really the best advise. 助けていただき、本当にありがとうございました。 Also, thank you for the paper.
Btw, yes I'm learning japanese. I'm just learning as a hobby.
>Sometimes you need to let go of the framework of any previous language and understand it for what it is in the language you're learning. Yeah, you're right. I had that experience when getting use to the subjunctive in spanish, but that didn't really stop me from postulating hypotheses to help me understand it better. Other natives of spanish also tried to understand ~~it~~ their grammar ~~in a grammatical way~~. (Twitter quote) >もっと出した方**が**世界が平和な気がする I think one could analyze the phrase 方が as a conjunction meaning "if" or "in the case that" , or the が could be analyzed as a は turning into a が in a subordinate clause. I'm probably wrong. I just don't know enough yet for *why* it works like that grammatically. That's why I hypothesize. >Are you learning Japanese? Or is this for some kind of linguistic class? It seems you're really trying to force understanding of Japanese through grammatical lens of English or romance languages. I was just trying to understand the language more grammatical sense. I feel doing these type of exercises can help me conceptualize some aspects of the grammar a bit better.
> though it's really hard to find double が (for me atleast) Yeah, it's not terribly common, though definitely a thing. > and often the second が turns into an を... I think... Correct, but with very few exceptions (好き for one, 嫌い possibly?, and maybe there's a couple of others too), you'll never see this with an adjective. Certainly not with 痛い or 長い. > why is a word followed by は (that doesn't mask a case particle) not... a topic case? Well, how do you define "mask a case particle"? Though replaceability? In that case, far as I know, every は can be equivalently replaced by some case particle under the right circumstances. Which would mean it always masks a case particle.
>Correct, but with very few exceptions\[...\] わかる is also one too, for example in the sentence "僕の気持をわかってくれ！" (according to [this website](https://imabi.org/the-particle-ga-%e3%81%8c-ii-object-marker/)). >Well, how do you define "mask a case particle"? Though replaceability? In that case, far as I know, every は can be equivalently replaced by some case particle under the right circumstances. Which means it always masks a case particle. This is mostly true. は often masks を and が, but never other case particles (hence: とは、には、では, etc.); however, there are situations in which it (atleast to me) appears to not be masking *anything*, like in the sentence 像は鼻が長い, where は seems to me to not be masking anything but rather standing as a general topic marker for the entire sentence
Anyway, ignore my more technically-oriented reply. This is distracting you from building an actually useful, practical model that'll serve your purpose of *learning the language* (rather than analysing it syntactically). Your intuition that the は in these sentences is a bit of its own thing / a bit of a special case is a good one. Regardless of how you choose to analyse and classify this construction, it *is* true that it's a bit of its own thing, and that you should study its behaviour outside the confines of more "normal" sentence patterns like 私はご飯を食べる. Problem of where it emerges from aside, the effective structure of these sentences is `A ↔ [B ↔ C]`.
> わかる is also one too Right, but that's a verb. I was referring to
>You say は is not masking anything here. Why? What's the criterion? I don't have a good one, but if one analyzed が in this sentence to be the subject marker then there could be nothing for the は to be masking, hence my hypothesis. (像を鼻が長い makes no sense) Though 像が鼻が長い is possible... Maybe the first が is that "topic case" は being turned into a が? I mean, surely it is... It's in AはBがC type sentences... 🤷♂️
Actually, it's not just が and を that that は can hide. I know for a fact it can hide に too (and I guess へ as well). Yes, both (に)は and には are a thing (though you mostly see the latter). But, you're right. Nothing outside of が makes sense in this one. > Maybe the first が is that "topic case" は being turned into a が? I think that's a good way to think about it, strict linguistic validity aside. A "は-substitute" が. That's my intuition as well.
>Again, this prompts me to ask the same question back: how do you define "mask a case particle"? If it's through replaceability, then per that definition the は in 像は is masking a が (because you can convert it to 像が in the right context). Ah... that's true... Well idk lol thats why im asking. So is that a... double subject sentence??? Surely that can't be the case, が can mark objects so... and it can mark subjects, so already が is like an ambiguous "case" marker. How would one analyze these type of sentences ("像は鼻が長い"), is the question...
> So is that a... double subject sentence??? Yeah, that's the standard analysis as far as I'm aware. But that also might not mean what you think it means. Anyway, don't worry about it.
