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The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - pm215 - 2009-10-18

Quote:気配り describes more the artifice or technique necessary [...]
...and to follow up to myself again, note the word コツ [knack; trick] appearing in that book's subtitle...

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Zorlee - 2009-10-23

A quick question:

先生から今日は授業がないと聞いたんだけど。
- I heard from the teacher that there is no class today.

This is from Tae Kim´s guide.
I´m just wondering, but does the だけど ending give the sentence a "but...", if you were to translate it literally? I´m just wondering, since Tae Kim usually translates things very literally, and he didn´t include any "but" or "however". I´m wondering if I´m completely off, or if I´m onto something?

Thanks...

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Smackle - 2009-10-23

It does kind of translate to a "but."

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - sethg - 2009-10-23

先生から今日は授業がないと聞いたんだけど。
- I heard from the teacher that there is no class today.

The だけ is just there to show a bit of hesitation and politeness, leaving the statement open ended, like, "I heard from the teacher that there were no classes today (but maybe I misheard, since your'e insisting there are)...

The implication here is that someone has just directly or indirectly stated that there are classes today, but you disagree and want to demonstrate the opposing view politely.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Zorlee - 2009-10-23

Thank you guys, that makes sense! =)

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Tomnook - 2009-10-24

[何なんだよ？]

Is this correct looking? How do you say it? "Nani nan da yo?" or "Nan nan da yo?". Or is it an error and they typed nan twice? I've heard people say "nan da yo" before but when I got to this sentence I became paranoid that it might be a mistake.

Thanks.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2009-10-24

Tomnook Wrote:[何なんだよ？]

Is this correct looking? How do you say it? "Nani nan da yo?" or "Nan nan da yo?". Or is it an error and they typed nan twice? I've heard people say "nan da yo" before but when I got to this sentence I became paranoid that it might be a mistake.

Thanks.
It's read as "nan nan da yo?" The second "nan da" is んだ, a grammatical pattern you may find in a grammar book under のだ. When you put a noun before んだ, you have to use な (so 先生だ -> 先生なんだ, 何だ -> 何なんだ) It's hard to tell what the exact meaning is without seeing the context it's used in.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Zorlee - 2009-10-25

Hi everyone, it´s me again!

一時間前にピザを注文したが、まだ来ないので、催促の電話をした。
This is a sentence from KO2001. The reading for 来ない confused me a bit. It´s read "こない". If I were "out in the wild", reading this without furigana, how could I have found out about this by myself? I´ve only read き and く readings of that kanji, so I´m wondering how I should search a dictionary to be able to figure out this stuff by myself! Thank you for your patience with me, hehe! =)

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - pm215 - 2009-10-25

Zorlee Wrote:The reading for 来ない confused me a bit. It´s read "こない". If I were "out in the wild", reading this without furigana, how could I have found out about this by myself? I´ve only read き and く readings of that kanji, so I´m wondering how I should search a dictionary to be able to figure out this stuff by myself! Thank you for your patience with me, hehe! =)
来る (くる) is an irregular verb. You just need to learn it, like する. Fortunately Japanese only has a dozen or so irregular verbs (plus one irregular adjective, I think) and half of them are keigo.

In general, to find readings where the word has no furigana and I don't know it, I use a dictionary that has handwriting recognition, so I can just write the kanji and search that way. Cut-n-paste into an online dictionary works too. You do have to be able to figure out the uninflected form of the verb, though, since generally the base form is the only one in the dictionary.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Tzadeck - 2009-10-25

pm215 Wrote:
Zorlee Wrote:The reading for 来ない confused me a bit. It´s read "こない". If I were "out in the wild", reading this without furigana, how could I have found out about this by myself? I´ve only read き and く readings of that kanji, so I´m wondering how I should search a dictionary to be able to figure out this stuff by myself! Thank you for your patience with me, hehe! =)
来る (くる) is an irregular verb. You just need to learn it, like する. Fortunately Japanese only has a dozen or so irregular verbs (plus one irregular adjective, I think) and half of them are keigo.
One irregular adjective? I wonder what that is? The only one I can think of is ない, but I'm not sure that's what you meant. (It's only irregular in that it's opposite is ある, rather than なくない)

Anyway, Zorlee, one of the nice things about paper dictionaries is that many of them have irregular verb charts. There really are very few, and that's one option for learning them. Textbooks can be good resources for that sort of thing too.

