My point was that I and I assume most English natives do not know the word "offing". Why use such obscure vocabulary when explaining something.

although 心得 can perhaps be translated as hint in certain situations, a better translation is knowledge.

I don't know, maybe マジ is technically gikun, you didn't explain it clearly. But it seems odd for it to be in the same class as words like 今朝 because you would only ever read 本気 as マジ when it is written with furigana. It's like writing エクスカリバー over 魔刀 or something, to me it seems like it should belong in a different class from the other examples.

nanorigana, I'm pretty sure I just copied from your site.

but anyway...

lesson 5:

I wouldn't call 我 archaic, it's used quite frequently.

You don't explain what your 'F' tag means. At first I assumed feminine and assumed you're wrong for saying watakushi is feminine, then I realised you probably mean formal.

Uchi isn't always feminine. It's often used by children.

Speaking about oneself in the third person is not necessarily childish in Japanese. You hear it frequently among adults.

Generally your labels are all generalisations and aren't that useful. You need to get a sense for how these words are used from observation.

"自分自身が立つ。
Jibun jishin ga oto wo tatsu."

you copy/pasted in "oto wo" for some reason. It would be oto wo tateru btw.

Last edited by nadiatims (2011 November 29, 8:21 am)

yudantaiteki wrote:

(If enough people are interested in classical I may start posting the 百人一首 materials I've been developing...)

Count me in as an 'aye' vote!

yudantaiteki wrote:

(If enough people are interested in classical I may start posting the 百人一首 materials I've been developing...)

I would be interested as well. ^^

ydtt, I really like your idea of using the 100 poems. It's part of common cultural knowledge that us foreigners often lack - like nursery rhymes and fairy tales. The bite-sized poems make that world more accessible and some of imagery, innuendo and symbolism is interesting.

There are websites with audio, woodblock prints, background notes and translations, so the relevance/context will be more readily apparent than with isolated sentences. (buonaparte's thread has some links for offline use - not sure which source.)

It's also a traditional holiday card game. (Friends played it with me, but I'm not really sure how popular it is.) I think most Japanese would be surprised/amused that a foreigner is able to play it. (parlour trick? ;p)  One website provides audio for the first part of the poems in order to practice identifying the next part.  (There's even a Nintendo museum near Kyoto with a giant illuminated squares people jump on when they recognize the poem.)

So, yeah...one more "aye"!

Yes, 我々is somewhat common. 6 years? Bravo. I wish I had that much life experience. It will come in time. At least I started my Classical Japanese studies young so it wouldn't be as hard. Plus, when I make my own lessons, I essentially double my own knowledge. I anticipate what you come up with. I didn't mean just for you yudantaiteki. If you're making lessons on them, it would be helpful for others.

May I add that 油断大敵 is a very clever name you got there.

Last edited by imabi (2011 November 29, 6:30 pm)

I would like to know how to play it to. Could you send the rules?

lesson 6
skimming through, it appears to all be correct. This information could be interesting for advanced learners as reference material. I think you should have lesson names in the menus instead of just numbering them though.


lesson 7

"何倍上ですか。(Polite)
Nanbai desu ka?
How many times did it increase?"

I think 何倍増えましたか would be better. Also you don't show how to read 上.

”温度を四度上る。(Plain)
Ondo wo yodo ageru.
To raise the temperature four degrees.”

that should be 上げる. 上る is read のぼる.

Last edited by nadiatims (2011 November 29, 8:30 pm)

Competitive karuta? I had no idea.  haha  (Wikipedia says it's like Fight Club and competitors can lose up to 8 lbs...  :p) 

ydtt: I was thinking that knowing these poems are well-known, are relevant today (even if only  among family or fringe in the form of a game [or in expressions, I suppose]), and have themes that can be enjoyed in small chunks, would help bring it alive for some students.  (I had to study classical Japanese in order to read legal material and it was really heavy and dry. No romance, no language play, no end-in-sight...  Studying some of the poems years later was voluntary and a pleasure.) I wasn't really imagining you bringing the game to your lecture...  :-)
edit in []

Last edited by Thora (2011 November 29, 10:34 pm)

I think the deletion rule is necessary because most gaijin will do it if not told. Laughable, I'm offended. I am at a loss in understanding you.

Those usages of ga are valid, and my translations stand. We all have the right to our own style. If I have found holes in your knowledge, I have done my job.

May I suggest you google が　接続助詞?

Bound particles, well if you read the previous lessons, you would know. There are several links to these terms to go back to where they are first mentioned. Please go back to Lesson 2. That statement is the reason why you say Nihongo de wa rather than Nihongo wa de.

My exercises are meant to make you think and see if you read. They are varied and purposely not consistent in format. It is also one feature of the site that I have least worked on. So, there is plenty of room for me to improve on them. Remember, the site is still in a somewhat embryonic stage. It is fine that you give advice for it to grow, but not to abort it.

Encountering incorrect usage is not the issue; reproducing incorrect usage is the issue.

I'm sorry, but my explanations of particles are not generalizations. They are what you would find in any given Japanese dictionary. Look up ga in one and tell me if it makes such a simple definition. I don't think so. Situations are only ways that such can be so. It would help to put the gist in the center of a piece of paper with branches going off to depict those situations. That is how I have always viewed things, and it works.