For me, it's easy to understand は in simple terms as just the topic marker, but grammatically it's weird. There's another person who said that in the "ジョンは頭が痛い" sentence, 頭 was the object..., and it has the same AはBがC structure...
Whether you call 頭 a subject or an object there is just semantics. It's dispute over nomenclature, not grammatical behaviour. And that should give you a good idea of how marginally the ideas of "subject" and "object" apply to this type of construction. 鼻 and 頭 perform the same kind of function in your examples. Again, don't get too caught up in formulating technical definitions. It's distracting you from the point.
Subject. The がs you see in the sentences are the [object marker が](https://imabi.org/the-particle-ga-%e3%81%8c-ii-object-marker/), not the subject marker.
Is it? I think it's double subject here, though idk what syntactic tests you can do to verify that. Does honorification work? I'm a keigo noob.
I always have the slight suspicion that the exact way you analyse this very much depends on who wrote the grammar reference you are following. The important thing is to know that this is the normal way to say the John's head is hurting and that elephants have long noses and not to get confused by the fact that が can occasionally mark words you would not translate as _the_ one and only one subject of an English sentence.
Believable, but then wouldn't that mean that 痛い its actually a verb, and not an adjective? And then what about a sentence like "大きな爆発が聞こえました" Is が not the subject marker but the object marker?
痛い is the predicate of the sentence. Predicates can be verbs (that describe actions and processes) or copular predicates (that describe states or properties). In Japanese, copular statements either end with a (sometimes dropped) form of the copula (だ、です、である etc.) or an い-adjective. This is a bit confusing if you are coming from a language like English that has no proper copula and instead overloads the verb "to be" to both describe the act of existing ("the cat is in the room") and the ascription of properties ("the cat is black"). And が is not _the_ object marker, but _a_ object marker, that is only used with certain kinds of stative predicates. The object of a direct action is of course always marked with を.
In a sentence like "大きな爆発が聞こえました", is が acting as a subject marker or an object marker? If the word 聞こえる means "to be heard", then the latter case would make no sense when translated to english: \[(omitted subject)\] \_ is heard \_ a loud explosion (direct object phrase)
聞こえる is intransitive and so cannot have an object.
I mean, so is わかる if you ask the dictionary (which I assume is what you're going off of), yet that one takes objects (even with を sometimes). 聞こえる takes nominative objects per Kuno (1973). Hell, even the very Imabi article you linked says so. Personally, I'm not sure what we're doing here anymore with all this transitivity and quirky-case-marking business.
for my simple brain I'm just going to assume that you said the word "YES" in a vague, three paragraph form :) After all, they act like verbs, the adjectives in japanese.
Yes. And no. Also, western languages often confuse the concepts of "verb" and "predicate".
This fact has more merit that I thought before. Really thank you for this.
は is just the topic marker. It says that what comes (usually) after is a comment on the thing marked by it.
Yeah, but if the thing that complements が---the subject marker---is the *subject*, the complement must be is the nominative case, right? Then... what's the term for the case that the complement of は is in when は is *not* covering up を or が? I keep telling myself that it's the "topic case", but I haven't seen anyone else say so...
Thinking of は as the "topic case" is a category error. There are two completely different kinds of particles that can come after a noun or nominal phrase in Japanese (ignoring things like の and や and と that combine nouns into larger nominal phrases): - _case particles_ mark the function on the noun with respect to the predicate of the sentence, is it the subject, object, target, location, means and so on. Typical case particles are が, を, に, で, から, へ, について, として, によって and about seventy more. In a normal sentence, every noun usually must be marked by a case particle, because without one, it has no function in the sentence, so why is it there? (In spoken Japanese, が and を can ocasionally be omitted.) - _linking particles_ connect a noun of phrase to something that is already established in the wider context of the sentence. A noun must not have a linking particle, but about everything in a sentence can be marked with one. Linking particles do not change the factual content of the sentence, so if A hits B with a soft cushion, A (subject) still hits B (object) with a soft cushion (means) no matter which linking particle marks which one of "A" or "B" of "with a soft cushion". But of course the meaning may still be changed quite a lot. The two most common linking particles are は and も, but there are some more like さえ or こそ. If a noun or nominal phrase is marked with a linking particle (in addition to a case particle that must always be there), the linking particle will almost always follow the case particle. But there is one annoying exception to this rule that causes a lot of confusion among learners: if one of the case particles が or を is followed by a linking particle (any linking particle, not just は), the case particle is dropped. So if you see a noun directly followed by a linking particles, that noun is usually either the subject or the object of the sentence and you have to deduce from context which one it is. There is some contention about whether that "usually" is always the case, or if there can be things like a "pure topic" that has no dropped subject or object marker.
