xkcd

by **Joeldi** » Wed May 09, 2012 10:39 pm UTC

I think that you should use NAKUTE in most cases, and NAIDE mainly when you're asking someone not to do something.
[SHINPAI SHINAI DE / KUDASAI]

by **Daimon** » Wed May 09, 2012 10:42 pm UTC

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by **Mapar** » Thu May 10, 2012 5:31 am UTC

Daimon wrote:Testing day 2: Four pages of nothing but Japanese written in three hours, near the end I was running out of ideas, so I just said something like, "新しい一番好きな言葉は　"無駄”。

And then I had あんたの母、テスト、時間、気持ち感じ with arrows pointing to it. There was also, "ここに時間が無い。永遠はある。Tried to imply that 永遠 was the only thing that existed, but I didn't know how to say "There is only", so I changed my は to が in the first sentence and said what was in the second. Then there was some weird conversation saying, "ロリコンですよ！"　”もしもし、警察ですか？” 待て！俺の話を聞け！　アニメのロリコンだ！世界じゃない！” And such because I was really running out of ideas. Probably already used all the words in my vocabulary by that point.

On the front of the test booklet I had, "無駄な言葉は在る。" followed by "Something tells me, 中に would be wrong. Yeah, I don't know how to use that."

You can express the idea of "only" using two constructions which differ in nuance:
- だけ: 'only' 授業を受けるだけで、合格は無理でしょう？　(Just attending class isn't enough to pass)
-　しか: 'besides' ジムさんは英語しか知らない。 (lit. Jim knows nothing besides English)

About that last sentence: you should use が instead of は here. And ある is almost never written in kanji. Oh, by the way, 中に would be fine here.

by **Daimon** » Thu May 10, 2012 8:42 am UTC

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by **Daimon** » Thu May 10, 2012 10:13 pm UTC

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by **Joeldi** » Fri May 11, 2012 12:33 am UTC

You ask questions with rising intonation, like any other language. In formal speech, I guess it must be rude to act overly interested, or something like that, so you keep your voice at the same level, and add か to make it clear it's a question.
I think いるか might actually be out and out wrong, and there is no place for か in casual speech. の as a sentence final I don't fully understand. It's sort of asking for an explanation, not just as a general question marker. When you GIVE an explanation, you can end with の too.

Daimon wrote:Also, I`ve started writing する as 為る just because I can. I wonder, would it become, say, 為た from した and the 漢字 wouldn`t go away.

I'm pretty sure that would be the case, except no-one ever uses the kanji for する, so you really shouldn't either.

by **Daimon** » Fri May 11, 2012 5:02 am UTC

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by **Daimon** » Fri May 11, 2012 9:52 pm UTC

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by **Joeldi** » Sun May 13, 2012 2:35 am UTC

Daimon wrote:And this is mainly for asking questions in text, since there`s no tone in it. I don`t think I`ve ever actually spoken what little Japanese I know to anyone.

In that case, you can actually just use a question mark. But beware, I've been told off for using 「か？」 Use ？ for informal text, and か for formal text.

by **Daimon** » Sun May 13, 2012 10:48 am UTC

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by **Joeldi** » Sun May 13, 2012 10:32 pm UTC

の is fine for informal, as long as you're using it with the correct type of question. I'm pretty sure in writing you use it WITH question mark. + IIRC, in formal speech / writing, it's のです, rather than ですの...though now that I think about it, ですの sounds familiar too. Blarg sentence final particles. Looking it up now.

EDIT: Or basically what I'm trying to say is that の isn't a sentence final particle, it's something completely different that looks like one in some situations.

by **Daimon** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:05 am UTC

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by **Mapar** » Mon May 14, 2012 1:37 pm UTC

Joeldi wrote:の is fine for informal, as long as you're using it with the correct type of question. I'm pretty sure in writing you use it WITH question mark. + IIRC, in formal speech / writing, it's のです, rather than ですの...though now that I think about it, ですの sounds familiar too. Blarg sentence final particles. Looking it up now.

