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

[JoelMember]

Don’t make me ask for context again. Maybe it’s 島来る, but islands don’t tend to do much coming or going outside of Lost. =P

I could tell you してくる, though…

[vanandrewMember]

I’ll go sit in the naughty corner.

 

I butchered Japanese in this Lang-8 entry -Recently I have been correcting too much on Lang-8.-私は「Lang-8」で近頃正しすぎています。

A correction I got-

私は「Lang-8」で近頃添削しまくっています。

The accompanying explanation:

「～しまくる」＝「～しすぎる」
「～しまくっている」＝「～しすぎている」

I didn’t recognise the conjugation provided.

[JoelMember]

Ah, well then – with context, it’s easy. Same as with ～すぎる, the conjugation is “V-ます stem + まくる”. する -> し(ます) -> しまくる.

Can’t find it in the grammar dictionary, but the regular dictionary says “verb suffix to indicate reckless abandon to the activity”. Never actually encountered this verb before, though.

正しすぎる, incidentally, means you’re been too correct. =P

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks.

Yes, I’ve since been enlightened on that!

[ElenkisMember]

It means to do something without stop (figuratively), to keep doing something on and on etc. Edict has it as “verb suffix to indicate reckless abandon to the activity”.

しゃべりまくる – Talk on and on

Beaten by Joel.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by  Elenkis.

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks Elenkis!

[vanandrewMember]

Joel – re “ too correct” – I meant to use it as a verb, but things went off the tracks at some point.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by  vanandrew.

[JoelMember]

Oh, yes, 正す. Silly me.

[vanandrewMember]

Good evening.

A lang-8 entry I did:日本語を聴っているの必要を練習します。

Was corrected to: リスニングの練習をしなければなりません。

I’m not sure about “しなければなりません”.  What is that all about?

[JoelMember]

It’s one of the more confusing bits of Japanese grammar. Negative potential form plus ならない or いけない means “should” or “ought” in the sense that there’s some sort of social obligation to fulfill. Possibly even as strong as “must”. いけない implies more obligation than ならない.

食べなければならない = you should eat it

薬を飲まなければいけない = you should take (i.e. drink) your medicine

しなければなりません = you should do it

You’ll also see it as ～なくては(ならない/いけない).

来なくてはならない = you should come.

In casual speech, ～なければ becomes ～なきゃ and ～なくては becomes ～なくちゃ, and ならない can become なんない. Or remain unchanged. Or be replaced by だめ. Or be omitted altogether. Which is to say, しなくちゃだめ and しなくちゃ both can have the same meaning.

Yeah, the fact that so many negative forms don’t actually have a negative meaning in Japanese bugs me to no end.

In any case, ～なきゃ and related forms is something I’ve regularly heard in anime, and it’s nice to know what it actually means…

 

tl;dr version: it means “should”

[ElenkisMember]

It’s a double negative, hence why it becomes a positive.

Nice post, I would have just linked to this if it was me:

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/must

:p

[JoelMember]

Sure, I could have linked to another page. That’s the lazy option, though. Also, stupid buggy text field in these forums means I can’t paste. Plus, that explanation is significantly longer.

In any case, I’m aware this one is double negative. Casual speech tends to drop the second negative, though. It’s also not the worst of the bunch, though it does try very hard. Since you’re so good at this, though, explain why ～んじゃないかと思う means a positive (though fairly uncertain) “I think so”. Spent a lesson today saying that (and related phrases) to classmates, and now I can barely tell if I’m agreeing with things or not. =P

Also, things tend to turn negative when they start getting formal – 食べなさい -> 食べてください -> 食べてくださいませんか

[vanandrewMember]

Groan.

Thanks. Sort of.

[ElenkisMember]

Well んじゃないか is a question. It’s kind of like “isn’t it?” in English. いいんじゃないかと思う – “I think it’s good (isn’t it?)”.

But yes, じゃない without ka at the end of casual sentences can be either positive or negative and the ka can be dropped from じゃないか. It can be confusing, especially in written text where you can’t hear the tone. In my experience it’s usually positive or questioning though and I don’t really think about it much anymore.

食べてくださいませんか is the same thing. It’s turning it into a negative question, which makes it sound more polite: “Won’t you please eat this?”

Though I’m sure you know all this, you’re better at explaining this stuff than I am :p

• This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by  Elenkis.

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

The whole time I was reading through Joel’s post, I was thinking “Just post the link to Tae Kim and be done with it” :P A more in-depth explanation, more example sentences, neatly laid out, mouse-over vocab… there really wasn’t any need for you to type all that; just wasting your own time here XD

But anyway…
Vanandrew, what were you trying to say with 日本語を聴っているの必要を練習します。? And how come 聴って is showing up on Rikaikun as the te form of 聴く? Shouldn’t it be 聴いて?

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