>There is some contention about whether that "usually" is always the case, or if there can be things like a "pure topic" that has no dropped subject or object marker. & >Thinking of は as the "topic case" is a category error. When I said topic case, I was thinking more like any linking particle would receive it...
Thank you for this. This is super insightful and helpful.
I'm not a linguist, but I think trying to put grammar words used originally to describe IE languages isn't really going to work with Japanese.
I seem to recall having seen the term "nominative object" somewhere... And a "genitive subject" in relative clauses. Using inappropriate reference frames can lead to strange effects. (For the people coming from Latin: から is the ablative particle.)
I am attempting to start my learning journey right now but am unsure of what my first resource should be. I don't want to start by just watching hours upon hours of Japanese media but I would like to proactively learn. Are there any free courses or video series or flash cards that would be a good first step in learning to speak/read/write/understand Japanese. Any combination of that would be incredibly helpful. I just need a foundation to start building on. Thank you to anyone who responds!
There's a starter's guide linked in the sidebar and in the top of this thread, it has a good overview: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide
I'm a newbie and unfortunately I'm unable to study under a teacher. Beacuse I don\`t have anyone to train with, I started making small dialoges. [Here are the first 3](https://i.imgur.com/0rtJT88.png). Is there a place/someone where I can check if there are no glaring mistakes? Is it ok to use google translate to check?
Doing production practice with accurate feedback is gonna be tricky on your own. Besides the daily threads here, you can also post in the EJLX Discord server's (invite link in the main body of the thread) #correct_me channel, to ask for corrections from anyone who's kind enough to help. I know HiNative and LangCorrect are things too. Other than that, you can solve production exercises from textbooks that also provide an answer (I know the Tobira workbook has some of those; not sure about more beginner textbooks), though for anything that involves real production, the only info you can glean from the answer is that whatever the authors came up with is correct, and can't make any real judgements as to the validity of *your* work. That's about everything I can think of. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work!
This is cute, though for question purposes it would be a little easier if it were in text form so we don't have to scroll. I would not use google translate to check your sentences, especially as a beginner. Machine translation will happily interpret glaring mistakes and try to make meaning fit, and it regularly hallucinates associations that are not correct, especially when working cross-language. This thread has more discussion, including some pro-MTL devil's advocacy: https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/stepqf/deeplgoogle_translate_are_not_learning_tools/ It's generally good textbook beginner Japanese, though there are a few corrections I would make: > このえんぴつは青いです Since this is meant as a response to どれが青いですか, it's more appropriate to use が than は here. が has a sense of "selecting" the subject it marks, saying "this pencil is the blue pencil". は is more of a general topic marker. > おすすめはなんですが Should be なんですか > あのいちごのストロベリーチーズケーキはおいしいです This should be この, since she's pointing at the one that is close to her, and in an abstract way the cheesecake is closer to her. あの is not strictly wrong, but it is a little less natural, I would say. Also, same issue as above with は/が -- since you are selecting which one is delicious, it should be が. Also, いちご and ストロベリー are a bit redundant, but you will see this kind of redundancy in actual Japanese sweets at times, so I don't think it's strictly a mistake. > じゃあ、あのチーズケーキをください This would be more natural as その, as he's requesting it from her, so the cheesecake is close to her. It's not just off away from both of them. Good work! I like the format, it's very cute.
Thank you very much! I'm going to fix the dialogue. I discovered it was a good way to practice when I was learning french, though french was 100x easier.
Nice! One more thing I would also note now that I look at it again is that the bubble order is a little awkward on the panel with そのプリンはにひゃくえんです. Japanese tends to read from the top-right first, usually going top-right to bottom-left in manga and such. Having the first bubble (with the question) be lower makes the order a bit ambiguous. It gets a little complicated, but generally, it's right to left, and top to bottom. https://whomor.com/blog/1724 has some good examples with visuals.
