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

[vanandrewMember]

missing – the point about “string of nouns”. Can this be thought of as like compound words in English?

[missingno15Member]

Compound words in English = “straightforward”, “railroad”, “underground”

Strictly speaking, no. I can see where you are drawing comparison and if it helps you remember strings of nouns in Japanese, then sure.

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks. Yeah, I wasn’t imagining it as one to one.

[JoelMember]

Yeah, “strings of nouns” in English are basically exactly the same – a bunch of nouns all in a row, with little or no other grammar bits in between. Like “North London Public High School”. Or “Department of Roads and Traffic Safety”. Et cetera.

[vanandrewMember]

“しょうがない、生姜がないから今から買いに行ってきます.”  Apparently this is a joke. Can anyone explain it?

[JoelMember]

A Serpent Guard, a Horus Guard and a Setesh Guard meet on a neutral planet…

Kinda thinking it’s culture-specific. Could be a pun, though (生姜 = しょうが). Where’d you see/hear it from?

[AstralfoxMember]

’tis true, Ginger rules over the hearts of man. Yeah, where did it come from?..

[Anonymous]

It’s a pun:

First しょうがない is “It can’t be helped”

Second is しょうが – ない – There is no Ginger

Then “I’ll head out to buy some”

 

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks Jokers.

A friend told me it, said it was their favourite Japanese joke, so the pun explanation fits well.

[vanandrewMember]

One of the TF anki downloads has a card for “~たち” & describes it as a “pluralising suffix”.

How should this be used? Is it just a case of it can be put at the end of any noun?

Other rules associated with it? (I’m suspecting some hidden surprise).

[JoelMember]

It’s only used for people-nouns. As in 子供たち (children) or 私たち (us) or こういちたち (them – or more literally, “Koichi and the others”). According to my grammar dictionary, it can’t be used with 彼 (かれ), but that’s the only exception it gives.

[JoonasMember]

I got corrected on lang-8 site and on the comment she wrote me with a sentence i have no clue of what it means. help on translation?

日本語を学習するソフトウェアがあるんですね！興味深いです

[JoelMember]

“You’ve got software for learning Japanese, don’t you? Very interesting.”

Or possibly “there is software” – bit of context needed there. =)

 

Dunno if it’s the words or the grammar that’s confusing you, but to break it up a bit, 「日本語を学習する」 is a noun-modifying phrase (basically, a phrase that’s acting like an adjective) – in this sentence, the noun being modified is ソフトウェア – so it’s basically “study-of-Japanese software”.

興味深い is a word in the dictionary in its own right, but even if you don’t recognise it, you can still get its meaning by breaking it up into bits – 興味 (きょうみ) meaning “interest” plus 深い (ふかい) meaning “deep” equals 興味深い (きょうみぶかい) meaning “deep interest”.

[AstralfoxMember]

I think it says; “(you) have software for learning Japanese! That’s very interesting”

What was the sentence you wrote and the correction to it?

Edit: Too slow again! ,-_-

[JoonasMember]

thanks for help.

“I use Anki for learning japanese, it’s great software.”

this is what i wrote and below one is the correction.

私は日本語ならいますのアンキをつかうます。
私は日本語を学習するアンキをつかっています。

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

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