Hi everyone I have a few more questions:

In the sentence  封筒らしき物を手にしている why is らしき used instead of らしい?

A few minutes ago I read 猫型ロボット as ねこがた, is it correct? Or should I have read it as ねこかた? In such cases is there a rule to predict the dakuten?

Another word that is bothering me right now is 包む, which I always read as つつむ only to find out that くるむ is also a possible reading. Is there a difference in meaning between the two?

(2016-02-20, 10:14 am)Kuroro Wrote: In the sentence  封筒らしき物を手にしている why is らしき used instead of らしい?

It has the exact same meaning as らしい. The usage difference is a bit lost on me personally but here's what Weblio says: 意味は「らしい」と同じで、特に体言にかかる。

(2016-02-20, 10:14 am)Kuroro Wrote: In such cases is there a rule to predict the dakuten?

It's based on what is perceived as easier to say and sometimes there are even regional differences. I am not even going to guess what Japanese consider is the correct reading, but my vote is with ねこがた as well.

(2016-02-20, 10:14 am)Kuroro Wrote: Another word that is bothering me right now is 包む, which I always read as つつむ only to find out that くるむ is also a possible reading. Is there a difference in meaning between the two?

つつむ has several definitions so that would be the most common reading and くるむ has exactly one: 布・紙などでおおって，中に入れる。A Google image search of くるむ gives a few hints and a Google search of 赤ちゃんをくるむ should nail down at least one common usage.

Thanks a lot tokyostyle!

Yeah ねこがた is right, you can hear it being said here at 0:20 lol.

Like tokyostyle said, らしき is the 連体形 so it only modifies a noun.
らしい can modify nouns too but still ○○らしきもの is a common phrase (in spoken japanese too)

Edit: I found this as part of an answer on chiebukuro.
most people gave the simple answer (they're the same and らしき is just the older form) but I think there is some merit to what this guy is saying.

Quote:「犯人らしき男を見かけた。」とは言いますが「犯人らしい男を見かけた。」は、ふつう避けられます。

現在の日本語で、
犯人らしき男＝犯人と思われる男、ですが、
犯人らしい男＝犯人としてふさわしい男、と受け取られる可能性があるからです。

edit 2: you asked about rules for rendaku
there's Lyman's law and other stuff you could check out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku#Pr...ng_rendaku
I've never studied it though, you just get a feel for it in the end

Thanks Ash I think that comment was spot on, even though it's such a minor nuance... Those rules on pronunciation look a bit overwhelming to be honest, so I guess I'll just rely on my listening.

What is the difference between　黄泉　read as こうせん　as よみ？
I know they are both the place one goes to when they die but not much else to differentiate them

(2016-02-21, 7:34 am)foreverunclean Wrote: What is the difference between　黄泉　read as こうせん　as よみ？
I know they are both the place one goes to when they die but not much else to differentiate them

I personally didn't know either and was interested so I did some research.

There was this explanation on Wikipedia. See also word origin section.

And there's also this dictionary entry that differentiates the two.

And there's also this website which usually has good explanations of words in my experience.

So, after reading all of those, this is what I gathered:
In Chinese, the word has the meaning of "underground spring" (地下の泉) but also became known as the underground world where the dead go, which is where こうせん comes from. In Japanese, よみ is given the same kanji, but it has a different origin. よみ apparently comes from "よみのくに". The exact origins of よみ are unclear so I won't try to interpret that.

よみ seems to strictly mean the underground world where the dead go. こうせん can mean the same, or just "underground spring".

(2016-02-21, 8:45 am)zx573 Wrote:

(2016-02-21, 7:34 am)foreverunclean Wrote: What is the difference between　黄泉　read as こうせん　as よみ？
I know they are both the place one goes to when they die but not much else to differentiate them

I personally didn't know either and was interested so I did some research.

There was this explanation on Wikipedia. See also word origin section.

And there's also this dictionary entry that differentiates the two.

And there's also this website which usually has good explanations of words in my experience.

So, after reading all of those, this is what I gathered:
In Chinese, the word has the meaning of "underground spring" (地下の泉) but also became known as the underground world where the dead go, which is where こうせん comes from. In Japanese, よみ is given the same kanji, but it has a different origin. よみ apparently comes from "よみのくに". The exact origins of よみ are unclear so I won't try to interpret that.

よみ seems to strictly mean the underground world where the dead go. こうせん can mean the same, or just "underground spring".

Thanks alot. That really helps alot. So I'm guessing if I was to use it, I would use よみ？
I have a feeling that when I mined the word, it was with こうせん as furigana, although I can't remember where I got it from. It's either from the Berserk manga, 宮本武蔵 novel, or 羅生門.