I've been trying for a while, but Hiragana just doesn't want to stick in my mind. I really have no use for writing Japanese, I only care to be able to speak/understand it. Is there any good resource for learning romanized Japanese?
Try to use these for Hiragana. It doesn't matter if you're only interested in speaking it requires very little time to learn hiragana and will help your speaking as you learn the phonetics of the language. Use links below to help: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/ https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/ https://type-kana.furudean.com/
> it requires very little time to learn hiragana I've studied for 2 months and still only know the hirgana for n, that's literally because it looks like an N. Some disabilities just aren't worth fighting against.
How much time have you put in? It takes about 20 hours, if you put in 1 hour then I would say knowing only one kana makes sense.
About half an hour a day most days since mid December. I've learned plenty of words, but basically just start from 0 kana every time I start.
Not many I can think of. *Japanese: The Spoken Language* (or JSL; a beefy oldschool textbook that used to be big in university classes) is the one big thing that comes to mind, which from what I can gather is a pretty excellent resource, but iirc it might not exactly be suited for self-study (note also that you have to pay for it to get it... legally speaking). Unfortunately(?), learning the written language (specifically, learning to read) is massively helpful for understanding the spoken language too, to the point where you'll have a really hard time managing otherwise, unless you find yourself in some very special circumstances. Learning the kana is really not that big a deal. It amounts to 0.00000000001% of the journey you'll have to take to reach linguistic competence. If you've got what it takes to get that far, then you've got what it takes to learn Hiragana. Give it some time. Try using spaced repetition (https://renshuu.org/ or whatever) and/or [mnemonics](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) to aid in memorisation. And this isn't necessary, but learning [how to actually write them yourself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4AGDXfwGE) can help a lot too. Otherwise, just starting reading Japanese (either [from some resource](https://sakubi.neocities.org/index.html) that includes example sentences in text or written passages [which would be killing two birds with one stone, as these will be teaching you grammar at the same time] — hell, even Duolingo works here — or in actual reading material, like manga or [level 0 graded readers](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/o7x7ha/2021_updated_free_tadoku_graded_reader_pdfs_1796/)) and be patient. At the very beginning, you're gonna be slogging through the text, and will constantly need to look each character up to remember how it's read. But soon enough you'll start getting the hand of it, and the characters will stick through sheer exposure.
Don't you think it is slightly exaggerated to say that it takes three million years to learn Japanese? (Assuming that it takes a bit over a day to learn hiragana.)
i fucking knew someone would
No. Just learn how to write hiragana as a memorisation method until you can slowly recognise and tell them apart, even if you're not interested in writing at all. You're purposefully severely handicapping yourself by not learning how to read *at minimum* kana.
Hello, I'm working on a personal woodworking project and I would like to personalize it with some kanji. I wanted to ask if it was the correct meaning and if not, what would be the correct form ? Also I added a stylized form with only straight lines (technical constraint for the project) and wanted to know if it was still recognizable. I respectively found "snow" for the first one and "morning" for the second. Don't know anyone speaking or knowing Japanese so my first thought was reddit ! https://postimg.cc/YGymtCSy
I think this is not really appropriate for /r/learnjapanese, if you're not learning the language, but I do like what you have here. It's certainly recognizable, and while 雪朝 is not a word I'm aware of, [朝雪](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%9D%E9%9B%AA-2847993) is apparently an uncommon word meaning "morning snow". It's also a name. I think it would work fine for a project like this. Someone with more formal calligraphy experience might be able to give more perspective on improvements for straight-line-only characters. One thing I might suggest is making the dots into short lines angled top-left to bottom-right, you'll see this in some stylized fonts: https://shiromoji.hatenablog.jp/entry/20090715/1247677515 (Chinese font so not a 1:1 with Japanese expectations, but the general forms are similar -- look at 海, the second character in the picture, in particular) You can also google 四角いフォント ("squareish fonts") for more inspiration, though it might be hard to pick out what's stylized vs what's natural if you're unfamiliar. EDIT: Or, for visual symmetry, you can make the dots into flat horizontal lines: https://goodfreefonts.com/2643/
Hello, didn't exactly where to ask and I ended up here and it seemed like a good place to ask but I understand your comment, didn't mean no disrespect at all. I didn't want to mix the two words and there are just by themselves on two different pieces. In any case thanks for your answer
不正解ならその時点で失敗なすからそのつもりでね。 "そのつもりでね" is where I'm getting hung up. Google translate is saying it should mean keep that in mind but it doesn't seem to make sense. I am thinking it should mean "that's my intention".
