nihongo wo benkyou shitai

Another quick and easy one for today, but nonetheless, it's a handy one to pull out.

Your Japanese friend has taken out to show you some Japanese culture. You end up in a restaurant and, not knowing your 枝豆 from your 落花生, you order the first thing you see. Minutes later, a plate of nice, fresh 馬刺し turns up. My, it looks damn tasty... until you ask what it is.

At this point, you may want to do one of several things. But, the most diplomatic is say something like:

美味しそうですよ。でも、ちょっとおなかがいっぱい。食べてみる。

Which should translate to 'yum, that looks tasty. But, I am a little full. I'll try to eat it'. The important bit is 食べてみる. You must recognise the use of 食べる and probably notice it's been ーて conjugated. The clever bit is to slap みる on the end. I guess it's literally saying 'eat and see'. If you squint, it kinda looks like 'try', doesn't it?

The structure is: verb clause （－て）＋みる。

English: I tried to wake up early this morning.
Jenglish: [this morning][early][wake up + tried]
日本語： 今朝、早く起きてみた。　


またね

OK, whilst many would argue that I need help on many levels, today I need help on one specific thing. This has bugged me for way over a year and I still don't have an answer.

How do you get the つ”　character in Japanese. I've tried everything. zsu, tzu, zu...

I am finding it hard to avoid using words with this character in them!

またね

I really need to come up with some better subject lines!

On the face of it, this seems to be pretty basic Japanese; something that most of us learn in year 2 (if not year 1, for those clever people among us). But, bear with me...

Now, according my wonderful 元気２ textbook (p163), to make a verb 'easy to do' or 'hard to do', you simply add やすい and にくい to the verb stem. Well, I think this is wrong! I think you add them to base 2 of the verb (base 2 is the い one). Take a look at this:

食べる --> 食べやすい
聞く --> 聞きやすい
愛する --> 愛しやすい

So we now have 'easy to eat', 'easy to hear' and 'easy to love'. To turn these into 'hard/difficult to' verbs, just plug in にくい in the same fashion. Easy-peasy....

If it ended there, it would be pretty easy. But, something can be hard to do for a variety of reasons. It could be something that is (1) unpleasant to do, (2) something that is hard to do because of a lack of the right skills or tools, or (3) it could something which is hard to do due to some psychological reason. Consider:

It is hard to decide which flavour ice-cream I want.
It is hard to translate this email.
It is hard to walk my dog when it is raining.
It is difficult to go to Japan without visiting Tokyo.
It was difficult to eat raw horse meat.
It's going to be difficult to pass the JLPT1 exam in December.

Anyone care to guess which of (1), (2) and (3) the above sentences are examples of?

In Japanese, you can specifiy the meaning of 'hard' that you wish to convey...

If it is unpleasant, use ずらい
If it is due to a lack of skills or tools etc., use にくい
If it is due to some psychological reason, use がたい


English: It is hard to translate this email.
Jenglish: [this email][translate + difficult][is]
日本語： このメールを訳しにくいです

English: It was difficult to eat raw horse meat.
Jenglish: [raw horse meat][eat + difficult][is]
日本語： 　馬刺しを食べずらいです。

（馬刺し　=　ば・さ・し）

English: It is hard to decide which flavour ice-cream I want.
Jenglish: [which flavour ice cream][want][decide + hard][is]
日本語： 　どれ香料のアイスクリームがほしいのは決めがたいですよ。

（香料　=　こう・りょう）
（決める　=　き・める）

Can anyone correct the last translation please? Notice how I stuck よ at the end. Dead proud of that. What a sentence!

またね。

OK. Another short and sweet one, which I'm sure everyone except me already knew about.

Consider the type of question that starts "Do you know...", for example

English: Do you know this film?
Jenglish: [this film][know]
日本語： この映画を知っていますか。

The appropriate Japanese verb for 'to know' in this context is 知る, which in the polite 'present simple' tense is 知ります. However, as usual, life just ain't that simple with Japanese. Here, the Japanese (in commom with several other languages, I think) use the 'present progressive' tense, and would actually translate the question as "Are you knowing this film?". So, we get:

日本語： この映画を知っていますか。

When answering this there are a few options: (1) you do know, (2) you don't know, or (3) you didn't know, but do now. Using some posh grammatical terms these are present simple for (1) & (2) and past simple for (3). Of course, its' not that simple!

If you want to answer 'I know...' then you reply in the present progressive:

日本語： 知っています。

If you want to answer 'I don't know' then use the present simple:

日本語： 知りません。

And if you want to reply 'I didn't know' (implying you do now), use the past simple:

日本語： 知りませんでした。

またね。。。

Another quick, but useful thing to be able to whip out of your conversational bag-of-tricks is the ability to say you are interested in something. It actually pretty simple, though the kanji has about 90 strokes.... Just add に興味がある after a noun. Incidently, the reading of these kanji is きょう・み.

