verb + suru

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raluca Member
From: Romania Registered: 2012-11-16 Posts: 11 Website

Can someone explain the structure verb in the dictionary form + suru to me? Or just point to some links that explain it?

I've encountered it with the verb 開く, as in:
新しいタブで開くするにはどのようにすればよいか?
but then I tried google-ing some random verbs like 食べる and 飲む and I could also find some examples.

Apologies if this is something super basic that everyone knew already. I just can't recall ever having seen this before.

thistime Member
Registered: 2008-11-04 Posts: 223

Hmm... where did you see this sentence? That sentence seems a bit unnatural to me other than just the 開くする。I have never seen this either and I tried googling these words too and couldn't find any examples. But, maybe this is something I am not familiar with either.

yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

Yeah, that sentence is bizarre in a number of ways -- I have a hard time believing it was written by a native speaker (automatic translator?)

開くする is ungrammatical; you shouldn't see it very often, if at all.

EDIT: Here's the original thread with this sentence
http://ap.atmarkit.co.jp/bbs/core/vblab/20287

It was definitely written by a non-native speaker.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2012 November 16, 6:38 pm)

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SendaiDan Member
From: Australia Registered: 2009-08-24 Posts: 201 Website

As yudan said, a verb in 辞書形 + する is ungramattical. I would like to suggest however, that even if this was a native speaker, everyone makes typos and/or do not reread their sentences afterwards etc.

raluca Member
From: Romania Registered: 2012-11-16 Posts: 11 Website

Thank you for clearing this up for me. As I'm still learning, I can't quite distinguish between  native and non-native Japanese.

Kewickviper Member
Registered: 2009-07-15 Posts: 143

This brings up an interesting point for me actually. Can you always trust native material as gospel? I often see things written in English that are either really poorly written or flat out wrong and I'm talking about published material and not just facebook (where of course almost everything is wrong).
So far in my study I have been taking anything I read and hear by native people as correct, but how am I to know when they're wrong?

Zlarp Member
Registered: 2012-10-26 Posts: 124

In theory you should be learning so much that mistakes will sort themselves out in time.

thistime Member
Registered: 2008-11-04 Posts: 223

Well, I think it does bring up a good point because the original sentence came from some kind of forum where even if it had been written by a native speaker the chance of there being a mistake goes up a great deal (although I have had someone tell me "Japanese people don't make mistakes in typing because we have kanji haha lol ). Of course you will find mistakes in "professionally" published materials from time to time but I still think it is a much safer bet than forums, Facebook, Twitter and the like.

Last edited by thistime (2012 November 17, 3:46 pm)

uisukii Guest

It is a little similar to casual spoken English in Australia: the sheer amount of "ungrammatical" and "incorrect" phraseology makes up a good majority of the way people generally communicate and understand each other, with their written communication not all a great deal different. Those whom speak with a semblance of professional or what is considered "correct" language usage are generally the minority of society and many view it as "snobbish", and you'll often hear the interjection "yeah, what's that in English", if you are speaking or communicating over the ever-popular instant textual mediums in a manner which would be at an "educated" level.

Language is after all, a memetic vehicle given inertia by the lowest common denominators- those natives who manipulate the language on a daily basis. While I agree that finding a large range of "grammatically accurate" native sentences is important, especially in the beginning, but as Zlarp touched upon: your input should be massive enough that these idiosyncrasies and "incorrect structures" will eventually become part of an internalized understanding. Much as in our native languages we are able to understand when a phrase is "off" even if we are not cognizant of the underlying semantic properties.

Last edited by uisukii (2012 November 17, 6:58 pm)

yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

I don't know if it's as much a problem in Japanese because Japanese people don't seem to have quite as much of an obsession with creating arbitrary grammar rules as English speakers do -- there are some that exist, but it doesn't seem to be as widespread.  Maybe because they have other things that educated people can use to be snobbish; kanji or whatever.

uisukii Guest

thistime wrote:

although I have had someone tell me "Japanese people don't make mistakes in typing because we have kanji haha lol

lol There are so many running jokes in countless manga based around the very fact that Japanese people use incorrect kanji -often enough to warrant a meta comedy theme.

