nihongo wo benkyou shitai

I haven't forgotten tabout the blog. But, I am in the middle of preparing for exams, doing translations and deperately learning kanji.

Promise an update soon though!

またね。。。

OK. A quick and easy one for me today. Most Japanese students will have come across つもりです as a way of saying 'intend to do...'. It's an easy conjugation that you simply stick on the end of a base 3 (dictionary form) verb. For example:

English: My friend intends to go to Gas Panic in Roppongi.
Jenglish: [My friend][Roppongi][in][Gas Panic][to][go + intend]
日本語： 私の友達はロッポンギにGas Panicに行くつもりです。

I hasten to add that this is just an example sentence and in no way reflects that fact that I do have a friend that is going to Tokyo next week :-)

Essentially, つもり expresses an intention to do something. No definite plans have been made, but nonetheless, you have a conviction to carry out some wish. However, if you have made definite plans to do something, it's far better to use 予定です. Again this is a base 3 conjugation and means 'plan to'. It carry the implication that you have not only decided you want to do something, but have actually taken steps to achieve your goal. Consider the following:

今年、日本に行くつもりです。
今年、日本に行く予定です。

The first implies that I intend to go to Japan, but conveys no further information. The second not only states I have a desire to go to Japan, but that I have taken some (undisclosed) steps to achieve this.

Easy eh?

またね。

Picture: Here are some of the new 'luxury apartments' in town. Notice the subtle colours designed to blend in with the surroundings. Still, easy to give someone directions to them :-)

Picture: The first thing you see when you leave Basingstoke station. It's a warm welcome that just makes you feel loved, eh?

Honestly, its the little things that give me hassle. Take the word 'only' for example. What possibly could be difficult about such a simple word? Well, strange things happen when you enter the nihongo-zone...

In my quest for knowledge, I have come across 4 common translations for 'only'. While this is three more than I want to remember, each seems to have a pretty specific use so it's not so bad.

First off is だけ. If you can easily replace 'only' with 'just' or 'simply', then だけ is a good bet. Sentences such as the following would suit だけ.

"I was only looking"
"She was only trying to be funny"

However, you do have to be a bit careful. だけ should only be used when the 'feeling' of the sentence is neutral or positive. If the feeling is negative, you need to use しか. しか is like saying 'nothing but' or 'no more than' and implies an overall negative connotation. Consider these sentences:

"There were only 3 cans of beer in the fridge."
"We couldn't get a discount because only 3 people turned up."

In these examples there is a general air of it not being a good situation. It's important to point out that しか is used with the verb in negative form. So if you see しか, it should be followed by a verb ending in either ません or ない. This doesn't make the verb negative, but simply strengthens the negative aspects on the sentence.

The third equivalent you'll come across is のみ.　It is essentially the more formal, version of だけ used frequently in documents and official web sites etc. This is more one to remember than actively use.

And that brings us to ばかり. We have to be a bit careful with this one as it has several uses, not just to do with 'only'. In a nutshell, ばかり emphasizes something in a positive light and can loosely be translated as 'nothing but'. Now, we did say that しか also could be 'nothing but', however that was in a negative light. Consider:

"There is nothing but rubbish here" - しか
"There is nothing but good material here" - ばかり

See?

Let's test drive this...

English: I only watch TV in the evening.
Jenglish: [evening][in][TV][only][watch]
日本語： 晩にテレビだけ見ます。

Notice how the particle を was left out? を, が and は are usually omitted after だけ. Also, だけ is not used with も.

English: There are only 3 bottles of beer in the fridge
Jenglish: [fridge][in][beer][3 + counter][only][are + negative]
日本語： 冷蔵庫にビールを３本がしかない。

See the negative form of ある at the end of the sentence?

English: Japanese is the only language I study.
Jenglish: [Japanese][language][only][study]
日本語： 日本語は言葉ばかり勉強しています。

Actually, I'm not happy about that last one. Can someone explain ばかり more accurately? Anyways, to recap:

だけ --> objectively describes what is there
しか --> emphasizes scarcity in negative way
ばかり --> indicates that whatever was mentioned is the only example of it's kind.

