Tuesday, June 12, 2007
JLPT３：でも (I)
| 日本語： | [noun] でも |
| English: | even..., or something... |
It's been a while since I dared have a look at the bane of my life - particles. So here's one that cropped up recently and caught my eye.
I'm sure that anyone who's studied Japanese will have come across でも very early on as one of the (many) ways to say but. However it has a much broader range and here we shall concentrate on it's use directly after nouns. In such instances, it can be used in a couple of ways:
- As a means of emphasising the noun. For example:
When he came home, even the dog was quiet.
- To highlight that the noun it follows is just one of a list of possible items. For example:
After the film, would you like a coffee or something?
So, it seems to be a useful bit of grammar and certainly allows more natural-sounding sentences to be constructed. でも can also be used after nouns to mean even if, but that's a separate blog entry!
Let's see it in use; first in some of my Japanese and then in real Japanese!
| English: | When he came home, even the dog was quiet. |
| Jenglish: | [he][home][came],[dog][even][quiet] |
| 日本語： | 彼は家に帰った時、犬でも静かだった。 |
| English: | After the film, would you like a coffee or something? |
| Jenglish: | [film][after][coffee][or something][drink + ?] |
| 日本語： | 映画の後で、コーヒーでも飲みませんか。 |
次、インターネットで調べよう・・・
一番目例文：
この例文はこのウエブサイトに見つけました。
| 日本語： | 猫でもわかるプログラミング |
| Jenglish: | [cats][even][understand][programming] |
Well, I think this is a nice one to start with. A quick scan shows a verb in base 3 (plain) form followed by a noun, so we have a subjunctive clause here. So my guess is: Programming even cats understand.
２番目例文：
もう一つ例文は・・・今回このサイトからです。
| 日本語： | 絵日記でもかいてみようか |
| Jenglish: | [Illustrated diary][or something][write + try + let's] |
A bit of a verb conjugation going on here. I did struggle over which meaning of でも to use. I've guessed or something in this case. As for the verb, it's the volitional form of write in it's ーてみる form. So I think it says: Let's try and keep an illustrated diary (or something like that).
またね・・・
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