The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread.

[vanandrewMember]

Questions from Lang-8 time!

1 I attempted to write “Please help my older brother” - 兄を助かて下さい。

Some corrections I got replaced the transitive verb for help to the intransitive verb for help.

I thought the transitive would have been appropriate as in the sentence I am talking to someone, asking them to do something. I thought the intransitive form would just be for an action not associated to any person.

Any help please?                                 (Context is the issue perhaps?)

2 I’m not sure when kudasai should be written with all hiragana and when with kanji and hiragana. (corrections I got are inconsistent). 

Should it be kanji and hiragana (下さい), unless combined with ~ません then it is written just in hiragana?

3 Two corrections I got were: スープを食べなさい。& スープを飲みなさい.

What’s with the verb ending? (~なさい)

 

Thanks.

[JoelMember]

1. Are you getting them backwards? 助かる = intransitive. 助ける = transitive.

2. Pretty sure either is equally common in any situation, with stronger preference towards kana-only. That said, the original form of the verb, 下さる, is more usually in kanji. I’m no expert in sonkeigo, though…

3. ～なさい = ます-form imperative. Means “Do this!” スープを食べなさい = Eat the soup! Not sure why you’re being so forceful, though. =P

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

Apparently ～なさい is used often in situations like a teacher telling a pupil do something or a mother and child; a little more stern than ～下さい, but not too aggressive. From what I remember, I think I’ve seen it used in public information notices, like “Keep off the grass” and the like, though don’t hold me to that :P

I guess you could think of it like ～下さい is a polite request whereas ～なさい is an instruction. And then there is “command form”, which is more of a… command.

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks guys!

1-Turns out I did get the intransitive/transitive verbs the wrong way around! Easy answer (better than misunderstanding it).

2-Ok, I get the impression it’s not murder to get this wrong ( one corrector was insistent that with ~ません it was kana only).  Sonkeigo? Not heard of this….is that super important?

3-I really wanted them to eat that soup! No, there was a section in TF about ending verbs with てくれ, so I was practising that and got those corrections.

I’ll look into those other verb forms. Thanks.

[JoelMember]

Sonkeigo is only important if there’s someone you need to bow and scrape before – it’s extremely polite language, which I’ve been told even native speakers sometimes struggle with.

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

Yeah, so like if any of you met *me* in real life, that’s the kinda language I would expect you to use.

[JoelMember]

Oh? Do tell.

[vanandrewMember]

That whole respect thing I keep hearing about. They’re quite big on that aren’t they?

[YamadaMember]

O.k. This is a question a friend of mine had about some Japanese he encountered in an anime show — なんくるないすた or something like that… I looked up “なんくるない” on jisho.org and it come out to “don’t worry- be happy”… What I want to know in order to answer my friends question is what is the すた on the end (is it like です, etc?) and also if this meaning of the word is correct….
[edit:] I think it is actually　なんくるないさ, so it would be the さ instead of すた

• This reply was modified 11 years, 9 months ago by  Yamada.

毎秒は一世一代。

[vanandrewMember]

I looked up 笑 the other day and one meaning came up as “LOL”. Is that right?! Does kanji get used that way?

Howabout “WTF” etc etc

[JoelMember]

Aye, though it’s often written in brackets – (笑). Can also be written as (w) – w for “warai”.

Dunno about any of the other common Internet TLAs, but I do know they’re big on emoticons. Like orz, or (´Д` ). Et cetera, et cetera.

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

Internet slang comes in a wide variety of forms, including emoticons, kanji, roman alphabet etc.. Here are a few examples
△
誰得
ROMってろ
ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━!!!!

If you want to see internet slang just go to 2ch :P

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks Joel/マーク!

マーク – I usually try and avoid internet slang at all costs! (in English at least)

[vanandrewMember]

A lang-8 inspired question:

I put some sentences up using ~たい　(want to do something) and got some corrections putting a の after it.

e.g. 車を買いたいですがお金がない。- corrected to have a の in there:車を買いたいのですがお金がない。

I’m not sure what that の is all about. Any help please?

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

Sentence ending particle which adds an explanatory tone to your sentence

can also be shortened ん

[Author]

Posts