Also, it shows one of the reasons to sometimes read things with ふりがな even if you want to practice your kanji--it really helps to help pick up things like this.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2009-10-25

It's possible that pm215 is referring to いい, where all the conjugated forms come from the older/formal よい instead.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Tzadeck - 2009-10-25

yudantaiteki Wrote:It's possible that pm215 is referring to いい, where all the conjugated forms come from the older/formal よい instead.
Oh man, I can't believe I blanked on that. I knew it was gonna be something obvious, haha.

When on the topic of irregulars, and since I mentioned the ない -- ある thing, I think it's pretty great that the negative of ある is more regular in 関西弁. あらへん! No different from something like 作らへん. Though, in reality it's more confusing since both ない and あらへん　are used regularly.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - pm215 - 2009-10-25

Yes, いい/よい was the adjective I had in mind.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Jarvik7 - 2009-10-25

ある doesn't irregularly conjugate to plain negative as ない, it conjugates to あらない. It's just that that conjugation isn't used much anymore for whatever reason. あらず (another negative form) is still commonly used in writing and there is of course ありません.

よい is similar, but different. よい and いい are the same word, but いい (and ええ and えい) is a pronunciation of it that changed over time. Formal text and conjugated forms use the more proper よい pronunciation instead of the colloquial (if now standard) other ones.

Speaking of Kansai-ben, it retains a lot of features of older Japanese. Older standard Japanese WAS Kansaiben, before Tokyo became the center of power. ん as the negative form of verbs is another example. (ex: いかん、しらん、分からん） The development of the negative suffix particle is む→ん→ない. (ん used to even be written as む before ん was invented in the Momoyama period).

If we were talking about irregular adjectives, the first thing I'd think of is 同じ. It's the only じ adjective I can think of. Some dictionaries class it as a na-adj, but it isn't really one. Ex:
同じ本を持っている vs *同じな本を持っている
面白い本を持っている vs *面白いな本を持っている
*きれい本を持っている vs きれいな本を持っている
^-- It behaves just like an い adjective. You can even bring the missing い out of hiding by conjugating 同じ. Ex: 同じくした and AはBと同じくありません

I don't know why it didn't follow the same path as the similar しき adjectives (素晴らしき→素晴らしい）into 同じき→同じい..

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2009-10-25

Jarvik7 Wrote:Speaking of Kansai-ben, it retains a lot of features of older Japanese. Older standard Japanese WAS Kansaiben, before Tokyo became the center of power. ん as the negative form of verbs is another example. (ex: いかん、しらん、分からん） The development of the negative suffix particle is む→ん→ない. (ん used to even be written as む before ん was invented in the Momoyama period).
I think it's actually ぬ->ん, the む->ん is the volitional/supposition, not negative.

Quote:If we were talking about irregular adjectives, the first thing I'd think of is 同じ. It's the only じ adjective I can think of. Some dictionaries class it as a na-adj, but it isn't really one.
JSL puts it in the nominal class because it behaves like 先生 or きれい in that it takes だ, だった, and じゃない, but essentially describes it as being irregular when modifying another nominal due to the strange historical development.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Jarvik7 - 2009-10-25

Quote:I think it's actually ぬ->ん, the む->ん is the volitional/supposition, not negative.
Oops Tongue

Like I said in the other thread, it's been awhile since I did classical, and I don't have my books here to double check myself. Aside from that history lesson the rest of it holds though.

同じ is essentially completely irregular. It takes a copula like na-adj, conjugates as an い-adj, lacks the い it should have, and doesn't need a な when preceding nouns or a に before verbs.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2009-10-25

Well, it doesn't really conjugate as an i-adjective; there's no 同じかった form (in standard Japanese, at least). There is 同じく, but that's another survival from older Japanese, and it does not have 同じくない or 同じくなかった.

Quote:or a に before verbs
Are you sure about that? It's 同じになる and 同じにする; I don't know about other verbs but I would imagine it works the same way.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Tzadeck - 2009-10-26

yudantaiteki Wrote:JSL puts it in the nominal class because it behaves like 先生 or きれい in that it takes だ, だった, and じゃない, but essentially describes it as being irregular when modifying another nominal due to the strange historical development.
Someone else on this forum actually used JSL? Jorden really did her homework in terms of actually dividing Japanese into parts of speech that make sense, rather than basing it on English grammar (which, unfortunately, was even done by the Japanese for dozens of years and still remains pretty standard outside of linguistics).

