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[Porcile]

I'd tweet in Japanese but everyone who follows me only speaks English, and every Japanese person who follows me, un-follows me after a couple days because they're only fishing for followers and I don't follow them back. Also, Twitter is rubbish. I much prefer Lang-8.

Moving on, the textbook I'm using has little bit on い adjectives and replacing the い with a さ. It's a little too brief though and doesn't explain the nuance particularly clearly. Am I right in that it's turning い adjectives into nouns?. The example sentences it uses are:

このビルは たかさが あります。
This building is high.

きょうは さむさが ありますね。
It is cold today, isn't it?

Those translations seem a bit off though, right? I take the first sentence to literally mean "This building has height" and the second sentence to mean "Today has cold, doesn't it?" or "There is cold today, isn't there?" or something similar. I guess it doesn't translate to English very well, hence the original translation. If I wanted to try and say "This building is high." I would just say このビルは たかい です。What are the advantage of using さ in this instance? Maybe those are just poor examples to start off with.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

I'd tweet in Japanese but everyone who follows me only speaks English, and every Japanese person who follows me, un-follows me after a couple days because they're only fishing for followers and I don't follow them back. Also, Twitter is rubbish. I much prefer Lang-8.

Moving on, the textbook I'm using has little bit on い adjectives and replacing the い with a さ. It's a little too brief though and doesn't explain the nuance particularly clearly. Am I right in that it's turning い adjectives into nouns?. The example sentences it uses are:

このビルは たかさが あります。
This building is high.

きょうは さむさが ありますね。
It is cold today, isn't it?

Those translations seem a bit off though, right? I take the first sentence to literally mean "This building has height" and the second sentence to mean "Today has cold, doesn't it?" or "There is cold today, isn't there?" or something similar. I guess it doesn't translate to English very well, hence the original translation. If I wanted to try and say "This building is high." I would just say このビルは たかい です。What are the advantage of using さ in this instance? Maybe those are just poor examples to start off with.

The quick and dirty way to think of -さ is appending '-ness' to a word in English. たかい (tall) becomes たかさ (tallness [height]). ひろい (wide) becomes ひろさ (wideness [girth]). It makes comparative statements easier, and allows you to speak specifically about the attributes of something.

 

[Porcile]

Can you string together the -さ versions of adjectives like nouns using と、か and so on?

 

[AmethystEnd]

Can you string together the -さ versions of adjectives like nouns using と、か and so on?

Yes, since they essentially function as nouns.

 

[RangerBAD]

I don't tweet much at all, in any language. The most I ever tweet is during tournaments like Evo. Beyond tweeting about things like that, I feel too odd just writing about stuff that happened to me, or about myself to no one in particular that anyone on the internet could read. I don't even have a facebook, lol.

Yup.

 

[blurr]

I don't tweet in Japanese much but I try to reply in Japanese if the other person tweets in Japanese or try to translate Japanese news (famitsu or something). Of course also try to read Japanese tweets.

My handle is @blurr_warun btw

Highly recommend following @NihongoSOS for Japanese tweets with English translation - it's mostly jokes and silly stuff.

 

[muteki]

Stefanie Joosten tweets in Japanese+English if you are a MG/Quiet fan. @stefanieGMJ

 

[RangerBAD]

最後まで調査を続けるのは大変でした。

Continuing the survey has been difficult until recently.(?)

 

[Kurita]

Looks good to me.

 

[RangerBAD]

Looks good to me.

Yay! Great.

 

[Kurita]

Oh wait I misread : 最後 is "the end". Thought it was 最近 (recently)

 

[RangerBAD]

Oh wait I misread : 最後 is "the end". Thought it was 最近 (recently)

I guess my translation is wrong then. So I guess: Continuing the research was difficult until the end? That could either imply it was hard until the last part or hard the entire way through.

 

[AmethystEnd]

I guess my translation is wrong then.

You just need to change 最後 to 最近 or 近来 and you're fine. Actually, now that I think about it, is there a functional difference between 最近 and 近来, I wonder.

