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+--- Thread: *sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? (/thread-12250.html)
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - RandomQuotes - 2014-10-10
aldebrn Wrote::tentatively raises hand: everyone here does know that this is the topic of a major internet flame war, right? Antimoon/AJATT popularized the idea of consuming massive quantities of target language input and figuring out the grammar organically. Most foreign language instruction in most? parts of the world involves the opposite: teaching grammar as rules throughout the class and making students apply them. If it wasn't for this thread recreating a microcosm of that global flame war, I wouldn't link to, e.g., this decent summary of both sides of the argument and a dollop of the author's proffered insights: "the input hypothesis and the fallacy of antimoon and AJATT" (2010). Everything that could be said about this has been by all sides. :ducks and runs:The Direct Method of language learning, involves only using the target language and inductive reasoning, comes from the around 1900 and was developed in either France or Germany, I forget which.
Edit: why post a summary of the upstart Antimoon argument when one could just linkbait to the source: Why you shouldn’t rely on grammar rules. But still I assumed everyone here was at least aware of this argument...
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - aldebrn - 2014-10-10
RandomQuotes Wrote:The Direct Method of language learning, involves only using the target language and inductive reasoning, comes from the around 1900 and was developed in either France or Germany, I forget which.Heinrich Schliemann, the polyglot who dug up Troy in the late 1800s, applied this method to learn a couple of languages in the mid-1800s
he said he became proficient in English after reading Paul et Virginie twice in the translation.cophnia61 Wrote:I've already said this but I think the truth is in between.No argument there. Even the blog post I linked to with the word 'flaws' in its title wound up agreeing that a balance between the two is important. Different people will go different distances without grammar (some 0, some to intermediate or further), and that's the whole debate.
yudantaiteki Wrote:Not really. Antimoon was written by people who had already taken classes, and AJATT is fine with basic textbooks or grammar dictionaries.Oh, oh, I just read about this yesterday, about the limits of scripture in understanding religion by Reza Aslan, how the same scripture can legitimately be interpreted by different followers to mean what they need it to mean. In my reading of the Holy Antimoon and the Jade Emperor Khatz, I see verses like "English classes are a very poor way of learning English. We have spent a large part of our lives in English classes (in high school, college, and at language schools), and we know what they are like." And "Textbooks for learning Japanese suck. All of them." Of course now that I reread these, I see that both of these pellucid gods do caveat these blanket statements like you say, stating that there is a time for both grammar/textbooks and tutors... But as a follower in one camp, I must say that MY interpretation is closer to what these sages REALLY meant
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - cophnia61 - 2014-10-10
aldebrn Wrote:You're right, in fact I was referring to the original post with the causative + passive + ipotetic form example. I am with you about the need to study grammar, particularly for a language so "different" like japanese, but for someone that decided to rely on romaji because in the beginning it could be simpler to do so, it makes no sense to pretend to study that grammar points in all those details just from the beginning. This does not mean there is no need to study causative, passive etc.. or that those details are useless, but just in the beginning it's better not to go in excessive depth...cophnia61 Wrote:I've already said this but I think the truth is in between.No argument there. Even the blog post I linked to with the word 'flaws' in its title wound up agreeing that a balance between the two is important. Different people will go different distances without grammar (some 0, some to intermediate or further), and that's the whole debate.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Tzadeck - 2014-10-10
Stansfield123 Wrote:This has nothing to do with my Japanese ability.When a sentence is in a textbook with the purpose of illustrating a grammar rule, then yes, it is an example of a grammar rule.
Saying that "a sentence is an example of a grammar rule" is wrong no matter what natural language you're talking about, including all the ones I don't speak.
Stansfield123 Wrote:Natural languages aren't build on grammar rules. They have patterns, and people who create the grammar rules create them in a way that tries to fit the patterns reasonably well.Something exactly analogous to a grammar rule would be Hooke's Law, an empirical law in physics that says that the force needed to compress a spring is equal to the stiffness of the spring times the distance you compress it. Or, more simply, that the force needed to compress a string is proportional to the distance you compress it (even if you don't know the stiffness).
So saying "this is basic grammar, just a strange example of it", is just plain incorrect. Japanese sentence patterns aren't examples of grammar rules, it's the other way around.
Now, this is not a law that was established from basic physics. There's no easy way to determine this from Newton's laws, or modern variations on them. It's merely a pattern in nature that pretty much holds true (even with things that aren't springs), as long as you don't really compress the shit out of the spring. We just took a bunch of measurements and it's true most of the time for a fair amount of compression. It's just a pattern in nature, and we created a rule that fits the pattern fairly well.