English: I am interested in Japanese drama
Jenglish: [Japanese drama][interested in]
日本語： 日本のドラマに興味があります。

But, wouldn't it sound better to say 'I am interested in watching Japanese drama'. Of course it would! Problem is, I don't actualy know how to. Here is my attempt:

English: I am interested in watching Japanese drama
Jenglish: [Japanese drama][watching][interested in]
日本語： 日本のドラマを見ているのに興味があります。

Notice how I quietly stuck a sentence normaliser in there :-) I'm dead proud of this sentence. But, can anyone confirm if it is right, or suggest the correct answer?

まてね。

Bad, bad boy.... 僕は馬鹿です。ごめんなさい。。。

Honesty, I have been busier than usual. A friend recently suggested I need a 30 hour day. It's a good idea :-)

Tonight really will be a quick post. It's just a handful of verbs and when to use them. Not rocket science, but handy for me with my fish-like memory...

to send email 送る or 出す. The latter is used more when speaking.
to receive email 受け取る

arrive (at a place) 着く
arrive (time) 来る

recommend 推薦する (formal)
recommend 勧める (informal)


And a final point for today... How do you say you enjoy doing something??? Easy. Add 楽しむ to the て form of the verb.

English: I enjoy drinking beer with my friends
Jenglish: [friends][with][beer][drinking][enjoy]
日本語： 友達とビールを飲んで楽しみます

See, told you it'd be short :-)

An hour ago, if you asked me if I knew what the present perfect tense is, I would have looked pretty blank..... which is a bit embarrassing as I use it everyday in both English and Japanese. But first, here is an example of the past tense:

My friend broke his arm.

Pretty clear? At some point in the past, my friend suffered a broken arm. We could also reasonably assume from this statement that his arm is OK now. Why? Well, the past tense tends to define events that occurred in the past, with no link to the present.

If we have to describe an event that has happened, BUT has a link to the present, we have to use present perfect. For example:

My friend has broken his arm.

Again, at some point in the past, my friend's arm became broken, and still is. OK. Compare these two sentences.

I was busy this morning.
I have been busy this morning.

The first suggests that either 'I am no longer busy' or 'It is no longer morning' or possibly both. The second suggests that 'I am still busy' or ' it is still morning' or (again) both. Infact, this is just one possible use of the Present Perfect tense. Here's a quick list:

• When the time period of an event has not yet finished. Comapre:
  

I lived in Germany for 3 years. (Plain Past)
I have lived in Germany for 3 years. (Present Perfect)

• When giving recent news. Compare:
  

Matt was ill (Plain Past)
Matt has been ill again (Present Perfect)

• When referring to an event without being specific about the time. Compare:
  

I sat the JLPT exam last year. (Plain Past)
I have sat the JLPT exam. (Present Perfect)

Seems reasonable enough....

Now, in Japanese, there appears to be two ways in which to structure Present Perfect sentences. One I don't really understand yet, so I'll conveniently pretend it doesn't exist! The other one, ことがある, is first year Japanese stuff (but did you knowthe posh name for it?).

Let's take it for a spin in the grammatical Ferrari...

English: I have taken the JLPT exam.
Jenglish: [JLPT exam][take + Present Past]
日本語： 日本語能力試験を受けたことがあります。

Note: JLPT = 日本語能力試験.

But, how would you say 'I have taken the JLPT1 exam.' Prizes to be won....

You just can't avoid them in everyday speech. Everyone makes comparisons. They're fundamental to communicating information. Well, if used properly...

Some useful comparisons are:

[X] is more [adjective] than [Y]
[X] is less [adjective] than [Y]
[X] is as [adjective] as [Y]

Of course, the Japanese change everything around to:

[X][Y] more [adjective] is
[X][Y] less [adjective] is
[X][Y] about the same [noun] is

or in real Japanese:

[X] は [Y] より [adjective] です
[X] は [Y] ほど [adjective (negative form)] です
[X] は [Y] 同じ位 [noun] です

Any questions?

またね。。

The posts have been rather long, so time for a quick one.....

One thing that bothered me until a Japanese friend saved me from insanity was the difference between our old friends なければなりません, なければいきません and にちがいない.

In English it's easy... take a look at these sentences:

I have to finish the homework
I have to eat all my dinner
I have to write a proposal for a £3million tender

Simple stuff in English. I guess this is English being Japanese (bear with me on this). The Japanese language likes to be ambiguous. It's a politeness thing. The Japanese avoid definites. Take the simple phrase 'I don't know'... This is dead simple to translate.

English: I don't know
Jenglish: [know + negative]
日本語： 知りません

Of course it's wrong. It's the classic gaijin mistake. the verb 'to know' implies , well... knowledge. And knowledge is definite: You either know something or you don't. And when we translate this we end up with something rather arrogant. What we need to do is not be so arrogantly definite.

