勉強文

[AmerikaJin5]

I won't repeat what Mike already pointed out, but here's a few thoughts (I defer to others if I'm wrong, though).

あたしにはスポーツがちょっとつまらないですわ。ちがうゲームがどうですか

Rather than ちがうゲーム, I think you'd say ほかのゲーム (if you're talking about playing some kind of game with other people). It seems to me that ちがう would indicate a difference somewhere, rather than another thing (game).
For example, imagine if someone asks "Is American football the one where you can continue passing the ball to your teammates after you're tackled?" and you reply "no, that's a different game, that's rugby." I think in this case you would use ちがう to describe that. ほかのゲーム is more like "so what else can we play?"
Lastly, as Mike offered, I think it's more common to use は with どうですか (considering his excellent description of the difference in emphasis he provided before).

ねえ、アリスさん、時は何ですか。あたし4時半ごろでなければいけないんですね。

I don't think the ね works here.
Maybe a slight improvement would be --> アリスさん、今は何時ですか？4時半ごろ出なければならないんです。

ナタリーさんは第十回におそいので首だかもしれないね。

かもしれない can be added directly after nouns/adjectives/verbs (to my understanding).

 

[diligentcircle]

Hm, a few of those were keyboard errors. (Much easier to do when you type something just before going to bed.)

Do you mean でなければ as the copula or as the the verb 出る?

出る. Not sure if I forgot to hit the spacebar or if Anthy just failed me that time.

Why do you have には instead of just は?

I don't have a good answer for that. I think I was trying to draw attention to or lightly emphasize あたし, but honestly, I can't think of any good reason to want to do that in this context.

You don't need both ぐらい and だけ.

Funny thing about that: だけ was thrown in there while I was writing one of the other sentences (or rather, thinking about what to write in the other sentences), and I was just thinking a few minutes ago (just before I checked here) that, wait a minute, that was a stupid thing to do.

Is the sentence meant to convey the idea that the speaker thinks 200 is a little? A lot?

Originally, before I added in だけ after-the-fact, it was supposed to be entirely neutral. I just started to (probably wrongly) worry that it suggested that 200 is a lot, like a pretentious statement about knowing a lot of kanji despite knowing only 200. So then I threw だけ in there to try to make it explicit that 200 is a very small amount of kanji. So like I said: stupid, and also careless.

Use 第 for things you're numbering, not things you're counting.

Huh, I didn't even consider the possibility that there would be a difference. Thanks for that.

Rather than ちがうゲーム, I think you'd say ほかのゲーム (if you're talking about playing some kind of game with other people).

Thanks, I didn't even notice.

かもしれない can be added directly after nouns/adjectives/verbs (to my understanding).

Hm, the insertion of だ was a hypercorrection. Well, now I know not to do that again. Thanks!

 

[Mike Cash]

Rather than ちがうゲーム, I think you'd say ほかのゲーム

There's no problem with 違うゲーム

You're essentially talking about the difference between "a different game" and "some other game". Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

lightly emphasize あたし

Spice bottles have labels on them because you can't just sprinkle any spice on food and get the flavor you thought it should be.

So like I said: stupid, and also careless.

Only careless if you actually know the different constructions and simply fail to apply them correctly. I suspect this was more a case of simply not knowing.

Let's check.

Write it again, three different ways....neutrally stated; stated as though the speaker thinks it is a lot; stated as though the speaker thinks it isn't very many.

 

[Mike Cash]

怒っているよ！アリスは来るべきだったよ!
I'm angry right now! Alice was supposed to come here!

Forgive the delayed reaction, but I suspect your vocabulary would benefit greatly by adding 筈(はず) to it.

 

[diligentcircle]

Spice bottles have labels on them because you can't just sprinkle any spice on food and get the flavor you thought it should be.

Do you mean "you can't use it that way"? If so, alright. Duly noted.

So what I wonder, then, is where is には generally used instead of は? It's something I never properly learned, in fact I never even noticed it until a few months ago, but I see that my best attempt at an interpretation (mostly based on Wikipedia's article on particles) was off.

Only careless if you actually know the different constructions and simply fail to apply them correctly. I suspect this was more a case of simply not knowing.

Even if I don't know how to use it correctly, just throwing a word into the middle of the sentence after I've already written it is careless. I can't count how many times this has led to repetition, weird sentence fragments, and other weirdness in my English-language posts before. This is why I usually try to look over the entirety of my posts and read through everything where I've made any changes (and in particularly important cases such as debates even where I didn't do so), but I don't think I even re-read that one sentence after changing it. So careless regardless.