Besides, saying that it just marks the subject is the biggest generalization you could possibly make.

Idiomatic? No, I call it emphatic repetition, especially if we are really finding a literary device term.

This back and forth is interesting, but I would much prefer you send emails listing your points so that I can address them more quickly and give you my reasoning.

As our time zones are different, I would appreciate you email. I will not be able to respond until 9 hours when I wake up. Thank you.

Last edited by imabi (2011 November 29, 9:45 pm)

Thank you for your comment ydtt. I have always thought that immersion is the only way. Now, my version of immersion may inevitably make some people drawn, and I am trying my best to minimize that, as I'm sure you can tell through my hard work and commitment to address things here as best I can.

I'm still in high school, and my time there takes a way a lot of the time I would otherwise devote to improving what I have. So, it is normally pigeonholed for the weekend. Now, this weekend is screwed because I have an SAT. It is very bad timing. He has found typos, but has also used, in my opinion--and I may be completely wrong on this--, using the opportunity to tell me off. I went back last night to make a lot of sentences shorter and easier, and consequently some things were not saved and published properly. It is something that I am going to have to increasingly watch and make sure of doesn't happen; it's what you get when you rely on a site builder.

The way to approach ga, I agree, is very debatable. It is even debatable in 比較対照 analysis with the Korean particle. I have found it intriguing recently at the differences between the two.

I guess there will always be polar opposite ways of learning. That's what makes us all so unique. It's like what I thought today: the probability that one will exist in the first place is slim to none, and it is this that makes everything about us so unique.

If h/she doesn't like it, well, I'm sorry to say that. I do thank nadiatim to pointing typos. It's like what my English teacher told me. When you the writer write something, you think what it is right, but when you start writing down and make an error, you still read it as what you thought in your mind. It is only when another person notices that makes that switch go on and say "aha"!

Lastly, I'll take everything you ydtt and nadiatim said as a compliment.

...oh, and about karuta: remembering 100 poems is probably going to take me forever. I can't remember songs at all, much less A poem, although it does sound like a fun game that would probably be very competitive.

Last edited by imabi (2011 November 29, 9:58 pm)

That one sentence is parallelism nadiatim.

Wa is not used just to change topic. That is a fundamental misunderstanding in my opinion. My sentences are categorized in the right place and the definitions are as simple in my mind as can be with the information I am trying to present. If you can't understand the information, that is something we have to work on.

I honestly see nothing wrong with that page. So, like ydtt said, I think it's just we're coming from two completely perspectives on how to word things.

That sentence with money is forcing that the speaker will pay for the money in a way that is not as strong as the volition but not as meek as just using を.

Did you even notice that there were different sections in that lesson? The examples were not continuous.

Last edited by imabi (2011 November 29, 10:13 pm)

I didn't see imabi's lessons but from the comments here it looks like they are really worth a visit. Unfortunately, I consider myself a beginner so I don't think I could contribute to making your lessons better, imabi.

@nadiatims
I think you should take imabi's comment on a "fundamental misunderstanding" seriously. A mere beginner like myself can provide you with the following examples where wa is not a topic marker.

1. Source of that phrase is my japanese colleague:
[私は]"レントゲン"と読むとは、思いもしませんでした。
[ I] wouldn't even have thought to read it "rentgen".

2. Source of that phrase is DBJG (p.518):
僕は今日はテニスはしない。
I won't play tennis today.

3. Source is Murakami Haruki:
僕は嘘をつくのは得意ではない。
I'm not taking pride in lying.

Last edited by Inny Jan (2011 November 29, 11:33 pm)

@Inny Jan

"レントゲン"と読むとは、思いもしませんでした。"
(that/the fact) (it) is read レントゲン,  I never thought that.
Here the notion that something  is read "レントゲン" is brought up as topic...and it is commented on.

"僕は今日はテニスはしない。"
likewise these は are also topic markers, just the topic is being refined by use of multiple は for clarity. ie　しない refers to I, today and tennis.

@imabi
the sentence "犬は聞こえるが、犬は見えない。" is definitely incorrect and defending it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding.

犬は聞こえるが、猫は聞こえない。
or
耳は聞こえるが、目は見えない
or
声が聞こえるが、姿が見えない
would all be correct though...

there is nothing 'meek' about saying 金を払う。

There is no need to take anything personally. You have a site in which you've compiled a lot good information. To be good learner material it needs editing and it needs to be simplified so it can be digested easily. You use a lot of japanese grammatical terms that even advanced students (and likely a lot of natives) don't know or need to know. You suggest remembering a lot of unexplained information. For example how can someone apply or even remember your deletion rules before they have even learnt those particles (dake, koso etc)? As reference material you have a lot of good information but reference material needs to be indexed in a way that is easily searchable. It should also be as error-free as possible which is why I recommend you get a native to proof-read it. You're at a high level but not infallible (no one is). The advanced learners to whom a lot of your information could possibly be useful are going to find frequent errors in your examples. Some of these are typos, some are mistakes. If you want people to view your site as reliable, then it should be largely error-free.

I would be interested in reading your bit about classical Japanese because I have never studied it, but in the back of my mind I'll be wondering is this information really reliable.

Last edited by nadiatims (2011 November 29, 11:34 pm)