日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

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clawgrip
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

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Lesson 15: Miscellaneous function words
There are a number of small function words generally called particles, such as conjunctions and so forth that I feel should be known at this point, but have not figured into any lessons really. So now is the time to get some of them out of the way. This is a really long lesson due to the number of particles I'm introducing, so it may be good as a reference lesson. Maybe you don't need to learn everything at once. I'll also mention that many particles can attach both to nouns and verbs.

This lesson will cover the following particles:
  • から kara
  • ので node
  • けど/けれど/けども/けれとも kedo/keredo/kedomo/keredomo
  • が ga
  • でも demo
  • のに noni
  • か ka
  • の no
  • と to
  • とか to ka
  • や ya
  • も mo
I’ve already pointed out that clauses can be connected with the -te form, which is more or less equivalent to “and” in English. Let’s look at some more conjunctions.

から kara
We met this one previously as a postposition meaning “from”, but it also means “because” when it occurs after verbs. Remember that Japanese word order is essentially the reverse of English, so the cause and effect positions are reversed as well.

眠かったから寝た。
Nemùkatta kara neta.
tired-PST because sleep-PST
"Because I was tired, I went to sleep." (I was tired so I went to sleep).

眠い nemùi "tired; sleepy"

It should be noticed that in English, we can easily reverse the clauses by changing “because” to “so” as I have done above, but in Japanese this is not smoothly done.

ので node
Essentially, this is the same as kara, but typically is limited to slightly more polite language. I've read differing explanations on what really differentiates node from kara, but in all honesty, you'll be fine treating them as basically synonymous.

台風が近づいていたので試合は延期になった。
Taifū ̀ga chikazùite ita node shiai wa enki ni nàtta.
typhoon SBJ approach-CONJ be-PST because match TOP postponement ADV become-PST
"The match was postponed ecause a typhoon was approaching."

台風 taifū - "typhoon"
近づくchikazùku - "approach; draw near; come close"
試合 shiai - "match; game"
延期(する) enki (suru) - "postponement (postpone)"

けど/けれど/けども/けれとも kedo/keredo/kedomo/keredomo
This is equivalent to “but” in English. It finds its origin as an Old Japanese verb ending, so unlike many other particles, it cannot be found with nouns. All four forms have the same meaning, but the last three are more formal (keredomo being the form from which the other three contracted forms derive). The first form, kedo, is common in informal speech. Unlike kara, clause order is the same as in English.

眠かったけど寝なかった。
Nemùkatta kedo nenàkatta.
tired-PST but sleep-NEG-PST
"I was tired, but I didn’t go to sleep."

Kedo also has a use that differs from English "but". It's used to supply information that is important in interpreting or responding to what comes after it. Example:

眠いけど寝ていい?
Nemùi kedo nete ìi?
Literally this means "I'm tired, but can/may I sleep?" but the nuance is that the first clause gives information that may influence the answer to the question in the second clause.

本棚のどこかにあると思うけど探してくれる?
Hòndana no dòkoka ni àru to omòu kedo sagashite kureru?
"I think it's somewhere on the bookshelf; can you take a look for me?"

本棚 hòndana - "bookshelf"
どこか dòkoka - "somewhere"
思う omòu - "think; believe"
探す sagasu - "search; look for"

There's some stuff going on in this sentence that I haven't taught yet, so don't worry if you don't understand 100%. You can see here as well how kedo is marking information that is important to know for the listener.

This meaning will be covered more in ga below.

ga
This is the formal/literary equivalent of kedo above. It differs from the formal keredomo above in that it appears in the standard literary register as well as the formal, while keredomo is always formal.

As with kedo above, ga can mark information as being important to what follows.

でも demo
This is like kedo above, except that it only appears at the beginning of a clause, much like "however" in English.

のに noni
This is like "even though" but most often conveys some sort of disappointment.

せっかくギリシャに行ったのにパルテノン神殿に行かなかった?
Sekkaku Gìrisha ni itta noni Parutenon-shìnden ni ikanàkatta?
"You went all the way to Greece but you didn't go to the Parthenon?"

せっかく sekkaku going to the trouble of; having the special opportunity to; being in the ideal situation to
ギリシャ Gìrisha Greece
パルテノン神殿 Parutenon-shìnden the Parthenon

Here, noni shows the speaker's surprise, incredulity, etc. at the indicated contrast. Using kedo instead of noni would make this question sound more like the speaker is simply confirming the facts.

Note that when this appears after the copula, the copula becomes な na:

ka
When used with verbs, this has a few meanings. At the end of a sentence, it marks a question. In this position, it is far more common in polite speech.

齋藤さんは行きます。
Saitō-san wa ikimàsu.
"Mr. Saito is going."

齋藤さんは行きますか。
Saitō-san wa ikimàsu ka?
"Is Mr. Saito going?"

There are other pragmatic uses of ka which I will get into some other time.

When it appears between clauses, it usually means "or"

今日の夜に行ってホテルに泊まるか、明日朝一行くか、どっちがいい?
Kyṑ no yòru ni itte hòteru ni tomaru ka, ashita asàichi iku ka, dòtchi ga ìi?
today GEN night LOC go-CONJ hotel LOC stay Q, tomorrow early.morning go Q, which NOM be.good
"Should we leave tonight and stay at a hotel or leave first thing tomorrow morning?"

Note: I haven’t covered wa yet, but it is the topic marker. I’ve probably accidentally slipped it in a few times in examples, but I want to wait a bit more before covering topic structure.

no
This is a multipurpose partical with several different uses.

I will outline its main uses briefly in sections.

Genitive/linking
It is used to indicate possession and association, as English "'s" and "of" and also identity:

川野さんの傘
Kawano-san no kàsa
"Mr. Kawano's umbrella"

家の中
iè no nàka
"the inside of the house"

源頼朝
Minamoto no Yoritomo
"Yoritomo, of the Minamoto (clan)"

おかしのまちおか
Okàshi no Machioka
"Machioka Confectionery (Machioka of (the) confectionery (business))"

It's also used to form compound nouns. Japanese, at least with native roots, is somewhat more likely than English to form compounds with genitive constructions.

くもの巣
kùmo no sù
"spider web"

飛行機の翼
hikṑki no tsubasa
"airplane wing"

Nominalization
Placing this particle after a verb or verb phrase nominalizes it. There is another way to nominalize verbs, but for now it's enough to know that no can do it.

After an adjective, no indicates a noun possessing the quality of the adjective, much like English "one".
赤い
akai
"(it) is red"

赤いの
akài no
"(a/the) red one(s)"

Not very important use, but included for reference:
Spoiler:
Nominative marker
In relative clauses that contain a subject, it is typically marked with no rather than the standard ga:

戦争のない世界だ。
Sensō no nài sèkai da.
war NOM not.exist world COP
"It is a world without war."

cf.
この世界は戦争がない。
Kono sèkai wa sensō ga nai.
this world TOP war NOM not.exist
"In this world, there is no war."

戦争 sensō war
世界 sèkai world
Attributive
In lesson 8, we learned that nominal adjectives take na in attributive form. What I didn't tell you is that many adjectives take no instead of na. The difference, unfortunately, is entirely lexical, meaning when you learn a new nominal adjective, you have to memorize which particle it uses. Thereare, as far asI know, no words that can take either one. The good news is that using the wrong one will never obscure the intended meaning.

この問題は最後だ。
Kono mondai wa sàigo da.
"This problem is the last (one)."

これは最後の問題だ。
Kore wa sàigo no mondai da.
"This is the last problem."