Let's check.

Write it again, three different ways....neutrally stated; stated as though the speaker thinks it is a lot; stated as though the speaker thinks it isn't very many.

Sure. I'll give a few versions, because I'm not dead-set on any one particular way of doing all of them.

For neutral, as I kind of loosely said before, I think it should be this:

漢字を200字ぐらい知っています。

To imply that it's a lot, here are some possibilities I can think of, in order from slightly arrogant to cartoonishly arrogant:

もう漢字を200字ぐらい学びましたよ！
もう漢字を200字以上学びましたよ！
このあたしが漢字を200字以上知っているよ！
このジューリーさまが200字以上知っているよ！

(The last two I've dropped the teineigo because it seems to me it would be super weird to use it there.)

And to imply that it's very little:

漢字をただに200字知っています。

On a side note, I'm not very proficient with counters (I only got a proper introduction of how to syntactically use them with regular nouns yesterday, from GENKI I), but would I be right to think that "漢字を200字知っている" could be re-written as "漢字の200字を知っている"? If that's the case, I would also consider using だけ like this:

漢字の200字だけ知っています。

I'm also curious if either of these work:

漢字は200字だけ知っています。
漢字が200字だけ知っています。

Forgive the delayed reaction, but I suspect your vocabulary would benefit greatly by adding 筈(はず) to it.

I've certainly heard it a lot. Looking it up in the basic grammar dictionary, yeah, it definitely would. Thanks!

 

[Mike Cash]

You didn't go read the entry on も, did you?

 

[diligentcircle]

Entry on も? Sorry, was there a link I missed?

 

[Mike Cash]

Entry on も? Sorry, was there a link I missed?

Look up the ordinal suffix 〜目 and the uses of the particle も.

Familiarize yourself with も and it will save you from those cartoonish sentences.

 

[AmerikaJin5]

There's no problem with 違うゲーム
You're essentially talking about the difference between "a different game" and "some other game". Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

I stand corrected. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[diligentcircle]

Ah, I missed that. Sorry.

So the basic grammar dictionary lists two uses (though I'm sure there must be others). I was only familiar with the first version, not the second one which is to indicate emphasis. It even has a direct example that correlates with this.

So then, if I wanted to imply that 200 is a lot of kanji to know without sounding like a cartoon character...

漢字を200字も知っています。

How's that?

 

[Mike Cash]

That is superb, and not at all cartoonish. は might be better than を

Now see what you can find on 〜しか

 

[diligentcircle]

Hey, that's a great one too!

「だけ」しか知っていなかったです。
漢字を200字しか知っていません。

How are those?

 

[diligentcircle]

I missed the part about は instead of を, sorry. Is it the same sort of thing as は vs が?

 

[Toritoribe]

この低い馬は尾がないのでよく転びます。だから、お母さんの果物を持ちません。変な形の羊もよく転びますけど、「だめ」の意味が分かりません。多く持つから、家の所はゴミがたくさんあります。だからあたしたちは必ずゴミを接していますね。

お母さん is interpreted as the speaker'/writer's mother there.
「だめ」の意味が分かりません, 多く持つから, 家の所 or だからあたしたちは必ずゴミを接していますね don't make sense.

ねえ、アリスさん、時は何ですか。あたし4時半ごろでなければいけないんですね。

あたしにはスポーツがちょっとつまらないですわ。ちがうゲームがどうですか。

漢字を２００時ぐらいだけ知っています。

ナタリーさんは第十回におそいので首だかもしれないね。

Can you give us the revised version?

 

[diligentcircle]

お母さん is interpreted as the speaker'/writer's mother there.

Ah, OK.

If I had clarified in the sentence whose mother it was, would お母さん have been the right word to use? Or to put it more concretely, is this the right way to do it?

アリスのお母さんはアメリカ人です。

And how about if you want to talk about Alice's mom and dad in quick succession? Something like this?

アリスはお母さんはアメリカ人ですが、お父さんは日本人です。

「だめ」の意味が分かりません, 多く持つから, 家の所 or だからあたしたちは必ずゴミを接していますね don't make sense.

Could you clarify:

> 多く持つから

Is it the use of "多く", the use of "から", both, or something else, which doesn't make sense?

> だからあたしたちは必ずゴミを接していますね

Is it because of "だから", "必ず", "ゴミを接する", "接している", multiples of these, all of the above, or something else?

I also haven't got a clue what is wrong with this one:

「だめ」の意味が分かりません

What is the appropriate way to say "doesn't understand what [word] means"? Or does it just not make sense because of of the context it's in?

