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In question 8, for example, some of the sentences would work better with が rather than は. Question 9.2, ひろゆきさんのしごとはいしゃです。 is an odd use for しごと – you’re saying “his work is doctor”. I also think it’s a tiny bit odd to have りんご as one of the options, AND use it in another sentence. And that should be 子供 rather than just 子.
I think you misspelt おじいさん twice – “My (someone else’s) daughter is my father’s father” doesn’t really make sense. =P And 7.18 has an extra ん. Also, Koichi’s name in hiragana is actually こういち. And who on Earth is Torricha-san? =P
Ooo, not too bad. Close to Shinjuku.
I’ve heard about Nova. Can’t remember it was good things or bad things that I heard, though. =P
I’ll happily go with you. You’d just need to pay for me. =P
I have an immense list of places I intend to go if I ever manage to visit Japan again…
Yeah, Koichi’s pretty much invented his own set of radicals, along with names and mnemonics. I generally prefer to just follow the official list.
Welcome!
Not bad. Admittedly, there’s one or two bits where your grammar is… a little off. Also, I don’t think you should be testing romaji as late as season two.
Also, might be easier to determine one’s score if you included the answers. =P
I couldn’t say, to be honest. I’d hope that he’ll at least be doing some manner of overhaul, though – the current lessons are strewn with small errors and confusing explanations.
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Welcome! What brings you to Tokyo? Work? JET?
Which bit of Tokyo? =)
Welcome! Nothing wrong with setting the JLPT as your goal, but it’s good to also have something in mind after that. No point in a shiny certificate saying you’re proficient in Japanese only to do nothing with it (though me saying that is a little bit pots-and-kettles =P ).
Yep. It’s the word that it’s in, basically. That’s why it’s more important to learn vocabulary rather than trying to learn the readings in isolation.
So, Basically, it comes down to the sentence structure. Not the individual word.
… No, it’s the word, sorry. 一つ is essentially one word. 一匹 is another word used for counting one animal, 一人 is another word used for counting one person. Et cetera.
Adding the tsu changes the pronunciation
That’s… close enough. It’s not so much that the つ changes the pronunciation as that it shows which pronunciation is being used.
To think of another example (which hopefully isn’t going to confuse matters): the character 下 has several kun’yomi, so when we encounter it in a sentence, how do we know which one to use? From the okurigana attached:
- If we see it as 下がる, we know that it’s read as さがる
- If we see it as 下る, we know that it’s read as くだる
- If we see it as 下りる, we know that it’s read as おりるAdmittedly, recognising the other two kun’yomi, した and しも, and telling them apart from the on’yomi, is a little bit more tricky, but trust me when I say you’ll get the feel for it over time, once you’ve started learning a bit more vocab and kanji.
and the order it’s placed in in a Japanese sentence.
Not really, sorry. That’s just how it get used – it’s the same for any counter word. More examples:
私の高校は千人の学生います – わたしのこうこうは せんにんのがくせい います – My high school has a thousand students
あそこに犬二匹がいる – あそこに いぬにひきが いる – There are two dogs over there
それを三つください – それを みっつ ください – Three of those, pleaseNote that we have a few counter words in English, too – “ten head of cattle”, “three pieces of paper”, “seven pairs of socks”, and you’ll notice the sentence structure here is exactly the same as the “[number] [counter] の [noun]” form in Japanese – but Japanese has a counter word for everything.
Goodness. I feel like I’m being a bother.
No you’re not – that’s what I’m here for. =)
Hmm. That might be a holdover from an older version. You learn about 人 in the next lesson, here: http://www.textfugu.com/season-2/past-negative-nouns/5-3/
That said, the readings of 一人 and 二人 are weird exceptions that Koichi never seems to specifically highlight.
The kun’yomi of 一 is “hito”. “Ichi” is the on’yomi. 一つ = “hitotsu”.
When sticking this into a sentence in Japanese, you’d either write it as “[noun] [number] [counter]” or “[number] [counter] の [noun]” – for example, リンゴ一つ or 一つのリンゴ. If there’s a verb involved, you can write it as “[noun] を [number] [counter] [verb]” – リンゴを一つ食べた.
Also, the use of the つ counter is only used when there isn’t a better counter word in common usage – many objects (especially animals and people) have a better counter word. To count dogs, for example, you’d use 匹 (ひき）. One dog = 一匹 (いっぴき, because with certain numbers, readings get slightly tweaked to make them easier to say).
So, numbers usually use on’yomi, even when they’re in bunches – for example 36 = 三十六 = さんじゅうろく (all on’yomi). The main exceptions are 七 and (to a lesser extent) 四 – for whatever reason, their readings tend to be a bit interchangeable.
When a number is attached to the generic “things” counter つ, though, they always use kun’yomi. The つ counter only runs up as far as 10, though. (Technically, kun’yomi numbers do exist beyond ten, they just don’t ever get used in modern Japanese, and I can never remember what they are.)
The 人 counter also has exceptions for 1 and 2 – 一人 = ひとり and 二人 = ふたり, but after that they use on’yomi forever: 三人 = さんにん, 四人 = よにん, 五人 = ごにん et cetera.
P.S. Just realised I mistyped something in my post above – 南東 is south-east. =)