There are three states of knowing.... (1) I do not know, (2) I know, and (3) I am in the process of knowing (coming into know) - spot the ambiguous one....

A quick dictionary search shows that 'come to know' is the verb わかる. So, to be Japanese about this, you should say 'I have not come to know the answer to your question', or わかりません.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah. Definites. English being Japanese. Ambiguity.

The three English statements above are all ambiguous. What exactly does 'I have to' mean in this context? We've all done it...

Friend: matey, you coming to the party tonight?
You: nah. I have to clip my toenails.

You actually don't 'have to' clip, you 'want to' or 'feel the need to'. No-one had actually told you to . And it's here the Japanese make the distinction. If you are obliging yourself to do something, use なければいきません. If you have been told to do something by someone or some external thing (like a sign), use なければなりません.

See, said it was a short post.

おやすみ

「高校教師」 is one odd drama series. If you don't know it, it's basically about a terminally ill high-school teacher (hence the title) of an all girl high school. Through a series of misunderstandings, one of his pupils believes she is the one terminally ill and, far from telling her different, he actually encourages her to believe this. There is a B-plot involving a club host and the rape and subsequent degredation of another student, but all-in-all this is one sick puppy. And I thought 「中心世界で」was depressing.....

At least　ごくせ2 is being released on fansub soon! Roll on the mirth :-)

OK, this may seem a pretty basic thing to be able to ask, but as you probably know by now, very little is basic in Japanese.

The English is simple: ' Where is the cinema?' - abrupt, but intelligible. Much nicer to ask ' Do you know where the cinema is", or 'Can you tell me how to get to the cinema', or even 'Would you be kind enough to tell me where the cinema is'. You'll probably agree that these all ask the same basic question, but with varying levels of politeness.

Before we go any further, we have to point out something... the example English sentences above all have a question buried inside them. 'Where the cinema is' and 'how to get to the cinema', for example. Having questions within a larger sentence is a Big Thing in Japanese and requires a new bit of grammar. It's time to introduce か and かどうか. Yes, か is the question particle. Yes, it does (essentially) mean the same thing here. The rule of thumb is that if the inner question doesn't use a question word, use かどうか; if it does, use か. Simple eh?

Example....

Do you know how to get to the cinema?

The inner question is 'how to get to the cinema' and it's using the question word 'how'. Looks like this is a job for か.

English: Do you know how to get to the cinema?
Jenglish: [cinema to][how to get][know]?
日本語： 映画館にどうやって行くか知っていますか。

English: I don't remember when Matt's going to Japan.
Jenglish: [Matt][Japan to][when going][don't remember]
日本語： マットさんが日本にいつ行くか覚えていません。

As a foreigner, you'll find the above syntax acceptable and no-one should take offence, but if you really want to do things properly you'll need to hit them with the linguistic equivalent of a Tony Jaa elbow combo (and if you don't know what this is, watch Ong Bak). We will need to use a Polite Request, a submissive verb ('teach' sounds better than 'tell') and we'll top it off with the inner question stuff. Some grammar points first:

Polite request: verb in て form + いただけませんか　（p18 of Richard's cool ーて form verb guide)
where is: どこにある
to teach: 教える

Ready? We'll have the English and polite English...

English: Do you know how to get to the cinema?
Penglish: Would you be kind enough to teach me where the cinema is?
Jenglish: [cinema][where is][teach][polite & humble request]
日本語： 　映画館はどこにあるか教えていただけませんか。

Be warned, this is truly powerful Japanese and should only be used by professionals. In other words, if you use this, the person you are speaking to will assume you are fluent and hit you full speed with their reply. Personally, I'm not ready to wield such power. Good luck.

おやすみ

It's always the little words which cause problems. Take the verb 'to open' as an example. In good old English it's pretty easy to use this.

1. The door opened.
2. Because it was hot, I opened the window.
3. Please open this beer.

Now I've been speaking English since I was born (so that's 27-ish years :-), so I reckon I have a pretty good grasp of it. But it was a bit of a surprise to learn that sentences (1) and (2) above are different. In (1), we are using 'open' intransitively and in (2) and also (3), we use it transitively. Apparently verbs can do this. Now I understand why when learning Japanese verbs, a lot of them had two readings 始める、始まる etc... The rule of thumb is that if a verb has a person 'doing' the verb then it's transitive, if no person is necessary, then it's intransitive. So, (1) above is intransitive and (2) and (3) are transitive (unless they invent a self-opening can of beer).

