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Proudly_Jewish
Captain

PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 9:37 pm


ooh yay, it's good to see more people have got the kanji/kana now ^^

I'm concentrating more on Japanese now that I've become reasonably good in French, so you guys'll probably be hearing more often from me from now on ninja

私も、日本語が分かりたいですね  razz
PostPosted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:11 am


[ Message temporarily off-line ]

Dreadful


Xio_Marie

Versatile Lunatic

PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:30 pm


How interesting!!!!

can someone help me to learn the basics of japanse?

is that i have always TRIED to study it by my self...but it is so imposible sad
I know FEW words..like:

Gomen, Gomen nasai
Sayonara
Okairi nasai
Taneshi
Kaneshi
Baka
chibi
bara
bishoujo
bishounen
Aragatou

.... and some other words that I don't remember

I want to learn things such as 'the' 'how' ect...I want to know the language more, can someone help me??
PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 7:48 pm


Well first off there is no 'The' in Japanese, nor is there any 'a'.

Whether or not the english equivalent of a word is 'the' or 'a' is understood by the context of the sentence.

There also is no plural form in Japanese, the number is also by the context.

so, buta (pig) could mean 'the pig' 'the pigs' 'a pig' or 'pigs'.

Sluvotsky
Crew


Sluvotsky
Crew

PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 7:58 pm


And then there's no such thing as conjugation in Japanese either.

Like German "Sehen" (to see) turns into -
Ich sehe - du siehst - wir sehen, etc.

but in Japanese miru (To see - or it might mean to look at. Yeah, to look at) the verb stays the same no matter what the noun is. So,

Watashi miru - I see
Anata miru - You see.
hito miru - person sees

no matter who it is that's doing the action it doesn't change.

Japanese DOES however have a difference between informal and formal.
"Miru" is formal for "sees" but if you take the u off and replace it with "imasu" it means the same thing but formally, same thing with virtually all of the verbs.

For instance
asobu (to play *in the sense of amusing oneself* ) and asobimasu both mean the same thing, just, asobimasu is more formal.

To say that something is NOT happening, you do one of several things for informal:
if it ends in a u you take the u off and replace it with 'anai'
if it ends in a vowel and u, you take the u off and replace it with 'wanai'
or you just do that 'anai' without the 'ai'.

So Wakaru (to understand), if you want to say "don't understand" (informally) can be, wakaranai, or wakaran.

Formally, you would take the u off of the end of the verb and say 'imasen'.

Sorry this is a big ramble I'm kind of in a rush, I'd explain further but I gotta go. D:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:40 pm


Sluvotsky
And then there's no such thing as conjugation in Japanese either.

Like German "Sehen" (to see) turns into -
Ich sehe - du siehst - wir sehen, etc.

but in Japanese miru (To see - or it might mean to look at. Yeah, to look at) the verb stays the same no matter what the noun is. So,

Watashi miru - I see
Anata miru - You see.
hito miru - person sees

no matter who it is that's doing the action it doesn't change.

Japanese DOES however have a difference between informal and formal.
"Miru" is formal for "sees" but if you take the u off and replace it with "imasu" it means the same thing but formally, same thing with virtually all of the verbs.

For instance
asobu (to play *in the sense of amusing oneself* ) and asobimasu both mean the same thing, just, asobimasu is more formal.

To say that something is NOT happening, you do one of several things for informal:
if it ends in a u you take the u off and replace it with 'anai'
if it ends in a vowel and u, you take the u off and replace it with 'wanai'
or you just do that 'anai' without the 'ai'.

So Wakaru (to understand), if you want to say "don't understand" (informally) can be, wakaranai, or wakaran.

Formally, you would take the u off of the end of the verb and say 'imasen'.

Sorry this is a big ramble I'm kind of in a rush, I'd explain further but I gotta go. D:


*nod nod* I understand a lilltle of it~!! <3 Thank you so much! I hope you can keep helping me in a furute this is language that I dream to learn someday smile , I'll be stuying what you post! <3

Xio_Marie

Versatile Lunatic


Proudly_Jewish
Captain

PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:50 pm


Sluvotsky
Watashi miru - I see
Anata miru - You see.
hito miru - person sees
Actually, it's :

Watashi wa miru.
Anata wa miru, etc, because "wa" is a subject indicator and must be place after a subject even if the sentence has no object 3nodding
PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:58 pm


OK! Hold on I'm writing a big one on the verbs and making it all, make-sense-ey.