またね。

I've been feeling guilty because I haven't posted something Japanese-related at all this week. Been a busy boy and all that. I was scratching my head trying to think of a topic and suddenly thought of a really useful one! How do you say 'how do you'!

The Japanese use 方 to express 'how to'. You add it to the verb stem although it looks the same if you add it to base 2 of the verb (base 2 is the one you use for ます conjugations). It's real easy - look at these:

how to use 使い方
how to make 作り方
how to memorise 暗記し方
how to dance 踊り方

See how easy it is. Normally, nouns use a particle to show the relationship between the verb and the noun. For example, a verb of movement (go, come, ride etc.) uses に. When using the 'how to' version of the verb, we convert the particle to の.

English: This book is about how to make sushi.
Jenglish: [sushi][make + how to][about][book][is]
日本語： 寿司の作り方に関する本です。

Adding 方 effectively turns the phrase into a noun, so it can then be followed by the usual things like verbs, adjectives etc...

Actually, the use of 方 in this way can also be interpreted as 'the way in which...', so the phrase:

English: The way he drives is dangerous.
Jenglish: [He][drives + way][dangerous][is]
日本語： 彼の運転し方は危ないです。

Sorted.

またね。

London Underground Bakerloo line during rush hour yesterday. Just like in Tokyo, it was a squeeze to get on the train... 

I thought I'd stick a photo in. I thought that it might be nice for you to get a sense of (atypical) English life and they say a picture paints a thousand words....　

Oh yes... Gokusen 2, episode 1 has downloaded! 超すごい！！！

This is the view from my window at work. Easy to see why I have inner-calm :-) 

日本語：	[verb (base 1)] ないで
English:	Without doing...

Today we have a handy little verbal trick that comes up a fair bit in conversation. How do you say you did something without doing something else? With ーないで of course!

The grammatical breakdown is pretty straightforward. Let's look at the English first:

[what was done] without [what it was done without]

So we could have:

He drove from Basingstoke to Edinburgh without stopping.
I wrote an email without getting a headache.

You get the idea, I guess...

The grammatical breakdown in Japanese is pretty easy. No, honest, it is!

[what is was done without] ないで [what was done]

English:	I went to Maid Cafe in Akihabara without seeing a geek.
Jenglish:	[geek][seeing][without][Akihabara][in][Maid Cafe][went]
日本語：	オタクを見ないで、秋葉原にメイヂ・カフェに行った。

To be honest, I have some doubt as to whether this is part of the JLPT specification. It's not listed in my grammar specification book, but I have come across examples in JLPT example questions. What is in the JLPT specification is another way to create this sentence pattern, so it's probably wise to become familiar with ずに as well.

またね・・・

Last time I had a look at 'why' and discovered that politeness plays a big part in which word you use. This time I'll look at another handy word 'but'.

Now, 'but' can be used in a number of ways, but here I'll concentrate on it's use (in English) as a 'co-ordinating conjunction'. If you've no idea what that is, then I'm happy - nor did I so now I don't feel so stupid... Anyways, I looked it up and apparently a co-ordinating conjunction is a word that links two sentences and gives at least one of the following properties:

• The statement in sentence B is opposite in meaning to sentence A.
• When sentence B shows a failure to achieve to goal indicated in sentence A.
  

Well, that's the English cleared up, eh?

A quick trawl through my notes and there appears to be a bunch of Japanese words for 'but': でも, しかし, けれども, けれど, けども, けど and が are the ones I found. There has to be some magic rule as to which one to use and when. And there is.

