"Mata ne". Interrogative or declarative?

[lorraine]

Hi.

So, I'm trying to learn how to speak Goodbye in Japanese. I stumbled upon a lot of youtube videos regarding this. One says, it is a question, but they said it means "see you later", so how can that be a question. And also, if it is indeed a question, I've read that Japanese have no question mark, and putting a "ka" at the end of phrase instead will make it a question. So, given that, since there is no "ka", i'm betting "mata ne" is not a question. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I really appreciate the guidance since I'm really a beginner on this language.

And while I'm on the subject, just wondering if Japanese uses spaces. I'm betting they do since I saw spaces between words while watching anime, but I also saw Japanese sentences which don't have a space at all, but their English translation does.

Really appreciate the guidance, guys. Thanks a lot.

 

[Mike Cash]

It is not a question and Japanese doesn't use spaces between words.

 

[BrianLewis]

It's the same as in the English statement "See you later."

 

[Andromedashun]

Is there a term ''declarative'' in Japanese grammar? I've never heard of it. ''ni suru'', ''ni kimeru''?

 

[Guregori]

It's the same as in the English statement "See you later."

Which would just lead to the question: What is "See you later" in English? Imperative or indicative?
It's short for "(I'll) see you later" which is an indicative statement.

Mata ne means "Bye" or "See you later".

Literally though it is: mata 'again' and -ne a sentence ending (interjection) which is used to indicate emphasis, agreement, request for confirmation, e.g. OK?

So it can be literally read as "Again, right?", or "Again, OK?" which is perhaps why the Youtuber said it was a 'question'. But it does not form a question grammatically and the speaker is not expecting an answer.

 

[Toritoribe]

Is there a term ''declarative'' in Japanese grammar? I've never heard of it. ''ni suru'', ''ni kimeru''?

平叙文 is the one; sentences other than 疑問文(interrogative), 感動文(exclamatory), 命令文(imperative).

"Mata ne" is the shortened form of "Mata aimashō/aō ne".

 

[BrianLewis]

There are quite a few things in Japanese that you shouldn't try to translate literally. I would just call it a loose affirmation that you assume the other party is aware of. There are other things in the language that give an "loose idea" of something or other that are not used at all in English. I would suggest to rely more on your feelings or intuition, rather than definitions or literal translations. The Japanese language loves their degrees of certainty/uncertainty, unlike English.

That said, they teach beginners usually that it means "... ,right?" However, you are just going to have to unlearn that at some point down the line.

 

[Andromedashun]

平叙文 is the one; sentences other than 疑問文(imperative), 感動文(exclamatory), 命令文(imperative).

"Mata ne" is the shortened form of "Mata aimashō/aō ne".

Oh thanks for pointing that out. There isn't much declarative forms around the net as I searched except the Nだ. Can you give me some more examples?

 

[Toritoribe]

Sorry, I corrected an error in my previous post (疑問文(imperative) --> 疑問文(interrogative)).

As I wrote, the sentences other than 疑問文, 感動文 or 命令文 are basically 平叙文. Thus, you can think that almost all "normal" sentences belong to 平叙文. See the following wiki page linked below. ALL the sentences in the page are 平叙文 except two example questions バター、とってくれません？ and もう奥さんをなぐっていないだろうね？

疑問文 - Wikipedia