I find this also a brilliant idea, puddingcat. I for example have chatted with CarolinaCG from this forum via Skype in Japanese, although our mothertongues are two absolutely different ones. I also like the idea of correcting each other, as learners recognise grammatical mistakes better than natives (or at least that's what my impression is like from lang8 lol).

+1

I have a sudden urge to discuss 英語勉強　and　巨乳.

それは素晴らしい考えだ。 私は支持する。

Sounds like a good idea...there is the danger of many threads turning into fights over whether learners should be posting in Japanese or not but maybe a separate subforum would solve that.

fakewookie wrote:

Tori-kun wrote:

I also like the idea of correcting each other, as learners recognise grammatical mistakes better than natives (or at least that's what my impression is like from lang8 lol).

I don't think that that's true at all

I think he means that a lot of natives struggle with grammar, even in their native language. It happens a lot (I know)

Splatted wrote:

I have a sudden urge to discuss 英語勉強　and　巨乳.

じゃあ、あたしから始めよう。いったいどうすれば巨乳になれるのでしょうか？
前に雑誌でよんだけど、英語をちゃんと毎日勉強すれば英米人みたいに巨乳になるってマジか？

Tori-kun wrote:

Yeah. I actually find it a pity and it turns me in a way angry, that Japanese people.. simply don't know why they use this and that form/phrasing (or even kanji.. Ask them how they'd read 他人事. Not sure why, but lots of people in Japan read this word the incorrect way, I heard). At least we at school had to learn every bit of German grammar -- of course we are natives and can speak the language fluently, but our teachers always wanted us to know more, the background, namely, why the language works like it works when we speak it daily. I find this quite amusing, because I'd teach German just like that without further knowledge needed Ask ahead, how many Japanese could explain you the difference between は and が? I guess only a very few.

I'm pretty sure that any Japanese person could explain the difference between は and が.

I also have no idea why you'd get angry at the fact that Japanese people find it difficult to explain certain things about their own language when the same is true of native speakers of any language.

As for 他人事, I have no idea whether what you say is true or not, but what I will say is that 99% of anything people say about Japan or Japanese people is nonsense.

Tori-kun wrote:

ta12121 wrote:

I think he means that a lot of natives struggle with grammar, even in their native language. It happens a lot (I know)

Yeah. I actually find it a pity and it turns me in a way angry, that Japanese people.. simply don't know why they use this and that form/phrasing (or even kanji.. Ask them how they'd read 他人事. Not sure why, but lots of people in Japan read this word the incorrect way, I heard). At least we at school had to learn every bit of German grammar -- of course we are natives and can speak the language fluently, but our teachers always wanted us to know more, the background, namely, why the language works like it works when we speak it daily. I find this quite amusing, because I'd teach German just like that without further knowledge needed Ask ahead, how many Japanese could explain you the difference between は and が? I guess only a very few.

haha yea. It happens a lot, as for 他人事. My head reads that in a few different ways, a lot of the time I gained reading skills for different kanji pretty randomly at times. The kanji that annoys most people are the ones that have like 11 readings. Plus when do you use it in the right context? (Gained through learning via context-sentences)

fakewookie wrote:

I'm pretty sure that any Japanese person could explain the difference between は and が.

I feel like it's just as hard to explain as the difference between "a", "the", and using no article.

(My Japanese teacher said that a subject always takes が in a subordinate clause. I then had to learn what "subordinate clause" meant in English.)

fakewookie wrote:

I also have no idea why you'd get angry at the fact that Japanese people find it difficult to explain certain things about their own language when the same is true of native speakers of any language.

yup!

i still remember a year ago when i learned that there's a proper adjective order. (big red fire truck vs. red big fire truck.) i knew that red big fire truck sounds weird, but i never knew why.

as for me i don't like to receive corrections from other japanese learners unless they're really, really above my level and it's obvious that they are. otherwise it's kind of an ego thing that i don't like to get into.

This thread got a little off-topic but... I doubt someone could actually explain everything, since there are books which are like 1000 pages long on this matter. How a Japanese can explain all of this in a few sentences is beyond me.

And what's with the 他人事? It has two readings, so you probably have a problem that they don't use the traditional one (ひとごと... which you can write as 人事, by the way）? I've never really heard any ~20-40 year old saying ひとごと instead of たにんごと. The language naturally changes, so I don't see what's the problem.

