magamo Wrote:By the way, 自発 is not advanced at all. Every Japanese kid learns it at elementary school.

Speaking of which, do you happen to know some Japanese sites oriented to help school kids with their 国語 classes? I remember having seen something like that a long time ago, but unfortunately don't remember where now.


BTW, calm down Magamo, it's not like someone was spitting over your mother's face, there's no need to be that emotional about the topic. Turn the computer off and have a walk or listen to some music. =)

magamo Wrote:If you take 思い出される as direct passive with a non-animated patient, it'd be:

（私によって）あの日の情景が思いだされる or（私に）あの日の情景が思いだされる.

.... （私には）あの日の情景が思いだされる.

It's strange... I just saw the same sentence repeated over and over again.

@_@

受身、自発、unelevatedcrackerjaw....

Wait, nix that.



How does 私によって fit into this?

And how does the 私には differ from the 私に? Why not 私では?

Ryajinor Wrote:

magamo Wrote:"I always sidestep that and teach this dumbed down fake rule because it's a whole lot easier to teach them."

We call that lies to children.

What the heck is up with that page? It moves horribly slow.

BTW, anyone seen Alfonso's out-of-print 2 volume set "Japanese Language Patterns" anywhere online? Seems like a valuable resource, but not worth hundreds of dollars used from someone on eBay.

nest0r Wrote:Never heard of this jihatsu thingamajig. Is there a clear explanation for it someplace? Want to make sure it's not something I missed/haven't already internalized.

If it's taught to foreigners as passive voice, Yudantaiteki said every kind of passive is treated in "Japanese: The Spoken Language." If it has its own term in English, the textbook might be missing it. pm215 said he might have read about it in Jay Rubin's book. I think pretty much every grammar book for native speakers at least briefly deals with it, so if you don't mind books in Japanese, you should be able to find a clear explanation in a lot of books. Your average Japanese textbook for grade schoolers should deal with it at least to an extent, though school grammar taught in Japan is often criticized as inaccurate. But

nest0r Wrote:This seems to have a definition I can understand as a basic aspect/array of uses that I'm already familiar with and appreciative of in Japanese that I don't usually bother labeling. Good enough?

this seems to be it. I don't own that book, but the term "natural potential" does sound like it talks about at least one aspect of 自発. This れる/られる use is kind of passive and kind of potential at the same time. It has its own grammatical rules distinct from passive and potential, so I think that's why it's taught as a different form; you can't explain why you can't use 私によって/私に or 私があの日の情景を in the example sentence if you see it as passive or potential respectively. Besides, it has its own meaning. You don't need to read explicit explanations for this kind of stuff if Krashen and others are right though.

nest0r Wrote:I think what I've read about '自発' sounds kind of like the explanations for 見える &c. that I read in DOBJG: "Mieru is different from the regular potential form of miru, i.e., mirareru, in that mieru indicates that s.t. or s.o. is passively visible regardless of the volition of the speaker; mirareru, on the other hand, indicates that the speaker or the subject of the sentence can see s.t. or s.o. actively rather than passively. " (Likewise with 聞こえる.)

They're 自発-ish verbs. You can read a very brief explanation on Japanese Wikipedia:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%AA%E...6%B3%95%29
I think niwasaburoo's e-book has a comprehensive treatment. But apparently it begins with the three types of sentences 名詞文, 形容詞文, and 動詞文 so you can't expect simple explanations for that. If you're still interested, you can find classifications of verbs including the 自発-ish ones and their explanations in 動詞文's section:
http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/04dousibun.html

Sebastian Wrote:Speaking of which, do you happen to know some Japanese sites oriented to help school kids with their 国語 classes? I remember having seen something like that a long time ago, but unfortunately don't remember where now.

Sorry... I guess there should be somewhere on the internet, but I don't know any sites for kids.

Sebastian Wrote:BTW, calm down Magamo, it's not like someone was spitting over your mother's face, there's no need to be that emotional about the topic. Turn the computer off and have a walk or listen to some music.

Thanks!

kazelee Wrote:How does 私によって fit into this?

And how does the 私には differ from the 私に? Why not 私では?