問題 mondai "problem"
最後(の) sàigo (no) "last"

Note: whenever the copula is followed by no it becomes na:

このトマトは国産だ。
Kono tòmato wa kokusan da.
"This tomato is domestic(ally grown)."

トマトは国産なのがいい。
Tòmato wa kokusan na no ga ìi.
"I prefer domestically grown tomatoes." (Lit."As for tomatoes, domestically grown ones are good.")

More skippable stuff:
Spoiler:
A number of surnames use the linking no, though it is frequently not written explicitly:

木下
Kinoshita

井上
Inoue

二宮
Ninomiya

In place names, etc., the の may be absent, or may appear in hiragana, katakana, or alternately in either.
下関
Shimonoseki

鷲宮
Washinomiya

溝の口
Mizonokuchi

虎ノ門
Toranomon

丸の内/丸ノ内
Marunouchi

お茶の水/御茶ノ水
Ochanomizu
と to
This is another basic particle with a variety of uses, so we'll go over its broad uses.

"and" with nouns
When this particle appears between two nouns, it means "and". Some books will tell you that to is used for exhaustive lists (with や ya being used for non-exhaustive lists), but to me this seems a little misleading, as ya (which is actually somewhat formal; see below) is specifically marked as non-exhaustive; to is exhaustive by default, but it's really just the standard noun connector. If you are not specifically listing samples from a larger list, use to.

毎日ご飯と魚を食べます。
Màinichi gòhan to sakana o tabemàsu.
"Every day I eat rice and fish."

"with" with nouns
When this particle is used to mark a noun as an argument of the verb, it is similar to "with" in the comitative sense.

友達と行った。
Tomodachi to itta.
"I went with my friend."

For this sense, to is often supplemented with 一緒に issho ni "together":

お母さんと一緒に行った。
Okāsan to issho ni itta.
"I went (together) with my mother."

Adverbial marker
As we saw in lesson 8, to can be used to mark adverbs. It is used this way mainly with onomatopoeic and mimetic words.

Complementizer
This particle is also used as a complementizer to mark the content for verbs of speaking, thinking, and so on.

まだ残っていると言った。
Màda nokòtte iru to itta.
still remain-CONJ exist COMPL say-PST
"(They) said that there are still some left. / They said that it's still there."

来ると思った。
Kùru to omòtta.
come COMPL think-PST
"I thought (he/she/it) would come."

To is also frequently used as a type of clause connector, but I'm going to save that for the lesson on conditionals to come some time in the future.

It also appears as an abbreviation of a longer phrase meaning "have to", but this will also be covered elsewhere.

とか to ka
This is an explicitly non-exhaustive listing particle. The pattern "AとかBとか" is roughly equivalent to "like A or B". It's important to note that this is an informal particle; in more polite or formal speech, it will be replaced with や ya, which serves the same function.

It's not unusual to hear this particle lengthened to とかあ tokā, if for example the speaker is in the process of thinking up examples.

釣りとかハイキングとかする。
Tsuri to ka hàikingu to ka suru.
"We will fish and hike and things like that."

When there is only a single noun, it is equivalent or informal English "or something" or "or whatever"

1時間とかかかった。
Ichìjikan to ka kakàtta.
"It took an hour or something."

かかる kakàru this verb has so many contextually specific meanings that I can't even really tell you all of them. With time words, it means "take", as I have used it here.

や ya
Essentially a more formal equivalent of to ka above, though only in the non-exhaustive listing sense.

も mo
This particle means "too" or "also" or "even". Note that it will completely replace the topic, subject, and object particles は wa, が ga, and を o.

ビニール袋も要るよ。
Binīru-bùkuro mo iru yo.
"We need a plastic bag too." (Lit. "A plastic bag also is needed.")

(Don't worry about yo for now.)

For any other particle, it is appended immediately after the particle:

大分にも福岡にも行った。
Ṑita ni mo Fukùoka ni mo itta.
"She even went to Oita and Fukuoka." (Lit. "She went even to Oita even to Fukuoka.")

This particle can also show some degree of surprise at an amount:

10枚も食べたの?
Jūmai mo tàbeta no?
"You ate ten whole slices?"

(Don't worry about the use of no here; we'll save that for a different lesson)

It also appears often with interrogatives to form complex phrases, but we'll save that for another time.

Vocabulary from this lesson

明日 ashita "tomorrow"
ビニール袋 binīru-bùkuro "plastic bag"
どこか dòkoka - "somewhere"
ギリシャ Gìrisha "Greece"
ご飯 gòhan "food; rice"
ハイキング hàikingu "hiking"
飛行機 hikṑki "airplane"
本棚 hòndana - "bookshelf"
ホテル hòteru "hotel"
掛かる kakàru too many meanings to list
kàsa "umbrella"
国産 kokusan "domestic"
くも kùmo "spider"
くもの巣 kùmo no sù "spider web"
今日 kyṑ "today"
まだ màda "still; yet"
毎日 màinichi "every day"
問題 mondai "problem"
パルテノン神殿 Parutenon-shìnden "the Parthenon"
最後(の) sàigo (no) "last"
sakana "fish"
試合 shiai - "match; game"
"nest"
台風 taifū - "typhoon"
トマト tòmato "tomato"
友達 tomodachi "friend"
tsubasa "wing"
釣り tsuri "fishing"
yòru "night"

近づく chikazùku - "approach; draw near; come close"
延期(する) enki (suru) - "postponement (postpone)"
要る iru "be needed/necessary"
残る nokòru "remain; stay; be left"
思う omòu - "think; believe"
探す sagasu - "search; look for"
泊まる tomaru "stay the night"

赤い akai "be red"
眠い nemùi "tired; sleepy"

朝一 asàichi "first thing in the morning"
せっかく sekkaku "going to the trouble of; having the special opportunity to; being in the ideal situation to"

There's probably too much stuff here to make exercises.
Last edited by clawgrip on 15 Feb 2015 14:25, edited 3 times in total.
clawgrip
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

GrandPiano wrote:So, に is to へ as a rectangle is to a square?
More or less, yeah.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

I changed my mind. I will provide some exercises for this lesson:

First some new vocabulary:
弁当 bentṑ "meal in a portable container (usually translated as the only partially accurate "boxed lunch")"
kawà "river"
重い omòi "heavy"
置く oku "place; put down"

The rest of the necessary words can be found in the various other lessons.

Exercise: Translate to Japanese:

a Greek hotel
a "boxed lunch" from a convenience store
It was heavy, so I put it down.
I bought it, but I didn't read it.
Did you go to the post office with (your) friend?
(My) mother said that he is a good actor.
I think it is a beautiful/nice pond.
The pond is nearby, but the river and the mountain are both far away.

A bit of a trickier one:
(We) don't need such a big book.
Hint:
Spoiler:
Look at Lesson 14
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by shimobaatar »

OK, I've finally started reading my way through this thread (albeit very slowly). I swear I'll do the activities/exercises sometime.

The simplest questions I have as of now are about Lesson 6, so I'll start with those.

I don't think you've covered topic yet, so I'll leave は wa alone.

Sorry if this is covered later on, but what's the difference between に ni and へ e? They both seem to be translated as "to". After writing those two sentences, I now see that GrandPiano asked this same question. So, へ e is only used at the beginning of letters, and に ni is used everywhere else in the modern language? Or just the modern informal language? Also, regarding から kara, is it more or less the "opposite" of に ni, semantically, or is it more of the "opposite" of へ e, not having as wide of a range of usage as に ni?