Sluvotsky
Crew


Sluvotsky
Crew

PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:59 pm


Proudly_Jewish
Sluvotsky
Watashi miru - I see
Anata miru - You see.
hito miru - person sees
Actually, it's :

Watashi wa miru.
Anata wa miru, etc, because "wa" is a subject indicator and must be place after a subject even if the sentence has no object 3nodding


*blink*...OH. DUH!

I knew I was missing something.

JEZUS. I missed the first fricking thing I LEARNED about Japanese. Wow. Wow. Someone slap me XD!
PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:26 pm


OKAY. Now.
Hopefully in this I wont make horribly stupid mistakes like completely forgetting 'wa'. x_x;;

You can usually tell a Japanese verb because it ens in u. In Japanese there are 3 groups of verbs (Hey, kinda like Spanish).

- U verbs. These, surprise surprise, end in u!
- IRU/ERU verbs - Aptly named for ending in iru or eru. (But you have to watch out because sometimes a verb that ends in -iru or -eru is actually a -u verb).
then, the 2 nonconformists, 'Kuru' (to make) and 'Suru' (to do).

Luckily they don't have to conjugate, they just are changed with what tense of time you're talking about (Past, present).

Japanese does not have a future tense;- it rather uses a 'present' (Or better named 'Non-Past') tense for both present and past tense verbs. The other oddity, is that Japanese verbs are at different levels of politeness depending on hwo you use them.

Okay, so, let's start simple;-

Present tense.
To do present tense informally, you just keep the word stock, in its dictionary form.

To do present tense formally you have to change it a little;-
U verbs: replace the final -u with 'imasu' (which is pronounced "ee-mahs", generally - just like how 'desu' is 'dess' and not 'desoo', you don't pronounce that final u in 'imasu').

Iru/Eru verbs - Do the same thing.

Kuru - Kimasu
Suru - Shimasu (Like, Onegaishimasu. "Favor-do-formal" 'Please do this favor').

Past tense
You are going to hate past tense. Or at least, I hate past tense.

Formal past tense is really easy.
U verbs: replace that -u with -imashita.
IRU/ERU - replace -ru with -mashita.
Kuru - Kimashita
Suru - Shimashita

Simple as ...Something easy. Right? Right. Now here's where we compensate for that ease!

Informal past tense (With practice it comes easy but since I haven't practiced it's taken me a few "UHHH"'s to type this up sweatdrop So correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure I'm right!)

-U verbs: They break up. Oh, oh, how they break up.
If it ends in -
ku, turn the ku into 'ita'. (Aruku (to walk) turns into aruita).

If it ends in su, the su turns to 'shita'. (hanasu (Speak) turns into hanashita).

If it ends in gu, gu turns into ida. (Can't think of any verbs that end in gu. My prowess is grammar, not vocabulary, and man is it rusty).

if it ends in nu, bu, or mu, you change those three endings into 'nda' (I can only remember that one because of 'nomu' "to drink" turns into "nonda" and that rhymes with Honda. Yes, my brain is retarded, thankyou).

If it ends in ru, tsu, or plain old u, you make it 'tta'. (Wakaru (to understand) -> Wakatta).

I think I got them all.
DOESNT THAT LOOK FUN? D:!!!
I made a stupid little poem to help remember it but I completely forgot it. sweatdrop

BUT THAT'S JUST THE 'U' VERBS!
xD Nah, it gets easier from there.
IRU/ERU - hack off that ru and make it into a 'ta'. Simple! (Miru - to look - turns into mita. I only remember miru because it's like mira in Spanish which means the same thing).

And then
Kuru - Kita
Suru - Shita.

Now, saying something doesn't or didn't happen;-

Present tense negative
Already mentioned this earlier but my post was rushed so it turned into LOLZ!

Anyway.
INFORMAL
U verbs;-
If it ends in -u, you replace the u with 'anai'. (Uhhh. Christ, I'm even listening to Japanese music RIGHT NOW, youd think I could come up with a word. >_>; Kurikaesu!

Kurikaesu (to repeat) -> kurikaesanai. (does/will not repeat).

If it ends in a vowel and u, replace the u with 'wanai'.
Utau (Sing) -> Utawanai. (Doesnt/will not sing)

FORMAL-
U verbs - Replace the u with imasen.
Iru/eru verbs - replce the ru with masen.
Kuru - Kimasen.
Suru - Shimasen.

