Hello everybody, it's my first message here. I'm not English native speaker, so I hope you understand that I could write some grammar mistakes.

Ok, being said that, I have a question regarding the use of ために and what my grammar book Genki (very popular I think) says about that... says NOTHING. :-)

Here is my doubt. Since using of "therefore, for, to, etc." in order to express purpose is very common in English language (and Spanish too, which is my mother tongue), I've read Genki 1 + Genki 2, but there is NOTHING about that question. Just about から, but it isn't the same.

I've done a research on internet and found ために / ように method to express this kind of "purpose phrases". But, why Genki doesn't say ANYTHING about that topic? I'm studying with this books and I think are very very understandable and friendly to newbies like me, who need to "digest" properly what are learning.

By the other hand, I've done other search in みんなの日本語, and in this book ために/ ように do appears. But, honestly, studying with this book is a real pain for my ass... even though it's completely translated to my mother tongue, Spanish.

What is happening? As far as I know, Genki and みんなの日本語 are pretty seemed each other, despite Genki explain much better all grammar. But Genki doesn't mention anything about this kind of "purpose phrases".

The use of　ために is very easy as I could read. Just the "plain form" of the verb before ために, and then the other phrase which introduce the situation. ie:

たけしさんは日本語を勉強するために日本に行きました。

The use of ために involves the attach of の before ために when there is a noun instead of verb.

So... as far as I know, this grammar is easy and I don't know why Genki doesn't say anything about that (the two volumes), and (by my opinion) this "purpose sentences" are very useful and commonly used. What do you think? Could it be a big mistake not to mention that?

It is on "an integrated approach to intermediate japanese" (the sequel of Genki I & II), chapter N° 5, grammatical point N° 5, pg. 94. I don't know why they put it there and not on Genki, but I'm still on Genki I xD

You're not going to encounter all you need to know in one textbook, or even one series of textbooks. You'll probably end up going through several (different) ones. Also, the rankings of beginner/intermediate/advanced would be better understood as highest encounter frequency to lowest, I feel.

[RawToast]

I was surprised when you mentioned <> wasn't even in Genki 2. I would guess that is the case because it is under the N3 test. Genki 1 basically covers N5 and Genki 2 covers N4; although, the books aren't intended to be JLPT N5/N4 books -- they just happen to closely cover the material.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/JLPT_Guide/JLPT_N3_Grammar

RawToast Wrote:I was surprised when you mentioned <> wasn't even in Genki 2. I would guess that is the case because it is under the N3 test. Genki 1 basically covers N5 and Genki 2 covers N4; although, the books aren't intended to be JLPT N5/N4 books -- they just happen to closely cover the material.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/JLPT_Guide/JLPT_N3_Grammar

As I'm doing Genki 1 I was wondering how it's arranged in terms of JLPT, so a couple days ago I confronted the N5 grammar points with the grammar in Genki 1 and they coincide. Now I am glad to see the same goes for Genki 2 and IAIJ

Ookamisan Wrote:Hello everybody, it's my first message here. I'm not English native speaker, so I hope you understand that I could write some grammar mistakes.

Ok, being said that, I have a question regarding the use of ために and what my grammar book Genki (very popular I think) says about that... says NOTHING. :-)

Here is my doubt. Since using of "therefore, for, to, etc." in order to express purpose is very common in English language (and Spanish too, which is my mother tongue), I've read Genki 1 + Genki 2, but there is NOTHING about that question. Just about から, but it isn't the same.

I've done a research on internet and found ために / ように method to express this kind of "purpose phrases". But, why Genki doesn't say ANYTHING about that topic? I'm studying with this books and I think are very very understandable and friendly to newbies like me, who need to "digest" properly what are learning.

By the other hand, I've done other search in みんなの日本語, and in this book ために/ ように do appears. But, honestly, studying with this book is a real pain for my ass... even though it's completely translated to my mother tongue, Spanish.

What is happening? As far as I know, Genki and みんなの日本語 are pretty seemed each other, despite Genki explain much better all grammar. But Genki doesn't mention anything about this kind of "purpose phrases".

The use of　ために is very easy as I could read. Just the "plain form" of the verb before ために, and then the other phrase which introduce the situation. ie:

たけしさんは日本語を勉強するために日本に行きました。

The use of ために involves the attach of の before ために when there is a noun instead of verb.

So... as far as I know, this grammar is easy and I don't know why Genki doesn't say anything about that (the two volumes), and (by my opinion) this "purpose sentences" are very useful and commonly used. What do you think? Could it be a big mistake not to mention that?

I think から is more of a logical connector ("X, then Y"), while ため stresses the "I did it so that X would happen" nuance. ですから is more like "so", while そのため is more like "for that reason". I'm not sure I'm getting this right, it's just the impression I get (my Japanese is extremely basic so please don't pay attention to me).

What I do know is that ため is probably more confusing for English speakers than it is for speakers of Romance languages. Gallo-romance languages such as French or Catalan only use "pour" and "per", respectively, whether they intend to mean cause or purpose; others such as Spanish keep "por" and "para" separate but there isn't that much difference in usage between one and the other. In Germanic languages these uses are kept more separate grammatically (for example in German there isn't any connection between um zu, wegen, weil and für; similarly in English to, for and because aren't the same thing) so it can be a bit confusing to have a single word for the both of them. I guess that's why ため is taught later on.

It could also be that they didn't get to it in the 2 books they made. My impression after doing the series was that the books were designed more around the (teach them the basics they need to survive in Japan as soon as possible) as opposed to some of the deeper Japanese we all want. Book 2 really starts digging into that, but even then there are only so many grammar points it can cover in 10 or so chapters (I believe that was the number?). Book 1 seemed to lay the baby building blocks to me and book 2 really solidified the foundation and gave you the tools to take things up a level (teaching all those different verb conjugations). ため, while important, might just be something it never got to, of which there were many. Personally I learned of it from a movie where there was a song and in the chorus that kept repeating ため, with subtitles it didn't take much to figure out how it was used in that case.