Kewickviper Member
Registered: 2009-07-15 Posts: 143

Thank you for that great insight uisukii! You sure do have a way with words.
I think you make interesting points and I agree that over time with the mass amount of information consumption will weed out the bad from the good.
However many of the people I know from school and in general in my area in the UK all speak like blithering idiots. If anyone tried to use basically anything they said as a learning source they would start to sound pretty dumb. I wonder if there is anything like that in Japan?

I get a little scared trying to use Japanese that I hear a lot, but is technically wrong or slangy like 全然違う, よく分かんない、 なんだこりゃ etc... Because a lot of the time when I hear non-native people try and use slang in English it sounds very out of place and strange, even when they are completely fluent.

Edit: Also I'm not talking about being snobbish. I'm with Stephen Fry and hate anyone that's overly pedantic with language. But on the other end of the scale if someone talks like a blithering idiot all the time or swears a lot I automatically stereotype them as being an idiot.

Last edited by Kewickviper (2012 November 17, 7:18 pm)

blackhack New member
Registered: 2008-07-31 Posts: 5

uisukii wrote:

Those whom speak with a semblance of professional or what is considered "correct" language usage are generally the minority of society

"Those who speak" is correct here because "who" is used for SUBJECTS whereas "whom" is used for objects.

Kewickviper Member
Registered: 2009-07-15 Posts: 143

blackhack wrote:

uisukii wrote:

Those whom speak with a semblance of professional or what is considered "correct" language usage are generally the minority of society

"Those who speak" is correct here because "who" is used for SUBJECTS whereas "whom" is used for objects.

Oh dear, it has begun!

uisukii Guest

blackhack wrote:

uisukii wrote:

Those whom speak with a semblance of professional or what is considered "correct" language usage are generally the minority of society

"Those who speak" is correct here because "who" is used for SUBJECTS whereas "whom" is used for objects.

As you are. Something I often misuse- though maybe now, through public correction, I may remember it's "correct" usage. smile Like most, I am part of the majority of English speakers within my society.

vonPeterhof Member
Registered: 2010-07-23 Posts: 376

uisukii wrote:

thistime wrote:

although I have had someone tell me "Japanese people don't make mistakes in typing because we have kanji haha lol

lol There are so many running jokes in countless manga based around the very fact that Japanese people use incorrect kanji -often enough to warrant a meta comedy theme.

Yeah, it's either confusing similar-looking characters or accidentally switching the kana around. My favourite example is 俺様ときたらおちこんでる becoming 俺様ときたらおちんこでる big_smile It was quoted in さよなら絶望先生 as an example of an actual notorious typo from another manga, but I don't know if that's true.

undead_saif Member
From: Mother Earth Registered: 2009-01-28 Posts: 635

uisukii wrote:

It is a little similar to casual spoken English in Australia: the sheer amount of "ungrammatical" and "incorrect" phraseology makes up a good majority of the way people generally communicate and understand each other, with their written communication not all a great deal different. Those whom speak with a semblance of professional or what is considered "correct" language usage are generally the minority of society and many view it as "snobbish", and you'll often hear the interjection "yeah, what's that in English", if you are speaking or communicating over the ever-popular instant textual mediums in a manner which would be at an "educated" level.

You need to check Arabic and see vast contrast between standard "correct" Arabic used in books and documents, and the everyday Arabic and dialects, which greatly vary from country to country (in words, pronunciations and conjugations), and even in official work, using non-standard Arabic won't make you look stupid, unless of course it's an official statement or talk.

Basically, anyone who speaks the standard language is understood, but will never understand anything said by other unless they use the standard language too.

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