So does this make Japanese easier? Yeah, dream on... You now have to remember two different verbs in some instances for the equivalent in English. Let's look at the above....bear in mind that

to open:- 開ける (vt); 開く (vi); 開く

English: The door opened
Jenglish: [door][opened]
日本語： ドアが開きました
日本語： ドアが開きました

English: Because it was hot, I opened the window
Jenglish: [hot][was][because][window][opened]
日本語： 暑かったですから、まどを開けました。
日本語： 暑かったですから、まどを開きました。

I didn;t want to add to the problems, but notice how the particle changes too. が for intransitives and を for transitives. Ho-hum....

Anyone fancy telling me why I wrote the Japanese translation twice? And for even bigger prizes, can you translate (3)?

おやすみ。。。。

Right, there' s just no easy way to put this. Counters SUCK! Along with particles (助詞 if you want the kanji), there are the single most irritating thing that the Japanese language has to offer. It's not that they are hard, but there's just way too many to be healthy.

Rule 1 is that the number of items goes AFTER the thing your counting. The grammatical structure is:

[noun] を[number][counter]
[noun] が[number][counter]

As far as I can tell, if you are counting living things, use が otherwise use を.

Where is starts to fall apart is when we look at the vast number of counters on offer. I won't say how many there are - it's far too depressing - but there are a lot! here are some I know:

個 (こ) 　　small items
冊 (さつ) bound paperwork (books, papers, magazines etc.)
本 (ほん) long/cylindrical objects (bottles, er... cylinders etc.)
台 (だい ) equipment (cars, combine harvesters etc.)
枚 (まい) thin, flat objects (belts, shirts etc.)
人 (にん) people
階 (かい) floors of buildings
匹 (ぴき) small animals

And the list goes on....

English: I bought 4 magazines yesterday.
Jenglish: [yesterday][magazines][4 bound paperwork][bought]
日本語： 昨日雑誌を４冊を買いました。

Counters will come up again... but in the meantime, can anyone give me a list of the top 10 or 15 most frequently used counters in Japanese?

How hard can it be to say 'because'? Before this morning, I knew two ways: から and ので. Now it appears there is a another way: で.

Let's take a simple sentence structure like:

Because [reason], [action].

To Jenglish this, we get:

[reason] because [action].

All easy so far. But now it gets tricky.... the use of から, ので and で depends on what you are actually trying to say. Apparently, から has more focus on the reason, ので more on the result. I don't really know what this means right now, so let's just ignore it for now.

ので can be used when referring to an existing situation or fact. Good examples would be 'because it's raining', or 'because there are only 14 weeks to the exam'. ので is also seen as more polite and so used when people are involved, for example 'because my friend came'.

から can be used when stating a simple reason for something, for example 'because I lost my dictionary'. から is also used when expressing a personal view, such as speculation, suggestion, intention, opinion or a request. Examples are 'because my car is old', 'because it may rain today'.

で is similar to ので but is used after nouns. For example: 'because of work...' = 仕事で.

English: Because my friend was late, we couldn't go to the cinema.
Jenglish: [friend][late was][because][cinema to][go + couldn't]
日本語：　友達は遅かったです????映画館に行けました。


So, what about the sentence above?

Votes for から

• It's my friend's fault (emphasing reason)
  

Votes for ので

• It involves a person, so be polite (ので)
• I'm stating a fact - the film had started, we missed the train etc. (ので)

So, by 2 votes to 1, I think this is job for ので. Final sentence is:

日本語：　友達は遅かったですので映画館に行けました。

Does anyone have a better idea?

OK. Some more useful words today, all related to my job.

• インターネット
• ダウンロートする
• コンピュータ
• ネットワーク
• バックアップ
• ラップトップ
• プァイアーウオール
• スパイウイア
  

I really dislike katakana! I can never workout out to spell foreign words in katakana. Give me kanji any day.

English: I downloaded Japanese drama from the internet today.
Jenglish: [today][from the internet][Japanese drama][downloaded]
日本語：　今日はインターネットから日本のドラマをダウンロードしました。

Can anyone suggest how I would say 'some Japanese drama' in this sentence?

OK. Three words to start off. As I always seem to be using these, I thought it would be a good place to start.

• 会議 （かい・ぎ） --> meeting
• 取引先　（とり・ひき・さき） --> customer, client
  
• 同僚　（どう・りょう） --> colleague, co-worker

A bit of grammar too:

English:　"I had two meetings with customers last week."
Jenglish: "[Last week] [customers with meetings] [2 times] [had]"
日本語: 先週、取引先と会議が二回ありました。

The rule of thumb is that time references go at the beginning and verbs at the end.

Right. It's time to actually make a post after weeks of thinking about it.

Rather than copy the same format as Matt-san (see my web links for his blog), I'm going to concentrate on bits of Japanese I have discovered, but aren't really to do with our Japanese course. It'll be a combo of grammar and vocabulary, but I hope to crack the 日本語 Holy Grail - counting!

Oh yeah, no guarantees it'll be right, but you can always correct me :-)

Dave