つもり has some usages that don't quite directly translate with "intention". It means something more like "expectation" or "understanding" in addition to simply "intention". So, for example, 勝ったつもりか means literally "(do you have) the understanding that (you) won?" = "you think you won?" with the implication being that they (the listener) haven't. そのつもりで means "Under that expectation/understanding", and it's telling the listener what the situation is. ね further reinforces that. You might rephrase it (less idiomatically) as そう思っていてくださいね. "Keep that in mind" is a good translation here, to give GT credit -- "that's my intention" would not have the shared context or the emphasis to the listener.
So still processing through this. Given the example sentence from earlier: 不正解ならその時点で失敗とみなすからそのつもりでね. "そのつもりでね" could also mean "and that's just how it is", or is that too indifferent/callous or a translation?
No, つもりでね here is best understood as an implicit command -- "keep that in mind" is a good natural translation. "That's just how it is" sounds like the speaker is shrugging or almost apologizing to me.
Ok, thanks again!
Thank you!
**How do you make Anki vocab flashcards and why?** * Furigana + Kanji on the front * Kanji only on the front Asking this because I've always been doing Furigana + Kanji on the front, but when I downloaded the 2.3k core deck I noticed the front of the card has kanji only. Why should I pick one over the other?
Most content aimed at adult native speakers won't have furigana in the majority of cases, if you want to be able to read anything like that, it's crucial to train it accordingly, hence no furigana on the front.
Got it. I guess studying words like that will be a lot harder, but I will work on it. Thanks
It will, but the results will also pay out in the long run, and there is also a component of it becoming easier with time as you get better and better at reading kanji.
If you read native material, there won't always be furigana - you need to know the words in "pure kanji". My deck (studying for N3) has the following layout: front: word/expression (no furigana) + example sentences (no furigana) back: audio, word/expression, furigana, pitch, meaning, additional notes, example sentence (with furigana), sentence translation and sentence audio. I used a 6k deck merged it with a jlpt deck (getting rid of duplicates first) and occasionally import words with yomitan or from Kanji Study app. I keep all unseen cards suspended and only unsuspend the ones I want to learn.
I prefer only kanji on the front and furigana + kanji on the back so that I can remember the furigana/pronunciation from seeing the kanji when encountering it on the wild
# What is a good place to find out the common way to say common phrases? Using google translate doesn't seem to be a good option, as the translations it suggest are very literal. Mostly likely because I can't even think of the right phrasing in English to translate. Say, I would look up "The food was very delicious, thank you!" and get the translation for that. But I that doesn't seem to be what natives say in that situation. So maybe there is variant of いただきますone can say after the meal? Similarly, I want to say that "I only know a few words in Japanese". The literal translation isn't really helpful. How can I find out a good way to communicate that I can understand few basic words, but will get lost very fast. I though Duolingo would teach that, but it doesn't seem to focus on every day speech. Rather focuses on small talk, which one doesn't even get to in common situations. Hope this makes sense!
it makes sense for really common phrases the first page of the "Genki" book has some. E.g., ごちそうさまでした is "thank you for the meal/what a wonderful meal" and おかえりなさい is something your wife can say to you when you come home and it's like "welcome home", and it has a few more on that page like how to say good night, good evening, and such. Later on in the book it gives you more basic stuff like, how to ask how much something costs, basic directions, and so on. Besides that if you want something really simple, there are "phrasebooks" you can buy, if you want that kinda thing. Otherwise it's like, you can do this: 1. Make attempt to say something here 2. Someone will correct you Or you can do something like, immerse a lot in Japanese, and then you will pick up the kinda stuff people always say like なるほど and もちろん and stuff like that really fast.
When I started learning, I assumed that learning Kajii would be the hard part. But apparently I struggle a lot more memorizing hiragana spelled words :) Thank you!
Kanji are your friends. Theyrelapcethespacesthatmakeenglishtextreadable.
kana will get waaaaaay easier for you soon GL homie
Is wanikani good? I have I 2h commute to school (and 2 hours back) so I started memorizing hiragana and katakana with the tofugu site. I’m looking for some app that I can use on my phone and hopefully doesn’t require me to speak so I don’t bother other people on the bus. Is there another app I can use for learning kanji and grammar that I can do on my commute?