Can you give us the revised version?

Sure.

ねえ、アリスさん、何時ですか。あたしは4時半ごろ出る方がいいんです。 (Slightly different meaning, but I have a better understanding of 方[が/は]いい and it makes more sense with ごろ, I think.)

スポーツはちょっとつまらないですわ。他のゲームはどうですか。

漢字は200字しか知っていません。

ナタリーさんは十回目おそく来たのでくびかもしれない。

 

[mdchachi]

> 多く持つから
Is it the use of "多く", the use of "から", both, or something else, which doesn't make sense?

Based on your English translation, I think you wanted to say よく持つから

> だからあたしたちは必ずゴミを接していますね

Is it because of "だから", "必ず", "ゴミを接する", "接している", multiples of these, all of the above, or something else?

I think it's multiple reasons but since I'm no expert I won't try to comment much. I want to mention it's very helpful to use alc to see how certain words are used. e.g.
接しての英訳｜英辞郎 on the WEB：アルク
So you can at least see that the use of を seems inappropriate.

I also haven't got a clue what is wrong with this one:
「だめ」の意味が分かりません
What is the appropriate way to say "doesn't understand what [word] means"? Or does it just not make sense because of of the context it's in?

Although you're visually showing the quotes I think you need to use the quotative form of という.
You probably know the phrase なんと言う意味ですか . Same kind of thing.
If you say だめの意味 I would take it to mean "bad meaning" or "bad definition." Although I think dame is a na-adjective and it's not correct to use の at all here.

出る方がいい

I haven't studied Japanese in 15 years (I just speak it daily in some form or other) but I think you always use past tense here even for future situations.
e.g. 明日何時に出たほうがいいですか？

 

[diligentcircle]

Based on your English translation, I think you wanted to say よく持つから

Alright, so it was 多く then. Thanks.

So you can at least see that the use of を seems inappropriate.

Ah, of course. I actually noticed this a couple days ago when I used 接する again, but didn't notice this older sentence's を as I was reading it.

Although you're visually showing the quotes I think you need to use the quotative form of という.

Ah, thanks. I never considered that.

I haven't studied Japanese in 15 years (I just speak it daily in some form or other) but I think you always use past tense here even for future situations.

Yeah. The grammar dictionary I've got says you can use the present tense for a slightly more mild suggestion, though. So to clarify, this was initially a mistake, so I corrected it to past tense in an edit after looking it up to make sure I was using it right, but then I noticed that it says you actually can use present tense to make it weaker, so I edited it back to present-tense with that intention in mind.

 

[Toritoribe]

If I had clarified in the sentence whose mother it was, would お母さん have been the right word to use? Or to put it more concretely, is this the right way to do it?

アリスのお母さんはアメリカ人です。

And how about if you want to talk about Alice's mom and dad in quick succession? Something like this?

アリスはお母さんはアメリカ人ですが、お父さんは日本人です。

お母さん is not used for the mother of animals.

アリスのお母さんはアメリカ人ですが、お父さんは日本人です。 or アリスは、お母さんがアメリカ人で、お父さんが日本人です。 is more natural.

A related question. Didn't you think my reply "お母さん is interpreted as the speaker'/writer's mother" was weird? Haven't you ever learned that honorifics can't be used for the speaker's in-group members?

Could you clarify:

> 多く持つから

Is it the use of "多く", the use of "から", both, or something else, which doesn't make sense?

Besides 多く, 持つ is not appropriate for the translation of "to carry", either.

> だからあたしたちは必ずゴミを接していますね

Is it because of "だから", "必ず", "ゴミを接する", "接している", multiples of these, all of the above, or something else?

Indeed the choice of the particle is wrong, but it's not the main problem since 接する is inappropriate in the first place.

I also haven't got a clue what is wrong with this one:

「だめ」の意味が分かりません

What is the appropriate way to say "doesn't understand what [word] means"? Or does it just not make sense because of of the context it's in?

けど also has a problem in 転びますけど. Why 「だめ」という言葉の意味が分かりません/理解できません is an adversative result of "the sheep with a weird shape also falls a lot"? It's semantically odd.

ねえ、アリスさん、何時ですか。あたしは4時半ごろ出る方がいいんです。

今何時ですか is more common.

～たほうがいい is a suggestion/advice, i.e., it's basically for the listener or third person. It can be used for the speaker themselves in question, as in mdchachi-san's example 明日何時に出たほうがいいですか？, or for non-volitional action or "generally speaking", though. You'd better use an expression for "have to" such like ～なければいけない in your case.