でも and しかし are used to start sentences. The Japanese grammatical term for these babies is also conjunction. Try this example:

English: My Japanese is very poor. But I would like to try and speak.
Jenglish: [My Japanese][very poor][is]. [But][speak + try]
日本語： 僕の日本語がとても下手です。しかし、話すみます。

What's the difference between でも and しかし? しかし is the けいご (polite) version of でも. Now, an interesting point to note here is that the tense used in each sentence can be different. So you could have:

English: Yesterday, I didn't want to read that book. But today I will read it.
Jenglish: [Yesterday][that book][read + want + past]. [But][today][read].
日本語： 昨日その本を読みたくなかった。でも、今日は読む。

Next up is it's use within a larger sentence. Here we have [clause A], but [clause B]. Again, it is all a matter of politeness. To be very polite, use が or けれども. Then becoming increasingly more casual, use けれど, けども and finally けど. One thing to note is that both clauses of the must be the same politeness level and tense. You could not translate the above English as follows:

日本語： 昨日その本を読みたくなかったけど、今日は読む。(this is wrong!)

Note that unlike でも and しかし, these are not conjunctions! They are called 'clause particles'. They wield mighty power, so use them wisely. Another Japanese mystery solved! It's at times like this that I think I might one day be able to speak the language! As if!

またね。

After the last post, I thought I'd look into something a bit easier. Today is the question word 'why'.

As far as I can tell, there are three (common) possibilities when translating 'why': なぜ、何で and どうして.

I have had the usual struggle in deciding which one to use and always ended up guessing. But it appears there is a general agreement on when to use each one.

The first general agreement is that it is a matter of politeness.

• In a formal, factual environment, such as in a newspaper or on the news, use なぜ. If used in a social setting, it can come across as perhaps a little on the rude side, unless your a 外人. Then everyone just thinks you're quaint.

• In a normal relaxed setting, such as a family setting or with peers, どうして is the chap for you. どうして also implies a certain emotional content as to the reason for asking the question.

• If it's an uber-relaxed, hangin-with-your-posse setting, or you just want to appear rude, use なんで. It's possible that you won't be asked a question using なんで, purely because of politeness, but if you earwig on conversations between natives, watch drama or anime, you'll hear it lot. Don't be fooled - they're allowed to.

Simple eh?

またね

Conceptually, this is a toughy. Time always is.

There are several uses of the word 'when', but in essence, they all relate to some time reference. Einstein famously said "time is relative' (or at least something pretty close to it) and how many of us understand relative time in a gravitationally constant universe? Thought so. Me neither.

Well, it'll be no surprise that 時, one of the nouns used to indicate time in Japanese, requres an understanding of 'the perceived sequence of events in relative time frame'. WTF?

To be fair, some of this is easy. Kind of. Take these sentences:

1. When I was a child...
2 When I go to Japan...
3 When I read that book...
4. When I win the lottery...

If I ask, which are past tense and which are non-past, I'm sure you'll work it out. I'm sure you've even already menatally worked out which conjugations to do. Hands up who got (1) = past, (2) = non-past, (3) = past and (4) = non-past? Hold that thought for a moment whilst we expand this a little.

2. When I go to Japan I want to eat basashi.

I think you'll agree that the perceived sequence of events is (A) go to Japan (B) eat basashi. The action A has to be completed before action B can occur. In this timeframe, A occurs in the past relative to B. So let's try to translate this puppy.

Jenglish: [Japan][went][when][basashi][eat + want]
日本語： 日本に行った時、馬刺しを食べたい。

Notice how 'to go' is in the past tense? Because it happens before the second bit. Contrast with:

日本語： 日本に行った時、馬刺しを食べた。
Jenglish: [Japan][go][when][basashi][ate]
English: When I went to Japan I ate basashi.

So, if A occurs before B, A is plain past. If events are in the past, B is past tense; if events are in the future, B is non-past tense. Got it? That's the easy bit.

Things go a bit Pete Tong from here on in. But that's another post.

matane.



RULE 1: If the absolute timeframe (when they occur in relation to now) of events is in the past, both A and B are past tense.

RULE 2: If the absolute timeframe (when they occur in relation to now) of events is in the future, A is past tense, B is non-past.