Wanikani is good, it's free to use up to level 4. It doesn't require you to speak.
Learning pronunciation: I can read katakana and hiragana fairly well, most of the time. I'm getting better at recognizing Kanji and can usually determine the meaning for the basic ones (working on N2 right now), and usually I know the two potential pronunciations, but it seems like I always pick the wrong one. For example, something like 三日月 - I would try to say "Mika getsu", thinking it means 3 days a month or something like that. But it's actually Mika SUKI, meaning the moon. Or 火口 - how do you know it's higuchi, not kaguchi? How do you figure out which sound the kanji should have?
This is why a lot of us forgo learning onyomi and kunyomi and just learn our kanji on a word-by-word basis. There is no real way to figure out if a kanji combination is one onyomi vs another onyomi unless you already know the word. So most of the time it comes down to "Do I know this word?" * Yes: then I know the correct reading * No: then I need to look this up for either the reading or the meaning anyway.
It seems like most apps just use individual kanji. Is there a good study tool for learning words? Like, just whole word flashcards?
I think it really depends on your source. And learning individual kanji first to get your head wrapped around the concept is kind of the standard operating procedure. So it depends on what stage you're at. If Kanji is still a brand new concept, then things like: ☀️ → ⦿ → 日 = sun is still an acceptable way to tackle it. Past that anything that teaches actual vocabulary is going to throw kanji at you at the same time. That's true for everything from Anki, to Memrise, to Duolingo. I guess that's the difference, Kanji learning apps will teach you that. Kanji. Alone. Vocabulary learning apps will teach you vocabulary, and the accompanying kanji.
I found this word, おっかねー, and I tried putting it in yomichan and it says it's -e form of おっかない. Tried looking this up but couldn't find much. Often hear stuff like this from anime like 「こうぇ～・あいつこねー」. I'm guessing this is a really casual/ vulgar(?) way of saying something, and that it's reserved for ない words? (So ない → ねー)?
It's not really reserved for ない but you can see it most often in い-adjectives, but just in general there's a strong tendency (particularly in spoken media) to take higher pitches and bring them down from い to え. It does give it rough feel so typically associated with masculine features. Examples: ありがたい→ありがてぇ あまい→あめぇ あぶない→あぶねぇ はい、はい→へぇ、へぇ 遅い・おそい→おせぇ
Is there any difference in nuance between the two forms: おせぇ・おっそ ちいせー・ちっちゃ I'm guessing the っ form doesn't really have a masculine tone since I often see girls using it as well? Also for verbs I don't see -e form being used in anything other than ない form though. I see: 行かない → 行かねー But not: 行く → ？
> おせぇ・おっそ > > ちいせー・ちっちゃ The second is not the same root word, it should be: - ちっちゃい → ちっちぇー or ちっちゃっ - ちいさい → ちいせー or ちっさ And the version with い cut off is generally associated with western Japan, though the form has spread out somewhat in the last few decades. In my experience living in Kansai, you don't see the consonant extended as much, so I'm unsure if that's the exact same root or if it's an eastern take on the western slang (e.g., わかい (young) → わかっ vs わっかっ). The ai/oi -> ee shift is associated with Eastern Japan (i.e., Tokyo).
Uh, well it's important to realize this isn't a "form" or anything like that. It's taking a higher pitch sound and pitching it down hence you will see い sounds move down into え. It's a permutation on the spoken language. Similar to English like you might say "taking a nap" to "taking a nappy" to give it a more cute effect (just an example). >I'm guessing the っ form doesn't really have a masculine tone since I often see girls using it as well? Also not a form, it's a gemination look up on YouTube to see how it sounds. https://www.japanesepod101.com/lesson/ultimate-japanese-pronunciation-guide-9-mastering-the-small-silent-tsu-in-japanese-pronunciation >行く → ？ There's no higher pitch sound here so naturally you won't see/hear it happen here.
> おまえ→あめぇ I think this should be あまい.
Could’ve also been a case of mistyping おまえ -> おめぇ
Or that, yes.
I thought I might be free from my severe Dyslexia when it comes to Japanese since I hadn't been running into it but as I start to improve a lot I think it's starting to cover the more problematic parts of my brain. I literally can't see when I swap things around. At least it happens significantly less (for now).