Are が ga and/or を o ever dropped/left out? I don't know why, but something inside of me is nagging me to ask. For example, would "The person's dog sees the mountain's town," be 人の犬が山の町を見る。Hito no inu ga yama no machi o miru., something like 人の犬山の町見る。Hito no inu yama no machi miru., or something else entirely? I have a pretty strong feeling it's the first one (especially after thinking up and typing out that second sentence), but I want to be absolutely sure.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

shimobaatar wrote:OK, I've finally started reading my way through this thread (albeit very slowly). I swear I'll do the activities/exercises sometime.

The simplest questions I have as of now are about Lesson 6, so I'll start with those.

I don't think you've covered topic yet, so I'll leave は wa alone.
Topic is going to need an entire lesson to itself.
Sorry if this is covered later on, but what's the difference between に ni and へ e? They both seem to be translated as "to". After writing those two sentences, I now see that GrandPiano asked this same question. So, へ e is only used at the beginning of letters, and に ni is used everywhere else in the modern language? Or just the modern informal language? Also, regarding から kara, is it more or less the "opposite" of に ni, semantically, or is it more of the "opposite" of へ e, not having as wide of a range of usage as に ni?
へ is a little less conversational, so it doesn't show up so much in speech.

In a directional sense, から is the opposite of に and へ, but に has a very wide range of uses, while から is also used to indicate causes, reasons, origins, and so on.
Are が ga and/or を o ever dropped/left out? I don't know why, but something inside of me is nagging me to ask. For example, would "The person's dog sees the mountain's town," be 人の犬が山の町を見る。Hito no inu ga yama no machi o miru., something like 人の犬山の町見る。Hito no inu yama no machi miru., or something else entirely? I have a pretty strong feeling it's the first one (especially after thinking up and typing out that second sentence), but I want to be absolutely sure.
Particles do get dropped fairly frequently, but not constantly. Since your sentence is unnatural to begin with (I believe I mention in that post that a bunch of the sentences are unnatural), it's hard to say if your sentence is okay or not. However, I get the impression that が is not normally (or at least not as frequently) dropped, and that when the subject is unmarked, it's usually は that's been dropped, not が. Of course, that's the paradox, because since both は and が can mark subjects, and since it has been dropped, it's hard to confirm what has been dropped. The bottom line though is that は, maybe が, and を are frequently dropped in speech, but are also frequently retained. I find I have trouble coming up with a good explanation as to what sort of pragmatic functions govern it.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by shimobaatar »

clawgrip wrote:Since your sentence is unnatural to begin with (I believe I mention in that post that a bunch of the sentences are unnatural), it's hard to say if your sentence is okay or not.
Yeah, the sentences in Lesson 6 are called "unnatural" there, too. What exactly makes them unnatural? Is it just that they're too simple/basic to be likely to appear in natural conversations, since they're meant as exercises for beginners that someone planned out in advance? If that's the case, would you also consider English sentences like "The person sees the mountain," to be unnatural?

However, if you consider 人が山を見る。Hito ga yama o miru. to be unnatural, but The person sees the mountain. to be natural, what would be, in your opinion, a natural Japanese translation of The person sees the mountain.?

Hmm… I think I might have a few phonology/orthography-related questions, but while I'm trying to figure out how to phrase those, I might as well give these a try:

(Lesson 6) Exercise: translate these (admittedly unnatural) sentences into Japanese:
Spoiler:
The person sees the town. 人が町を見る。Hito ga machi o miru.
The dog walks to town. 犬が町に歩く。Inu ga machi ni aruku.
The person goes to the town from the mountain. 人が町に山から行く。Hito ga machi ni yama kara iku.
The person's dog walks to the mountain. 人の犬が山に歩く。Hito no inu ga yama ni aruku.
(I) see the dog. 犬を見る。Inu o miru.
The mountain dog (dog of the mountain) comes to the town. 山の犬が町に来る。Yama no inu ga machi ni kuru.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

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shimobaatar wrote:
clawgrip wrote:Since your sentence is unnatural to begin with (I believe I mention in that post that a bunch of the sentences are unnatural), it's hard to say if your sentence is okay or not.
Yeah, the sentences in Lesson 6 are called "unnatural" there, too. What exactly makes them unnatural? Is it just that they're too simple/basic to be likely to appear in natural conversations, since they're meant as exercises for beginners that someone planned out in advance? If that's the case, would you also consider English sentences like "The person sees the mountain," to be unnatural?
Yes, and yes. I find it not impossible, but very unlikely that anyone would say that. Incidentally, searching Google for "The person sees the mountain" brings up this thread as the first result. There are only a couple other results, but they're all language-related things. So yes, it's unnatural
However, if you consider 人が山を見る。Hito ga yama o miru. to be unnatural, but The person sees the mountain. to be natural, what would be, in your opinion, a natural Japanese translation of The person sees the mountain.?
As I hope my previous comment explains, it is an accurate translation. However, I think both the English and Japanese sentences are unnatural.

Hmm… I think I might have a few phonology/orthography-related questions, but while I'm trying to figure out how to phrase those, I might as well give these a try:

(Lesson 6) Exercise: translate these (admittedly unnatural) sentences into Japanese:
Spoiler:
The person sees the town. 人が町を見る。Hito ga machi o miru.
The dog walks to town. 犬が町に歩く。Inu ga machi ni aruku.
The person goes to the town from the mountain. 人が町に山から行く。Hito ga machi ni yama kara iku. 山から町に sounds a little more natural, though you can put them in either order
The person's dog walks to the mountain. 人の犬が山に歩く。Hito no inu ga yama ni aruku.
(I) see the dog. 犬を見る。Inu o miru.
The mountain dog (dog of the mountain) comes to the town. 山の犬が町に来る。Yama no inu ga machi ni kuru.
[/quote]
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by shimobaatar »

clawgrip wrote:You will have to seek out your own audio material to work on your accent.
Is there anything, specific or general, you'd recommend in terms of audio material? I've never attempted to learn a language with phonemic long vowels (or geminate consonants, for that matter) and/or pitch accent before, so I'm naturally a little worried that I'm pronouncing some or all of those things in a way that's totally incorrect.

Also, I have to say that the lesson on Japanese pitch accent was the most helpful explanation of the concept I've ever seen. I feel like I'm at least starting to understand it.
clawgrip wrote:Hiragana is the default writing, used to write particles, verb endings, interjections, onomatopoeic words and the like, words with no kanji, words with rare kanji, or words with kanji you can’t remember. It’s the first script that Japanese children learn.
Do you have any tips on how to learn hiragana (or I guess just kana in general)? I've been trying to teach myself by looking over charts and such, but that doesn't seem to be working too well for me. Maybe I'm not giving it enough time? I don't know.
clawgrip wrote:most kanji can be pronounced in at least two ways, often three or more, and there are a few with a baffling array of possible pronunciations.
Are you planning to write a lesson on kanji at some point in the future (or am I overlooking a currently existing one)? I have a lot of questions about them, but I'll keep those to myself for now if you are.

I was planning to include the Lesson 7 exercises in this post, but it's past midnight here, so I'll save those for another day, because I feel like I'm about to collapse.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by GrandPiano »

shimobaatar wrote:Do you have any tips on how to learn hiragana (or I guess just kana in general)? I've been trying to teach myself by looking over charts and such, but that doesn't seem to be working too well for me. Maybe I'm not giving it enough time? I don't know.
What's always worked for me (and worked for learning hiragana and katakana) is just focusing on a few items at a time. For example, you could start with the vowel-only hiragana, あいうえお "a i u e o". Make sure to also write them down a lot; not only does it make sure you know how the kana are constructed and what their stroke orders are, but it also really helps with memory. Once you've got those kana down, you can work on the "k" hiragana, かきくけこ "ka ki ku ke ko". After that, take a look at the "g" hiragana, がぎぐげご "ga gi gu ge go", and take note of where the dakutens are located. Then you can do the "s" and "z" hiragana, then the "t" and "d" hiragana, etc. And don't forget ん "n"!
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

I didn't really have a plan to, but I suppose it would be nice.