I got another pair of words I don't get the difference between. This time its definitely from Berserk Manga. What is the difference between 首領 and 領主？ I know they both mean lord

(2016-02-21, 10:08 am)foreverunclean Wrote: Thanks alot. That really helps alot. So I'm guessing if I was to use it, I would use よみ？
I have a feeling that when I mined the word, it was with こうせん as furigana, although I can't remember where I got it from. It's either from the Berserk manga, 宮本武蔵 novel, or 羅生門.

I've never seen the word used before so I can't say for sure. よみ is the Japanese reading so I feel like that might be the better of the two options (especially if you want to refer to the underworld). On its own, it could probably be read as こうせん too. When I was googling, a lot of websites listed both readings when explaining the word, so you might be understood if you used either. However, if you run across something like 黄泉路 then it must be read as よみじ (using the Japanese reading) and not こうせんじ (using the Chinese reading).

(2016-02-21, 10:29 am)zx573 Wrote:

(2016-02-21, 10:08 am)foreverunclean Wrote: Thanks alot. That really helps alot. So I'm guessing if I was to use it, I would use よみ？
I have a feeling that when I mined the word, it was with こうせん as furigana, although I can't remember where I got it from. It's either from the Berserk manga, 宮本武蔵 novel, or 羅生門.

I've never seen the word used before so I can't say for sure. よみ is the Japanese reading so I feel like that might be the better of the two options (especially if you want to refer to the underworld). On its own, it could probably be read as こうせん too. When I was googling, a lot of websites listed both readings when explaining the word, so you might be understood if you used either. However, if you run across something like 黄泉路 then it must be read as よみじ (using the Japanese reading) and not こうせんじ (using the Chinese reading).

Thanks for your insight. That will be a dark conversation when I have to use it in a conversation. I'll keep that in mind. I have a feeling its in Berserk so I'll reread the first volume again and see where it pops up.

No problem. And what a ridiculous coincidence just now. I've been playing the Japanese horror game Siren on my PS3 this weekend and reading more about the lore and such, and while trying to explain 赤い水 to a friend in Japanese, I ended up consulting a Japanese site that has explanations for a lot of things. Related entries for 赤い水? 屍人 and... 黄泉戸喫! It's read "よもつへぐい", so different from よみ and こうせん. They also explain 黄泉の国 (よみのくに) and the different readings and such. So, more potential reading if you're interested.

(2016-02-22, 6:04 pm)zx573 Wrote: No problem. And what a ridiculous coincidence just now. I've been playing the Japanese horror game Siren on my PS3 this weekend and reading more about the lore and such, and while trying to explain 赤い水 to a friend in Japanese, I ended up consulting a Japanese site that has explanations for a lot of things. Related entries for 赤い水? 屍人 and... 黄泉戸喫! It's read "よもつへぐい", so different from よみ and こうせん. They also explain 黄泉の国 (よみのくに) and the different readings and such. So, more potential reading if you're interested.

Ha. I swear that happens with every word. Once you know it, it suddently pops up everywhere. I saw the grammar　あかつきに　on renshuu.org,(i searched it, and it only shows  up in one other grammar book), and then recently I heard it in Kuroshitsuji where they have the big fight in london, and then again yesterday playing FF7 Crisis core on my tablet. Our brains are truly amazing. 

I'll have a look at those links. looks interesting. 

But still, what is akaimizu?

(2016-02-21, 10:23 am)foreverunclean Wrote: I got another pair of words I don't get the difference between. This time its definitely from Berserk Manga. What is the difference between 首領 and 領主？ I know they both mean lord

bump

(2016-02-23, 6:34 pm)foreverunclean Wrote:

(2016-02-21, 10:23 am)foreverunclean Wrote: I got another pair of words I don't get the difference between. This time its definitely from Berserk Manga. What is the difference between 首領 and 領主？ I know they both mean lord

bump

not really lord for 首領. did you try J-J dictionaries?

首領
https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A6%96%E9%A0%98-529518
一つの仲間の長。かしら。頭目。親分。多く、悪党に対していう。「盗賊の首領」
boss of some (often evil) group

領主
https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A0%98%E4%B8%BB-659300
１ 領国を支配している人。領土の持ち主。
lord of some land

(2016-02-23, 6:45 pm)Ash_S Wrote:

(2016-02-23, 6:34 pm)foreverunclean Wrote:

(2016-02-21, 10:23 am)foreverunclean Wrote: I got another pair of words I don't get the difference between. This time its definitely from Berserk Manga. What is the difference between 首領 and 領主？ I know they both mean lord

bump

not really lord for 首領. did you try J-J dictionaries?

首領
https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A6%96%E9%A0%98-529518
一つの仲間の長。かしら。頭目。親分。多く、悪党に対していう。「盗賊の首領」
boss of some (often evil) group

領主
https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A0%98%E4%B8%BB-659300
１ 領国を支配している人。領土の持ち主。
lord of some land

Oh right. Thank You that clears up a lot

I think for some reason in my mind the shuu kanji were the same and I kept getting confused reading it.

