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

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks Joel.

Are there any other pluralising suffixes I should know about?

(I understand that plurality is usually assumed from context, but still.)

[JoelMember]

ども (= humble), がた (= honorific) and ら (= casual). All of them people-noun suffixes. I don’t know of any pluralising suffixes for regular nouns, and I’m fairly sure there aren’t any.

ども, incidentally, is related to the 供 in 子供, which used to be plural, but is not any more. You’ll often hear it in anime as 二人とも (the two of you). ら regularly appears as おまえら.

[vanandrewMember]

Cool, ta.

[vanandrewMember]

I’m trying to get my head around the difference between から & ので in terms of being used for “because”.

Suggestions, distinctions, rules anyone?

 

[JoelMember]

If you can make sense of it, the grammar dictionary says:

ので is used when the speaker believes that the information he provides in S1 ので as a cause or reason for S2 is valid and is also evident and acceptable to the hearer. S1 から S2, however, does not involve that assumption. Therefore, ので cannot be used and から must be used in the following situations:

A) S1 expresses the speaker’s conjecture about something

B) S2 is a command, request, suggestion or invitation

C) S2 expresses the speaker’s volition or personal opinion

It gives a few examples for each of those situations, as well. (I was also taught that から can follow either です/ます form or plain form, while ので can only ever follow the plain form.)

[vanandrewMember]

Wow, that’s a sample from your book? You never have trouble getting to sleep do you?

Thanks, that’s a help.

 

Would you say it’s correct to view the difference between the two as ので is used when something is concrete, certain, factual & から is used when there’s a degree of ambiguity, uncertainty, opinion, intent?

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

[JoelMember]

I have, I admit, read the basic grammar dictionary from cover to cover – not in one sitting, in case you were wondering. =P I’ve gotten stalled somewhere in the middle of the intermediate dictionary, though…

As for your summary, that sounds fair. =)

[vanandrewMember]

From the TF lesson on ‘giving & receiving’ it has this example sentence, the structure which throws me a little:

母がくれた鳥です. It’s the bird my mom gave to me.

I thought perhaps to say this, ‘bird’ would come first, then describe how it was given by “mom”.

Perhaps it’s just unfamiliarity, I’m not used to seeing です come after a verb like that.

[JoelMember]

It’s a noun-modifying phrase. The phrase 母がくれた describes the noun 鳥. That is, it’s a given-by-mother bird.

I haven’t actually looked at the lessons in a while – does Koichi ever cover noun-modifying phrases?

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks. I can see how that works, just wasn’t familiar with the structure.

I haven’t come across “noun-modifying phrases” in TF yet (making that example somewhat confounding).

Is there much to it?

[MomoIroMember]

Noun-modifying phrases are simple, easy to get used to, and one of the BEST features of Japanese. That’s just my opinion, of course. But I find myself trying to use them in other languages and getting so mad when I remember that it doesn’t work. The best thing about noun-modifying phrases is that you can start talking anywhere in a Japanese sentence, and as long as you end with a dictionary form verb you can tack on the noun you’re referring to at the end and it’s all good. That sounds complicated, so here’s an example:

Let’s say I visited my Japanese teacher, and I was wearing a necklace my husband bought me last week. When she asked about it, even back when my Japanese was slow and choppy, answering the question would be easy. I could start rambling like this: “Oh, this? Well…last week…my husband…for me…bought…” and once you’ve got the idea across you slap on “necklace desu” and you’re golden. I’ll write this in Japanese, but I have to apologize for my romaji. I don’t have any kind of IME ability on this computer.

Teacher: Sore wa nan desu ka?

Me: Ano…kore? Eeto…kore wa…eeto ne…senshuu…otto ga…katte ageta…nekkuresu desu!” (This is the necklace my husband bought me last week.)

In other words, while in my nervous panic eventually I would remember what the topic was. I’d throw it on at the end and create pretty convincing Japanese. Even though the entire phrase was past tense, the “desu” makes the full sentence present tense.

I <3 them!

[JoelMember]

Basically, noun-modifying phrases are plain-form sentences that come immediately before a noun, and in doing so modify the noun. It’s basically exactly the same as using adjectives, except it’s a verb, and lets you say some pretty detailed things. We do have them in English, though they’re not quite so versatile – they’ll either appear as hyphenated gerunds or adjectivised verbs before nouns (as in “demon-slaying sword”) or else prefaced by “that” or “which” after nouns (as in “the house that Jack built”).

They can get… complex. One gem that appears in a passage in my current textbook is:

日本には東京のような、世界によく知られている都市がたくさんあります。

One of the comprehension questions is “what’s the phrase that modifies 都市?” (Well, actually, the question was 「都市」を修飾するのは、どこからどこまでですか。)

 
Answer: it’s everything from 東京 to いる

[vanandrewMember]

Cool, thanks guys.  Looks like a handy tool.

 

Joel – Lucky I have a really big magnifying glass.

[YamadaMember]

O.k., I know が and は are super crazy in that it is very difficult to explain them fully, but could someone clarify what should be used in a sentence I wrote on Lang-8?
My sentence: “春の雨が好きじゃありません。”

First corrector: “春の雨が好きではありません。”

Second corrector: “春の雨はが好きじゃありません。”

The second corrector has は and the first corrector has が
Is it just a matter of preference? (Does not が identify ‘Spring’ (はる/春)?)

毎秒は一世一代。

[AstralfoxMember]

Was there anything written before that sentence in your post?

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