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Further to discussion in a different thread, I’m still not really sure where counters are supposed to come in a sentence. Is it just 三匹の猫, or could you say 猫三匹, or 三匹猫, or some other configuration? I’m sure I’ve seen it used something like 猫が三匹います too. I’ve looked at several different resources for learning counters, but they don’t always seem to address this, and the ones that do say different things and don’t mention the others. It seems like something I really should know by now…
Either “number+counter の noun” or “noun を/が number+counter verb” work, though there may be situations in which one or the other is more appropriate.
So 三匹の猫をください or 猫を三匹ください both work.
On a side note: woo-hoo! Fifty pages!
Hello, I have another question. In this page, one of the examples is:
えいが を み に いきたかったら ”Cineplex” に いきたい です。
If we go to see a movie, I want to go to “Cineplex.”Why is it いきたかったら? I thought it would be いったら.
Yep, you’re right, and you’re also not the first to pick up on that particular discrepancy. The sentence as written translates to “If we wanted to go and see a movie, I want to go to Cineplex”, which is fairly clumsy.
Sorry for lateness, but thanks Joel :)
毎秒は一世一代。Thanks, Joel!
I’m not quite sure about the use of the negative forms in these sentences (corrections from Lang-8).
ここには日本人は少ししかいない(There aren’t many Japanese people here)
男子学生しか教えることができない (I’m able to teach male students only)
I may be being too literal, but the negative almost seems to give the opposite meaning to what I intended, the second sentence particularly.
Any suggestions? Thanks.
X-しか + negative verb = “noone/nothing but X”, so the first sentence is kind of “there’s no Japanese people here other than a few”, while the second is “I can’t teach anyone except male students”.
Thanks Joel.
Ok, so the しか influences the meaning. I assume しか go with nouns or adjectives, as per these examples?
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/amount - Tae Kim does a good section on this kind of thing (“Expressing Amounts”). A lot of points other than しか are mentioned on that page too, but they’re related and quite interesting anyway, so worth a read I’d say.
Brilliant, thanks Mr! (Until you do the lessons there it can be a bit awkward to find stuff there.)
I plan to go through TK soon enough, the explanations are well good.
彼の体型じゃ既製のサイズに合わないよ。
His figure does not suit ready-to-wear clothing sizes.What does the じゃ do in this sentence? Is it some colloquial form of が?
Think it’s a colloquial form of では. Not certain, though.
Ooo, ooo, my turn to ask a question!
犬に生まれてこなきゃあこんなに早く死ななかったろうに。
Context: the author is lamenting that her dog has been killed by the neighbour’s dog. I get the gist of what this sentence means, but I’m uncertain of the exact meaning of some of those chunks of hiragana. Specifically, こなきゃあ and 死ななかったろう and the final particle に. Is こなきゃあ perhaps the abbreviation of 来なくては（ならない）?
Joel is *asking* a question and not *answering* one? What is this I don’t even
Yeah, I’m thinking it’s short for 来なくては（ならない）too but I’m also confused as to how it fits in.
This page (http://www.epochrypha.com/japaneseold/verbs/verbs_rule_past_volitional.html) shows [た-stem] + ろう as being “past volitional”, then at the bottom says it’s actually “an outdated presumptive”. I’m guessing that means it’s a combination of た-form and だろう. Assuming it is, here’s some examples of だろう+に (http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E3%81%A0%E3%82%8D%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB&ref=sa); I’m not totally sure how those two come together to mean that but I’m guessing there’s some part after the に that’s implied. I’m guessing こんなに早く死ななかったろうに means something like “might not have died so soon”.Let me know if you manage to understand it any better with that, or come to a better interpretation :)
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