This may be what @sethg is getting at? http://books.google.com/books?id=iOq6wCn...22&f=false

I think we're talking about two different kinds of emphasis here. The way I see it, は is called 'contrastative' is because it's emphasising what comes before it being that very thing as opposed to something else. は marks what the sentence is about, i.e., what's being emphasised in my view.

In any case, I definitely disagree that the important part of the first of the given sentences is 日本語で.

OK so for the second sentence, actually it was not my name originally...is it therefore because in sentence (a) the topic is me, a known person, I am using Facebook in Japanese, and for (b) somebody "likes" this i.e. somebody who may or may not be known to the reader?

That is to say, the first one is a topic, but the second one is just a subject.

nest0r, thanks, I've never seen it in print

This is really just the way a Japanese friend explained it to me when I first started learning Japanese and it has always served as a pretty good guide and it makes sense to me.

fakewookie Wrote:I think we're talking about two different kinds of emphasis here. The way I see it, は is called 'contrastative' is because it's emphasising what comes before it being that very thing as opposed to something else. は marks what the sentence is about, i.e., what's being emphasised in my view.

In any case, I definitely disagree that the important part of the first of the given sentences is 日本語で.

It's interesting that you think of it this way, as I never thought of the contrastive use of は as being different. However, は emphasizes what comes after it.
田中さんは会社員ですが、渡辺さんは学生です。

The emphasis sounds like it's on 会社員 and 学生, even though all four parts of the sentence are pretty important here (actually, は is being used because the topic of the discussion is shifting, super quickly, from Tanaka to Watanabe).

日本語で is the most important part of that sentence he posted--the sentence is meant to tell which language the facebook user is using. We know their name already because it's on their profile; we know it's Facebook because it's written all over the place; we know they're using a language, because everyone does. Therefore, the new interesting information is 日本語. It's the most important part.

I'm not sure it's that cut and dry. Not everyone agrees that a contrastive は exists, but it's noted that in an isolated sentence, there can be ambiguity which は it is, and little difference between emphasis が　 and contrastive は. It depends on context.

For eg, someone might state that everyone in the group uses facebook in Japanese. One person might clarify that by saying, Well, John は　does, but....[the others は don't.] So you can see how the emphasis in that particular situation can be seen to be on John (in contrast to others). We often use emphatic は　in similar ways to emphasize various parts of speech.

The second could be answer to the question "Who uses facebook in Japanese?" is "John が uses it", the emphasis is similarly on John.

Using the new/old info approach, in the first case John is a known group member and it can still be contrastive は. In the second it's new info (answering a question.)

In a narrative, が　and は　are rhetorical devices for setting perspective/foregrounding which can't be explained using just new/old or emphasis.

In other words, は is a discourse marker, so it's use/purpose in an isolated sentence isn't always clear without more info. (Despite how aggressively and repetitively someone here likes to insist that it's nothing but syntax...)

Also, how are we sure that 日本語で　is more important than facebookを?
I can imagine situations in which someone is specifying which sites a person uses in Japanese. There are ways to emphasize either one using は、が、も, or rearranging, but without that, I don't know that we can be sure one is more important.

Thora Wrote:Also, how are we sure that 日本語で　is more important than facebookを?
I can imagine situations in which someone is specifying which sites a person uses in Japanese.

It's true that from the sentence you don't know that, but in this case it's true. It's the line used by facebook to tell which language the user is using.

I agree that は and が are a bit more complicated than I put it, and as a matter of fact I sort of think of them in a bunch of different ways. But if you want a general rule that works 95% of the time you can say that は sets up the topic as what comes before it and then important information comes after it, and が emphasizes what comes before it and makes it the subject.

Oh, I see. You can tell I'm not on facebook. :-)

Yeah, I think being able to able to look at it a few different way as we increase exposure helps develop a more natural intuition. The ultimate goal.