I definitely hear 最近 more often so I'm going to stick with that as my rule of thumb.

 

[Kansoku]

I was reading the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar and I'm not understanding this use of まで and it doesn't explain it very well:

あの人はなずみやスカンクはもちろん蛇まで好きです。

I understand まで as similar to "until", so this confusing me. Can someone shed a light on this?

 

[RangerBAD]

You just need to change 最後 to 最近 or 近来 and you're fine. Actually, now that I think about it, is there a functional difference between 最近 and 近来, I wonder.

I definitely hear 最近 more often so I'm going to stick with that as my rule of thumb.

I was translating an existing sentence.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

I was reading the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar and I'm not understanding this use of まで and it doesn't explain it very well:

あの人はなずみやスカンクはもちろん蛇まで好きです。

I understand まで as similar to "until", so this confusing me. Can someone shed a light on this?

A better way to shoehorn まで into English is to think of it as meaning "as far as." 東京まで行く電車 (a train that goes as far as Tokyo). In this case it's saying that this person's "liking" goes "as far as" snakes. He even likes snakes.

 

[AmethystEnd]

I was translating an existing sentence.

Ohh, I see. Whoops.

 

[Kurita]

A better way to shoehorn まで into English is to think of it as meaning "as far as." 東京まで行く電車 (a train that goes as far as Tokyo). In this case it's saying that this person's "liking" goes "as far as" snakes. He even likes snakes.

Yes, that's a good way to put it.

 

[Jintor]

This.

Jintor what is your Twitter handle? I might make one and use it to tweet in Japanese and because you are top tier compared to me, you can actually correct me 😇

quote to see. also, lolwut, top tier? i don't even know if i'm n4, man... i just do what i do. Might go for n3 next july though.



also, could you break this bit down for me - あの人はなずみやスカンクは? [That person (???) Skunk ]は? I don't recognise it at a glance and rikaikun has failed me

 

[TheSporkWithin]

also, could you break this bit down for me - あの人はなずみやスカンクは? [That person (???) Skunk ]は? I don't recognise it at a glance and rikaikun has failed me

That is almost certainly supposed to be ねずみ, which is mouse.

The whole translation would be something along the lines of "That guy even likes mice, skunks, and, of course, snakes."

I'm not really sure why it's phrased like that. It seems really stilted to me to use もちろん while stressing that something is abnormal by using まで. I could be parsing it incorrectly. In my mind it would make more sense as あの人はネズミやスカンクはもちろん。蛇まで好きです。Which would be "of course mice and skunks (are okay/liked). Hell, he even likes snakes!"

 

[Kansoku]

A better way to shoehorn まで into English is to think of it as meaning "as far as." 東京まで行く電車 (a train that goes as far as Tokyo). In this case it's saying that this person's "liking" goes "as far as" snakes. He even likes snakes.

Oh, I see. Thanks.

 

[blurr]

Just asked this to a Japanese twitter user, I got my response but I want to check if it's accurate

そう言えばいつも考えていたけど日本で普通に床屋はどんなヘアスタイルを付けますか？

I wanted to say:

"Speaking of which, I always wondered, normally what sort of hairstyle a barber in Japan give?"

I'm unsure whether 付けますか is the right term here and if 普段 should be used instead of 普通

 

[Kurita]

Anyone ever studied in Japan with the MEXT scholarship? Guess I'll try that if I don't manage to go through my school.
Plus they have a ton of universities!
Don't want to go for research though since I don't really know what I want to do, just to study Japanese. I'm sure staying in Japan for a year will give me some ideas for a master.

 

[shanshan310]

Anyone ever studied in Japan with the MEXT scholarship? Guess I'll try that if I don't manage to go through my school.
Plus they have a ton on universities!
Don't want to go for research though since I don't really know what I want to do, just to study Japanese. I'm sure staying in Japan for a year will give me some ideas for a master.

