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  • in reply to: EtoEto access for TextFugu members #50657

    thisiskyle
    Member

    Hey! Look at all these zombies!

    In a moment of procrastination, I just randomly popped over to this tread for the first time in probably a year, and what do I see? Relatively recent posts from some people not asking about the pronunciation of 一人!

    Congrats on finishing a whole novel, Michael. I still struggle to make it through manga…reading about 5 pages at a time, about once every 2 weeks when I have more than 5 minutes to myself.

    And Luke, way to go getting a real job in Japan and making it out of the ALT trap!

    in reply to: が vs お #48384

    thisiskyle
    Member

    First, a minor correction: The direct object of verbs take the particle を, not お (both pronounced the same).

    Second, and more to your point, 好き is not a verb in Japanese the way that “like” is a verb in English.
    There is a verb that means “to like” in Japanese; it’s 好む(この・む).
    A direct translation of “I like x”, would be something like「私はxを好む」.
    This just isn’t a very common way to express the idea in Japanese.

    好き is an adjective which, in English, means something like “agreeable”.
    A direct translation of「私はxが好きだ」 would be something like “As for me, x is agreeable.”
    This just isn’t a very common way to express the idea in English.

    So が isn’t really being used instead of を; it’s just that the common phrasing of the idea in Japanese (adjective based) is different from the common phrasing of the idea in English (verb based).

    in reply to: Forum How-To #48312

    thisiskyle
    Member

    The search is junk.
    Use google’s site specific search:
    site:textfugu.com/bb <keyword>

    in reply to: Some help with Lang-8 corrections #48134

    thisiskyle
    Member

    日本語はやすいじゃありません。
    日本語は、かんたんじゃありません。
    Easy to do is しやすい, but やすい alone is not used.

    ~やすい is a verb suffix; it goes on the end of a verb and has the meaning “easy to ~”.

    • 話しやすい easy to speak
    • 読みやすい easy to read

    Using it on it’s own (without the verb) is incorrect.
    Both the first and second users changed it to the adjective かんたん which just means “easy”.

    The second also changed じゃありません to ではありません.
    じゃ is a contraction of では. They mean the same thing, but では is less colloquial and more preferred in writing. Either way is fine, as evidenced by the first user leaving じゃ in place.

    日本語をよくはなしたい。
    日本語をうまくはなせるようになりたい。
    うまく=good at | はなす(speak)+できる(able)→はなせる | なる(become)+たい(want)→なりたい

    Although よく (from the adjective よい) can mean “well”, it often carries the meaning of “often” or “frequently”.

    • すしをよくたべる I often eat sushi. I eat sushi well.

    The user changed よく for うまく (from the adjective うまい) which means “skillful” or “great”.

    The bigger change that the user made is from はなしたい to 話せるようになりたい.
    There are a few bits of grammar here. I’m not sure what order Textfugu goes; you may not have covered them all yet.
    At the end of the phrase is ~たい which I think you understand (since you used it) means “want to do ~”.
    The ~たい is attached to the verb なる (なりたい) which means “to become”. So far we have “want to become”.

    The ~ように is probably the hardest part to understand (and is worth looking into on its own).
    A basic translation would be something like “in the way of ~” or “in such a way that ~”.
    It is frequently paired with なる to mean “to reach the point that ~”
    So ~ようになりたい means “to want to reach the point that”

    話せる is the potential form (look into this too, it’s useful) of 話す and means “to be able to speak”.
    Sooooooooo, 話せるようになりたい means “want to reach the point that I am able to speak”.

    Which is really what you meant to say when you said “I want to speak Japanese”. Sometime Japanese requires you to be more literal and explicit.

    The second user correct this as 話すことができるようになりたい.
    You see that the ようになりたい is the same as above.
    The only difference is that 話せる is replaced with 話すことができる.
    These mean exactly the same thing.

    今、動詞と”ために”をべんきょうします
    今、動詞と「ために」をべんきょうしています。
    今 and しています go together.

    今、動詞をべんきょうします means “Now, I study verbs.”
    今、動詞をべんきょうしています means “Now, I am studying verbs.”

    You can see why the second is better.
    You probably just haven’t gotten to the point where you learn the ~て form of verbs and the pressent progressive tense yet. You will.

    in reply to: Anki Sentence Decks #48128

    thisiskyle
    Member

    A lot of shared decks were taken down fairly recently due to copyright violations. It seems like a lot of them are back up. The one you are looking for just didn’t make it back, I guess.
    There are plenty of decks with sentences out there though.