に and によって are typical markers used in a non-animated direct passive sentence to indicate the person/thing who did the action of a verb. Since 情景 isn't an animated thing, I tried to put them. には is the typical marker of the same kind for a 自発 sentence. If you use には, the sentence becomes, um, 自発 so it sounds like what the average 自発 sentence sounds like. So if you used に/によって, the sentence gets confusing because it's like:

1. it sounds like direct passive,
2. but it doesn't have an animated patient,
3. so it should be the irregular kind of passive,
4. hence its nuance gets more like 自発,
5. oh, wait. If thats the case, isn't it には then?

If you put では and try to make it grammatical, it'd be potential and in negative:

私ではあの日の情景が思いだせない

You're trying to understand three different れる/られる forms and four markers at the same time. You might want to get some textbooks and read about passive, potential, and 自発 forms if you want more detailed explanations.

So back to the topic, I think you can't overrate Hajime no Ippo (はじめの一歩). Well, I used to box when I was a grad school student, so take it with a grain of salt. But it's definitely one of the best boxing manga. Among other manga mentioned on RtK, I think these are underrated: Berserk (ベルセルク), Blood Alone, and Shin Angyo Onshi (新暗行御史). Probably these are not interesting if you don't read manga for men though. These are not particularly easy language-wise either.

So I'm making my way through Yotsuba. It's quite painful. I know most of the vocab, once I can separate out words from random interjection sounds, but this takes ages. Also, there are really weird grammatical forms (contractions) which I haven't seen before and the little girl talks like a half-man-half-child.

Is there some book or site which will help me get used to all these manga quirks? Are the Japanese in Mangaland or Japanese the Manga Way books designed to prepare you for reading manga? If I carry on this way I won't be learning much.

@magamo

Strangely, after taking your advice and looking it up, I've been using this form a lot without even knowing it.

I've also noticed the use of the term 被動者. I can find no definition for it. Using 被害者 I would guess this means the thing/person receiving the action.

magamo Wrote:[自発]
If it's taught to foreigners as passive voice

I think the textbooks I used made a distinction between "passives" (ie 受け身形) and "other things using the same verb form as the passive" (in which the keigo and this usage fall). But I don't have them to hand to check.

Incidentally, I notice that the niwasaburoo text deals with voice in the order 受け身形 (animate and inanimate subject), 使役, 可能, 自発. Since the author generally seems to have taken care with ordering sections to avoid interdependencies, the implication is that they thought it was reasonable to deal with 浮き身 separately and first. So textbooks which decide to leave the 自発 usage until later aren't completely out on a limb here...
(It would be interesting to know which JLPT levels these uses are tested on. I know 受け身形 is JLPT3. I suspect that, especially at intermediate and above, the JLPT syllabus order has an effect on textbook authors' choices of grammar to include even if they're not explicitly producing a pass-the-JLPT book.)

Blahah Wrote:there are really weird grammatical forms (contractions) which I haven't seen before

The sci.lang.japan faq lists some of the more common ones, and there's a list on this wiki page too.

I might be wrong that JSL covers that; I'm on vacation and don't have access to my books but I'll check next week.

Blahah Wrote:So I'm making my way through Yotsuba. It's quite painful.....

I too am reading ドラえもん and it is also quite hard. However, I am taking the route of just reading it and if I understand it ok, otherwise try to use the cues from the drawings to understand what is going on and march on. If the patterns and phrases continue at any frequency you will eventually catch on and recall the phrase/pattern.

I have picked up quite a bit of vocabulary from odd household items (e.g., やかん-kettle) and run upon phrases that I know quite often. In the end, your reading speed will increase and the occasional kanji compounds will be familiar grounds.

What I want to know is where it matters if it's 受身 or 自発. If my previous example in English is correct, that means that you can't really use it wrong even if you think both are passive, therefor there's no point in making a distinction for a learner. What I'm asking is if it's 受身 or 自発 when defined by the context and the verb, not by how the sentence looks. It sounds like magamo is saying there is a vital and very basic important difference here, but I'm still not clearly grasping it. Is it about whether or not you can use に or には?