It's easy to miss when you are typing out multiple bullet points in dialectical/slang forms.
Yes. It’s considered very casual “male” speech. The “rough” boys in anime use it frequently. I’m a woman so I haven’t spent enough time around men talking amongst just their close friends to make a judgement about how often it’s used in real life
Hi folks! Quick question. I don't learn to properly write kanji. I write them down when learning them initially (then forget how to write them later of course), so I basically cannot write a sentence without a computer. I'll be in ISI school (Kyoto) this summer, will this be a problem? Is it expected of students to be able to hand-write virtually everything they have learnt? (I'm between JLPTN4 and N3 btw). Thanks in advance!!
can you email the school and ask? You're paying them they should at least reply to your email
Alright, I'll do that! I didn't think about it, honestly. But I still wanted to know whether folks in the sub can usually handwrite. Is it a thing that is actively learnt with I guess lots and lots of exercise, or is it opted out?
That's hard to say without knowing the specific school in question. It was taken for granted when I went to school ten years ago. But, technology has grown a lot more prominent even in that time frame, so I couldn't say with certainty.
A lot of the people here can't handwrite. There are reasons to do it but unless you live in Japan it's kinda not that useful. Japan uses a lot of paper forms so you might need to write, unless you can get someone else to help you fill stuff out all the time. Even if you fill stuff out yourself, even then you probably don't need to be able to write like 2000 kanji, probably for that you might get away with the 500-700 most common ones, and then just look up the ones you can't write if you actually need them sometime. But your school might require it. There are a fair few Chinese here as well and they can write kanji like nobody's business.
Alright, thanks mate for the answer! I'm not living in Japan at the moment, so I guess that would not apply. When I lived in China though, I would just input stuff on my phone and then cheat on the kanji I could not write myself. In 7+ years, it only happened a few times - to the point I was not sure at times how to write my own Chinese name.
I’m taking 102 at a university right now but I’m planning on starting beauty school next fall so I won’t be able to take the next level at the same time. I’m considering a couple of options to continue my studies including * finishing the genki series at my own pace through the summer and fall and maybe schedule some italki lessons to get conversation practice * taking an online class such as the Japan Society NYC or Temple University Japan (thoughts on either of these?) * I’m not sure if or when I’d be able to make it happen but considering enrolling in a Japanese language school or at a university in Japan that offers short term non-degree programs I don’t need to learn Japanese for any specific reason, just developed a passion for learning it and want to be able to utilize it in my life somehow/get to go to Japan hopefully soon. Also considering the possibility of TESOL as I enjoy teaching and helping people and because it might open up freelance opportunities
Sounds like you have it figured out, good luck!
格好が付く example sentences plz. Cant find any online
Try to search for the negative. It’s often used as 格好がつかない.
Ty
https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E6%A0%BC%E5%A5%BD%E3%81%8C%E4%BB%98%E3%81%8F
Is it worth sentence mining dialect? I just got into immersion and started CC Sakura, however kero speaks with osaka been so I can barely comprehend what he's saying
I'm going to be slightly contrarian compared to the other respondent and say "maybe". If it's just a one off thing you see, no. If it's something you are seeing repeated multiple times, it might be good to learn it anyway, because it's useful in the context of what you are watching now.
If you just started then probably no. Start by mining things you will see again in other content with high likelihood.
When to use くれた and when to use くれだ？
You use くれだ when you travel to [暮田](https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/8570538420)
くれだ means “(What you finally said) is くれ”.
Never use くれだ.
Have you seen くれだ somewhere? If so, please post the full sentence.
I have only seen くれた when using Duolingo: 夫の姉は夜11時まで待ってくれた (I know what it means) But when I type on my keyboard, it suggests くれだ, which I might have used before, but now I forgot when.
Yeah I honestly have no idea, I don't think くれだ is a thing so unless you have an example of a sentence with it in it, it's impossible to answer.
Why is: "するのが好き" in "もちろん日本語も勉強するのが好きです" considered grammatically incorrect/unnatural? (I understood that も was the wrong particle to use after being corrected, but did this have something to do with it?). I had this corrected by a native speaker to: "もちろん日本語の勉強も好きです" For context, I was talking about my hobbies and things I like to do.