Past tense negative
FORMAL -
You take the 'imasen' form, and smack a 'deshita' at the end of it.

hajimeru (Begin) -> hajimemasen deshita. (did not begin).

Kuru - kimasen deshita
Suru - Shimasen deshita.

INFORMAL -
Remember that -(w)anai thing? Well hack off the -nai part of (w)anai, and replace it with 'nakatta'.

Taberu - to eat - 'tabenai' - will/does not eat - 'tabenakatta' - did not eat.

I hope that one made more sense than did the first go around!

Sorry that took so long. The first time I tried to submit the post it was like. LAWLZ YOU ARENT EVEN LOGGED IN DO OVER. I wasn't pleased.

Sluvotsky
Crew


Xio_Marie

Versatile Lunatic

PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:10 pm


biggrin
PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:01 am


Holy crap. This is random but I'm finally paying attention to the lyrics in songs I listen to and DSJFJSDFDSGSDJK this is a long sentence, you know that song Syunikiss, by Malice Mizer with Gackt? D:

I also thought it would be a cool way to point out the difference between 'wa' and 'ga'.

Okay, 'wa', like Jewish pointed out, indicates that whatever word went right before it, is the subject of the sentence (it is designated by the hirigana 'ha', so you might see it typed 'ha' sometimes. Like, Konnichi wa or konnichi ha, but they're both pronounced the same way).

So, neko wa kuroi (desu). Yes, it's a crappy idiotic sentence.
It means "The cat is black/cats are black". That translates nicely into an English sentence. Cat is the subject.

Now we'll try out some sentences that aren't so readily translated in English.
Japanese will readily drop any extraneous information in a sentence if it can be understood by the context.
"Anata no namae wa nan desu ka" (what is your name?) Can be shortened, if you're speaking informally, to simply, "Namae wa?"

I once read 'wa' is best translated as, 'As for'.
So this is, "As for your name, (what is it)?"

Now for another sentence. This one, the content of 'wa' was more specified to me on japanese.about.com. If you go to their basic lessons section (It moves so slow!) you'll find a little setting at a restaurant. The speakers go to order, and the guy goes:
"Boku wa sushi".
This does not mean 'I am sushi' (but that'd make for an interesting motionpicture).

Remember how I said 'wa' can be best translated as 'as for'. So, considering 'wa' marks 'boku' (Masculine, informal 'I/me') as the grammatical subject, then it goes:
"As for me, (I'd like to have) sushi."

Now 'ga'. Ga is...Hard to explain, actually. In textbooks you read that it makes whatever word that is placed before it, into the topic (not the subject). Like, if you were to introduce a new topic in a sentence, or you use it for emphasis. I'm not a professional at explaining but here's my go for it:

In the song Syunikiss by Malice Mizer, the very first words are:
kimi ga kurikaesu hitorigoto wa kimi no saigo ni boku ga sakenda kotoba.

This translates into
"The words you were repeating during your last (moments) were the words that I cried/screamed".

Note that 'wa' marks 'hitorigoto' (soliloquy, words, etc.) as the topic. This makes it so that if you write,

"I cried the words that you repeated in your last moments" a completely a**-backwards and wrong translation, because then 'I' would be the subject.

The 'ga's though break up the sentence:
Kimi ga - You. This introduces you as the topic of the sentence, but not the grammatical subject.
boku ga - Me. This introduces a new actor in the sentence but yet again not the grammatical subject.

In English you use 'that' in a sort of similar way, or at least, I think so.
"The words that you were repeating in your last moments were the words that I cried."

kimi ga kurikaesu hitorigoto wa kimi no saigo ni boku ga sakenda kotoba."

I really hope that made at least some sort of sense o_o;;.

Sluvotsky
Crew


Proudly_Jewish
Captain

PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:38 pm


If you go to www.timwerx.net and click on language, you will find a link to a section called "Japanese verbs" - definately worth a look 3nodding
PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:26 pm


Thanks, gonna need that.

Did I ever reccomend 3yen yet?

well, http://www.3yen.com <--- Now I have. domokun

Sluvotsky
Crew


Proudly_Jewish
Captain

PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:50 am


Sluvotsky
Thanks, gonna need that.

Did I ever reccomend 3yen yet?

well, http://www.3yen.com <--- Now I have. domokun
*checks it out* ninja
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