Sadly not, it looks alright now! I'm kind of interested in the research one.If you don't have an idea for a research project don't let that stop you! You just need an area to be interested in and your supervisor should help you.

Just realised I'm now too old for the undergrad one, which is kind of a sad and weird feeling.

Applicants must have been born between 2 April 1994 and 1 April 1999 and must hold Australian citizenship. Applicants must have either completed Year 12 or reached an equivalent matriculation standard by December 2015.

ack.

 

[I'm an expert]

Just asked this to a Japanese twitter user, I got my response but I want to check if it's accurate

そう言えばいつも考えていたけど日本で普通に床屋はどんなヘアスタイルを付けますか？

I wanted to say:

"Speaking of which, I always wondered, normally what sort of hairstyle a barber in Japan give?"

I'm unsure whether 付けますか is the right term here and if 普段 should be used instead of 普通

The whole sentence is unnatural even before you get to your questions. You're committing the number one mistake as 99% do. Do not literally translate what you'd say in English.

 

[blurr]

The whole sentence is unnatural even before you get to your questions. You're committing the number one mistake as 99% do. Do not literally translate what you'd say in English.

Yea, thanks for pointing that out, I always say that to myself yet here I am. What about the Japanese sentence? does that also seem off?

 

[I'm an expert]

Yea, thanks for pointing that out, I always say that to myself yet here I am. What about the Japanese sentence? does that also seem off?

Not sure what you mean. My post was in reference to this sentence:

そう言えばいつも考えていたけど日本で普通に床屋はどんなヘアスタイルを付けますか？

 

[blurr]

Not sure what you mean. My post was in reference to this sentence:

そう言えばいつも考えていたけど日本で普通に床屋はどんなヘアスタイルを付けますか？

Oh, was thinking you were talking about the English translation I wrote. However I did not literally translate what I wanted to say from English to Japanese when I wrote that. Do correct me though, I just haven't been having enough practice. I did get my response from the person I asked so I was under the impression that it didn't feel too unnatural.

 

[I'm an expert]

The meaning gets across because native speakers can decipher it of course. Doesn't make it right.

edit: just to clarify, I'm not sayin it's ridiculously wrong or anything, just that you did in fact translate literally. That sentence would be said a different way from a Japanese perspective. As is usually the case here.

 

[blurr]

The meaning gets across because native speakers can decipher it of course. Doesn't make it right.

edit: just to clarify, I'm not sayin it's ridiculously wrong or anything, just that you did in fact translate literally. That sentence would be said a different way from a Japanese perspective. As is usually the case here.

I did translate literally when I wrote in English so you guys would know what I'm trying to say which I admit is a mistake but the Japanese sentence itself isn't something I tried to translate literally from English. At least it didn't seem that way for me, it just came to me spontaneously when I wrote it (on twitter before posting here).

Also, I would appreciate it if you could say what is the right/better way to say that because it isn't very apparent for me.

 

[Resilient]

If it was me I would just say "I see. What kind of hairstyles do Japanese barbers usually do?"

 

[AmethystEnd]

So my teacher totally gave me full credit for my backwards answers. Got the highest grade in the class on the written portion. Now just awaiting my score on the oral exam @_@.

The end of the oral exam was my teacher saying 雨が降りそうですね。

I thought he was referencing the real weather, since it really was a cloudy morning and there had been some thunder already, so I had my umbrella with me and everything and I said

「ええ、傘を持ってきてよかったです。」

It turns out that was still part of the roleplay and he was expecting something like:

「天気予報を見ないで来たので、分かりません。」

I doubt he'll hold that part against me though.

 

[Resilient]

So my teacher totally gave me full credit for my backwards answers. Got the highest grade in the class on the written portion. Now just awaiting my score on the oral exam @_@.

The end of the oral exam was my teacher saying 雨が降りそうですね。

I thought he was referencing the real weather, since it really was a cloudy morning and there had been some thunder already, so I had my umbrella with me and everything and I said

「ええ、傘を持ってきてよかったです。」

It turns out that was still part of the roleplay and he was expecting something like:

「天気予報を見ないで来たので、分かりません。」

I doubt he'll hold that part against me though.

lol nice work. you could probably still spin it the way you said it anyway.

you're at university right? feels like everybody here is still a student!