Good rules of thumb are the way to go, but ideally they're precise enough to avoid frustration and flexible enough to permit future refined/expanded understanding. I think there's still some room for improvement in that rule of thumb.

Remember that little program iSoron contributed a while back to test prediction of は and が? Just being aware that there's more going on will help explain why those rules of thumbs don't allow us to predict written use with accuracy. And speech use apparently involves some different rules of thumb.

Tzadeck Wrote:日本語で is the most important part of that sentence he posted--the sentence is meant to tell which language the facebook user is using. We know their name already because it's on their profile; we know it's Facebook because it's written all over the place; we know they're using a language, because everyone does. Therefore, the new interesting information is 日本語. It's the most important part.

Again, I guess there's a difference in interpretation of English here. I'd term mizunootoさん as the "most important" part of the sentence because it's the topic, i.e. what the sentence is about.

hey guys, I'm not a Japanese newbie by any standards but I'm stuck on some basic grammar principles. Right now it's ほど.

Have I translated this sentence correctly?
これもおいしかっただけど、昨日食べた物ほどではありません。
"This food was good, but it wasn't as good as what I ate yesterday"


or is it "This food was good, but it wasn't [the same level of quality as] yesterday's food".

Please Help! Thanks~

dfmoss Wrote:hey guys, I'm not a Japanese newbie by any standards but I'm stuck on some basic grammar principles. Right now it's ほど.

Have I translated this sentence correctly?
これもおいしかっただけど、昨日食べた物ほどではありません。
"This food was good, but it wasn't as good as what I ate yesterday"


or is it "This food was good, but it wasn't [the same level of quality as] yesterday's food".

Please Help! Thanks~

I'd change the first part "This food was good" to "This food was also good" as it's これも but other than that I think both translations are fine. The second is perhaps a bit more literal.

pudding cat Wrote:

dfmoss Wrote:hey guys, I'm not a Japanese newbie by any standards but I'm stuck on some basic grammar principles. Right now it's ほど.

Have I translated this sentence correctly?
これもおいしかっただけど、昨日食べた物ほどではありません。
"This food was good, but it wasn't as good as what I ate yesterday"


or is it "This food was good, but it wasn't [the same level of quality as] yesterday's food".

Please Help! Thanks~

I'd change the first part "This food was good" to "This food was also good" as it's これも but other than that I think both translations are fine. The second is perhaps a bit more literal.

The first thing I noticed was "おいしかっただけど".
Shouldn't that be おいしかったけど?

Yeah...either that or おいしかった。だけど、昨日...

Can you use 君(kimi) when talking to a woman?

jettyke Wrote:Can you use 君(kimi) when talking to a woman?

It depends on the woman, but I don't recommend it. I've talked to native speakers (women) about this and they've all told me they don't like being called "kimi". I think that especially as a non-native speaker it's a very difficult word to use. I personally never use it -- I just think the risk of offense is too great and there are other easy options.

あんた is the casual "you" that I tend to use if necessary, although I usually just use the person's name.

jettyke Wrote:Can you use 君(kimi) when talking to a woman?

It's best to just avoid all "can I use this" doubts and just use their name.

取り戻してみせよう　いつかの日常を
how to translate the second part [いつかの日常を] ?
I'm kind of understand what it means, but just to be sure.
Thanks.

I joined a manga group on Mixi and went to the introduction thread to make a post and someone messaged back saying this:


「マンガが無いと生きていけない」コミュの自己紹介を見て
メッセージしています。
まさよ（Masayo）、といいます。

自己紹介文で、「GE～グッドエンディング」を読んだ後、
「君に届け」を読もうとされているということで
少し意外に思いました。

「GE～グッドエンディング」は読んだことはないんですけれど、
少年マンガらしくないと評されたマンガですよね。

「君に届け」は、少女マンガです。
しかもかなりピュアな恋愛マンガです。

２作品はかなり印象が違うと思います。

色々なジャンルを読まれようとしているのでしょうか？

すみません。
おせっかいかもしれないんですけれど、
ちょっと気になってメールしました。

I'm a bit confused with what she's concerned about. Could someone please elaborate? She says 少年マンガらしくないと評されたマンガですよね, but then later she asks 色々なジャンルを読まれようとしているのでしょうか？

I'm translating the first sentence above as "The manga is not considered shounen" and the second as "Have you tried reading other genres?"

