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Old 2008-02-05, 13:05   Link #1341
darksider
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miko Miko View Post
I am awful with Japanese..

So for my starter

Is this how to write 'Konnichi Wa'

こにちわ in Hiragana (ひらがな?).. Seems a little basic but I don't know Japanese at all.
Well, it's the basic

こんにちは or こんにちわ - I usually use the latter for a reason, but I guess I am minority here.
If you dare use kanji it's "今日は" but few people use this and it actually doesn't feel like a greeting word when it's out of context.

By the way, you typed "hiragana" correctly
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Old 2008-02-05, 13:10   Link #1342
Miko Miko
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Quote:
Originally Posted by darksider View Post
Well, it's the basic

こんにちは or こんにちわ - I usually use the latter for a reason, but I guess I am minority here.
If you dare use kanji it's "今日は" but few people use this and it actually doesn't feel like a greeting word when it's out of context.

By the way, you typed "hiragana" correctly
Thanks for the help!!
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Old 2008-02-05, 16:29   Link #1343
richvh
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こんにちわ is sort of cutesy.
If you're using the romaji input method with the Windows XP IME, you need to type nnni or n'ni to get んに.
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Old 2008-02-05, 17:31   Link #1344
Nagato
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googling こんにちわ brought me to this page http://park15.wakwak.com/~o0o0o0o0/bokumetsu/ (annihilation of "konnichiwa" ??)

Quite interesting. From the site besides cutesy, it appears that expressing youthfulness is also the reason why people use it, since many young people use it. But, while maybe it's ok to use it in casual mail with with your friends, it could be very rude if you use it, say, in email to your teacher or in another formal situation, since it's not officially accepted. I think same goes to こんばんわ as well.
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Old 2008-02-06, 06:18   Link #1345
LiberLibri
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Mechanical replacement often makes serious problems. Think step by step.

I was born in Japan and am a native Japanese speaker. The first foreign language I learned was English. My English teacher told me repeatedly that when I translate a Japanese sentence into English I should rewrite the original text so that the structure and meaning get clearer. He described the preliminary process as "Japanese-Japanese translation". I believe it is common to you. When you write Japanese sentence, firstly you should re-structure the original text in your head; make English-English translation. Restore the implicit grammatical omissions you usually ignore, and have clear ideas on what you are going to express.

Quote:
Originally Posted by richvh View Post
蛇を持っている人に歩きました。 (I walked to the person carrying snakes.)
I think it can be translated (English-English) as:

I walked {in the direction of} the person who was carrying snakes.
A___B__________C____________D___________E________F

OK? Then go ahead.

subject1 ----- verb1 --- particle -- obj1/sub2 - verb2 -- object2
{watashi ha} {aruita} {no hou e} {hito} {kakaete iru} {hebi wo}
A_____________B________C______D_______E__________F

watashi ha hebi wo kakaete iru hito no hou e aruita. [私は蛇を抱えている人の方へ歩いた]
A_________ F________E______D____C_____B

In English, the logical structure of the sentence can be analyzed as ABC(DEF). In contrast the Japanese version is ordered as A(FED)CB.

As for the word "ni [に]", it is very ambiguous. In principle, it functions like "in" in English; it demarcates the potential time and space of the situation being told about. asa ni [朝に] means {in} the morning. kaisha ni [会社に] means {in} the office. There are also several derivative usages. no hou ni [の方に], namely "in the direction of", is often abbreviated into just ni [に]; e.g., kaisha ni iku [会社に行く] means "to go {in the direction of} the office". kita ni aruku [北に歩く] is an abbreviation form of "kita no hou ni aruku" [北の方に歩く]. I think the nearest western word corresponding to ni is "À" in French.

Because of the ambiguity, people may avoid using bare "ni" in a confusing occasion. Rather, they use combination phrases; "no hou ni" [の方に] for direction; "no tame ni" [のために] for sake; "no moto ni" [の下に] for auspice; "ni yotte" [によって] for means/actor. For instance, "inu ni yotte kamareru" [犬によって噛まれる / to be bitten by a dog] is clearer than just "inu ni kamareru", albeit more verbose.

You cannot say "hito ni aruku" [人に歩く]. aruku [歩く], hashiru [走る], tobu [飛ぶ], and other phisical action verbs are not normally used with bare "ni". When you walk in the direction of a person, it is better described as "hito no hou ni aruku [人の方に歩く]". However, in metaphorical usage, you can say e.g. "wales ni tobu" [ウェールズに飛ぶ / to make an air travel to Wales (in order to hide oneself from the police)], and "kusuri ni hashiru" [薬に走る / to become the slave of drug (in order to escape from the reality)].
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Old 2008-02-06, 08:45   Link #1346
richvh
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そうですね。それを忘れたので恥ずかしくなりました。前に「ゆきの物語」の訂正を受けると、「ゆきに行く」 とかいう文章が「ゆきのところに行く」のように直してくれました。
「人に向かって歩く」も言ったもいいですか。

For those following along:
Oops. I'm ashamed that I forgot that. When I received corrections to "Yuki no Monogatari" before, sentences like "Yuki ni iku" were corrected to "Yuki no tokoro ni iku."
Can you also say "Hito ni mukatte aruku"?
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Old 2008-02-06, 09:50   Link #1347
darksider
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richvh View Post
「人に向かって歩く」言っもいいですか。
Corrected

And the answer is yes, no problem at all on that sentence.

(redundant "も" in one sentence is a popular error which native Japanese too very frequently make, and maybe sometimes better left as it is for explicitness of the sentence )

Last edited by darksider; 2008-02-06 at 11:44.
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Old 2008-02-06, 12:16   Link #1348
Vexx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LiberLibri View Post
Mechanical replacement often makes serious problems. Think step by step.