 

[AmethystEnd]

lol nice work. you could probably still spin it the way you said it anyway.

you're at university right? feels like everybody here is still a student!

Yes, but this is my 2nd bachelor's degree so I'm way too old to be in undergrad.

Before this, I was a Ph.D student, but after a year I couldn't take it any more and dropped out.

 

[Porcile]

What line of work are you language students looking get into after your degree? Translating, interpreting, maybe something government based?

I'm never sure if I'm jealous of people doing their BA's. I certainly don't miss being a student as much as most people. I think if I had to go back to university and get treated like a fresh out of school, 18 year old baby all over again, I would die a little inside. Maybe being on the other side of the curtain in a teaching role, and seeing all the varying degrees bullshit hasn't helped. Then again, I'm now just a hopeless 25 year old with an MA whose life and career has basically spiraled towards oblivion!

 

[AmethystEnd]

What line of work are you language students looking get into after your degree? Translating, interpreting, maybe something government based?

I'm never sure if I'm jealous of people doing their BA's. I certainly don't miss being a student as much as most people. I think if I had to go back to university and get treated like a fresh out of school, 18 year old baby all over again, I would die a little inside. Maybe being on the other side of the curtain in a teaching role, and seeing all the varying degrees bullshit hasn't helped. Then again, I'm now just a hopeless 25 year old with an MA whose life and career has basically spiraled towards oblivion!

I'm minoring in Japanese. My major now is computer science. My 1st Bachelor's degree was psychology (yeah, yeah, laugh, but keep reading). I wasn't interested in being a psychologist/psychiatrist or the whole "Tell me about your mother" while lying on the couch field; my Ph.D would have been in human factors psychology, specifically cognitive ergonomics pertaining to designing the interfaces of electronics to make them more intuitive/easy to learn.

However, I quickly found out that I would have to spend several years teaching psychology as a Ph.D student on top of doing my own research, so I dropped out. I never, ever want to teach. I don't enjoy it and I don't think I'm good at it.

 

[Kurita]

Translation (and interpreting) is what I'd like to do the most.
Working in manga publishing in my country is also something I'm interested in. Saw an offer at my school for an internship with a pretty big publisher but unfortunately you need a bachelor... 1 year too early for me!
What's funny is that I mentioned that on Twitter and the guy in charge sent me a tweet saying "See you next year " haha

 

[Porcile]

However, I quickly found out that I would have to spend several years teaching psychology as a Ph.D student on top of doing my own research, so I dropped out. I never, ever want to teach. I don't enjoy it and I don't think I'm good at it.

Depends really. While working at my university I found there were some people who were good at delivering knowledge but absolutely terrible at working with students, or just hated working with students. Then you had the teachers who were the complete opposite, couldn't teach in the traditional sense, but were very good at engaging with students more personally.

Obviously, there are some who are good at both, and bad at both as well. In a way, I think university teaching can actually be less about pure teaching, but it depends on the responsibilities you want to take on, and the type of material you are delivering.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent.

 

[Jintor]

i wish i was a student again, wouldn't have fucked around so much taking useless manga studies subjects (I enjoyed them but it would've been more useful to get a better grasp of languages earlier)

of course it would still have to fight against the x years of incredibly shit chinese school i went to that basically destroyed all confidence in myself at language learning for a decade and a half

 

[Resilient]

i wish i was a student again, wouldn't have fucked around so much taking useless manga studies subjects (I enjoyed them but it would've been more useful to get a better grasp of languages earlier)

of course it would still have to fight against the x years of incredibly shit chinese school i went to that basically destroyed all confidence in myself at language learning for a decade and a half

o shit i forgot to make a twitter, i'll do that now.

stop beating yourself up, you do fine.