EDIT: Or basically what I'm trying to say is that の isn't a sentence final particle, it's something completely different that looks like one in some situations.

Indeed. Questions ending with の are actually questions of the form 'Xのですか' with the ’ですか’ left out. の is still a nominalizer here. Informal language, by the way, and in my experience it's used more by women than by men.

by **Daimon** » Thu May 24, 2012 8:12 pm UTC

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by **Mapar** » Fri May 25, 2012 9:56 am UTC

Daimon wrote:So I came across a paragraph where I just couldn't understand it, even with help. Things, with help, are connecting, but they're not sticking in my head, if that makes sense. Take, for example, に対して. I didn't know what it means, it's actingin my opinion like a particle, but after I go further into the sentence, everything just falls apart for me on the comprehension level.

ま、どういう風の吹き回しかは知りませんが、古巣に対して不用意な発言をすることはさほど好ましくも望ましくもなかろうかと思いますな。

所詮、一度、裏切ったものは、いずこへ行かれたところで裏切り者というレッテルが張らせてしまっていることだけはくれぐれもお忘れなきよう。

えげつない言葉をつらつら述べたところで互いの品のなさを露呈する以外の何物にもならんと考えますので、以後は戦場にてお目にかかりましょう。

に対して means something along the lines of 'as far as X is concerned'. Possible translation:
"Well, I don't know how this came up, but as far as old memories go, I don't like off-hand remarks nor do I deem them appropriate."
"After all, someone who's betrayed once will be labeled a traitor wherever (s)he goes. Don't forget that."
"In my opinion, when you're being profoundly nasty, you just make it clear to each other that you have no manners. Let us meet on the battlefield next time."

The first part of the last sentence was murky to me too, and it took some time to sink in. It's also highly probable that I made mistakes in this thing. As I've said before I'm far from experienced in these matters, so I hope someone better comes along soon.

On the plus side, this post reminded me of the beauty of Japanese grammar... Call me weird, but I do have aesthetic preferences about grammar. Example: Dutch syntax is ugly as hell.

by **Daimon** » Sat May 26, 2012 10:05 pm UTC

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by **Mapar** » Mon May 28, 2012 8:25 am UTC

Daimon wrote:Can you explain to me how Japanese grammar is beautiful? In examples I can understand, that weren't as complicated as quoted above or in the News in such, it's just grammar. I don't see how it's beautiful.

I don't know. I guess I like how little particles can make words function like almost anything in a sentence. Example: I can nominalise a phrase in Japanese by slapping a こと/の on it. In Dutch it requires really awkward constructions.
Well, aesthetic preferences can be hard to explain. I study mathematics, so that might be a factor in my interest in 'exotic' grammar. I guess you could say it's the same as a theorem being called 'elegant' by some mathematicians.

I like Latin grammar for similar reasons: cases allow you to make really convoluted sentences which aren't that hard to understand. Try this in Dutch, English or French and you're bound to mess up.

by **Twelfthroot** » Mon May 28, 2012 8:29 pm UTC

Daimon wrote:Can you explain to me how Japanese grammar is beautiful? In examples I can understand, that weren't as complicated as quoted above or in the News in such, it's just grammar. I don't see how it's beautiful.

Landscapes are just consequences of natural laws on geographies, and aleatoric music is almost pure group theory. Does that mean neither can be beautiful? Grammars are the result of a complex interplay between the "natural" way humans order their thoughts, historical coincidences, and societal organizations. To me, comparing grammars is like comparing representations of examples of a wonderfully intricate mathematical structure, but all the more aesthetically interesting because we generally use it as a restraint, often without acknowledgement, in every aesthetic endeavor we undertake with language.