I would like some examples where you say something wrong if you think of 自発 as 受身 without making up an unlikely context.

Blahah Wrote:So I'm making my way through Yotsuba. It's quite painful. I know most of the vocab, once I can separate out words from random interjection sounds, but this takes ages. Also, there are really weird grammatical forms (contractions) which I haven't seen before and the little girl talks like a half-man-half-child.

Seeing as 「とーちゃん」and 「ジャンボー」are the most important people in her life, it's not too surprising that she's picked up some masculinisms.

You're right that there are a lot of contractions. But, the same is true of spoken Japanese, especially casual language. If it gives you trouble, maybe you can find some dorama with youth or yakuza or anime with overblown attitudes and hairstyles and just listen to it. (Tiger & Dragon, Bleach, 電脳コイル, and デジモンセイバーズ come to mind as having interestingly thick accents.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_gr...F_onbin.29

Other ones I've seen
えぇ from あい/おい/あえ, i-adjectives/negatives and お前
きゃ from ければ,
んち from のうち
とる from ておる (a Kansai-ism. I haven't seen it in よつば yet, but used by the "Idiot from Osaka" character in ツバサ.)
りゃ from れわ（それは -> そりゃ）

After a while it seems to just become automatic. Maybe it helps to imagine what it sounds like--I imagine this is similar to what English learners face trying to read Mark Twain's or Brian Jacques' non-standard dialogue.

Ryajinor Wrote:

magamo Wrote:"I always sidestep that and teach this dumbed down fake rule because it's a whole lot easier to teach them."

We call that lies to children.

GOD DAMNIT!

brianobush Wrote:

Blahah Wrote:So I'm making my way through Yotsuba. It's quite painful.....

I too am reading ドラえもん and it is also quite hard...

I'm not quite done with Heisig (currently at kanji 1647), but I started reading Bloody Monday manga about a month ago. It's pretty complex shonen manga with lots of kanji and grammar I don't understand, but somehow I got through the first volume and enjoyed it. It's about computers and hacking, which is interesting to me since I'm a programmer. I could guess what the words mean based on kanji and where they appear on the page.

In general, I don't care if I don't understand something. If a word shows up more than 2-3 times, I look it up and add it to Anki. Pictures are nice and tell a lot about the story, so it's fun just flipping through the book. I was actually amazed that I could understand more than half of the text. Granted, I don't get the little nuances of grammar or even bigger important points, but I do my best to guess what's going on.


In conclusion, the best advice is to find something that's fun and interesting to look at, which would create more exposure. If it's fun it will not be a pain to look up 10-15 words per book. It doesn't matter if you don't understand more than a few words here and there.

You can even come up with your own story to fit the words you can understand and the pictures. Then read the incomprehensible text and imagine people saying that in the context you imagined. You may be quite a way off from the real meaning, but at least you'll be exposed to the text and will associate it to something in your head (like Heisig stories for kanji). Then when you encounter something similar in a different context, you may recall your story and see if there are some similarities between the situations in which the words have been said.

I don't think you'll remember much of what you read anyway, but that's why you should make it fun and relaxing so that you can do it often. If you encounter something in the manga you've been studying, and you actually understand what it means, you'll feel really good about the effort you're putting into your study. That at least happens to me.

wildweathel Wrote:...
えぇ from あい/おい/あえ, i-adjectives/negatives and お前
きゃ from ければ,
んち from のうち
とる from ておる (a Kansai-ism. I haven't seen it in よつば yet, but used by the "Idiot from Osaka" character in ツバサ.)
りゃ from れわ（それは -> そりゃ）

After a while it seems to just become automatic. Maybe it helps to imagine what it sounds like--I imagine this is similar to what English learners face trying to read Mark Twain's or Brian Jacques' non-standard dialogue.

I saw most of those while going through the Toki wo Kakeru Shoujou anki deck, which was pretty much the first "real" Japanese I started doing after RTK/Tae Kim. Some of them had me staring at it for a while going "What are they doing, making up words?" but eventually it did click. After going through that, reading the first chapter of Yotsuba was actually pretty okay.