Lesson 16: Kanji overview
So I have just been throwing kanji all around in these lessons, under the assumption that you would just learn them, because, pretty much, you have to, and it's not easy. I can't really give you a good study method...just look around the Internet, there's a ton of stuff for that. What I can do is give you an overview of how kanji works.

I mentioned before that most kanji have two readings; these are the Chinese reading (on-yomi) and Japanese reading (kun-yomi). Often in dictionaries, on-yomi is written in katakana and kun-yomi in hiragana. This is how I will write it here. The range of potential kun-yomi readings is only limited by Japanese native vocabulary. Characters can have kun-yomi readings as simple as 絵 え e or as long as 承る うけたまわる uketamawaru. On-yomi readings, on the other hand, are quite limited. A little practice with the language and you'll be able to distinguish them intuitively most of the time. The full range of on-yomi readings can be summed up in this long but straightforward table:
Spoiler:
entries in parentheses indicate valid but extremely rare readings

Code: Select all

no final -i      -u      -ki     -ku     -tsu    -n
a        ai                      aku     atsu    an
ka       kai                     kaku    katsu   kan
ga       gai                     gaku    gatsu   gan
sa       sai                     saku    satsu   san
za       zai                             zatsu   zan
ta       tai                     taku    tatsu   tan
da       dai                     daku    datsu   dan
na       nai                            (natsu)  nan
ha       hai                     haku    hatsu   han
ba       bai                     baku    batsu   ban
ma       mai                     maku    matsu   man
ya                               yaku
ra       rai                     raku    ratsu   ran
wa       wai                     waku   (watsu)  wan

i                                iku     itsu    in
ki                               kiku    kitsu   kin
gi                                               gin
shi                      shiki           shitsu  shin
ji                       jiki            jitsu   jin
chi                     (chiki)          chitsu  chin
ni                               niku            nin
hi                      (hiki)           hitsu   hin
bi                                      (bitsu)  bin
mi                                       mitsu   min
ri                       riki    riku    ritsu   rin

u       (ui)                             utsu    un
ku               kū             (kuku)   kutsu   kun
gu               gū                              gun
su       sui     sū             (suku)           sun
zu       zui
tsu      tsui    tsū            (tsuku)
(nu)
fu               fū     (fuki)   fuku    futsu   fun
bu                              (buku)   butsu   bun
mu
yu       yui     yū
ru       rui

e        ei              eki             etsu    en
ke       kei                             ketsu   ken
ge       gei             geki            getsu   gen
se       sei             seki            setsu   sen
ze       zei                             zetsu   zen
te       tei             teki            tetsu   ten
de       dei             (deki)         (detsu)  den
(ne)     nei                             netsu   nen
he       hei             heki           (hetsu)  hen
(be)     bei            (beki)           betsu   ben
(me)     mei                             metsu   men
(re)     rei             reki            retsu   ren

o                ō               oku     otsu    on
ko               kō              koku    kotsu   kon
go               gō              goku            gon
so               sō              soku    sotsu   son
zo               zō              zoku            zon
to               tō              toku    totsu   ton
do               dō              doku            don
no               nō                             (non)
ho               hō              hoku   (hotsu)  hon
bo               bō              boku    botsu   bon
mo               mō              moku    motsu   mon
yo               yō              yoku
ro               rō              roku            ron

kya                              kyaku
gya                              gyaku
sha                              shaku
ja                               jaku
cha                              chaku
(nya)                           (nyaku)
                                 hyaku
                                 myaku
                                 ryaku

                 kyū
                 gyū
shu              shū
(chu)            chū
(nyu)            nyū
                (hyū)
                (byū)
                (myū)
                 ryū            (ryuku)

kyo              kyō             kyoku
gyo              gyō             gyoku
sho              shō             shoku
jo               jō             (joku)
cho              chō             choku
nyo             (nyō)
                 hyō
                 byō
                 myō
ryo              ryō             ryoku
As a general rule, on-yomi and kun-yomi tend not to mix in a single word. There are, of course, many exceptions to this, especially with set suffixes, but it is at least a general rule to start with until you get the hang of it. Another general rule is that generally, single-character words typically indicate their kun-yomi pronunciation. Again, not always, but it's a good general rule for beginners, who will be dealing with a lot of basic vocabulary where this is very often the case.

My plan for this lesson is just to start with the simplest possible characters (in terms of reading, not writing), and progressively get more complicated. Because I'm demonstrating how the writing works, I'm choosing characters based on how easy or complex they are, not on how useful they are to learn, so don't feel you have to memorize the specific characters used; just memorize the general ways that pronunciation is encoded into characters.

Anyway, let's get started. We'll start out with some easy, well-behaved, model characters. First is this one:


kun-yomi: とうげ tōge

One reading only. Every time you see this character, it's pronounced this way. Easy!

Another one here:


on-yomi: セン sen
kun-yomi: かわ kawa

This one has two pronunciations. When the character appears in isolation, it is pronounced kawa. When it is in compounds, it may have either pronunciation, depending on the compound.

Some characters have what is called okurigana. Essentially this is hiragana stuck to the end of the character that indicates verb endings, suffixes, and whatnot. I will use a dot (・) to show where the okurigana begins. Let's look at an easy character with okurigana:


on-yomi: グ gu
kun-yomi: おろ・か oro-ka

The か is a fossilized suffix that appears in several adjectives. If you see か on the end of the character (i.e. 愚か), then you know it's pronounced おろか oroka, and if there's nothing, you know it's グ gu.

another nice character:


on-yomi: シ shi
kun-yomi: おも・う omo-u

This one has the okurigana う. When the verb is conjugated, the okurigana changes. Again, the required pronunciation is obvious because of the presence or absence of okurigana, even if that okurigana is not fixed in form like for 愚か.

Now let's get slightly more complicated:


on-yomi: ヒョウ hyō
kun-yomi:
おもて omote
あらわ・す、・れる arawa-su, -reru

In addition to the Chinese pronunciation, there are two different native Japanese root words that have been assigned to this character. This is of course because Chinese and Japanese don't have an identical inventory of roots, and since the characters are based on Chinese, not Japanese, they don't always match up. Because of this, sometimes a character can indicate two separate Japanese roots. This one is still pretty easy though.

時刻表: ジコクヒョウ jikokuhyō (in an on-yomi compound)
表: おもて omote (in isolation, lack of okurigana makes it clear)
表す: あらわす arawasu (okurigana makes it clear)
表れる: あらわれる arawareru (okurigana makes it clear)

Some characters have even more:


on-yomi: レイ rei
kun-yomi:
さ・める sa-meru
ひ・える、・やす hi-eru, -yasu
つめ・たい tsume-tai

Still, all the okurigana is purposely unique, to aid in reading. If you see 冷やす, you know the pronunciation is ひやす hiyasu. If you see 冷たい, you know it's つめたい tsumetai.

Nevertheless, you still have to memorize each reading in order to be able to understand these. You can sometimes be taken by surprise by this. Those who have read through this guide probably know by now that 食べる is たべる taberu, 行く is いく iku, and 歩く is あるく aruku. So what are you to do when you suddenly find yourself confronted with 食う, 行う, and 歩む? You have been betrayed by these once-friendly kanji that have now become the enemy.