Spoiler

go read some h-manga to feel better.

 

[shanshan310]

What line of work are you language students looking get into after your degree? Translating, interpreting, maybe something government based?

I'm never sure if I'm jealous of people doing their BA's. I certainly don't miss being a student as much as most people. I think if I had to go back to university and get treated like a fresh out of school, 18 year old baby all over again, I would die a little inside. Maybe being on the other side of the curtain in a teaching role, and seeing all the varying degrees bullshit hasn't helped. Then again, I'm now just a hopeless 25 year old with an MA whose life and career has basically spiraled towards oblivion!

Ideally I want to work in the department of foreign affairs, but it is extremely competitive so if I don't get in I'll probably end up working in some other government area or independent Asian think tank (fingers crossed), since I combined my Japanese with Korean and Asian relations. I've thought about going for a CIR position with jet, mostly to improve my Japanese and for the fun community work, but I don't intend to work in Japan long term. Salaryman life just sounds so soulcrushing and tiring, especially as a lady. I'm not really cut out for that.

I totally feel you with the starting uni all over again stuff though. I'm taking Italian just for fun atm through my university and everyone else in the class is 17 (the age people graduate HS here). At 23, I've never felt older and more out of place :s

 

[blurr]

If it was me I would just say "I see. What kind of hairstyles do Japanese barbers usually do?"

Was asking what would be better/right in Japanese. To provide some context, the other person first tweeted: 今日は髪切り行きますん

which is why I started the sentence with そう言えば

 

[Resilient]

Was asking what would be better/right in Japanese. To provide some context, the other person first tweeted: 今日は髪切り行きますん

which is why I started the sentence with そう言えば

そう言えば、どんなヘアースタイルが日本人のヘアドレッサーがよくした？切った？あげた？

 

[AmethystEnd]

Yeah, like Resilient just demonstrated, it's one of those sentences where I don't know how to end it because I've never been to a Japanese barber so I don't know proper "barber terminology". I know "to shave" is 剃る and if you want to say something like "Please make it look like this picture" it's この写真みたいにしてください。

 

[Mik2121]

Was asking what would be better/right in Japanese. To provide some context, the other person first tweeted: 今日は髪切り行きますん

which is why I started the sentence with そう言えば

Personal preference, but if it were me I would probably ask something more like:

そういえば、日本でどういう髪型が流行ってるんですか？

I mean, it's not the same question as I'm saying "btw, what kind of hairstyle is popular in Japan?" instead of asking what kind of hairstyle do barbers do, because... barbers usually just do what you ask them to, they don't go their own way, lol. So you might as well ask what's popular and go with it. If you are worried that they might tell you about hairstyles impossible to do on a barber shop, then say something like:

そういえば、日本で床屋さんへ行くときにみんなどういう髪型にするんですか？

btw, when people go to a barbershop in Japan, what hairstyle they go for?

 

[Resilient]

Ideally I want to work in the department of foreign affairs, but it is extremely competitive so if I don't get in I'll probably end up working in some other government area or independent Asian think tank (fingers crossed), since I combined my Japanese with Korean and Asian relations. I've thought about going for a CIR position with jet, mostly to improve my Japanese and for the fun community work, but I don't intend to work in Japan long term. Salaryman life just sounds so soulcrushing and tiring, especially as a lady. I'm not really cut out for that.

I totally feel you with the starting uni all over again stuff though. I'm taking Italian just for fun atm through my university and everyone else in the class is 17 (the age people graduate HS here). At 23, I've never felt older and more out of place :s

I think I'll find true happiness when I reach salaryman lifestyle. Crush my soul pls Japan, show me what you got.

