Home Forums The Japanese Language Can にbe first?

This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  thisiskyle 10 years, 8 months ago.

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  • #44314

    One of the corrections I received on Lang-8 used に before が. Here’s the corrected sentence, so you can see what I’m talking about.

    はなにあめがそそぎます。

    Is this some casual form I’m not aware of yet? Or is there some other grammatical thing going on here? Or can you change the order of the parts of the sentence (direct object first, then subject, etc.)?

    Or was that poster incorrect? O_O

    (BTW, the correction I saw the most was あめははなにそそぎます。 One person put ふゆ in before the verb, in parentheses. I’m not sure why. :/)

    • This topic was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by  icaruspandora.
    • This topic was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by  icaruspandora.
    • This topic was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by  icaruspandora.
    #44318

    thisiskyle
    Member

    Typically, the order of sentences doesn’t matter too much in Japanese. What is important is that words are followed by the right particle to show how the word fits in the sentence or phrase (so long as the verb is at the end).

    わたしは ケンさんに プレゼントを あげました。 I to Kevin a present gave.
    わたしは プレゼントを ケンさんに あげました。 I a present to Ken gave.

    These are both completely fine and mean the same thing.

    As to the corrected sentence, I’m surprised that only one person mentioned ふる. It is the right verb to use here. ふる (降る) means “to fall” when talking about precipitation. あめ が ふる means “it rains” or “rain falls”. ふる is also an intransitive verb, which means that the rain falls on its own (You could not say “I fell the rain”).
    そそぐ (注ぐ) (which means “to pour”) on the other hand, is a transitive verb, which means there needs to be some agent (either implied or explicitly mentioned) to carry the verb out. かれは ベールを そそぎました。 – He poured the beer. (beer does not pour itself).

    I think the most accurate/direct way to say “rain falls on the flowers” would be:
    あめが はなに ふる or
    はなに あめが ふる

    #44319

    Thank you! I feel much more relaxed now about my sentences. (I probably missed that part of the lesson when it was taught.)

    Regarding そそぐ, it looks like I misunderstood Jisho.org. They said that one of its meanings is “4: () to fall onto (of rain, snow)” This would match with it being a transitive verb, now that I look more closely at it. I had thought that the rain/snow was doing the falling. Thank you for clarifying that.

    #44321

    Elenkis
    Member

    注ぐ (そそぐ) can be either transitive or intransitive, and the 大辞泉 dictionary has the following as one of the definitions:

    雨や雪などがとぎれなく降りかかる。「雨が―・ぐ」「降り―・ぐ」

    Note 雨が注ぐ as one of the examples there.

    http://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B3%A8%E3%81%90?dic=daijisen&oid=10935000

    #44323

    thisiskyle
    Member

    Gnarly…it seems to have the same meaning as “It’s pouring” in English. I had no idea.

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