"The present form of verbs + ほうがいい" can be considered a variation of "comparison" rather than "suggestion/advice".
e.g.
出かけないの？
家にいる方がいいです。
（＝ 出かけるよりも家にいる方がいい）

it makes more sense with ごろ, I think.

No, as I explained above.

スポーツはちょっとつまらないですわ。

Are you a high-society lady? Again and again, you shouldn't use sentence final particles until you grasp the nuance of it. The same goes to 接していますね.

漢字は200字しか知っていません。

漢字200字くらいしか知りません/わかりません

ナタリーさんは十回目おそく来たのでくびかもしれない。

There is a more appropriate word for "to be late".

 

[diligentcircle]

Haven't you ever learned that honorifics can't be used for the speaker's in-group members?

No. I haven't learned much of anything about how to refer to family members at all. The only discussion of it at all in Japanese class was as vocabulary, taken straight from GENKI I lesson 1. It doesn't discuss this at all at this point, and neither did any part of Japanese class.

Honestly, I'm not even sure whether "honorifics" refers to さん or お.

Why 「だめ」という言葉の意味が分かりません/理解できません is an adversative result of "the sheep with a weird shape also falls a lot"? It's semantically odd.

I was trying to use 意 somehow, so I chose to attempt to imply that someone was telling it to stop doing it, but that it didn't understand. But I also hadn't considered that 意味 could be used in better ways than that.

Again and again, you shouldn't use sentence final particles until you grasp the nuance of it.

I'm confused as to how I should learn how to use particles without ever trying to use them. I could keep listening to what they use in anime, I guess, but haven't we established that this is a bad way to learn?

Plus there's the problem of unknown unknowns. Just because I think I grasp something doesn't mean I actually do. That fact alone makes it impossible for me to accurately assess my own comprehension of anything. It's the essence of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

So I've tried to follow that advice ever since Mike posted it (I suppose I must have misread something you said because I thought you had said the opposite), but every single time since then that I've used a sentence-end particle, I did think I was grasping the nuance of it.

So I guess my question is, how do you suggest learning to use sentence-end particles, and if I am not to use them until I fully understand them, how would you suggest I find out how well I understand them?

 

[mdchachi]

No. I haven't learned much of anything about how to refer to family members at all. The only discussion of it at all in Japanese class was as vocabulary, taken straight from GENKI I lesson 1. It doesn't discuss this at all at this point, and neither did any part of Japanese class.
Honestly, I'm not even sure whether "honorifics" refers to さん or お.

Surely you learned that you use HAHA to refer to your mother and OKAASAN to refer to others.
And CHICHI for your father and OTOOSAN for somebody else's. So it's the same thing for all the family words. There are a bunch of lessons and vocabulary lists about this that you can Google.
Honestly after all these years I have retained very few of them. Rarely do I need to talk about my own grandparents with people outside of my group for example. And when I do, people forgive me if I refer to my "ojiisan."

I'm confused as to how I should learn how to use particles without ever trying to use them. I could keep listening to what they use in anime, I guess, but haven't we established that this is a bad way to learn?

Plus there's the problem of unknown unknowns. Just because I think I grasp something doesn't mean I actually do. That fact alone makes it impossible for me to accurately assess my own comprehension of anything. It's the essence of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

So I've tried to follow that advice ever since Mike posted it (I suppose I must have misread something you said because I thought you had said the opposite), but every single time since then that I've used a sentence-end particle, I did think I was grasping the nuance of it.

So I guess my question is, how do you suggest learning to use sentence-end particles, and if I am not to use them until I fully understand them, how would you suggest I find out how well I understand them?

I suggest not trying to use particles you never learned. Like the ending "WA." Also something like that is mostly conversational so it doesn't really make sense to use it here in written dialogs.

 

[Toritoribe]

Yeah, that's the basic idea of how to use honorifics. However, when talking with family members or close friends, or private documents such like diary, honorifics can be used also for in-group members. お母さん is a common word when addressing the speaker's mother, for instance.

I was trying to use 意 somehow, so I chose to attempt to imply that someone was telling it to stop doing it, but that it didn't understand. But I also hadn't considered that 意味 could be used in better ways than that.

I'm talking about the relation in meaning between "The sheep with a weird shape also falls a lot" and "he doesn't know the meaning of 'だめ'". Why "but"?

I'm confused as to how I should learn how to use particles without ever trying to use them. I could keep listening to what they use in anime, I guess, but haven't we established that this is a bad way to learn?