(incidentally they are read くう kuu, おこなう okonau, and あゆむ ayumu)

But anyway, so far, so good. With a little memorization, we have, at the most basic, theoretical level, managed to avoid ambiguity entirely. Unfortunately, there are several cases where ambiguity occurs:


on-yomi: シュウshū, キュウ kyū
kun-yomi:
にお・う、・い nio-u, -i
くさ・い kusa-i

As you can see, this one has some ambiguity. 臭い can be read either as におい nioi or くさい kusai. However, they are entirely different parts of speech, even a little context makes it clear. Sometimes, though, it can be a little more annoying:


on-yomi:
ヤク yaku
エキ eki

This one has no commonly used kun-yomi, but two on-yomi. This type of character can be a little troublesome, because normally one of the two pronunciations will be more common than the other, but certain words will surprise you by using the other pronunciation. A good example is 茶 which is almost always pronounced チャ cha, but the tea ceremony, 茶道, is pronounced サドウ sadou. Unexpected!

Some characters seem quite fond of both of their pronunciations, and will keep switching from word to word, leaving you frustrated:

台 can be pronounced ダイ and タイ, and both pronunciations are frequent:

台風 タイフウ taifuu
台本 ダイホン daihon
舞台 ブタイ butai
展望台 テンボウダイ tenboudai

青 and all characters with it as a component (晴, 情, 精, 静, and so on) vary between セイ and ショウ. You'll never be sure until you just start memorizing individual words. Even now, when I encounter unfamiliar words with these characters, I never know how to pronounce them.

If you've followed up to this point, then you know basically how kanji works, with some small exceptions I will get to soon. The main thing is stuff like this can just build up on a single character.


on-yomi:
サク saku
サ sa
kun-yomi:
つく・る tsuku-ru


on-yomi:
コウ kō
ギョウ gyō
kun-yomi:
い・く i-ku
ゆ・く yu-ku
おこな・う okona-u


on-yomi:
カイ kai
kun-yomi:
あ・く、ける a-ku, -keru
ひら・く、ける hira-ku, -keru


on-yomi:
tsū
kun-yomi:
とお・す、・る tō-su, -ru
かよ・う kayo-u

生 in particular goes crazy with this kind of thing:
on-yomi:
セイ sei
ショウ shō
kun-yomi:
い・きる、・かす、・ける i-kiru, -kasu, -keru
う・む、・まれる u-mu, -mareru
お・う o-u
は・える、・やす ha-eru, -yasu
き ki
なま nama
な・る、・す na-ru, -su
む・す mu-su

Ateji and Jukujikun
Ateji means using kanji based on their pronunciation alone, regardless of meaning.

Examples:
天麩羅 for テンプラ tenpura
倶楽部 for クラブ kurabu ("club")

Jukujikun is the opposite, using kanji based on their meaning alone, regardless of pronunciation. This can be tricky for the learner.
大人 おとな otona "adult" (regular pronunciation should be ダイジン daijin)
一昨日 ototoi "the day before yesterday" (regular pronunciation should be イッサクジツ issakujitsu)

There are also some that look like jukujikun but are actually examples of sound changes obscuring the original morphemes. The best example is probably 今日 きょう kyō.

Abbreviation
One thing that can be confusing is abbreviation, which occurs especially on signage. Example:

受け付け uketsuke. From 受ける ukeru + 付ける tsukeru. The two け are furigana, and they are left there as you would expected. But often, one or both of them is simply dropped, so you will most often just see 受付. For a Japanese person, this is obvious, since the only other reading, ジュフ jufu, is not a word, but for the learner, it can be hard to figure out. This happens especially in names of people and places as well.

駒込 こまごめ Komagome has dropped the め from 込め.
登別 のぼりべつ Noboribetsu has dropped the り from 登り.
学 まなぶ Manabu has dropped the ぶ from 学ぶ.

Naming pronunciation
Naming pronunciation is tricky because it can often incorporates both abbreviation, ateji, and jukujikun.

Consider the male name Mamoru. Mamoru is a regular verb meaning "protect" and is written 守る. As a name, we could write it 守, with abbreviation of the る. Or, we could write it 衛, because this character also means protect. or 護, which means protect or shelter. Or 養, which means raise/rear/support/nourish. You get the idea.

Consider the girl's name Megumi. This typically comes from 恵み, nominal form of the verb 恵む ("be blessed"). So we can abbreviate it to 恵. But since み is a common ending in girl's names, we can replace み with a nice kanji, like 美 ("beauty"). So we can write it 恵美 ("beautiful blessing") if we want. We could replace 恵 with 萌 ("bud; sprout; cute"). We could keep the 美 and have 萌美 ("beautiful sprout"). We can replace 恵 with 愛 ("love"). Or we can replace み with 愛.
So:
  • 恵美
  • 萌美
  • 惠愛
  • 愛美
And don't even think I have listed all the ways you can write Megumi. Let's not also forget that 愛美 is most likely to be read Aimi, so there can be a lot of ambiguity to names. A name like Kyōko pretty much allows almost anything that can be pronounced kyō to be in it (except 凶 kyō, which means evil/bad luck and 兇 kyō, which means wickedness/evil). Examples: 享子 京子 亮子 今日子 今日幸 共子 匡子 協子 卿子 叶声 叶子 叶恋 叶瑚 喬子 堯子 強子 恭子 慶子 教子 暁子 杏子 梗子 貴陽子 郷子 郷湖 鏡子 響子 響瑚 響空 饗古 香子 馨子. There are probably more. Also things like きょう子.

Edit:
There are also characters that have pronunciations that pretty much never occur outside of names. Like 愛 can be pronounced mana, so you can have:

愛美 Manami (mana-mi). You can also do 愛奈美 for Manami (ma-na-mi), cutting the na off and giving it its own character, or 愛 Manami, incorporating the mi into the character. Basically, for a bunch of names, you just have to ask people how to pronounce it.

Another fun one: the male name Hajime, which also means "beginning". As a standard word, it would be written 始め or 初め, but as a name, we can change the kanji to various other beginning-like kanji. So the name Hajime can be written 元 "beginning; origin", 一 "one", 東 "east" (beginning of the day), 春 "spring" (beginning of the year), 新 "new", 肇 "beginning", 甫 "begin", 創 "establish; found", 基 "base; foundation", 啓 "open; begin", and about a billion other ways, many of which don't have such a clear connection to beginning, but often have a meaning similar to good or great, like 大 "big", 祝 "celebrate", 正 "correct", 長 "long", 良 "good", 曄 "radiant; brilliant" and so on.

Some names are a little more straightforward, e.g. 政明 is almost certainly pronounced Masaaki, and 香織 is surely pronounced Kaori. I find that children these days have weirder names that are harder to figure out, while adults are usually easier to figure out. If someone has a one character name, you're probably not going to be able to read it though. But people with hard-to-read names know that they are hard to read.

Anyway, I hope this lesson clears up how kanji works at a basic level. Questions welcome.
Last edited by clawgrip on 27 Mar 2015 01:16, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

Addendum: some Japanese root words have more than one kanji. Generally, the kanji are separated by use. So for example:

会う au means "meet", while 合う au meets "fit together; match"
見る miru means "see", while 診る miru means "examine (as a doctor examines a patient)"
溶ける tokeru means "melt" (from frozen to room temperature), 熔ける means "melt" (from room temperature to super hot temperature), 解ける tokeru means "come untied; come loose; be solved (e.g. a problem or riddle)"

In daily life, people don't go too crazy with this except in cases where the meaning is clearly recognized as different, like in the examples above. However, in literary contexts, this can get confusing and people will take pleasure in choosing the best kanji for the job, even if it sometimes ends up being ateji.