Consequences of a grammar include what words can be derived by logical processes (vs. what words require new morphemes) and what information is necessary in any utterance (vs. what information can be omitted). Some examples:

In Japanese, if you have any verb X, then you also have a natural verb meaning "to cause or allow to X". You can do this in English as exactly that "cause or allow to" but it will be, to my eye, uglier -- especially because the Japanese always allows for either causal or permissive interpretation even if one or the other is contextually obvious, whereas to say "cause or allow" in English when you clearly meant one or the other is simply sloppy. This construction can be combined with the "passive", which has different meanings from what we call passive in English, in similarly elegant ways.

Japanese gives you more details about the social relationship between any two people (or what the participants believe the relationship to be) than you can conclusively infer from the same conversation translated to "equally" natural English. And you can't not do this. Yes, you can play it safe by always using です/ます form, but if you're a guy talking to your close friend like that, you're not being neutral, you're being weird, or possibly rude. This grammatical detail "you must encode information X in your verbal formations" has consequences in group dynamics, and the writing of prose and poetry, surely domains of beauty.

The grammar extends the idea of a word-final particle naturally to a phrase-final particle, but then takes it to the next level with expression/sentence-final particles (よ, ね, な). This structure allows for the flourishing of a class of words that "color" utterances in ways quite foreign to English. (Mind you, I'm not arguing Japanese grammar is "more" beautiful than English, but we're talking about Japanese.)

In short, grammars exist because over time a group of humans agreed that a certain abstract structure was a/the* suitable representational framework for their thoughts, and these frameworks give rise to works of aesthetic interest. I find both the relation between a grammar and its output, between a grammar and another grammar, and between a grammar and the human thought process to be sources of inspiration, wonder, and aesthetic pleasure, which I would call beauty with no hesitation.

*I wouldn't have had to resort to this distractingly unappealing construction in Japanese.

by **Mapar** » Mon May 28, 2012 10:25 pm UTC

Twelfthroot wrote:
Daimon wrote:Can you explain to me how Japanese grammar is beautiful? In examples I can understand, that weren't as complicated as quoted above or in the News in such, it's just grammar. I don't see how it's beautiful.

Landscapes are just consequences of natural laws on geographies, and aleatoric music is almost pure group theory. Does that mean neither can be beautiful? Grammars are the result of a complex interplay between the "natural" way humans order their thoughts, historical coincidences, and societal organizations. To me, comparing grammars is like comparing representations of examples of a wonderfully intricate mathematical structure, but all the more aesthetically interesting because we generally use it as a restraint, often without acknowledgement, in every aesthetic endeavor we undertake with language.

Consequences of a grammar include what words can be derived by logical processes (vs. what words require new morphemes) and what information is necessary in any utterance (vs. what information can be omitted). Some examples:

In Japanese, if you have any verb X, then you also have a natural verb meaning "to cause or allow to X". You can do this in English as exactly that "cause or allow to" but it will be, to my eye, uglier -- especially because the Japanese always allows for either causal or permissive interpretation even if one or the other is contextually obvious, whereas to say "cause or allow" in English when you clearly meant one or the other is simply sloppy. This construction can be combined with the "passive", which has different meanings from what we call passive in English, in similarly elegant ways.

Japanese gives you more details about the social relationship between any two people (or what the participants believe the relationship to be) than you can conclusively infer from the same conversation translated to "equally" natural English. And you can't not do this. Yes, you can play it safe by always using です/ます form, but if you're a guy talking to your close friend like that, you're not being neutral, you're being weird, or possibly rude. This grammatical detail "you must encode information X in your verbal formations" has consequences in group dynamics, and the writing of prose and poetry, surely domains of beauty.

The grammar extends the idea of a word-final particle naturally to a phrase-final particle, but then takes it to the next level with expression/sentence-final particles (よ, ね, な). This structure allows for the flourishing of a class of words that "color" utterances in ways quite foreign to English. (Mind you, I'm not arguing Japanese grammar is "more" beautiful than English, but we're talking about Japanese.)