If I were then to write a physics textbook and give some examples to illustrate Hooke's Law, I might start with an example that gives you the stiffness of a string, the distance of compression, and show you how it determines the necessary force. This would be called an 'example' of how Hooke's Law works. Hooke's Law is NOT an example of how springs work--Hooke's Law is a generalization about how springs work. Just like a grammar point is not an example of how sentence patterns work--grammar points are a generalization about how sentence patterns work.
What's more, Hooke's Law is a simple physical law. It's generally covered in high school, since no calculus or anything is required. Nevertheless, if I wrote a textbook I could give a strange example of Hooke's Law (for example, instead of a spring I could talk about bending an iPhone). It's still a simple law--any idiot can multiply two numbers together.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Aikynaro - 2014-10-10
For what it's worth (and I am totally regretting sticking my big mouth into this thread - I swore off the metagame but it seems I'm still addicted) - I'm not a hardcore AJATTer or whatever and think that grammar study has a place. I am currently meandering my way through Tae Kim*. I don't think my way of learning is the One True Way.
And it's not like linguistic terms and jargon-heavy grammar guides are in and of themselves a problem. They certainly have value - in particular to someone wanting to analyse the language and talk about it on a technical level with other similarly inclined people.
To me though, it all seems like an irrelevant distraction for someone who is still a beginner, and I think the OP illustrated this pretty well. For most learners I don't think there's any real need to understand it in those terms.
And yes, of course, I'm sure plenty of you learnt Japanese by doing it this way and it worked out great, and that's great.
yudantaiteki Wrote:How did you learn it, then? According to you, "causative" and "potential" are useless jargon -- that immediately disqualifies every textbook and grammar book that I've seen.I'm sure there could be a grammar book that explains concepts without jargon but I am also yet to see one.
I learnt through studying sentences via subs2srs - grammar stuff shows up repeatedly so it sinks in. Most of it is just more words, anyway.
Not that I'm saying this is the bestest best way to learn Japanese or anything. It has all sorts of other problems. Probably the truth lies in between - or possibly somewhere else entirely, I don't know.
vix86 Wrote:That's what I'm talking about though. Maybe you forgot the terms, but during primary schooling, I would almost bet some of those terms were used quite a bit.Did you actually learn these in primary school? I'm 99% confident that from that list we learnt about nouns, verbs, and adjectives only - and those are words that have some use in normal everyday English. I have only encountered the others in language learning textbooks aimed at English learners.
(This kind of stuff probably should have been taught in high school English instead of the postmodern text analysis techniques we wasted our time learning about - but, well, we weren't and I've never felt I was missing out on much by not knowing them)
* Before I have to clarify this, no - I still don't know the terms you're all throwing around. I already know basically all the grammar covered and don't need words for it - just clear explanations of it to clarify/organise how it works in my mind.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - yudantaiteki - 2014-10-10
Stansfield123 Wrote:That applies to non-native speakers. Native speakers are a different situation.yudantaiteki Wrote:None of the terms there are all that complicated; anyone who claims proficiency in Japanese should be able to give some explanation like that.So the 95% of native Japanese who would go "Huh?" to that explanation should stop claiming proficiency?
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - vix86 - 2014-10-10
Aikynaro Wrote:Did you actually learn these in primary school? I'm 99% confident that from that list we learnt about nouns, verbs, and adjectives only - and those are words that have some use in normal everyday English. I have only encountered the others in language learning textbooks aimed at English learners.Imperative/Declarative/Interrogative were used in school. ie: Imperative sentences or interrogative sentences. (Imperative sent. are commands, "Eat!" 食べ！Interrogative are merely question sentences.) Clauses are important in most English grammatical punctuation rules. Most of this stuff was covered in middle school for me I believe, while High school was mostly literature review and composition construction. The problem is that these terms weren't a major part of the curriculum, it wasn't a matter of 'you fail if you don't know them.' They were merely there to give definition to things in English. Clauses were maybe the only part that had large amounts of time devoted to it in high school, since everyone had a poor handle on punctuation. Active/Passive [sentences/voice] were also covered in depth in high school during composition classes, since they affect the tone of a composition. That meant you also had to understand the idea of direct and indirect objects. So there was some coverage of linguistic vocab in school.
(This kind of stuff probably should have been taught in high school English instead of the postmodern text analysis techniques we wasted our time learning about - but, well, we weren't and I've never felt I was missing out on much by not knowing them)
Gerund, Causative, Potential. That stuff wasn't ever mentioned in school because most people understood English natively to not have to worry about. Maybe they were mentioned in passing (espc. Gerund) but I don't really recall. You might have picked these up in your required foreign language classes. The purpose of foreign language classes in High school, in my opinion, was to always draw attention to parts of language use that students take for granted in their native tongue, such as conjugation and syntax.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Tzadeck - 2014-10-10
Aikynaro Wrote:I don't think my way of learning is the One True Way.You need to try harder to convey that when you write. I don't care at all about your opinion about linguistic jargon or whatever, but your previous post made you sound arrogant and close-minded about other approaches.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - yudantaiteki - 2014-10-11
I just think there's nothing but benefit in having a way to talk about the language. Of course nobody is saying that when you're speaking or reading, you are constantly thinking about verb conjugations. Even JSL, the textbook with the densest, most jargon-filled grammar explanations, repeatedly says that you should be spending most of your time using the language, not reading about it. Terms like "causative" and "potential" are simple English words with obvious meanings to someone studying the language, and being able to label a verb form is useful for asking questions about things you don't understand.