If you want, I will talk about structure of kanji a little bit, since this can be an aid in learning.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by shimobaatar »

GrandPiano wrote:Make sure to also write them down a lot; not only does it make sure you know how the kana are constructed and what their stroke orders are, but it also really helps with memory.
Hey, thanks! For whatever dumb reason, I never really considered writing them down before… I'll definitely take your advice on that.

I can't really say why these kana in particular have stuck in my brain, but I currently know い う く し つ て の へ ま ん (and, by extension, ぐ じ づ で べ ぺ), but hopefully I'll be able to memorize the other kana more quickly now.


(Lesson 7):
Spoiler:
Exercise 1: put these verbs into the negative:
言う iu - to say 言わない iwanai
受ける ukèru - to accept; to receive; to undergo; to undertake 受けない ukenai
踊る odoru - to dance 踊らない odoranai

Exercise 2: put these verbs into the past tense:
分かる wakàru - to understand; to know 分かった wakatta
落ちる ochìru - to fall 落ちた ochita
切る kìru - to cut (u) 切った kitta

Exercise 3: put these verbs into the negative past:
言う - iu - to say 言わなかった iwanakatta
死ぬ - shinu - to die 死ななかった shinanakatta
読む - yòmu - to read 読まなかった yomanakatta

Exercise 4: translate the following into English:
犬が 学校に 入った。 Inu ga gakkō ni haitta. The dog entered (into) the school.
いぬが がっこうに はいった。

学校に 本が ある。 Gakkō ni hon ga aru. The book is in the school.
がっこうに ほんが ある。

山から 男の子が 来た。 Yama kara otoko no ko ga kita. The boy came from the mountain.
やまから おとこのこが きた。

Exercise 5: translate the following into Japanese:

(I) ate an apple. りんごを食べた。 Ringo o tabeta.
The boy (TPC) didn't go to school. 男の子は学校に行かなかった。 Otoko no ko wa gakkō ni ikanakatta.
(You) swam to the town. 町に泳いだ。 Machi ni oyoida.
The people lined up. 人が並んだ。 Hito ga naranda.
The dog died. 犬が死んだ。 Inu ga shinda.
The boy walked to the mountain from the school. 男の子が学校から山に歩いた。 Otoko no ko ga gakkō kara yama ni aruita.
Dogs don't read books. 犬が本を読まない。 Inu ga hon o yomanai.
For the one that asks us to mark "the boy" as the topic, I just took a shot in the dark and put は in where I would have otherwise put が.

Why is りんご written in hiragana? Is there no kanji for it? Also, is 男の子 the only word/term for boy? I feel like I've heard another word translated as boy somewhere, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, I see you've updated the thread while I was writing this, but I'll post this now and then read the new posts.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by svld »

shimobaatar wrote:Why is りんご written in hiragana? Is there no kanji for it?
林檎

shimobaatar wrote:Also, is 男の子 the only word/term for boy? I feel like I've heard another word translated as boy somewhere, but I could be wrong.
青年 少年 ショタ...
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

Your responses are pretty much correct, except the last one should also have は, though that's my fault for not including it in the question. Also, another thing I didn't mention, but when the subject of a verb is preceded by an argument of the predicate, it is highly likely that that subject will get translated to English with "a" rather than "the".

りんご does indeed have kanji, as mentioned above, but a lot of people don't use it because they don't know it, and even if they do, its use is stilted. You will find this a lot...there are a number of words that have kanji, but the kanji rarely gets used because it's too specific and complex and/or its use is stilted.

There's also a strong tendency to eliminate kanji when they are used as verbal elements or used in a set way that differs from their standard use. So for example あの時 ano toki "that time" uses the kanji because it's a regular phrase, but 来たとき kita toki "when (I) came" does not, because it is being used as a conjunction, which is considered a verbal element in Japanese. There is a sliding scale here, with some words that are absolutely never used with kanji, despite having them, to words where it's about 50-50.

As for 男の子, this is the most commonly used word. 少年 and 青年 exist, but they're not as conversational. I don't know what ショタ is, but I can only assume it's some sort of weird specific anime subculture abbreviation. I'm going to recommend 男の子 and 女の子 for boy and girl.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by shimobaatar »

(Lesson 8):
Spoiler:
Exercise:
translate the following:
The boy wrote a letter. 男の子が手紙を書いた。 Otoko no ko ga tegami o kaita.
(I) bought a stamp at the convenience store. 切手をコンビニで買った。 Kitte o konbini de katta.
The girl didn't mail the letter. 女の子が手紙を出さなかった。 Onna no ko ga tegami o dasanakatta.
(Her) mother (will) go to the post office. お母さんが郵便局に行く。 Okāsan ga yūbinkyoku ni iku.
(Her) mother (will) mail the letter. お母さんが手紙を出す。 Okāsan ga tegami o dasu.
The new book is small. 新しい本が小さい。 Atarashii hon ga chiisai.
The old book was big. 古い本が大きかった。 Furui hon ga ōkikatta.
This pond is beautiful. 池がきれいだ。 Ike ga kirei da.
The beautiful pond is close to (ni) the town. きれいな池が町に近い。 Kirei na ike ga machi ni chikai.
The mountains are tall/high. 山が高い。 Yama ga takai.
The mountains are far from the town. 山が町から遠い。 Yama ga machi kara tōi.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by qwed117 »

clawgrip wrote:Your responses are pretty much correct, except the last one should also have は, though that's my fault for not including it in the question. Also, another thing I didn't mention, but when the subject of a verb is preceded by an argument of the predicate, it is highly likely that that subject will get translated to English with "a" rather than "the".

りんご does indeed have kanji, as mentioned above, but a lot of people don't use it because they don't know it, and even if they do, its use is stilted. You will find this a lot...there are a number of words that have kanji, but the kanji rarely gets used because it's too specific and complex and/or its use is stilted.

There's also a strong tendency to eliminate kanji when they are used as verbal elements or used in a set way that differs from their standard use. So for example あの時 ano toki "that time" uses the kanji because it's a regular phrase, but 来たとき kita toki "when (I) came" does not, because it is being used as a conjunction, which is considered a verbal element in Japanese. There is a sliding scale here, with some words that are absolutely never used with kanji, despite having them, to words where it's about 50-50.

As for 男の子, this is the most commonly used word. 少年 and 青年 exist, but they're not as conversational. I don't know what ショタ is, but I can only assume it's some sort of weird specific anime subculture abbreviation. I'm going to recommend 男の子 and 女の子 for boy and girl.
I know some bare japanese from reading manga and etc. I don't know what you have been told, but I usually use "shōnen" and "shōjo" for boy and girl respectively. I'm wayyyyy too lazy to copy from wikipedia, so I will say adieu, now. *Wikipedia suggests that shonen is used daily, while shojo is used rarely*
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

To be clear, I don't base my statements on things I am told but rather things I observe. I don't mean to say that shōnen is some sort of obscure word or anything, just that otoko no ko is more commonly used. Also, I would hesitate to trust things you see in manga as being representative of standard spoken language.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

shimobaatar wrote:(Lesson 8):
Spoiler:
Exercise:
translate the following:
The boy wrote a letter. 男の子が手紙を書いた。 Otoko no ko ga tegami o kaita.
(I) bought a stamp at the convenience store. 切手をコンビニで買った。 Kitte o konbini de katta.
The girl didn't mail the letter. 女の子が手紙を出さなかった。 Onna no ko ga tegami o dasanakatta.
(Her) mother (will) go to the post office. お母さんが郵便局に行く。 Okāsan ga yūbinkyoku ni iku.
(Her) mother (will) mail the letter. お母さんが手紙を出す。 Okāsan ga tegami o dasu.
The new book is small. 新しい本が小さい。 Atarashii hon ga chiisai.
The old book was big. 古い本が大きかった。 Furui hon ga ōkikatta.
This pond is beautiful. 池がきれいだ。 Ike ga kirei da.
The beautiful pond is close to (ni) the town. きれいな池が町に近い。 Kirei na ike ga machi ni chikai.
The mountains are tall/high. 山が高い。 Yama ga takai.
The mountains are far from the town. 山が町から遠い。 Yama ga machi kara tōi.
Perfect. no problems
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by clawgrip »

Inter-lesson note!
The verb 言う iu "say" is, in natural speech, basically always pronounced (/i/ reduced to /j/, /ɯ/ lengthened to retain original word length) except in more polite or formal language. It's not just a contraction of the base form though; it's actually a partial reanalysis of the stem, so the stem i- becomes yu-. This can happen in any form of the verb, but it primarily only becomes yu- before suffixes beginning with /t/, e.g. 言った itta or commonly yutta.