Can we see your post? I haven't heard of either of these manga and I'm not entirely sure what you said so it's hard for me to see what his point is.

The first part you excerpted says that it is a shonen manga, but doesn't seem much like one.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:Can you use 君(kimi) when talking to a woman?

It depends on the woman, but I don't recommend it. I've talked to native speakers (women) about this and they've all told me they don't like being called "kimi". I think that especially as a non-native speaker it's a very difficult word to use. I personally never use it -- I just think the risk of offense is too great and there are other easy options.

When I'm talking to women older than me I call them 姉ちゃん.

I tend to get scolded when I call them お母さん. Haven't tried お婆さん yet.

EDIT: apparently I need to point out that this post is in fact in jest.

@Es2kay -- It's like taking back the normal everyday that they had 'sometime.' The "いつか" is tricky, because I feel like it's like "to borrow someone's pen," where the 'someone' is not important, but the pen isn't yours. So in a similar way, it's taking back the 'regularity' of some other time (presumably the past, hence 取り戻す）
But, I don't know how to make it sound good in English...

@Manske -- GE isn't considered a shounen-ish manga, and Kimi is a shoujo manga about pure love. So, since they're quite different, and the 2nd sentence is more like "Perhaps it's that you're trying to read a bunch of different genres of manga?"
...Unless I'm wrong, she thinks its weird that you're reading 'outside your genre?'

yudantaiteki Wrote:Can we see your post? I haven't heard of either of these manga and I'm not entirely sure what you said so it's hard for me to see what his point is.

The first part you excerpted says that it is a shonen manga, but doesn't seem much like one.

I just said that at the moment I'm reading GE and plan on reading 君に届け afterward.

Asriel Wrote:@Manske -- GE isn't considered a shounen-ish manga, and Kimi is a shoujo manga about pure love. So, since they're quite different, and the 2nd sentence is more like "Perhaps it's that you're trying to read a bunch of different genres of manga?"
...Unless I'm wrong, she thinks its weird that you're reading 'outside your genre?'

Yeah that's what I'm having trouble understanding. I would say both are love stories, one with a male protagonist and one with a female protagonist, so I would agree with GE being a shounen but not "shounen-ish", but I'm trying to figure out what compelled her to take the time to write that to me.

Is 色々なジャンルを読まれようとしているのでしょうか？ implying that I need to read something other than shoujo/romances?

dizmox Wrote:When I'm talking to women older than me I call them 姉ちゃん.

That sounds very anime-ish to me; I wouldn't really recommend that either.

This is really an area where you want to be conservative and play it safe, because most Japanese people will not correct you if you're offending them in this way -- sometimes they won't even be honest if you ask them point-blank if you're using it wrong.

Manske Wrote:Is 色々なジャンルを読まれようとしているのでしょうか？ implying that I need to read something other than shoujo/romances?

She hasn't read GE, so she doesn't know how 'lovey-dovey' it is...But since it's a shounen and 君に届け is shoujo, she seems to be considering them in 2 different genres (even if they are both love stories).

So, she thinks it's interesting or intriguing that you're switching between manga that are "so different," I guess...although from what you say, it sounds like they're kind of similar.

The question isn't implying anything, but she's inquiring whether the reason you're reading such different things is because you're trying to read a lot of different types of manga.

色々なジャンルを(bunches of genres)読まれようとしている([polite] you currently giving an effort to read)のでしょうか？
The のでしょうか? is what gives us the signal that she's inquiring that perhaps this a reason for the aforementioned strange behavior (of switching manga types/having differed tastes)