I was born in Japan and am a native Japanese speaker. The first foreign language I learned was English. My English teacher told me repeatedly that when I translate a Japanese sentence into English I should rewrite the original text so that the structure and meaning get clearer. He described the preliminary process as "Japanese-Japanese translation". I believe it is common to you. When you write Japanese sentence, firstly you should re-structure the original text in your head; make English-English translation. Restore the implicit grammatical omissions you usually ignore, and have clear ideas on what you are going to express. ...
Interestingly, that is basically how my Japanese instructor teaches Engish->Japanese ... just in reverse. She does an english-english translation (Now With Particles!) and grammatical rearrangement first.
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Old 2008-02-08, 11:26   Link #1349
zetsumei
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I was wondering what's the different between changing a verb into a ’れる’ and ’てる’ ending.
'reru' -> to be able to (do something), is 'teru' similar to 'reru' but only a mild or stronger version of it?

Also, I want to ask about the ’なく' injection. From my understand is means something like "to be close" is that even close?

Thanks, in advance.
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Old 2008-02-08, 12:59   Link #1350
richvh
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For ichidan verbs, the られる conjugation can be either potential (can do) is passive (is done):
食べる eat 食べられる can eat/is eaten
For godan verbs, there is a clear separation between potential and passive:
読む read 読める can read 読められる is read

てる is a contraction of ている, which is roughly equivalent to the present progressive (is doing) form in English:
食べている is eating
読んでいる is reading

Do you mean the なく inflection of ない, or an interjejection? If the former, it's just the pre-verb form of ない; if the latter, I have no idea what you're talking about. How about including some context?
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Old 2008-02-08, 13:29   Link #1351
zetsumei
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Thanks a lot richvh, definitely have a better understand of things now.
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Old 2008-02-08, 17:04   Link #1352
nikorai
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Hello.
This week I found some free time to study japanese but now I'm stuck with back-translation excercises. Not completely but I often find it difficult to find appropriate japanese equivalent.
For one, I have trouble with this phrase from one of the exercises. Translated from Russian it looks like this:
"Christian-style wedding ceremony can be held not only in a church but also in ceremonial halls that have suitable equipment for ceremonies"

Attempted translation:
キリスト教の結婚式が行われる場所は教会だけでなく、ふさわしい設備のあるホールです。

Ok I'm not sure about grammar.
Also, I'm interested in the usage of 'not only but also'. I'd appreciate if somebody could provide examples of some complicated cases, with various parts of speech.
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Old 2008-02-08, 23:53   Link #1353
mandarb916
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
Hello.
This week I found some free time to study japanese but now I'm stuck with back-translation excercises. Not completely but I often find it difficult to find appropriate japanese equivalent.
For one, I have trouble with this phrase from one of the exercises. Translated from Russian it looks like this:
"Christian-style wedding ceremony can be held not only in a church but also in ceremonial halls that have suitable equipment for ceremonies"

Attempted translation:
キリスト教の結婚式が行われる場所は教会だけでなく、ふさわしい設備のあるホールです。

Ok I'm not sure about grammar.
Also, I'm interested in the usage of 'not only but also'. I'd appreciate if somebody could provide examples of some complicated cases, with various parts of speech.
キリスト教風の結婚式は教会だけではなく、ふさわしい設備が整っている式場でも行う事が可能で す。

A little pressed for time atm, so I'll try to clarify this in an edit later.

I'm not sure what you mean by complicated cases.
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Old 2008-02-09, 00:08   Link #1354
richvh
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Just search "not only but also" on http://www.alc.co.jp and you'll get plenty of examples.
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Old 2008-02-09, 08:22   Link #1355
RandomGuy
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Not to derail the discussion, but I am happy to report that I have officially passed Level 2 of the JLPT. Now I need to decide whether to shoot for Level 1, or give it a pass and wait for my kanji reading skills to develop further.
(I'd probably be there already if not for my weakness in that area; while I passed all sections of the test, the only one I managed with a score I was truly happy with was the listening. So many glyphs and attendant pronunciations to remember...)
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Old 2008-02-09, 09:52   Link #1356
nikorai
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mandarb916, richvh
That's awesome. Thanks for your help.
Quote:
キリスト教風の結婚式は教会だけではなく、ふさわしい設備が整っている式場でも行う事が可能で す
Yeah, with my knowledge it's hard to form such phrases in Japanese. I didn't know the word 'totonou', for one, let alone the grammar.

RandomGuy
Congratulations. No, really, if I'm not mistaken this level supposes a person is fluent in Japanese and knows around 1000 kanji.
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Old 2008-02-09, 12:21   Link #1357
FatPianoBoy
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Level 2 supposes that you're fluent enough to put Japanese as an ability on your resume and apply for work as a translator or for any open position within Japan itself. It's a huge deal to pass JLPT Level 2.

おめでとうございますRandomGuy。もう上手になりましたけど、自分の勉強を止まれなければなりませ ん。がんばってつづけましょう。
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Old 2008-02-09, 12:27   Link #1358
Nagato
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I'm afraid someone would get here and preach about the differences between fluency and proficiency.
I passed JLPT level 1 and still I'm not fluent yet. Kanji kanji kanji, I should learn harder.
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Old 2008-02-09, 13:13   Link #1359
nikorai
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FatPianoBoy
Quote:
自分の勉強を止まれなければなりませ ん
to me that sounds as if one must stop studies where one shouldn't
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Old 2008-02-09, 13:18   Link #1360
FatPianoBoy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
FatPianoBoy

to me that sounds as if one must stop studies where one shouldn't
... You know, it does. That's what happens when I try to switch to Japanese on sleep deprivation
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