Yes, because it's an SVO (subject-verb-object) like English and many other Western languages. However it belongs to yet another linguistic family than either Japanese or English, where words kind of remain the same all the time: they don't get modified through plurals and articles and particles and stuff (unlike English and Japanese), and their place in the sentence strictly determines their function. At least that's what I gathered from what little I know.
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The Big Ass Superior Thread of Learning Japanese
- Thread starter RevenantKioku
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Yes, because it's an SVO (subject-verb-object) like English and many other Western languages. However it belongs to yet another linguistic family than either Japanese or English, where words kind of remain the same all the time: they don't get modified through plurals and articles and particles and stuff (unlike English and Japanese), and their place in the sentence strictly determines their function. At least that's what I gathered from what little I know.
Neat, never realized iOS could do that before. But it seems to work best with nouns or non-conjugated words...
Well, it's really like he said, all degrees will take you places. Whether those are places you would have expected with that degree, is another thing entirely...
That does happen, especially with certain degrees, but it certainly doesn't make them useless.worldrevolution said:
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
I'm jumping back into studying again and going through Tae Kim's site again.
I also have the heisig 1,3 kanji books that I barely started months ago before I stopped.
Does going through Tae Kim's then working on the books sound like a good idea? Or should I do the book first?
I guess I could do both at the same time as well.
I also have the heisig 1,3 kanji books that I barely started months ago before I stopped.
Does going through Tae Kim's then working on the books sound like a good idea? Or should I do the book first?
I guess I could do both at the same time as well.
HisshouBuraiKen
Member
Correction, you will know a small subset of the hanzi. I think to be considered educated in chinese you need to know ~6000, versus ~2000 for Japanese. Plus I have no idea how the simpified vs traditional thing works.
Of course you can probably get by over there with around 2k but I'd expect you'd be more of the worker class instead of the communist elite ;P
It is said that normal Japanese know 3000 to 4000 characters though
bigmit3737
Member
What is the word/phrase used to say someone is "moving on with their life," after a break-up?
i.e. "I though you moved on with your life, so I didn't want to contact you."
Thanks.
i.e. "I though you moved on with your life, so I didn't want to contact you."
Thanks.
正直に言うとそのフレーズの意味がよく分かっていないけど、たぶん日本でそれに相当する、よく使われる定形フレーズは無いんじゃないのかなあ。
「くよくよしないで前向きに」や「過去はきっぱり忘れて前に進む」とかそんな感じの意味？
bigmit3737
Member
「過去はきっぱり忘れて前に進む」はいいけど具体的なプレーズはないですね。
英語でこのプレース「moving on]の意味は少し特定ですから。
ありがとう。
普通に「前に進む」とかいいんじゃない？
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
If you're talking about moving on in the getting over a breakup sense, you want fukkireru. You can say something like tsugi no dankai ni utsuru if you want a sort of moving on to the next stage in life kinda meaning. Sorry.. too lazy to switch the ime over.. There's a lot of ways you could phrase that intention, but nah I wouldn't say there's anything that literally translates to "move on with your life".
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
ふっきれる is definitely the closest in terms of "getting over" someone.
でもそれだとただ単にgo forwardってだけでmove on with lifeと同等の熟語などのフレーズじゃないでしょ？
たぶん意味が全然違うけど「命の洗濯」（選択じゃないよ）って表現があるよ。使い方は
「学校を卒業してからの10年間、東京で身来る日も来る日もを粉にして働いてきて、身も心もボロボロ。(´・ω・`)
青々とした木々に囲まれた、自然が残る静かな田舎町に1年ぐらい滞在して、命の洗濯をしてくる。く(｀・ω・´)」
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Obviously that phrase has a totally different meaning than the one being discussed, but cute blog entry. (^-^)
As for mae ni susumu, it can have connotation of moving forward with life, but usually in a more optimistic or positive way - essentially why you call someone maemuki (na).
As for mae ni susumu, it can have connotation of moving forward with life, but usually in a more optimistic or positive way - essentially why you call someone maemuki (na).
bigmit3737
Member
Thanks, "ふっきれる" seems to be the best fit.
Pressure is key. All the "pointless" good habits you were supposed to pick up while learning with pen will suddenly become actually important.
I have. It's a compulsory subject at school here. I'm a lefty I used the left hand for writing when I was a child. When I was twelve or something, the teacher of the class forced me to use the right hand. Now, I can't write letters with the left hand anymore. The terrible thing is I was better at writing than I am now
If you want to take a convenient way, try these pens, called 筆ペン (fude-pen) in Japan. You can write similar blush style letters with these pens. I don't know if these pens are available in your place though.