In short, grammars exist because over time a group of humans agreed that a certain abstract structure was a/the* suitable representational framework for their thoughts, and these frameworks give rise to works of aesthetic interest. I find both the relation between a grammar and its output, between a grammar and another grammar, and between a grammar and the human thought process to be sources of inspiration, wonder, and aesthetic pleasure, which I would call beauty with no hesitation.

*I wouldn't have had to resort to this distractingly unappealing construction in Japanese.

Thank you. You said so many things I couldn't put into words for the life of me.

by **Daimon** » Tue May 29, 2012 9:55 am UTC

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by **Suzaku** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 8:08 am UTC

はじめまして、アレックスです。
東京に住んでいるオーストラリア人で、36歳です。
日本語を12歳の時から勉強しています。
日本語の質問などありましたらどうぞきいてください。

よろしくお願い致します。
Alex.　（朱雀）

by **Daimon** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 12:29 pm UTC

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by **Suzaku** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 1:46 pm UTC

中is used for an ongoing state or action, and you're correct in the reading ちゅう.

Its use is somewhat idiomatic, and as such doesn't conform to rules well, but generally it's used with Chinese-reading (on-yomi) compound verbs.

You will commonly see the following (among others):
取り込み中（とりこみちゅう）： Busy (Told you it didn't really conform to rules well)
退席中（たいせきちゅう）： Away - As in AFK
勉強中（べんきょうちゅう）： Studying (as in your example)
準備中（じゅんびちゅう）： Getting ready / Under preparation
営業中（えいぎょうちゅう）： lit. in Sales / Open for business
妊娠中（にんしんちゅう）： Pregnant
待機中（たいきちゅう）： Waiting
食事中（しょくじちゅう）： In the middle of a meal
検討中（けんとうちゅう）： Under consideration
接近中（せっきんちゅう）： Approaching (esp. of Typhoons)
閉鎖中（へいさちゅう）： Closed / Closed off
公開中（こうかいちゅう）： Open (as in movies, etc)
発売中（はつばいちゅう）： On sale / For sale
and many others

As you can see, it is used for an ongoing or continuous action, somewhat the same as ”している”, but with implications that the action will last over some duration, rather than simply 'is ongoing at this time'. Also it makes for a simple sign, so you'll see it used as warning signs and advertising, instead of the alternative that needs hiragana as well.

Not sure if this is as clear as it could be, but I hope it helps.

よろしくお願い致します。
Alex.　（朱雀）

by **Daimon** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 7:19 pm UTC

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by **Mapar** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 11:04 pm UTC

Daimon wrote:I now have two slightly stupid questions. What is the difference between しかし、でも、けど. My first guess is formality, with, in my order, the most formal being on the left and least on the right. Likewise, 質問・問題　and 全て・全部

Secondly, when you're using passive voice, do you use が or を?

1. I don't know what the exact formality ordering is for the 'buts', you might want to wait until someone else comes along. I like to use 'が' for 'but'.
There is a slight difference in meaning between 質問　and　問題. A '質問' is a question as in 'May I ask you a question?', while a 問題 is a problem (an actual problematic thing, or a question on an exam, for example).
I feel that 全て and 全部 differ in nuance, but I can't quite put my finger on it... They should be interchangeable most of the time.

In passive voice, the agent is marked by に, the subject is still marked by が. Do take notice of the fact that Japanese 受身 does not completely overlap with English passive, but that's a different matter.

Lastly, there`s this game called Erepublik. Someone whom I know on there is better at Japanese than I, and wanted to make an article in Japanese, wrote all the English, then asked me for help translating it. She gave me the English, I wrote up a draft, she checked over that draft and changed word choice/wrote things for me when I wasn`t sure how to say them. We did them sentence by sentence over IRC.

This is the result of part of it, tell me if it is good.