Plus there's the problem of unknown unknowns. Just because I think I grasp something doesn't mean I actually do. That fact alone makes it impossible for me to accurately assess my own comprehension of anything. It's the essence of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

So I've tried to follow that advice ever since Mike posted it (I suppose I must have misread something you said because I thought you had said the opposite), but every single time since then that I've used a sentence-end particle, I did think I was grasping the nuance of it.

So I guess my question is, how do you suggest learning to use sentence-end particles, and if I am not to use them until I fully understand them, how would you suggest I find out how well I understand them?

OK, then please tell us why you used わ there. What is your understanding regarding the function of わ, and what did you try to express by わ? (The same goes to ね or other particles.)

 

[diligentcircle]

Surely you learned that you use HAHA to refer to your mother and OKAASAN to refer to others.

I did, but it was in a blog post about a month or two ago. It wasn't mentioned at all in Japanese class.

I'm talking about the relation in meaning between "The sheep with a weird shape also falls a lot" and "he doesn't know the meaning of 'だめ'". Why "but"?

Oh, that. I think I was trying to say that the sheep would break things too, but he still does it because he doesn't listen to others telling him to stop.

OK, then please tell us why you used わ there. What is your understanding regarding the function of わ, and what did you try to express by わ? (The same goes to ね or other particles.)

Sure.

My understanding of わ was that it makes the sentence sound feminine and softly assertive (like, as if it's absolute, but not quite).

What I've always been taught ね means is that you want the person you're talking to to say something back, and more recently I've gotten the impression that it can also be used to express mild uncertainty.

か for questions, of course.

Back in Japanese class, I was just taught that よ is like an exclamation point, but more recently, my understanding has shifted to it implying a very heavy assertion, like there's no wiggle room in what you think, while my understanding of ぞ and ぜ was that they are progressively stronger, rougher versions of the same thing. I've also seen that these can all be used in a volitional sense, and more recently I've noticed that よ can be used in an imperative sense, and I get the impression that that imperative sense is most similar to the ～なさい form.

EDIT: かなあ and かしら, I've understood to be endings expressing either softly wanting to know something, or doubting something.

 

[mdchachi]

I did, but it was in a blog post about a month or two ago. It wasn't mentioned at all in Japanese class.

I find that hard to believe but in any case didn't you say you have Genki now? I don't have it but an online table of contents indicates that Lesson 7: Family Picture is all about this. Maybe they don't explain it in detail but it seems all the common family word pairs are in there.

 

[Majestic]

So I guess my question is, how do you suggest learning to use sentence-end particles, and if I am not to use them until I fully understand them, how would you suggest I find out how well I understand them?

I think the basic thinking here is: don't try to jazz up your sentences. Stick to standard Japanese while you are studying the basic concepts. So particles like ね and わ and な～ , and also words that are used in anime (I notice you often use あたし instead of わたし), should be left in the back of the vocabulary closet until you are sure they convey the meaning you are trying to convey, which, I think, is still several years away. Actually, I think these are best left to writing dialogue, or in dialect, so really these are advanced tools. Japanese children have an intuitive understand of them, but they have been immersed in Japanese for years by the time they understand the nuances.

 

[Toritoribe]

From Genki1
家族の呼び方 Kinship Term

Mother
2. Referring to yours
A. formal 母 B. informal お母さん

3. Addressing yours
お母さん/ママ

As the table indicates, the term used for a particular type of family member varies according to the following situations:
1. Speaking about somebody else's family
2-A. Speaking about you own family in a formal situation, such as a job interview
2-B. Speaking about you own family in a casual situation
3. Speaking to your family

As already pointed out, there are so many things you should learn before sentence final particles.

Oh, that. I think I was trying to say that the sheep would break things too, but he still does it because he doesn't listen to others telling him to stop.

"He doesn't know the meaning of 'だめ'" is the cause/reason of his breaking things, as you yourself used "because". That's exactly the reason why "but" is semantically odd in your original sentence even in English.

My understanding of わ was that it makes the sentence sound feminine and softly assertive (like, as if it's absolute, but not quite).

Haven't you learned about the form attached to わ? Also, haven't you learned that the feminine わ is quite rarely used nowadays? The main function of it is to indicate that the speaker is female in novels or something, and it's almost never used in daily conversations.
Incidentally, how about this?

A. 誰か傘持ってない？
B. あ、俺車に積んでるから取って来るわ

The speaker B is obviously a male, and わ is not for making the sentence sound feminine. Actually, this type of usage is far more common in casual conversations than feminine one.