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 Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:25 pm
I was wondering... In Japanese, how do you have a complex sentence with multiple verbs?
For example, in English... "I want to go to the dance!" There is the verb want, and the verb to go... So how would that work in Japanese as the verbs go at the end of the sentence?
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:31 pm
That sentence is a bad example, actually, because Japanese does not treat "want" as a verb. It has a separate verb form for wanting to do something.
You would say "ダンスに行きたい" - "行きたい" in this case being "want to go". Just take the -ます form, drop the -ます, and replace it with "たい". Treat it as if it were an -い adjective if you want to conjugate it.
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:50 pm
If you come up with another example we can answer your question. What type of complex sentence?
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:09 am
Vakruz That sentence is a bad example, actually, because Japanese does not treat "want" as a verb. It has a separate verb form for wanting to do something. You would say "ダンスに行きたい" - "行きたい" in this case being "want to go". Just take the -ます form, drop the -ます, and replace it with "たい". Treat it as if it were an -い adjective if you want to conjugate it. Er... what? o-0; Sorry, May Japanese isn't that good! :/ I understand the drop the masu... What exactly did you say? I can't read kanji :/
Also, you conjugate adjectives? I've never heard of such a thing... :/
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:11 am
Tougenkyou If you come up with another example we can answer your question. What type of complex sentence? Hm... What about, I have to go there now! The verb have and the verb to go?
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:18 am
mazuac Tougenkyou If you come up with another example we can answer your question. What type of complex sentence? Hm... What about, I have to go there now! The verb have and the verb to go? In this case I think maybe "have" isn't a verb in English. It isn't in Japanese anyway, since "have to" is different. In Japanese that would be, いまそこへいかなければなりません！ I have to go there now! Something like, say, connecting two actions? "I went to the convenience store and bought milk"? It would connect using -te form: コンビニにいって、ぎゅうにゅうをかいました。 There are other ways to string verbs together as well, but this is the most common use. For example, two actions done at the same time: I listened to music while reading a book. ほんをよみながらおんがくをききました。 Take the -masu form, drop the -masu and add "nagara". The action named at the end is the more important one. Does this answer your question?
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:56 am
mazuac Vakruz That sentence is a bad example, actually, because Japanese does not treat "want" as a verb. It has a separate verb form for wanting to do something. You would say "ダンスに行きたい" - "行きたい" in this case being "want to go". Just take the -ます form, drop the -ます, and replace it with "たい". Treat it as if it were an -い adjective if you want to conjugate it. Er... what? o-0; Sorry, May Japanese isn't that good! :/ I understand the drop the masu... What exactly did you say? I can't read kanji :/
Also, you conjugate adjectives? I've never heard of such a thing... :/ Oops. I just kinda went into autopilot there, and didn't even think about whether or not you'd know the kanji. sweatdrop Sorry! Lemme start over, then. I will try my best not to be confusing, but I'm bad at that sometimes. sweatdrop "I want to go to the dance" in Japanese is "ダンスにいきたい" (dansu ni ikitai). The "いきたい" part means "want to go". In order to get that verb form, like I said before, you take the -ます form ("いきます", "go"), drop the ます, and replace it with たい. What I meant as far as the adjective thing is, if you want to conjugate that verb (i.e. if you want to say "wanted to go", "don't want to go", "didn't want to go", etc. etc.), you do the same things to it that you would do to an adjective. (If you haven't learned い adjectives yet, then you can ignore this part; it'll make sense once you do. sweatdrop ) So, for example, "wanted to go" (past tense) would be いきたくありました or いきたかった, and "don't want to go" would be いきたくありません or いきたくない.
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:52 pm
Ah, thank you two very VERY much! ^^ I understand it quite a bit better! :] I now have more on my plate to understand about Japanese o-0; Uh-Oh... :/ Haha! Thank you two very much!
I have a slightly amateur question though... Um, well, I'm learning Hiragana now and I can understand quite a number of the characters... but the Japanese don't have spaces, so how do you distinguish from one word to the next? o-0;
Sorry, I'm very... uneducated in Japanese. o-0;
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:46 pm
That's a good question, actually.
How it works is, once you start learning and using kanji, the kanji will actually help you see where one word ends and the next begins, usually. They kind of act like de facto word dividers. This is one reason that Japanese actually becomes a lot easier to read once you start getting a firm handle on kanji; the way that sentences tend to alternate between kanji and kana makes the flow of the sentences easier to follow.
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 10:13 pm
Vakruz That's a good question, actually. How it works is, once you start learning and using kanji, the kanji will actually help you see where one word ends and the next begins, usually. They kind of act like de facto word dividers. This is one reason that Japanese actually becomes a lot easier to read once you start getting a firm handle on kanji; the way that sentences tend to alternate between kanji and kana makes the flow of the sentences easier to follow. Adding to that, after you get used to Japanese, it tends to come a bit naturally to distinguish common words, even in hiragana- though using only hiragana makes it impossible to understand, even for native speakers.
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Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:22 am
Ah, that's cool! ^^ I can't wait till I master Kana! Then I'll move on to Kanji! :]
Hm... Hypothetically, if I were to be emailing a Japanese person, and I wrote in only kana (hiragana mainly), and put spaces in between words, would they understand?
Like... こんいちわわたしのなまえはアレックスです。 Vs. こんいちわ わたしの なまえは アアレックス です。 Would that be understood?
Also (sorry for all the questions) I have a quick question about verbs.
For instance, the verb Taberu. Does that mean "to eat"? Then present/future - Tabemasu, does this mean to eat/will eat? Mainly I'm confused between the verb name, taberu, and the present-tense/future-tense tabemasu on what each means?
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Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:52 am
Taberu and tabemasu mean the exact same thing. Both are present/future tense; they're pretty much the same word. The only differences are: 1. "taberu" is informal, while "tabemasu" is formal; 2. there are some grammar constructions where only "taberu" can be used; and 3. "taberu" is the form that you'll find in a dictionary. (This is why it's called the "dictionary form".)
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Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:12 am
Vakruz Taberu and tabemasu mean the exact same thing. Both are present/future tense; they're pretty much the same word. The only differences are: 1. "taberu" is informal, while "tabemasu" is formal; 2. there are some grammar constructions where only "taberu" can be used; and 3. "taberu" is the form that you'll find in a dictionary. (This is why it's called the "dictionary form".) Ah okay! Thank you very much! :] And tabe- is the stem, correct?
My verb conjugations are based off Spanish and English, which is obviously a problem as Japanese is NOTHING like that... XD Next year though, I'm taking some classes which should be helpful! :]
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Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:22 pm
Yes, that's exactly right. 3nodding
I realize now that I forgot to address your other question; the truth is, I actually don't know how that would look to a native speaker. Still, I think that standard practice is to still write without spaces even if you're writing in only kana.
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Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:05 pm
Vakruz Yes, that's exactly right. 3nodding I realize now that I forgot to address your other question; the truth is, I actually don't know how that would look to a native speaker. Still, I think that standard practice is to still write without spaces even if you're writing in only kana. Ah, thank you so much! You've really helped me out with Japanese!
Have you taken any classes?
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