Spoiler:
ずっと、e世界には、e日本は特別であります

現実の全国感情衝動為るe国々のでプレイアがe日本に行きました勢いは日本史、日本の価値観、と日本の文化でした。他の要素は日本の自分が世界に特別です。私達の大方は日本人じゃありません所が同じ規則を遵守為ます、同じ事に笑います、国と国の人と絆を感じます。家の大基礎はそんな事が私達に呉れました。「家」とは日本と申します。日本が生み出されていた銘々人、ありがとうございました。過去から取りこめる想いはたくさんが在ります。例えば、大使館の回復を見たいです。日本にたくさん母語話者が在るだから母語話者が仕事為なければ、無駄じゃありませんか。労働力は無くしかし世界のスルーアウトに私達の協商国を助け合っている事で日本が強く成れます。

I'm far from qualified to comment on the 'feel' and naturalness of a translation, but I'll try to fish out some mistakes on the grammar level:

-Generally, common verbs like する　and ある are not written in kanji (granted, this is a matter of taste, but some things are just so rare that it just looks weird)
- no ます形 in relative clauses.
- と is to be repeated when enumerating things. In English you say 'I bought a bread, two eggs and an onion', in Japanese you repeat the 'and' every time.
- I don't know what you're trying to say with '勢い', but if you mean 'reason [for going]' 理由 works better IMO
- 日本の自分 sounds wrong to me. I don't know how I'd phrase it, but 自分 only refers to people.
- '家の大基礎はそんな事が私達に呉れました' I couldn't parse this sentence...
- 銘々人-> 人々or 方々
-想いはたくさんがあります->想いがたくさんあります。
- 母語話者がいるので、いるのだから or いますから, but not 在る. 1) ある　is only for inanimate things, 2) you need a nominaliser.
- 無くしかし did not compute. 労働力を無くした世界 is grammatically correct. (for some reason I don't think 労働力 is a good choice here, you mean 'work ethic', right? 'Manual labor' is quite different in meaning)

I took issue with wording in some other places, but -as I've said- I don't feel qualified to comment on that (even more so if I can't suggest a viable alternative).
Oh, feel free to set me straight if I made any mistakes, I'm here to learn too.

by **Daimon** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 11:14 pm UTC

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by **Mapar** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 11:39 pm UTC

Quick response before I go to sleep:

Daimon wrote:ます形 is what?

Masu-form.

by **Daimon** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 11:44 pm UTC

Mapar wrote:Quick response before I go to sleep:
Daimon wrote:ます形 is what?

Masu-form.

Well, then, I still have no idea what relative clauses is.

by **Suzaku** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:59 am UTC

Daimon wrote:What is the difference between しかし、でも、けど.

「しかし」 is used at the beginning of sentences; not to join two clauses. The overtones are similar to English 'However'. The full form is 「しかしながら」.
打ち上げは成功しました。しかし、衛星＜えいせい＞は正しく機能しませんでした。
The launch was successful. However, the satelite did not function correctly.

「でも」 is used in the same way, but is less formal.
旅行に行きたい。でも、お金がない。
I want to travel. But, I have no money.

「けれども」、「けれど」、「けども」 and 「けど」 are used to join clauses, with the longer forms being more formal.
免許はとれたけど、まだ運転はうまくない。
I got my license, but I'm still not good at driving.
この試合は負けたけれど、大会には勝てます。
We lost this match, but we can still win the tournament.

「が」 is used in the same way, but with the added restriction that both clauses must be in the same form (either plain form　or, more commonly, masu/desu).
明日は予定がありますが、明後日は空いています。
I have plans tomorrow, but am free the day after.