Lesson 17: Causative, passive, and potential
In this lesson we will learn three important suffixes. These are actually suffixes that you've met before. You may remember back in lesson 12 I introduced three suffixes (-(a)s, -ar, and -e) that allowed for the derivation of transitive and intransitive verb stems, but I said that they are nonproductive. This is not entirely true. In fact, they survive in a somewhat modified form to create the semantically similar causative, passive, and potential forms.

Causative
I'm going to start with the causative, because the other two have weird things going on, but this one is simple and easy to understand. Predictably, the causative form marks the subject of the verb as the cause of someone or something else performing the base action of the verb. In English, causative constructions generally always use words such as let, allow, make, force have, etc., which all mark additional pragmatic information such as volition, intention, expectation, and social relationships. The Japanese causative, on the other hand, is pragmatically neutral and could easily be translated as "let" in one context and "force" in another. This may seem strange to English speakers, as it was to me at first, but context is pretty much always sufficient to remove ambiguity, and if not, you can add various adverbs, or just include some additional explanation. It's simple enough.

First, the form. Causatives are formed with the suffix -(s)aseru.

ru-dropping verbs take -saseru

考える kangaèru "think"
考えさせる kangaesasèru "cause to think"

食べる tabèru "eat"
食べさせる tabesasèru "cause to eat"

u-dropping verbs take -asèru

立つ tàtsu "stand"
立たせる tatasèru "cause to stand"

書く kàku "write"
書かせる kakasèru "cause to write"

There are two irregular verbs:

する suru "do" simply becomes させる saseru
来る kùru "come" becomes 来させる kosasèru

The subject of the original indicative verb is demoted to an argument of the verb, but the way it is done differs based on the transitivity of the verbs.

Intransitive verbs demote their subjects to direct objects (marked with を).
友達が8時まで待ってしまった。
Tomodachi ga hachìji made màtte shimatta.
"(My) friend waited until 8 o'clock."

友達を8時まで待たせてしまった。
Tomodachi o hachìji made matàsete shimatta.
"I made (my) friend wait until 8 o'clock."

まで until; as far as; up to

Transitive verbs, on the other hand, retain their indicative direct objects as is, and demote the subject to a sort of dative (marked with に).

赤ちゃんは辛い物を食べない。
Àkachan wa karài monò o tabènai.
"Babies don't eat spicy food."

赤ちゃんに辛い物を食べさせない。
Àkachan ni karài monò o tabesasènai.
"(One) doesn't feed babies spicy food (cause babies to eat)."

赤ちゃん àkachan baby
辛い karài "spicy" (note: this easily includes things like ginger or mint, not like English "spicy" which is mainly centred on chili pepper-type flavour)
monò "thing"

One last thing to say about this one. In casual speech, when this ending is followed by the -te or -ta endings (i.e. -sasète, -sasèta), the "se" is often abbreviated to "shi", resulting in -sàshite -sàshita. I say abbreviated here, because this allowed the vowel to be devoiced and basically dropped altogether.

Passive
Although essentially similar to the English passive voice, there are some important grammatical and pragmatic differences which we will go over below. But first, the form.

The passive suffix is -(r)areru.

ru-dropping verbs take -rareru:

食べる tabèru "eat"
食べられる taberarèru "be eaten"

入れる ireru "put in"
入れられる irerarèru "be put in" (good luck pronouncing this one)

u-dropping verbs take -arèru:

起こす okòsu "wake up" (vt)
起こされる okosarèru "be woken up"

襲う osou "attack"
襲われる osowareru "be attacked"

Again, there are two irregular verbs:

する suru "do" simply becomes される sareru
来る kùru "come" becomes 来られる korarèru

The agent is marked with に ni and occasionally with によって ni yotte. The difference is not so important right now, so just use に.

犬が花瓶を壊した。
Inù ga kabin o kowàshita.
"The dog broke the vase."

花瓶が犬に壊された。
Kabin ga inù ni kowasàreta.
"The vase was broken by the dog."

壊す kowàsu - break
花瓶 kabin - vase

Suffering passive
In English, the primary purpose of the passive voice is to shift topical focus to the direct object of a transitive verb. However, Japanese can easily shift the object to topic position without any corresponding alteration to the verb, thereby eliminating the most basic purpose of the passive voice. As a result, the this leaves the passive open for specialized use; namely, passive voice in Japanese often connotes a lack of control, volition, or desire.

In the passive sentences, in these examples, there are varying degrees of a lack of control.

悪い人だと思う。
Warùi hito da to omòu.
"I think he is a bad person."

悪い人だと思われている。
Warùi hito da to omowàrete iru.
"I am thought of as a bad person. / People think I'm a bad person."

知らないと言った。
Shiranai to itta.
"She said she doesn't know."

知らないと言われた。
Shiranai to iwareta.
"I was told she doesn't know. / She told me she doesn't know."

The first sentence suggests that "I" had a question to ask the person, I asked the person, and the person didn't know. The second sentence, on the other hand, implies more than the first that "I" wanted to learn some fact, but was prevented from learning it because the person doesn't know. In this way, it shows more of a lack of control.

You may notice that something strange is going on here, because neither of these examples follows how prototypical passive voice works. In the first example, the subject of the complement clause is promoted to the main clause, where it becomes the topic. In the second example, the indirect object of the complement clause has become the subject of the main clause. In both cases, a direct object is entirely absent, which would seem to preclude the use of the passive voice. Subjects and indirect objects becoming subjects (or...remaining subjects) seems almost nonsensical. But it all becomes clear if you understand that the Japanese passive voice is just as likely to promote the experiencer/theme to subject position as it is the patient.

This is perhaps no clearer than in the next example:

彼の女房が死んだ。
Kàre no nyṑbō ga shinda.
"His wife died."

彼は女房に死なれた。
Kàre wa nyṑbo ni shinareta.
"He lost his wife." (Lit. "He was died by his wife.")

This type of construction is done entirely to emphasize the unfortunate circumstances of the action, and has much less to do with focus shifting.

Honorific "passive"
This is one you probably don't need to pay too much attention to beyond knowing it exists so that you can make sense of it if you come across a sentence that uses it. Briefly stated, the passive voice construction can be used to make a verb honorific with no passive meaning at all.

どこに行かれるのですか。
Dòko ni ikareru no desu ka?
"Where are you going? (HON)"

(Please don't ask me about "no desu" because I haven't figured out how to explain it yet)

Potential
The potential is used to show things that can be done. It's simple enough semantically, but it has some weird grammatical things going on. First, let's look at the form, which differs between ru-dropping and u-dropping verbs.

u-dropping verbs take the suffix -eru.