Thommunist
Member
No offense, but it's pretty much impossible to write a graduation thesis on such an incredibly large topic without the thesis being way too general and irrelevant. There are huge historical and linguistics processes underlying these exchanges of language. You're looking at premodern Tang-dynasty language waves to Korea, Japan and Vietnam, language contact in later dynasties, modernization and the incredibly huge language exchange waves that were set in motion by it and then I'm just listing the major events. You need to understand all of these three languages really well in order to write something sensible about it, trust me. You would definitely also need to know Classical Chinese quite well. It's particularly hard to get to the premodern history part of things, because all sources are written in Classical Chinese and they aren't catalogized very well. I recommend you to take something much smaller in scale and write your thesis about that. I've been studying both Chinese and Japanese for at least 3 years now and teach classical Chinese at my university, but I limited my thesis to a comparison between two shared words between Chinese and Japanese (万一 and 万が一
because it's much more overseeable and you're actually able to contribute something to the existing research in that area. Don't let yourself get discouraged by the field, it's incredibly interesting and rewarding to slowly uncover what these languages have in common with each and how they differ, but it's just not something you can just uncover in one thesis, not even a PhD thesis.I know what you are referring to but I've never even attempted to apply different kinds of pressure when writing. I guess it's not a huge deal if using a pencil but I can definitely see why it may be important with a brush.
I have. It's a compulsory subject at school here. I'm a lefty I used the left hand for writing when I was a child. When I was twelve or something, the teacher of the class forced me to use the right hand. Now, I can't write letters with the left hand anymore. The terrible thing is I was better at writing than I am now
If you want to take a convenient way, try these pens, called 筆ペン (fude-pen) in Japan. You can write similar blush style letters with these pens. I don't know if these pens are available in your place though.
Fellow lefty here! Fortunately I was never forced to switch hands.
Those pens look interesting. I'll definitely look into them. Thanks!
shanshan310
Member
I was thinking more specifically of Japanese influence on Korean language over the annexation. Do you think this would be too broad?No offense, but it's pretty much impossible to write a graduation thesis on such an incredibly large topic without the thesis being way too general and irrelevant. There are huge historical and linguistics processes underlying these exchanges of language. You're looking at premodern Tang-dynasty language waves to Korea, Japan and Vietnam, language contact in later dynasties, modernization and the incredibly huge language exchange waves that were set in motion by it and then I'm just listing the major events. You need to understand all of these three languages really well in order to write something sensible about it, trust me. You would definitely also need to know Classical Chinese quite well. It's particularly hard to get to the premodern history part of things, because all sources are written in Classical Chinese and they aren't catalogized very well. I recommend you to take something much smaller in scale and write your thesis about that. I've been studying both Chinese and Japanese for at least 3 years now and teach classical Chinese at my university, but I limited my thesis to a comparison between two shared words between Chinese and Japanese (万一 and 万が一
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
That sure would be an interesting subject to cover. Be careful you don't get killed by some Korean nationalist, though.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Add　機（き） to the end for the actual device.
I don't think I have ever seen a garbage disposal in a sink in Japan, I don't know how popular they are. They do have something called a 生ごみ処理機 for composting organic waste, and they call what we have in the sink a ディスポーザー.
Zefah: I thought that term was only used for household composting bins?
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Oops! I missed the "(like the kind in a sink)" part.
Yeah, ディスポーザー would be the way to go!
Yeah, ディスポーザー would be the way to go!
I've got some questions for you guys!
I was just hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree when I noticed some kanji on a tag on a little stuffed bear ornament.
First question, how can I tell if this is Japanese or Chinese? There are only 3 characters. It doesn't seem like enough to tell either way. Keep in mind I know the very basics of Japanese grammar and absolutely nothing about Chinese grammar, so I may be missing something rather obvious.
Second question, can anyone help me with identifying one of the characters? I realize this would be infinitely easier if I provided a picture but I don't have a simple way of providing an image with good quality. Maybe it will be a good exercise anyway.
On the tag, it says 「羊毛」 but also has a character preceding those two. The only one I knew at first was sheep. The back of the tag, in English, says "pure wool." So I searched wool in a dictionary and discovered the compound for the word wool and realized the other character stood for fur. So this leaves the character for pure. I searched pure in a dictionary but couldn't find the right one. I also tried searching it by composing the elements of the character but there are many strokes in it and the font is pretty small so I can't see it that well. I'm assuming the word isn't pure, but rather a word similar in meaning or even a synonym.
Apologies if this is too vague!
I was just hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree when I noticed some kanji on a tag on a little stuffed bear ornament.