More to follow, but I have to go feed my daughter right now

by **Daimon** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:14 pm UTC

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by **Suzaku** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:10 pm UTC

Daimon wrote:For a long time, I've seen many things say that "want" is an adjective, not a verb in Japanese. 欲しい. But then I came across 欲する, I like to go with 欲為る、 It's a verb, it means want. I mean, technically it's a noun that you just attach 為る to to make it a verb, but a verb nonetheless. Does anyone actually use it, or is it rare like Kanji for 為る。 There's even 欲す（ほりす）。

I must admit that I'd never seen 欲す＜ほりす＞ before. A little quick research leads me to believe that it is the original form, which has evolved through 欲する＜ほっする＞ and 欲す＜ほっす＞ to 欲しい＜ほしい＞. The noun is 欲＜よく＞ and is used as any other noun.

欲する・欲す are now basically considered archaic forms, and are used in very formal speech or writing, or in historical fiction (in which I include TV, アニメ, 漫画, etc.). Also, they would now only very rarely be used as the final verb of a sentence; much more commonly they would be the subordinate verb in a clause.

e.g.
平和を欲しない者はいない。
＜へいわをほっしないものはいない＞
There is no man who does not desire peace.

by **Daimon** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:44 pm UTC

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by **Suzaku** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 3:19 pm UTC

Pretty spot on. I would go with 'some day' instead of 'sometime', but that's more of a statement about my preferences in English than about the translation.
祈る is literally ' to pray', so 'I pray' is technically more correct than 'I wish' (which could be rendered as 願う＜ねがう＞ or 望む＜のぞむ＞), but again they're pretty much equivalent in English in this context.

The way I translate 事 so you can attach を and stuff to it is "The thing of" So, bluntly I went, "The thing of Yagami sometimes becoming prime ministerをbottom of heart wish"

Yep. The other way of looking at the same construct that can sometimes help if you get stuck is 'The fact that...'. Not that that would help much in this example.

by **Daimon** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:32 pm UTC

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by **Suzaku** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:11 pm UTC

Daimon wrote:I`ve just recently found two Kanji that are seemingly rare. The first, 𥼣, has nothing. No meaning, no readings, and when I enter it into IRC, I get the ? in the diamonds. The second, 蟱, has four readings, but no Kanji meaning. Both do not have words attached to them, and the first won`t appear in Jisho.org The second one only had Daikanwajiten 33632 as a reference, the first not even that. Can anyone find information on them? At the very least their "meanings"

Took a bit of research to track these down, but here's what I've found:

𥼣: Read as しいな, apparently used only for the reading in place names.

蟱: Read as ぶ、む or ぼう. According to my Kanjigen dictionary, represents an imaginary insect resembling a cicada. Its youg are said to look like silkworms, and if you catch one the mother is supposed to come flying. It may be/have been used as a different Kanji for 蜘蛛＜くも＞, spider at one time.

I'm pretty confident that I could present these to 100 Japanese native speakers and have 100 of them say they've never seen them and have no idea what they mean. There is really no need (other than nerdly curiosity, of course) to remember these two.

by **Daimon** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:11 pm UTC

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by **Daimon** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:39 pm UTC

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by **Suzaku** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 3:26 pm UTC

Daimon wrote:良くない日本語ので諦めてもいいですか？

This sentence, which I have just created, is incorrect. Somewhere. I just know it. Can anyone fix my mistake?

You are correct, it is incorrect somewhere. Where depends on what you were trying to say.

I suspect that what you were thinking was 「良くない日本語なので諦めてもいいですか？」
- You need to use な between a noun and ので to form "Because it's a ..." (or related forms). Otherwise ので must follow an adjective or verb.

However, this would best translate as "It is bad Japanese, so may I give up?", which is grammatically correct but doesn't parse well.

If you're trying to convey "My Japanese is no good, so may I give up?", then 「（僕の）日本語は良くないので、諦めてもいいですか？」. This would convey the above meaning, but might not be the best option depending on context. I would interpret this as a sort of "I've been trying to express something for 10 minutes and you're clearly not getting it. My Japanese obviously sucks, so can we just stop?" scenario.

If you can let me know what you were trying to express, I can probably give you a better answer.

by **Daimon** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:39 pm UTC

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by **Daimon** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:04 am UTC

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