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Aye. There’s a few kun’yomi compound words which include hiragana between the kanji, but when they appear on signs in public, the hiragana tends to get dropped. The pronunciation and meaning are unchanged, though.
For example, 受け付け (うけつけ), meaning “reception desk”, tends to appear on signs as 受付 instead.
That said, take care you don’t get 入口 confused with 人口. =)
The られる/～える form is called the potential form. Means “can do (verb)”.
食べられる = can eat
飲める = can drink
飛べる = can fly
et cetera.What makes it confusing is that for る-verbs, the passive form is exactly the same (for う-verbs it’s V-neg+れる – for example, 飲まれる). And what makes it even more confusing is that passive-voice – as you noticed – is a way of doing polite active-voice, because it’s indirect, and indirectness is polite in Japanese. And then there’s indirect passive, which is a whole extra can of worms that I still don’t quite understand myself.
(Incidentally, for る-verbs in potential form, you can drop the ら in casual usage only – 食べれる.)
In the end, it’s just context that lets you tell them apart. You should not, at TextFugu level, be encountering too much passive-as-polite sentences, so mostly you need to be able to tell the difference between potential and passive. It’s pretty much particles that are going to help you here:
ボブさんは日本食が食べられます = Bob-san can eat Japanese food.
日本食はボブさんに食べられます = Japanese food is eaten by Bob-san.どうも =P
Last I heard was “Lifetime members get a free upgrade to the next version, EtoEto, when it’s ready. You’ll also be added to the lottery for alpha/beta testing. Our goal is to get everyone invited by mid 2016, or before Half Life 3 is released, whichever comes first.”
Since Half Life 3 is being invoked, I’d be inclined to say that “mid 2016″ isn’t set in stone, though…
I got an e-mail back in June last year.
Ah, に すんでいます works better. Dunno why I didn’t think of that. =)
Welcome!
What’d you do in Kyoto besides seminaring? =)
Oh, many. Very many. =)
Here’s a completely random sampling: Yamadera in Yamagata prefecture, Kurobe Gorge Railway, Nokogiri-yama, Takao-san, Takehara and Onomichi, Himeji Castle (last time I was there it was undergoing rennovations), Sagano Railway, Kumano Kodo, Yanagawa, et cetera.
Aye, the region locking on the 3DS makes me sad. It’s one of the reasons I’ve still not upgraded my old DS.
I’ve been vaguely pondering whether it’s worth going to Tokyo for the Olympics. Other than that, I’ve been making a list of places I want to visit and things I want to do so that I don’t forget. It’s getting pretty big. =)
Welcome!
I’m a little bit jealous that you could be able to visit annually – I went there way back in 2010 and I still haven’t been able to visit again…
Got any places in particular you’re interested in visiting?
Welcome!
Think the people around you need to learn the difference between medium and genre. =)
Well, you were. I’m not entirely sure if that offer is still on the table, but you can try sending an e-mail to hello@textfugu.com
Fairly sure I heard they weren’t sending invites any more, though…
Welcome!
Supposedly the three hardest languages to learn are English, Arabic and Japanese – and hey, you’ve already mastered English, so what’s one more on that list? =)
One thing about Okinawa is that it’s got probably one of the strongest dialects in Japanese. They’ll understand standard Japanese fine, but when you get better at Japanese, you might want to look into learning about the Okinawan dialect too.
Welcome! Good luck with your studies!
That said, I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but please don’t go to Japan with a mindset of “Japan’s an awesome magical place because it’s not England”. Sure, they do some things differently there, and sure, it’s not England, but it’s still a real place where real people go about their ordinary daily lives.
Go for Kyoto, though. It’s prettier. =)
Welcome!
I’m thinking either わたし は オーストラリア の シドニー から きました (I come from Sydney, Australia) or わたし は オーストラリアじん で、 シドニー から きました (I’m an Australian, I come from Sydney), though that latter one involves grammar you probably haven’t learnt yet. =)
I’m in Sydney too, actually.