I've said this before, but I think there's a huge double standard on this forum with grammar study and RTK.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - john555 - 2014-10-11
Hi everyone, I'm the original poster of this thread and I'm just checking back in. The discussion seems to have veered wildly off track.
I didn't read every post in detail but skimming through I think the conclusion is that yes, the Japanese do utter "complicated" sentences in which you can have a -te morau in which the -te verb is in the causative and the morau is in the potential, all topped off by a "desyoo ka" like icing on the cake,
i.e., do you think (desyoo ka)....I could get you to do for me (-te moraeru)...the causing of someone to do X (-te verb is causative i.e., -asete).
Someone in the discussion made a snarky comment about me using romaji...what can I say, I'm a grown up person, I use learning tools as I see fit. If it's convenient for my purposes to use romaji I use romaji. At same time I'm practicing reading and writing kanji/kana. Nothing wrong with using both systems.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - RandomQuotes - 2014-10-11
john555 Wrote:I didn't read every post in detail but skimming through I think the conclusion is that yes, the Japanese do utter "complicated" sentences in which you can have a -te morau in which the -te verb is in the causative and the morau is in the potential, all topped off by a "desyoo ka" like icing on the cake,The thing is that particular sentence, isn't really that complicated in terms of Japanese. Like "If it's possible, would you mind going to the bank for me?" isn't a particularly difficult sentence despite using a conditional clause, a main clause using the subjunctive and a gerund. or "I thought I would have liked it" even though you are using both the subjunctive and the present-perfect, as well as a noun clause.
i.e., do you think (desyoo ka)....I could get you to do for me (-te moraeru)...the causing of someone to do X (-te verb is causative i.e., -asete).
This is because the causative and the potential are just aspects in Japanese, English doesn't express the causative or potential as aspects, but through other lexical markings, that the sentence appears to be complex.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - yudantaiteki - 2014-10-11
In this case my problem with your book is not the romaji, but the outdated context. I have never met or heard of anyone having a maid in the time I've spent in Japan -- I'm sure there are people that have them but it's much more limited than it was in the 60s. In this case it's important because the make-causative construction in that initial post requires a very specific context (like a maid) to be useful.
(Grammatical complexity is something that only foreign learners notice -- to the extent that natives find any grammar difficult, it would be because it is formal or archaic so they don't use or encounter it a lot. Not because of any inherent complexity in the form.)
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Stansfield123 - 2014-10-11
aldebrn Wrote:Everything that could be said about this has been by all sides. :ducks and runs:I'm a software developer, not a linguist. My posts are not meant to advance the corpus of human knowledge, they're just meant to share what I learned from others. But still, I don't see why that would be a problem. If we limited our posts on Koohii to original ideas no one ever discussed before, it'd be a pretty short forum.
Please don't provoke other members
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - aldebrn - 2014-10-11
john555 Wrote:Hi everyone, I'm the original poster of this thread and I'm just checking back in. The discussion seems to have veered wildly off track.Koohii should really default to subscribing you to threads you create. ファブリス, halp!
yudantaiteki Wrote:Grammatical complexity is something that only foreign learners notice -- to the extent that natives find any grammar difficult, it would be because it is formal or archaic so they don't use or encounter it a lot. Not because of any inherent complexity in the form.This. Gold. It's one of those obvious observations that, when you stop to think about, hit you like a ton of bricks. I can parse sentences like "That test could have stood to have been a little easier" no problem. It's amazing what complex sentence-building and sentence-parsing machinery one builds up in speaking and hearing a language for twenty years!
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - john555 - 2014-10-12
Don't insult other forum members, please.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - qwertyytrewq - 2014-10-12
Please don't encourage members who are insulting one another
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Zgarbas - 2014-10-12
If you could not insult one another, that would be great.
Whenever I have a question about something being "real" Japanese or not (not sure what "fake" Japanese would be), I google it. I mean this quite literally, not just being flippant.
55.000 results say that it is. Though the thought of having a maid is funny.
Re: On knowing the names for grammatical patterns. Is it necessary to understand one's own language? No. Does anyone remember those lessons in primary school when you learned the names of things? Unlikely. Are they necessary for a language learner? Pretty much.