First question, how can I tell if this is Japanese or Chinese? There are only 3 characters. It doesn't seem like enough to tell either way. Keep in mind I know the very basics of Japanese grammar and absolutely nothing about Chinese grammar, so I may be missing something rather obvious.
Second question, can anyone help me with identifying one of the characters? I realize this would be infinitely easier if I provided a picture but I don't have a simple way of providing an image with good quality. Maybe it will be a good exercise anyway.
On the tag, it says 「羊毛」 but also has a character preceding those two. The only one I knew at first was sheep. The back of the tag, in English, says "pure wool." So I searched wool in a dictionary and discovered the compound for the word wool and realized the other character stood for fur. So this leaves the character for pure. I searched pure in a dictionary but couldn't find the right one. I also tried searching it by composing the elements of the character but there are many strokes in it and the font is pretty small so I can't see it that well. I'm assuming the word isn't pure, but rather a word similar in meaning or even a synonym.
Apologies if this is too vague!
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Is it this?
純羊毛
純羊毛
Is it 純, 綿, 纯 or 绵 by any chance? First and second ones are Japanese, third and fourth ones are Chinese. You can tell because the left part is slightly simplified in Chinese. If it's neither or those, I have no idea. One Japanese dictionary only gives me 純毛 for "pure sheep wool", whereas I get 纯羊毛 in Chinese. Also, the second character I suggested only means 'cotton' in Japanese. Judging by those results, I'm tempted to say it's Chinese.
It could be either/some/or all in many cases. Much of the characters are identical, and if not from China directly it could still be Chinese but from Hong Kong or Taiwan which have many characters in common with Japanese. It is too few characters to consist of sentence level grammar, and Japanese/Chinese/Korean(traditional) all use a virtually identical morphological 'grammar' in the construction of 熟語 (kanji compound word).
I recommend you learn the basic structure of kanji, it will be helpful in identifying characters in the future. The most important traits you should look for are the bushu and the stroke-count. This is how characters are sorted, and sometimes even gives a hint about the characters general domain. There are 214 different bushu in all but probably only 30 or 40 commonly occurring ones.
As to which character that first one is. It may be 純? I've never seen it in conjunction with 羊毛, but it's what gets used in conjunction to refering to the pureness of an item. But I'd guess that the character probably isn't even pure, but something like 製 which refers to the material make up of the item.
If this doesn't help, I recommend reading about the structure of kanji, figuring out what the bushu is and how many strokes it has. Then you can better help us help you.
Jintor: ファイト！
Thanks for trying guys but no one has gotten it so far. I am going to attempt to draw it on my computer and I will upload the picture to see if it's of any help. The idea of drawing a character I can hardly even see with a track pad sounds like a recipe for disaster but bear with me.
I am aware of a lot of the bushu (although that name is new to me) and I am generally good at figuring out the stroke count but the font is so tiny it's hard for me to tell. I can definitely see some of the elements but I couldn't find the right character when I searched for it.
EDIT: Apologies, I stated everyone was wrong purely from memory but I guess my memory was hazy. A bit dumb on my part. After checking it again, Kilrogg is right. The character is 纯. So I guess that means it's Chinese. Interesting!
Thanks for the help everyone!
ivedoneyourmom said:
I am aware of a lot of the bushu (although that name is new to me) and I am generally good at figuring out the stroke count but the font is so tiny it's hard for me to tell. I can definitely see some of the elements but I couldn't find the right character when I searched for it.
EDIT: Apologies, I stated everyone was wrong purely from memory but I guess my memory was hazy. A bit dumb on my part. After checking it again, Kilrogg is right. The character is 纯. So I guess that means it's Chinese. Interesting!
Thanks for the help everyone!
Definitely Chinese then, yup. You're welcome.
Not sure if anyone here could help with this but its worth a shot. I'm travelling Japan at the moment and I've accidentally broken a zip off of my backpack this morning, so I was wondering if anyone has any idea about the sort of place I could take I to get another one put on? A strange question I know!
Can you read Japanese? Google "鞄 ファスナー補修"
Here is the one I found.
http://shop.kutsusenka.com/filter/KANTO/TOKYO/
Where are you?
Here is the one I found.
http://shop.kutsusenka.com/filter/KANTO/TOKYO/
Where are you?
HisshouBuraiKen
Member
lolez2matt
Member
Last saturday I passed the first of 4 years in my japanese class...
I´m kinda pumped to the next year, but I need to keep practicing and that´s is what is going to be difficult since I´m kinda lazy.
Is there any good pages to study the first minna no nihongo online?
It could help me while I´m free on my work.
I´m kinda pumped to the next year, but I need to keep practicing and that´s is what is going to be difficult since I´m kinda lazy.