Personal preference, but if it were me I would probably ask something more like:

そういえば、日本でどういう髪型が流行ってるんですか？

I mean, it's not the same question as I'm saying "btw, what kind of hairstyle is popular in Japan?" instead of asking what kind of hairstyle do barbers do, because... barbers usually just do what you ask them to, they don't go their own way, lol. So you might as well ask what's popular and go with it. If you are worried that they might tell you about hairstyles impossible to do on a barber shop, then say something like:

そういえば、日本で床屋さんへ行くときにみんなどういう髪型にするんですか？

btw, when people go to a barbershop in Japan, what hairstyle they go for?

shiet, couldn't find the word for barber, i was searching for hair stylist..thanks!

and for hairstyle..

thanks again!

 

[Jintor]

I think I'll find true happiness when I reach salaryman lifestyle. Crush my soul pls Japan, show me what you got.

nope. nopenopenopenopenopenopenope. seeing other teachers do what they do is bad enough lol

i'm buggering off back to my own country where i can suffer exhaustion in law but at least get paid crazy money for it

 

[shanshan310]

nope. nopenopenopenopenopenopenope. seeing other teachers do what they do is bad enough lol

i'm buggering off back to my own country where i can suffer exhaustion in law but at least get paid crazy money for it

Mmm, my students just seem so exhausted all the time. I've seen some friends and old classmates enter through regular old graduate shukatsu and love it, but the late hours, the lack of vacation time and the low pay compared to graduate jobs here just make it kind of unappealing. Plus my female japanese friends are already complaining about glass ceiling problems:/ there is a lot I love about japan but work culture is not one of those things.
It does work for a lot of people though, so don't be discouraged by my opinions.

 

[blurr]

Personal preference, but if it were me I would probably ask something more like:

そういえば、日本でどういう髪型が流行ってるんですか？

I mean, it's not the same question as I'm saying "btw, what kind of hairstyle is popular in Japan?" instead of asking what kind of hairstyle do barbers do, because... barbers usually just do what you ask them to, they don't go their own way, lol. So you might as well ask what's popular and go with it. If you are worried that they might tell you about hairstyles impossible to do on a barber shop, then say something like:

そういえば、日本で床屋さんへ行くときにみんなどういう髪型にするんですか？

btw, when people go to a barbershop in Japan, what hairstyle they go for?

Thanks, this clarifies a lot. Thing is that whenever I go to a barber, I seldom ask for a specific hair style, nor does the barber ask, he just cuts down whatever hair I have by half or so. At most, he asks how much he should cut it down(short or medium). I don't even have a name for the hair style I have currently. This often made me think how it is in other countries.

 

[I'm an expert]

I did translate literally when I wrote in English so you guys would know what I'm trying to say which I admit is a mistake but the Japanese sentence itself isn't something I tried to translate literally from English. At least it didn't seem that way for me, it just came to me spontaneously when I wrote it (on twitter before posting here).

Also, I would appreciate it if you could say what is the right/better way to say that because it isn't very apparent for me.

Not talking about what you wrote in English. Talking about when you wrote that J sentence, you thought about how to say it in English first, and then, right down to the structure/vocab, you built your J sentence the same way. The very first few words of this sentence proves that.

いつも考えていた

Does not mean what you want it to mean in this context. So before you even get to what you want to ask, this little phrase expresses something totally different than your intention for everything that follows it. Again, most people/native speakers can see your intent and interpret it, which is what communication is, but it's just unnatural. You wanting to express the idea of "I've always wondered" is not done the way it is in English.

Which leads to the greater point that J-go can very deceptive the further you stray from basic ideas. In the beginning it seems like, minus a few different word orders, an English thought can be expressed similarly in Japanese. And it's true. But once you really get to something that isn't a bare bones sentence, Japanese smacks you in the face with very specific patterns, idioms, tenses, etc. One of the biggest mistakes is thinking "I need this word for xxx" and then you look up xxx in the E-J dictionary and simply use that word. Sure, sometimes that's right. Inu means dog. You can use inu. But when it comes to verbs especially, you are going down a dangerous path. This is a totally separate topic though.

I'm very hands off when I post in this thread which is why you'll never see me outright correct someone. However, others here have posted exactly what I meant when I said from a Japanese perspective this question would be asked totally differently. Hopefully you can use that as a reference going forward.