I couldn't list all the times and tenses and moods in my language to easily, but when trying to learn a different Romance language I recognise them and can make the link; especially in a language with a gajillion tenses and pretty strict conjugation rules, it's pretty useful. I was pretty baffled when I met someone who was studying Romanian and she asked me about a finer point on the diphthong /o̯a/; I had learned about diphthongs at school but had never given much thought to them. Then, when trying to explain some things about Romanian pronounciation I realised that they are pretty damned helpful. It also helped me realise why no one can pronounce my name correctly (apparently it's unique to Romanian; who knew? Oh right, the language learners). Natives don't need it since it just comes naturally.
As for the whole intuitive learning thing... as someone who was notoriusly poor at grammar throughout school, and who is pretty fluent in English via the immerse-yourself-for-20-years-and-see-what-happens method, I find myself envious of people who can explain how the subjunctive works, especially the difference between how it works in American and how it works in British. The grasp that those people have on the language is really impressive, and since their knowledge has more theoretical ground they are less likely to get dragged down by circumstance (e.g. my level goes down considerably if I have people with poor English around me. Sure, I'm damned impressive when surrounded by literate natives, but surrounded by non-natives? Not.So.Much.)
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - yudantaiteki - 2014-10-12
Zgarbas Wrote:If you could not insult one another, that would be great.In this case google doesn't work as well because there's interference from let-causatives. The first page of results I saw was all "let buy", not "make buy".
Whenever I have a question about something being "real" Japanese or not (not sure what "fake" Japanese would be), I google it. I mean this quite literally, not just being flippant.
55.000 results say that it is. Though the thought of having a maid is funny.
The only reason I'm harping on this is because making requests is an especially difficult aspect of Japanese, and you simply cannot ask other people to do things using causatives in most cases without sounding very rude. The only reason the sentence in the initial post is possible is because of the nature of the maid-client relationship. If this is almost any other situation, that pattern is inappropriate.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Zgarbas - 2014-10-12
Ah, I wasn't thinking of that. From OP's question I just thought he was wondering if the sequence itself is possible, since he seemed to be confused by the overuse of probability rather than by the context of request/translation. I guess to me させてもらう is just so link to permission that I forgot it can be interpreted any other way, even after seeing the abnormal exception in OPs post. Sorry.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Arupan - 2014-10-12
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*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Tzadeck - 2014-10-12
Arupan Wrote:>> OPUsing the potential for the receiving verb, もらえる, and using でしょう are both completely common in polite Japanese. There's no reason those should be changed. In fact, underestimating the importance of polite phrasing is a common trait, and mistake, of Japanese learners, isn't it? Haha.
I've mentioned this a couple of times already but the examples in your textbook don't sound very Japanese. A more Japanese sounding sentence would be something like 彼女にオレンジを買うように(代わりに)頼んでもらっていいですか？ (+variations)
So no. I don't think any Japanese would say the thing you wrote in your first post.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Arupan - 2014-10-12
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*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Tzadeck - 2014-10-12
Arupan Wrote:I just thought it could be misleading to the OP if you change things in the sentence that are completely naturally.Tzadeck Wrote:Using the potential for the receiving verb, もらえる, and using でしょう are both completely common in polite Japanese. There's no reason those should be changed. In fact, underestimating the importance of polite phrasing is a common trait, and mistake, of Japanese learners, isn't it? Haha.I'll just pretend I never read this ^^;
It's not a problem of politeness. It's a problem of phrasing. Politeness can be achieved through various means です→でしょう、いい→よろしい、もらう→いただく, putting すみません／申し訳ありません／etc... and so on. That's why I wrote (+variations) in the first place. Besides, もらっていいですか？ is usually polite enough for most situations anyway.
はい、オレンジを買わせて貰えるでしょうか？ can be interpreted two ways if you don't know who the receiving end is. In this case we know it's "her," cause OP told us so, but if we didn't, I could have easily thought that the speaker wants permission to buy oranges instead.
Most Japanese don't prefer causatives and construct sentences like the one I mentioned instead.
Although, I disagree with you, I don't think もらっていいですか is particularly polite. That's the expression my vice principle uses when he's basically ordering me to do something. It strikes me as something you might use with a new acquaintance in a casual situation, rather than in a situation that requires formal politeness to any degree. I wouldn't even use that expression when asking a stranger to take a picture:「すみません。写真を撮ってもらえるでしょうか」sounds a lot nicer. Even「もらってもいいですか」 sounds a bit better--without the も it sounds lazy.
*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Arupan - 2014-10-12
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*sigh* Is a sentence like this possible in real Japanese? - Tzadeck - 2014-10-12
Arupan Wrote:>> TzadeckI could be wrong. I also live in Kyoto, which sort of has its own brand of politeness.
My thesis has a lot to do with politeness so don't get me started there