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I’m half way through chapter 7 so I haven’t finished TextFugu yet but I try to translate the headlines from the NHK Easy website every day and there’s something that’s been niggling me for a while that I’d like to have cleared up.
Verbs should always go at the end of the sentence, right? But you can use particles (の or こと) to nominalise the sentence and turn a verb into a noun so you still, technically, only have one verb at the end of the sentence.
On NHK Easy I notice that they seem to have multiple verbs in a headline and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to treat them as multiple sentences or if they’re leaving out particles or whatever.
For example, a headline from today:
韓国 新しい大統領を選ぶ選挙が始める。
In hiragana:
かんこく あたらしい だいとうりょう を えらぶ せんきょ が はじまる。
So, my rough translation is “Election to choose South Korea’s new president begins”. Whether that’s right or wrong, the bit that I’m confused about is that there’s a verb for “choose” (えらぶ) right in the middle of that sentence without any particle linking it to the last part. Should this be treated as two sentences?
Fellow beginner here so please take my explanation with the grain of salt.
Just like in any other language, you can have multiple verbs in each sentence. The difference in Japanese is that the main “action” that defines the sentence comes at the end. In your example that is はじまる. Not much different than in the sentence I wrote in English just before the previous one. I have “is”, “defines”, “comes”, the main verb is “is”, the others are used to describe what is happening. In Japanese, that “is” would be coming at the end.
Not sure which Season you are working on at the moment, the lessons are becoming “verb” heavy in Season 4 and even more so in Season 5 (where I am currently at).
Basically what’s happening here is the verb is functioning as a noun-modifying phrase – the verb modifies the noun that comes after it. You’ve encountered noun-modifying phrases before, though not under that name: specifically, you’ve encountered them in the form of adjectives.
Not sure if TextFugu ever covers verbs being used as noun-modifying phrases, but basically you just stick the dictionary-form verb straight on the back of the verb.
大阪に行く電車 = the train heading for Osaka – 大阪に行く (go to Osaka) modifies 電車 (train)
ボブさんが買った本 = the book that Bob bought – ボブさんが買った (Bob bought it) modifies 本 (book)In this case, 新しい大統領を選ぶ (choose a new president) modifies 選挙 (election) – an election to choose a new president.
(Side note, jasenko – “is” is the copula. In Japanese, the copula is です, which is not a verb. =P )
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks a lot!
To be honest, I think I need to get out and read more real-world Japanese for this stuff to stick. Textbooks are all well and good but it all falls apart when you try to read something “real”. Case in point, going through Wanikani I currently know over 400 kanji but when I see a wall of Japanese text, even with kanji that I know, my brain just goes “Nope!”.
Also, I thought a copula was a verb anyway? Just a special kind of verb? I’ve never been that good with linguistics, to be honest. I’m 34 now and I didn’t even know what an adjective was until I started learning Japanese (go me!). So I’ve been getting a crash course in linguistics as well as learning Japanese along this journey :)
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks a lot!
To be honest, I think I need to get out and read more real-world Japanese for this stuff to stick. Textbooks are all well and good but it all falls apart when you try to read something “real”. Case in point, going through Wanikani I currently know over 400 kanji but when I see a wall of Japanese text, even with kanji that I know, my brain just goes “Nope!”.
That’s an interesting point, I think that is probably due to the way Wanikani teaches kanji and vocabulary. I have the same issue. I can recognise and tell you at least a couple of hundred kanji (level 5 there currently) but having trouble using any of it in my practice sentences. Also struggling to recognise them in the wild. Keep practising I guess until they are burned in the memory…
A copula is a verb-like thing that goes where no verb is otherwise needed. In English, the copula is “to be”, which happens to be a verb, but you’ll notice that wherever it appears, it’s basically just being a placeholder.
“This is Spot. Spot is a dog.”
In Japanese, it’s です, which is not a verb, but it goes on the end of a sentence when you don’t have a verb there. (Fun fact: the slightly more formal literary version is である, which is a verb.)
And I’m with you on the “nope” response to long passages of text…
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