    The one you are referring to was based on the grammar dictionaries, as Joel said, and was therefore focused on grammar. There are other (smaller) decks that focus on these books up there, but I’ve never actually found Anki to be a good way to study grammar. It’s great for vocabulary and kanji though, and there are plenty of big vocab decks with sentences.

    in reply to: Confused about kanji #48067

    thisiskyle
    Member

    In general, you are correct, but the exceptions are not as rare as you might think. It’s not like 99% of all multi-kani words will use strictly onyomi. Just be open to accepting the reading of a word the way it is, and try not to get frustrated by the number of ‘rule-breakers’.

    in reply to: Understanding Numbers and Counters #48048

    thisiskyle
    Member

    The kanji 一 is one of the least regular kanji there are. Rules are hard to follow because there are so many exceptions. Generally, when 一  is used before a counter, the reading いち is used. But this is not always the case. The three main readings of 一 are: いち, ひと, and つい. You can see all of thiose in the list of some common 一 compounds below.

    一つ  ひと・つ
    一人  ひと・り
    一言  ひと・こと
    一目  ひと・め
    一日  つい・たち / いちにち
    一台  いち・だい
    一次  いち・じ
    一時  いち・じ
    一本  いっ・ぽん
    一匹  いっ・ぴき
    一緒  いっ・しょ
    一生  いっ・しょう

    in reply to: やすい and にくい in conjunction with する? #48002

    thisiskyle
    Member

    The correct way is with the し. The にくい and やすい parts need to connect to a verb, so する(→し) is needed.

    I don’t think that 皮肉 is used with する though.

    in reply to: Since EtoEto will be a replacement… #47976

    thisiskyle
    Member
    in reply to: Japanese Radicals #47956

    thisiskyle
    Member

    You haven’t found them because they are not actually radicals in the technical sense; they are just common occurrences within kanji.
    Here is the Wikipedia article for kanji radicals (部首-bushu).

    in reply to: Etoeto Q's #47931

    thisiskyle
    Member

    You had access to a different version Etoeto. The old version was intended for more advanced learners, but it never really got off the ground.

    in reply to: Anki on Chromebook (or other alternatives)? #47915

    thisiskyle
    Member

    I have a chromebook as well and have a similar problem. Ankidroid works fine for studying, but is not great at managing cards and decks. I do that type of stuff on my work computer (Windows).

    What you might want to do is find a machine that can support the full version of anki (borrow a friend’s, perhaps), install the software, import all the decks you think you will need, suspend all the cards you are not ready for yet, sync, and uninstall. You can un-suspend cards when needed from within Ankidroid.

    It’s a bit of a pain, but that’s the way it goes.
    All the Textfugu decks are available here: downloads page.

    in reply to: How to say "Lively" in Japanese #47899

    thisiskyle
    Member

    にぎやか sounds better to me in this context.

    If you are unsure of the usage of a word, it helps to see it in some sentences.
    Here are some example sentences for 活発 and 賑やか. After looking at those, you should be able to see why the latter is a better fit in this case.

    in reply to: Any Suggestions? #47896

    thisiskyle
    Member

    Does it just feel like skipping ahead would leave you behind with vocab, or have you actually tried and found it to be the case?

    I’d just skip around, the vocab is pretty light.

    in reply to: Help with learning Kanji Readings? #47872

    thisiskyle
    Member

    The trick to learning the readings is to not bother learning the readings.
    Each kanji has too many readings and each reading has too many kanji. You’ll never remember them by trying to learn them in isolation.

    Learn vocab, you’ll pick up the readings along the way. You can find vocab that only uses kanji you’ve already studied using this tool. http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=11496

    The program takes a list of kanji and skims through a dictionary to generate a list of words that use only the kanji in the list. The output includes the words, their readings, their definitions, and a frequency value that tells you approximately how common the word is.

    I ran a list of all one, two, and three stroke kanji through it, opened the output in Excel (you could use Google Sheets just as easily if you don’t have MS Office), sorted it by frequency and deleted everything over 25000 (fairly uncommon words), and wound up with a list of 105 words.

    You could do this every few kanji you learn. You’ll amass a list of vocabulary pretty quick. You could filter at a lower value than 25,000 if you find your getting too many words that you don’t feel like you actually need.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 446 total)