Edit: Also, JSL is the reason I didn't consider something like 同じ as an irregular adjective, since in my mind I still think of it as just a really strange nominal.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - gibosi - 2009-10-26

Another phrase, but not as difficult as many of the others on this thread, I think...

The writer, a Japanese woman around 40, is reacting to the fact that some people who get H1N1 are dead within a few days.

I notice she uses 自分 rather than 私、 and I wonder why she used 自分 here. Also, I found her use of 夢 very interesting. My guess is that 夢にも思わないだろうから means she cannot imagine dying so quickly... cannot think of such a "dream"....

驚くよね、自分が　こんな早く死ぬなんて　夢にも思わないだろうから。

Thanks in advance for your comments and insights...

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - spideymike - 2009-10-26

She's using 自分 rather than 私 because she is talking about a third party's perception of self rather than her own. In English we would tend to write it as something like "Surely they never dreamed that they themselves could die so quickly."

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - sethg - 2009-10-29

The だろう also tips you off that it can't be herself she's talking about.

I have a quick question... in this sentence, how is 間 read?

寝ている間、いろんなものを見ることだ。

Are there any guidelines about knowing the reading of 間？ Sometimes I'm not sure if it's かん or あいだ.

Also... this thread should really get a sticky.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Aijin - 2009-10-29

かん and ま are both used in compounds to indicate intervals/space, but かん is more for figurative intervals, such as time. Examples: 瞬間、時間、年間. ま is more for literal space, such as floors, rooms, chasms in the earth, etc. Examples: 日本間、居間、谷間、隙間.

間 can be both read as あいだ or ま when used alone, but they function differently.

In your example, "寝ている間" 間 is being used to mean 'while', indicating a space between two occurences. IE: "While his parents were gone the pubescent boy read his father's Plaboy" (Sorry, I get bored of textbook examples after a while Tongue) that "while" to indicate two events is read as あいだ

The classical construction is: て form of verb +いる＋ 間.
話している間
食べている間
教えている間
悲鳴を上げている間

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - magamo - 2009-10-29

Hmm... I kind of understand what Aijin said but also think it might be too difficult for non-native speakers to grasp the sense by that explanation.

For example, the reading of 間 in あっという間に持ち去る is ま, but isn't it kind of "while"? The 間 in 卒業してまだ間がない is also ま, but it does mean a period of time. What about 食事をする間もなく次の仕事に取りかかる? Also, this could be the wrong-but-natives-say kind of thing, but is 準備をしている間もなく ungrammatical if you read 間 as ま? This is following て form of verb +いる＋ 間, but it's not あいだ, I guess.

I thought the simple rule that "かん is for compounds" was a lot better. I could only come up with one example where 間 (かん) is not part of a compound/pseudo-compound, and it's その間 as in その間わずか数秒.

Also, you could say あいだ is for non-compounds.

The other readings such as ま and あい are tricky, and they're confusing; I'm pretty sure a lot of native speakers can't guess the correct reading of 幕間. Maybe it's more efficient to learn them one by one as you come across in a conversation, dialogue etc. Actually I'm overwhelmed by the plethora of usages of あいだ and ま found in J-J dictionaries.

So I suggest:

If it's a compound -> assume it's かん. And if you can't find the word in question in your dictionary by that reading -> try ま. If it still fails you, probably it's difficult even for native speakers.

If it's a non-compound -> assume あいだ because ま as a stand alone word usually appears in idiomatic phrases such as 間が悪い and other examples I mentioned above. And if you hear it's used as ま or other rare readings by native speakers somewhere else, you fix your reading accordingly.

The best way to know the correct reading is to ask teachers, native speakers, or advanced learners though.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2009-10-29

Tzadeck Wrote:
yudantaiteki Wrote:JSL puts it in the nominal class because it behaves like 先生 or きれい in that it takes だ, だった, and じゃない, but essentially describes it as being irregular when modifying another nominal due to the strange historical development.
Someone else on this forum actually used JSL?
I didn't use it as a student, but I've used it as a teaching assistant for 4 years.

The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - sethg - 2009-10-30

Thanks so much Aijin and Magamo. The both of you could run a site just answering questions like this and make some Japanese learners very happy.

I still think this topic should be stickied.