Is there any good pages to study the first minna no nihongo online?
It could help me while I´m free on my work.
shanshan310
Member
Its kind of about asking for confirmation, for example "daijoubu desho?" would be something along the lines of "Its okay, right?".
vas_a_morir
Banned
Hey guys. Long time no see.
I've recently been reading more Japanese news and sometimes when my friends talk about events, I feel like commenting, or I feel like sharing and discussing articles that I find myself.
My main problem is that I chicken out before I post them. Some things I realize I don't want to post because they might be interpreted as controversial or like a challenge, so I probably wouldn't have posted them anyway.
My problem is some things still elude me. In response to a friend claiming Korea is a progressive country because they elected a conservative woman as president, I almost (But thankfully didn't) post this disgusting monstrosity of a sentence. Ignore the content of the sentence, as I am a known GAF idiot.
韓国は、選挙結果がなかなか興味深いが、進歩的な国という訳ではない。新しい次期大統領は、保守系政党の党員として進歩的な考えを持っている人ではないだろう。一方、韓国の政治はアメリカのとは比べ物にならないことがわかる。それでも、そう思い込んでいる。
You guys seem like pros. I know it probably reads like rubbish, but if you could, tell me where I went wrong? I haven't done much composition since I moved back to America, and I've forgotten so much. Some things to pay attention to: My use of Wa/Ga, my use of commas, and my use of "toshite."
Also, Extra credit: I wrote this about a statistical study published by Yomiuri Shimbun about young people's opinion of gender roles. (Yomiuri has a reputation for being a fairly pro-Japan np, and they emphasize how the earthquake disaster helped reinforced traditional Japanese values a lot, like how people talked about how Sept 11 brought Americans closer together and so on) (Once again, ignore the stupidity of the content, lol)
短期間で世論が変化したのは、最近の不景気のせいで就職に関する不安を感じる若者が増えているからだろう。もちろん外国人からすると東日本大震災の影響が完全に理解できないのに、いつものように読売新聞は災害の重要性を強調しすぎた気がする。とにかく、今までの調査結果を見ると、今回の結果が統計的な偏差だけと考えざるを得ない。
GAF Japanese Pros... where did I go wrong?
I've recently been reading more Japanese news and sometimes when my friends talk about events, I feel like commenting, or I feel like sharing and discussing articles that I find myself.
My main problem is that I chicken out before I post them. Some things I realize I don't want to post because they might be interpreted as controversial or like a challenge, so I probably wouldn't have posted them anyway.
My problem is some things still elude me. In response to a friend claiming Korea is a progressive country because they elected a conservative woman as president, I almost (But thankfully didn't) post this disgusting monstrosity of a sentence. Ignore the content of the sentence, as I am a known GAF idiot.
韓国は、選挙結果がなかなか興味深いが、進歩的な国という訳ではない。新しい次期大統領は、保守系政党の党員として進歩的な考えを持っている人ではないだろう。一方、韓国の政治はアメリカのとは比べ物にならないことがわかる。それでも、そう思い込んでいる。
You guys seem like pros. I know it probably reads like rubbish, but if you could, tell me where I went wrong? I haven't done much composition since I moved back to America, and I've forgotten so much. Some things to pay attention to: My use of Wa/Ga, my use of commas, and my use of "toshite."
Also, Extra credit: I wrote this about a statistical study published by Yomiuri Shimbun about young people's opinion of gender roles. (Yomiuri has a reputation for being a fairly pro-Japan np, and they emphasize how the earthquake disaster helped reinforced traditional Japanese values a lot, like how people talked about how Sept 11 brought Americans closer together and so on) (Once again, ignore the stupidity of the content, lol)
短期間で世論が変化したのは、最近の不景気のせいで就職に関する不安を感じる若者が増えているからだろう。もちろん外国人からすると東日本大震災の影響が完全に理解できないのに、いつものように読売新聞は災害の重要性を強調しすぎた気がする。とにかく、今までの調査結果を見ると、今回の結果が統計的な偏差だけと考えざるを得ない。
GAF Japanese Pros... where did I go wrong?
For the first paragraph, each sentence is very good but they don't connect well. I think there are something wrong with the conjunctions. 一方 might be replaced with some other words and also, you should add a subject word in the last sentence. As for として, I need an explanation of the sentence. Will you write the sentence in English?
The second one, 大震災の影響を完全には理解できない might be better.
災害の重要性 doesn't feel right but I can't telI for now. think I need to read a whole article (it's not related to grammar).
As for the overall usage of wa/ga. It is very good. You don't have to worry about it.
vas_a_morir
Banned
Thanks buddy. As you can see, my concern is trying to not sound like an English equivalent of a Chinese Master.