Back with another slightly confusing sentence I found in Tobira. I don't quite get what's going on in the part in bold in terms of grammar.

Speaker A: 日本の車についてレポートですね。
Speaker B: うん。あ、それから、ハイブリッド車とかエコカーとか、英語でどう書くのかもよく分かんないんだ。それもチェックしてくれない？

I suppose that sentence means "I don't know how to write words like (...) in English very well." But these particles are just kind of weird... I mean, they are particles in this case, right?

If I understand it correctly, の is actually an explanatory particle in this case, か is your standard interrogative particle, and も adds emphasis? My production sucks so I'm not sure about how grammatically correct what I'm about to say is, but wouldn't that be pretty close to 英語で書き方もよく分かんないんだ ?

In hindsight jimeux's answer is much better. FlameseeK, you understood it perfectly all along.

(2016-02-27, 12:15 am)tokyostyle Wrote:

(2016-02-26, 11:08 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Speaker A: 日本の車についてレポートですね。
Speaker B: うん。あ、それから、ハイブリッド車とかエコカーとか、英語でどう書くのかもよく分かんないんだ。それもチェックしてくれない？

If I understand it correctly, の is actually an explanatory particle in this case, か is your standard interrogative particle, and も adds emphasis? My production sucks so I'm not sure about how grammatically correct what I'm about to say is, but wouldn't that be pretty close to 英語で書き方もよく分かんないんだ ?

Actually の is the interrogative and かも is かもしれない.

買い物へ行きますか？→買い物行くの？
雨が降るかもしれない。→ 雨が降るかも。

Both "I don't know how to write words like (...) in English very well." and 「英語で書き方もよく分かんないんだ」are correct. Mad props for rephrasing it in Japanese.

I think FlameseeK pretty much had it. It's probably easiest to break it down like this:

英語でどう書くのか　も　分からない
I don't know how to write [...] in English either (も could also be 'even').

It's common to see の used with embedded questions in my experience. Also, I would probably add a の before 書き方 too -> 英語での書き方

Yeah, this かも got me thinking about かもしれない as well for a little while when I first looked at this sentence, but it just didn't make any sense to me, especially when you also take the の into account.

の can also be a normalizer, but there's no normalizer before か or かもしれない. I don't think the explanatory の (which is the one used in questions as well) would make sense before かもしれない either. I'm not sure it's possible to use の before かもしれない like that in a sentence... it would be interesting to see examples if it's possible, but I can't think of one that doesn't sound plain wrong to my ears.

Thanks a lot for the input guys. I'll be sure to drop by again in the near future. Throughout Genki 1-2, I noticed Japanese can get really messy with all of these combinations of smaller grammar structures and particles, but I gotta admit Tobira has taken all that mess one step further.

I need a little help with a passage from the light novel 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱. It's about the beginning of the world, the narrator (Kyon) says that it started with the big bang and that since he has memories from before three years ago then the world cannot possibly have been created at that point in time. Koizumi replies to this saying:

もし、あなたを含める全人類が、それまでの記憶を持ったまま、ある日突然世界に生まれてきたのではないということを、どうやって否定するんですか？　三年前にこだわることもない。今からたった五分前に全宇宙があるべき姿をあらかじめ用意されて世界が生まれ、そしてすべてがそこから始まったのではない、と否定出来る論拠などこの世のどこにもありません

I don't really understand what he says at the beginning. 'If the whole human race including you had memories up to that point how could you deny that world came to be suddenly on that day?' Where did I go wrong?

Seems to be just a mistake, according to a blogger who enjoys pointing out these things: http://wiseflamingo.blogspot.fi/2013/10/...st_29.html

I like his first suggestion of もし…のではないかということ: もし needs to connect to a conditional of some sort (often -たら), but there's no conditional for it to connect to in the original sentence.

"How do you reject the possibility that the whole human race, including you, might have suddenly come into being one day, having memories of the past?".

Maybe you're confused by the way you are interpreting the word deny. It's more like how could you disprove the universe/world wasn't created a mere 5 minutes ago, never mind 3 years ago. There's nothing we can do to disprove this, and though it's not explicitly stated in this text, the thing they are getting at is that all of our memories could all be false so they aren't sufficient evidence to prove the universe has existed for X amount of time.

I don't think you interpreted the meaning of the sentence incorrectly, but you're probably getting caught up with the Japanese and not focusing on the overall meaning behind the words. I think he's trying to make the argument that just because he has memories from before three years ago does not mean that the world couldn't have just come into existence. The memories could've been created with the start of the universe, that kind of deal.

Edit: Roketzu beat me to it.

All right now I get it, thank you all