泳ぐ oyògu "swim"
泳げる oyogèru "can swim"

言う iu "say"
言える ieru "can say"

As usual, the two irregulars:

する suru "do" 出来る dekìru "can do" (suppletive form; also means "be done; be completed")
来る kùru "come" 来られる korarèru "can come"

Here's where it starts to get confusing. The potential form for ru-dropping verbs is identical to the passive.

食べる tabèru "eat"
食べられる taberarèru "can eat"

起きる okìru "get up"
起きられる okirarèru "can get up"

Colloquially, distinct potential forms have developed. They are formed by dropping the ra:

食べれる taberèru "can eat"
起きれる okirèru "can get up"
来れる korèru "can come"

As you should recognize from what I said earlier, the passive and potential forms are not coincidentally similar: they are formed with the exact same, unaltered (in its uncontracted form) suffix. You'll also notice that both u-dropping and ru-dropping potentials are formed with suffixes that alter transitivity. What I'm saying is that the potential is also always a passive.
This means that the object of the indicative sentence becomes the subject of the corresponding potential sentence though topicalizing can sometimes obscure this change.

貝を食べる
kài o tabèru
"eat shell(fish)"

Here, 貝 kai is placed in the accusative. When this is conjugated in the potential, we get:

貝が食べられる
kài ga taberarèru
"can eat shellfish/shellfish (can) be eaten"

Colloquially:

貝が食べれる
kài ga taberèru
"can eat shellfish/shellfish can be eaten"

You can see that in the potential, kai is marked as nominative.

What is perhaps extra strange to the English speaker is that in colloquial language, Japanese speakers are rather inconsistent about this, with some people failing to swap from accusative to nominative. In English, subject and object are rigidly separated, even in non-finite constructions like interesting vs. interested, so it can be strange to see a language that is somewhat lax about it (appropriately, Japanese also doesn't differentiate pairs like interesting-interested). This can most likely be attributed to the presence of the topic, which easily neutralizes the subject-object distinction.

Causative passive
The causative and passive suffixes can be combined to form the causative passive. It behaves pretty much as you would expect, in both form and meaning. It's formed with the somewhat lengthy suffix -(s)aserareru. All the rules for forming the standard causative apply here as well, since it's the same suffix. Since it uses the passive, it typically implies a lack of volition/intent.

考える kangaèru "think"
考えさせられる kangaesaserarèru "be caused/made to think"

食べる tabèru "eat"
食べさせられる tabesaserarèru "be made/forced to eat"

立つ tàtsu "stand"
立たせられる tataserarèru "be made to stand"

書く kàku "write"
書かせられる kakaserarèru "be made to write"

する suru "do"
させられる saserareru "be made/caused to do"

来る kùru "come"
来させられる kosaserarèru "be made/forced to come"

Note on accent
If a verb has an accent, it will get shifted to the endings -saseru, -rareru -eru, -saserareru, e.g.
食べる tabèru → 食べられる taberarèru
通る tṑru → 通らせる tōrasèru
泳ぐ oyògu → 泳げる oyogèru
習う naràu → 習わせられる narawaserarèru

If the word has no accent, then the ending also has no accent, e.g. 焼く yaku, 焼かせる yakaseru.

The accented suffixes (-sasèru, -rarèru, -èru) behave in the same way as most three-syllable ru-dropping verbs in that they shift their accent back one mora in the forms beginning with /t/, e.g.

食べられる taberarèru → 食べられた taberàreta
通らせる tōrasèru → 通らせる tōràseta
泳ぐ 泳げる oyogèru → 泳げた oyògeta.
習わせられる narawaserarèru → 習わせられた narawaseràreta

Exercise:

Vocabulary
帰る kàeru – to go home
稼ぐ kasègu - to earn/save
覚える oboèru - to remember
お金 okane - money
仕事 shigoto - work; job
やめる yameru to stop doing; to quit

1. 矢間さんは、人の名前を覚える。 (change to potential)
2. 矢間さんが早く帰った。 (change to causative, new subject is 1st person.)
3. 矢間さんはやめた。 (change to causative passive. agent is 1st person.)
4. 今から遅く起きる。 (change to potential)
5. でも、お金を稼がない。 (change to potential)
6. 仕事もしない。 (change to potential)

If you need the Romanization:
Spoiler:
Yazama-san wa, hito no namae o oboèru.
Yazama-san ga hàyaku kàetta.
Yazama-san wa yameta.
Ìma kara osòku okìru.
Demo, okane o kaseganai.
Shigoto mo shinai.
For an extra challenge, do the same thing again, only in polite language:

1. 矢間さんは、人の名前を覚えます。 (change to potential)
2. 矢間さんが早く帰ります。 (change to causative, new subject is 1st person.)
3. 矢間さんはやめました。 (change to causative passive. agent is 1st person.)
4. 今から遅く起きます。 (change to potential)
5. でも、お金を稼ぎません。 (change to potential)
6. 仕事もしません。 (change to potential)
Spoiler:
Yazama-san wa, hito no namae o oboemàsu.
Yazama-san ga hàyaku kaerimàsu.
Yazama-san wa yamemàshita.
Ìma kara osòku okìmàsu.
Demo, okane o kasegimasèn.
Shigoto mo shimasèn.
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Re: 日本語を学ぼう Learn Japanese

Post by shimobaatar »

(Lesson 9):
Spoiler:
Exercise:
make these verbs polite:
来る (くる) 来ます kimasu
切る (きる) (u) 切ります kirimasu
言う (いう) 言います iimasu
見る (みる) 見ます mimasu
する します shimasu
話す (はなす) 話します hanashimasu
並ぶ (ならぶ) 並びます narabimasu

Translate the following:
学校で英語を習いました。 Gakkō de eigo o naraimashita. I learned English at school.
郵便局で聞きました。 Yūbinkyoku de kikimashita. I asked at the post office.
学生たちが先生の言うことをちゃんと聞きます。 Gakuseitachi ga sensei no iu koto o chanto kikimasu. The students properly listen to the subject that the teacher is talking about.
池の隣で英語を習います。 Ike no tonari de eigo o naraimasu. I study English next to the pond.

Translate the following, using the polite form:
The students entered the large classroom. 学生たちが大きい教室に入りました。 Gakuseitachi ga ōkii kyōshitsu ni hairimashita.
The students are in the classroom. 学生たちが教室にいます。 Gakuseitachi ga kyōshitsu ni imasu.
The textbooks are in the classroom. 教科書が教室にあります。 Kyōkasho ga kyōshitsu ni arimasu.
The students sat down. 学生たちが座りました。 Gakuseitachi ga suwarimashita.
The teacher taught math to them in the classroom. 先生が数学を教室で学生たちに教えました。 Sensei ga sūgaku o kyōshitsu de gakuseitachi ni oshiemashita.
The students wrote sentences in their textbooks. 学生たちが文章を学生たちの教科書で書きました。 Gakuseitachi ga bunshō o gakuseitachi no kyōkasho de kakimashita.
This small town is old. この小さい町古いです。 Kono chiisai machi furui desu.
Spoiler:
It's about half past three in the morning where I am, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to do all of these exercises in one sitting, so I apologize in advance for any stupid mistakes I've made.

I'm rather unsure about how I've chosen to translate a few things in general, and about word order when it comes to oblique arguments, but more specifically:

The second and third to last sentences from the third section caught me a little off guard with pronouns/possessive adjectives. I think my translations may be too redundant, especially for "The students wrote sentences in their textbooks".

How compulsory and/or common is "-tachi" for plural animate nouns?

Hmm… I thought I'd have a greater number of specific questions than that. If I think of more that I may be forgetting at the moment, I'll ask them. Hopefully it doesn't take me as long to start the next lesson as it took me to get around to doing this one.
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