Using 覚えます (to remember) as an example, I can say that to mean I will remember. But if I want to say "Do you remember?" do I say 覚えますか? What if I want to say "Will you remember?"? Is it also 覚えますか? In verbs, how do you differentiate between do/will?

For this tense problem in general, Japanese often uses ている to indicate a present ongoing state, and the dictionary or ます form to indicate a future action. And in fact you would ask 覚えていますか to ask if someone currently remembers something.

For this particular verb, although 覚えますか would sensibly be asking if someone will remember something... I'm not sure it is in practice used that way. Without context, because of how many ways its meaning is overloaded, 覚えますか sounds more like 'will you learn (it)?' / 'will you memorize (it)?'

I think in practice you'd just ask わすれませんか instead.

Using a more straightforward verb that doesn't have these side issues,

コンビニまで歩いている is '(I'm) walking to the convenience store'
while
コンビニまで歩く is '(I) will walk to the convenience store'

What if I want to ask "Do you walk to the convenience store?"

(2016-02-16, 10:47 pm)learningkanji Wrote: What if I want to ask "Do you walk to the convenience store?"

What do you mean by this? A habit? A general truth? A plan? Your question will change based on that.

I guess any of those? Do you have an example for each?

So what you are generally going to do, in each of those cases, is add more words.

(Usually in this situation, you would use "go" rather than "walk")
So as a plan: コンビニに行くつもりです。
Something you do often: コンビニによく行きます。
and a general truth or occasional habit: コンビニに行くことがあります。

I see. I've noticed you have to be more wordy in Japanese.

I'd say it depends on what you want to convey, and how close you want it to be to what you are thinking about. Some things take a bit more to convey in japanese, some can be done in a fraction of the amount it would take it in english. Also, I get the feeling that the closer you try to translate from english to japanese the more words you might need to make it sound "just right" to your own language. If you go directly from another language I think it can often require more words to stay faithful to the original language, but sometimes if you say it "like a japanese person" it might end up shorter.

^^If that rambling made sense

It makes sense and I've been noticing that I need to try not to translate from English to Japanese because it might not make sense. The problem is how do I make what I wanna say in English sound natural in Japanese?

Talk to people.

Doing stuff like reading a lot/memorizing things helped to a point, but my largest "advance" in using more natural phrases just came from talking to people a lot.

Although you could probably count chatting on a message board or something if you wanted to

(2016-02-18, 2:58 am)learningkanji Wrote: The problem is how do I make what I wanna say in English sound natural in Japanese?

It's very difficult to make what you want to say in English sound natural in Japanese because that's translating... even when it's just formulating the thought in one language and then the other, it's still translation.

You have to say what you want to say in Japanese.

You do that by listening and reading a lot so that you know what natural Japanese sounds like. (You also need to not be translating what you hear and read, just understanding it for what it is. Of course it's natural to mentally translate words and grammar structures that you've only recently learned, but you don't want to do that for long. I'll generally mentally translate a new vocabulary word the first 2 or 3 times I encounter it and after that I'll just understand it. I'll often re-read a sentence or rewind a video once or twice after looking up a new word with the intent of trying to 'just understand' instead of mentally translating. Re-reading or rewinding the same bit for more repetitions doesn't do any good, but once or twice to get the feel for it seems helpful.)

With some sense of what natural Japanese sounds like, you should be able to make your own simple sentences. Don't be afraid to simply repeat word-for-word something you've read or heard before - a lot of simple sentences are and should be word-for-word identical when the same idea needs to be conveyed in similar situations. There are no extra points for creativity, in fact quite the opposite. You're trying to sound just like everyone else.

Even though each sentence may be natural, your conversation or writings will certainly be somewhat unnatural at first and that's inevitable. At first you will only be able to form simple sentences, so you will have to chain together many simple sentences. With that experience, you can start adding a modifying phrase here and a conjunction there in ways that you've seen and heard used, and before you know it your simple sentences will be have grown into complicated sentences.

If you try to shortcut that and make complicated sentences based on the formulas of grammar rules you've memorized, you're likely to create a lot of awkward and unnatural sentences. Just let your sentences naturally evolve, sticking to using what you are fairly certain is correct, perfecting those structures and then adding a bit at a time to what you can do.

I think I understand what you're saying. I've also been noticing that I have to take the Japanese word as it is without thinking of the English meaning. It's hard but I'll try not to do that.

(2016-02-18, 4:12 pm)learningkanji Wrote: I think I understand what you're saying. I've also been noticing that I have to take the Japanese word as it is without thinking of the English meaning. It's hard but I'll try not to do that.

It's only hard at the start. Once you have a base in the language that you can just hear or speak without translating, it becomes relatively easy to add words to that base. Well worth it for that alone.

Also, of course, you'll never have proper listening comprehension while mentally translating at all. There simply isn't time at natural speed to translate speech into another language even mentally. Of course -some- people can do it, but I'm simply in awe of the rare breed of person that can do simultaneous interpreting. Chances are that you're not such a person... I know I'm not!

I'd suggest you're overcomplicating this by thinking about it from the perspective of english grammar.

Translating directly from english (and focusing on the english grammar in isolation rather than actual use) is what's getting you in trouble here. "Will you" with no further context in english means a lot of different things, and each might be handled slightly differently in both English and Japanese.

So here's a few different ways "Will you walk to the convenience store?" is more likely to be used colloquially, if you think about it, and the japanese I'd use in each situation (note: my japanese isn't perfect). I'm glossing to what feels appropriate in both languages, this is not literal translation. In casual form because -- who do you talk about this with?

"Will you [please] swing by the convenience store?"
コンビニへ行ってくれない？

"Oh, are you on your way to the convenience store?"
あっ、コンビニへいってる？

"You walk to the convenience store? You don't drive?"
歩いて行くの、コンビニへ？運転しない？

Etc.

Often the difference between "do you" and "would you" is situational / context based, where it really is a lot more obvious than you'd expect (coming from english). If someone says "I have to stop eating conbini bento, I go at least 3 times a week" you're not going to be like "You WILL go three times a week?!" because it's obvious what they mean in that context.

(2016-02-20, 9:49 am)ttenani Wrote: "Oh, are you on your way to the convenience store?"
あっ、コンビニへいってる？

行っている is not progressive, it's the resultant state. So, it's not "Are you on the way?"  It's more like "Oh, are you at the convenience store?"

(2016-02-20, 10:29 am)RandomQuotes Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 9:49 am)ttenani Wrote: "Oh, are you on your way to the convenience store?"
あっ、コンビニへいってる？

行っている is not progressive, it's the resultant state. So, it's not "Are you on the way?"  It's more like "Oh, are you at the convenience store?"

That's going to be context-based in my experience. ている can be continuative, and OP will get into trouble if (he?) assumes it never is. The danger comes in when you assume it's always continuative (equivalent to the english progressive). The context I'm picturing here (which to my mind was implied by the あっ) is that you've bumped into someone walking away from their house, toward your (perhaps shared) local conbini. 

Like, sure, if I was -- I don't know -- running through a shopping list and asked my roommate if they'd gone to the conbini and they were like 行っている。 I'd be like "ok, cool, we have that covered." But it's not always resultant state.

ている can be either, but 行っている is only resultant state (or habitual action in some contexts), except for a few cases (like 行っている所).

Re: the 行っている debate, there's a nice thread here which covers all the thoughts I might possibly have (though not in my own words):

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1245871307

OP, you might have a crack at it if you like, since it's relevant to your original question.