EDIT:
@nadiatimsさんへ
友達がマッサージして大きくなったらしいけど、ホントはどうなんだろうな。とにかく、それやろうと思ったら、自分でやるより、男に揉んでもらえば問題無しってわけなんで＾＾

聞いちゃ悪いけど、何カップなんだろう？

因みに、あんなばかげたこといったい誰が言った？ｗ

Last edited by merlin.codex (2011 September 23, 2:36 pm)

Splatted wrote:

多分ぼくの不良だけど、意味はちょっと不明だからこたえは少し変かもしれない。
僕も巨乳への熱中は理解できない。中位のほうがいいと思うけど、それより形のほうが大事です。

僕もそう思う。形は一番重大なことだ。しかしながら、なぜNadiatimsの乳房について話すかどうか分からないけど。ｗ　なんか冗談のか。

I'd appreciate any corrections to my Japanese. I don't care what level you are if you know something I don't please tell me.

同じだ・・

Edit:What's Magamo's easy to remember rule for deciding between は and が?

@Splatted: 下記を見てね。koohiiのforumで見つけた。役に立つと思うね。:)

magamo wrote:

は vs. が is quite easy if you know this simple rule: Assume you want to say Xは/がY. If your mind is focusing on X, then you use が. If Y is more important, then you use は. That's it.

Here's a simple example. Imagine you want to say "I am a/the teacher":

Me: Who is a teacher?
You: 私が先生です. (You use "が" because "I" is more important than "先生です," and your mind is focusing on "私.")

Me: What do you do for a living?
You: 私は先生です. (You use "は" because "teacher" is more important than "私," and your mind is focusing on "先生.")

If you're having a hard time understanding which part in a sentence is more important, try answering the questions by saying only X or Y:

Me: Who is a teacher?
You: I.
(Makes sense. Right?)

Me: Who is a teacher?
You: Teacher.
(I'll punch you in the face.)

Me: What do you do?
You: Teacher.
(Makes sense.)

Me: What do you do?
You: I.
(wtf)

A few more examples may help:

Me: Who did this?
You: I did this. 私がこれをしました。(You use "が" because you're focusing on "私." In fact, "私" or "I" is ok as a short reply while saying "This" doesn't make sense.)

Me: What did you do?
You: I did this. 私はこれをしました。(You use "は" because you're focusing on "this." "This" is a perfect short answer in this case while "I" doesn't make any sense.)

Since English and Japanese are completely different, this "answering by X or Y" method is too simplistic. So, just listen to your heart once you get the idea of this rule. For example,

Me: Who would love a person like me... *sigh*
You: I love you.

So, is 私はあなたを愛しています？ Or 私があなたを愛しています? Actually either sentence makes sense in this case. But if the sentence in your mind is like "I LOVE YOU. Believe me. I DO." then you say 私は because you're focusing more on "愛している" than "私." If you want to say "I love you! The whole world may hate you, but I love you!" then you say "私が."

This rule should work for almost all simple sentences; lots of native Japanese speakers are using this method to revise/polish their writing. But of course there are exceptions. I'll give a tricky example:

Me: What do you think of this?
You: I think this is good.

If you follow your heart, you'd say 私はこれは良いと思います; When you're saying 私, your mind is already focusing on "This is good" because that's the essential part of the sentence, so you say 私は. Also, "Good" is more important than "This" so you say これは. Actually, a native Japanese speaker would also say so in an informal conversation. This sounds natural and idiomatic in spoken Japanese. But asshol..., um, linguists came up with a counter-intuitive rule that you shouldn't say は as a particle more than once in one sentence. This is probably because multiple はs could be ambiguous in more complicated sentences. That's why educated Japanese people would write 私の意見ですがこれは良いと思います (It's like replacing "I think" with "In my opinion"). We all learn this kind of fancy paraphrasing at school, but no one cares about multiple はs in an informal conversation. You're anal if you say "Hey, you just said は twice!"

So this simple は vs. が rule may not always work in highly advanced sentences, and you could make errors like a Japanese kid. But I think it's much better than making gaijin-ish errors... Seriously, who said teachers should teach the grammar rules like subject vs. topic and は = as for? They may be important in linguistics, but students are supposed to "speak" the language, not analyze it...