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I overheard someone say something like, “Who is the turtle?” (In the game, ‘fun run’), and the one who was the turtle character said, “Me.”
This made me curious…. what would “Me” have been in Japanese? I looked it up on jisho.org, and I know they could just say わたし or something else (would they say their name?)…. but what I want to know is what do people actually use, not just in the ‘grammatically correct’ sense but in a real situation. I would suggest that the person who said “Me”, would in Japanese say ぼく or something like that, since he said it in the context of what I presume to be his friends, thus a causal situation. I think I get it, but like many other things I want to make sure I am recalling and using what I know is actually correct.
(P.S. “Who is the turtle”, would that be “だれの亀（’かめ’）ですか？” …あなたはかめです。(“are you the turtle?”))
毎秒は一世一代。だれが亀ですか. Not だれの. だれの亀ですか would be “whose turtle (is this)?”
You seem to rely on の quite a bit when guessing the translations of sentences, but の really doesn’t have all that many uses. Personally, I’d have expected you to guess だれは, but は is also incorrect, because a question word can’t be the topic – it’s gotta be が. =)
あなたは is ok grammar, except it’s unlikely you’d use the word あなた. In casual situations you might use きみ or おまえ or the person’s name. In more formal situations, you’d always use their name, never “you”.
As for your question itself. わたし is fine. A boy might use ぼく, a guy might use おれ, a girl could use あたし. There’s about twenty different ways to say “I”. If they wanted to emphasise – “It’s me!” – they could say わたしだ!
And on an unrelated note, I’m not sure whether 亀 or カメ is in more common usage.
If you’re going to guess a particle, go for に, I’d say – so many different uses, you’re bound to get it right :D
Also: カメハメハァーーーーー！！
は is also incorrect, because a question word can’t be the topic – it’s gotta be が.
O.K., so は emphasizes what comes after and が what comes before , so then by “question word” did you mean ですか? (because I was thinking you may have meant だれ instead)…. Is it が because it is emphasizes ‘who’ (because the person wants to know who is the turtle)?
毎秒は一世一代。“Question word” means who, what, why, where, when, how, et cetera. And don’t get too fixated on “は emphasizes this and が emphasizes that”, because it’s not going to help you in the long run. Simply put, は marks the topic of a sentence – which is often, but not always, the subject of the verb. When you use は, you assume the speaker knows what it is you’re talking about – when you’re referring to an unknown element like だれ, that’s not possible, because even you don’t know who it is you’re talking about. That’s why it’s が, the subject marker.
Koichi’s “は emphasizes this and が emphasizes that” seems helpful at first, but as you read and learn more, it’s really not sufficient as an explanation. To be fair, I can’t think of a good way to explain it to beginners, so that’s probably the best he can do, but you’ll come to understand it properly in time.
Thinking about it, Koichi also says “X は” can mean “Regarding X…” or “As for X…” – that’s a much better explanation in my eyes :D
Other than that, you can think of them in linguistic terms: “は is the topic marker, が is the subject marker”.
And on an unrelated note, I’m not sure whether 亀 or カメ is in more common usage.
Can I trust the jisho.org? (http://jisho.org/words?jap=&eng=turtle&dict=edict&common=on for common word,
http://jisho.org/words?jap=&eng=turtle&dict=edict for all)
Would アオウミガメ be better?
I also want to ask, is there a better online Japanese dictionary or am I just not able to fully utilize jisho out of naivety?毎秒は一世一代。What I was trying to say is that animal names are often written in katakana rather than kanji, but I’ve not learnt enough yet to know just how often. And the danger of all dictionaries is that they never give a feel for what words are typically used, or the subtle implications behind words, et cetera. It’s fine to use a dictionary, but if you rely too heavily on it, you’re going to learn how to speak like, well, a dictionary.
アオウミガメ sounds like a specific breed of turtle. Green sea turtle, or something.
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