I can tell as a foreigner, like me, you can tell that something doesn't feel normal about it, but it's hard to say for sure WHAT that is. Truthfully, my way of thinking is different enough from Japanese people's thinking that the ideas expressed would likely not be consistent with what one might encounter when reading native-Japanese writing. So, that might complicate things.
What I meant to say with 'toshite' is "As a member of the Conservative Party of Korea, the new President Elect would likely not be one to have progressive ideas." It's an awkward concept in English, so obviously right or wrong it will sound weird in Japanese to me.
As for Ni-wa as opposed to ni, it seems like both are used, but the question about what sounds most like what a native speaker might say would be difficult for me to determine, but I'll take that into consideration.
As for 災害の重要性, a cursory search on Google at least shows that Japanese people do use it, so there's that. Still don't know, though.
As for the flow issue, I think that's the biggest problem. Grammatically sound or not, it definitely sounds odd to me as well.
Anyway, thanks for your support and advice! I plan on moving back to Japan next year, so hopefully I'll get more chances to improve. If you are interested in the articles that I referenced, I will edit and link them for you. know, it's irresponsible of me to post responses in Japanese without providing context. After all, Japanese is a context heavy language.
Also, I'd love to have a thread where we can speak Japanese about many subjects. Or can we do that here? It's just fun, lol.
vas_a_morir
Banned
yep
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
In that case, として should probably be だから or something like that.
Let me make some minor changes to see if this helps at all:
今回の選挙結果がなかなか興味深いとはいえ、それだけで韓国が進歩的な国とは言えない。当選した次期大統領は、保守系政党の党員だから進歩的な考えを持っていると思えない。ただ、自分はアメリカ的な政治観を持っているから韓国のことが分からないのかもしれません。
Honestly, I wasn't quite sure what you were saying with the last sentence, so I may have changed it from what you intended.
I messed around with the second one a bit, too:
短期間で世論が変化したのは、最近の不景気のせいで就職に関する不安を感じる若者が増えているからだと思う。もちろん外国人の自分は東日本大震災の影響を完全に理解することができないが、読売新聞はいつものように災害の影響を無理やり関連付けようとしている気がする。今までの調査結果を見ると、今回の結果が統計的な偏差だけと考えざるを得ない。
Again, not 100% knowing your intent with the sentence, I may have got some things wrong.
Let me make some minor changes to see if this helps at all:
今回の選挙結果がなかなか興味深いとはいえ、それだけで韓国が進歩的な国とは言えない。当選した次期大統領は、保守系政党の党員だから進歩的な考えを持っていると思えない。ただ、自分はアメリカ的な政治観を持っているから韓国のことが分からないのかもしれません。
Honestly, I wasn't quite sure what you were saying with the last sentence, so I may have changed it from what you intended.
I messed around with the second one a bit, too:
短期間で世論が変化したのは、最近の不景気のせいで就職に関する不安を感じる若者が増えているからだと思う。もちろん外国人の自分は東日本大震災の影響を完全に理解することができないが、読売新聞はいつものように災害の影響を無理やり関連付けようとしている気がする。今までの調査結果を見ると、今回の結果が統計的な偏差だけと考えざるを得ない。
Again, not 100% knowing your intent with the sentence, I may have got some things wrong.
vas_a_morir
Banned
Thanks Zef. You're the best.
Dakara seems like a fair change. Was toshite wrong, or is it simply you feel dakara is better?
For that last sentence, the meaning was "On the other hand, I understand that Korean politics cannot be compared to American politics." Basically, I wanted to acknowledge that I understand the situation is complicated.
I feel like you did much to soften my speech style, which is a change I appreciate. (I was a bit more formal in the first sentence than I was in the second one I posted. )
I noticed you switched "Itsumo no you ni" to after the subject. I had it like that before, actually. I believe i've seen it used before the subject, but it may change the connotation. If you wouldn't mind, whenever you get the time of course, could you explain your reasoning for moving that?
Finally, as these short compositions were originally written, do you feel it was solid enough to publish?
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Totally glossed over most of this stuff since I'm not into sentence correction but I saw this in your last post and instantly knew what you had done without even reading it. I know it's easy to think you can translate something you say in English to Japanese by using the equivalents, but something like "on the other hand" doesn't work like the way you wanted to use it in Japanese. I think that's a major, major mistake a lot of people have when learning this language. There is a lot of shit that is not 1 = 1 but often 1 = 1.52325 or even something further off. Simply put, it doesn't sound natural going word by word from one language to the other. This isn't a criticism, just a friendly tip. You won't know till you try, so that's great.
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