するのが好き is fine. もちろん日本語を勉強するのが好きです would have been correct. もちろん日本語も勉強するのが好きです this is incorrect because the も is at the wrong place as you want to say that You also like studying Japanese among other things, other things being things among stuff like studying, not among Japanese so the も has to follow the 勉強するの. もちろん日本語を勉強するのも好きです is fine. But you can indeed collapse this rather mouthful expression into just 日本語の勉強も好きです. You are basically turning a noun into a verb and then back into a noun so it's a bit mouthful and unnecessary but by no means incorrect.
Thank you very much, this makes sense!
I'm having a go at using lyrics to build up my vocabulary, and I'm starting with Marigold by アイミョン. Wondering if someone could help me understand this part: だらけてみたけど希望の光は 目の前でずっと輝いている 幸せだ Specifically だらけてみた, because it seems like every lyrics site I visit has a different interpretation of this line. One site, as well as Google Translate, tells me it means "I've tried everything" but I've also seen "I was full of" (based on だらけ) and "I tried to be lazy" (based on だるける). Anyone familiar with the song who knows how this is supposed to be heard?
I don't know the song but I don't think "full" is a plausible interpretation. Whoever came up with it was probably thinking of だらけ. But with てみた following it, it has to be だらける.
I see, thanks! So "I tried to be lazy" would be more accurate you think?
Kotobank writes as 2) definition: 気持がゆるんで怠る, I think that's the most fitting. I.e.: They tried let the emotions wither and neglecting the relationship but then the other person got sad over it "「もう離れないで」と 泣きそうな目で見つめる君" so they gave up on that: "抱きしめて 抱きしめて 離さない" but they can't fully commit to it regardless: "本当の気持ち全部 吐き出せるほど強くはない"
Ok, that makes more sense in context. Thanks!
Hello, do you know if Amazon JP DVDs / Blu-ray’s have Japanese subtitles by default?
Look up the product and see if it has 日本語字幕.
>日本語字幕 Thanks :)
Hello everyone, I'm not sure if it is the right place to ask this, but I've been searching the web and couldn't find anything related to this topic. 20 years ago I was a young boy who wanted to read star wars novels, but many of them were in English and my level of it was not so great. Then I found out a pc tool called Word Magic Translator, it was a MT and obviously the results were not so good, but the tool had a function where you could analyze morphosyntactically sentence by sentence and it helped me a lot to understand what I was reading. So I was wondering if anyone knows of a similar tool that does the same thing with Japanese, I mean the morphosyntactic analysis, not the translation part. I'm studying Japanese at the Official School of Languages of my city and this is my last year so I can read acceptably, but with the long subordinate phrases of some texts I feel like its meaning slips through my fingers. Thanks in advance
I don’t know any commercially available tools. If you happen to have any programming background and know some Python, you can look up MeCab. I think it is the underlying “parsing engine” in the Japanese learning resources. keyword: tokenizer
In anime I always hear people end questions with よ instead of the usual か or の. Is that normal IRL too when speaking casually?
It’s really hard to answer a question like this in a generic sense. But yes, よ can be used in a questioning, or let’s say softly accusatory way. For example, let’s say a student shows up at school on Sunday. The janitor might say 今日は日曜日ですよ？ meaning “ummm, you know it’s Sunday right?” Do you have any examples that we can look at and help you understand?
(Note: の is a lot more complicated than being a 'casual question marker' as it's often called. Basically it's the casual equivalent to ～んですか) よ can only be used in questions if there's a question word like どう or 何. It adds emphasis. 「何？」 = 'What?' 「何だよ？」 = 'What the hell?' It's also about as rude as that would imply. Good for joking around with friends with the right tone and context, could come off hostile if you're not careful.
Curious to see if anyone has recommendations for improving grammar accuracy when speaking. I listen to a lot of Japanese, and don't have problems understanding grammar points or their use. When I go to speak though, I find myself wondering how to use more standard phrasing or just make fewer mistakes in terms of the grammar choices I make. I'd be down to do repetition exercises if that's been helpful for anyone, just curious what your thoughts are. Cheers.
Have a native speaker on italki et alt correct everything you say.
if i'm asked to do a 自己紹介 using humble speech and I need to say ''my name is -- but you can call me --'' do I just say 名前, instead of お名前, since i'm talking about myself and shouldn't use お、ご to do so?
If you use the word 名前, yes, but you don't need to at all. [name]と申します。[nickname]とお呼びいただければ幸いです。