A Few Questions

[Kalmah]

Sorry for all the questions here, but I'm puzzled on a few things. All help is appreciated.

- Let's say I want to negate the adjective aoi (blue). To do this, I simply change the word to 'aoku nai' (not blue).

Now let's say I want to negate the adjective taisetsu (important). What would I change to express the word as 'not important'?

- Another issue regarding negation, except this time with verbs. How would I express the words 'kuru' and 'suru', as 'not kuru' and 'not suru'?

I'm guessing I do something along the lines of changing..:
Kuru to Kunai
(or..)
Kuru to Kuranai
..but I'm not sure. Can anyone clarify?

- Lastly, what does the particle 'to' mean? Here's an example sentence:
Dare o korosou to shite iru? (Who are you trying to kill?)

 

[Mike Cash]

Taisetsu: Just use the negative copula for negation. "Taisetsu (de ha nai)/(ja nai)/(de ha arimasen)/(ja arimasen)/(etc)".

Kuru -> Konai
Suru -> Shinai

The particle "to" has various uses.

 

[Kalmah]

Taisetsu: Just use the negative copula for negation. "Taisetsu (de ha nai)/(ja nai)/(de ha arimasen)/(ja arimasen)/(etc)".

Negative copula..? Not so sure I understand at the moment, but I'll look into that later.

Kuru -> Konai
Suru -> Shinai

Alright, thanks .

The particle "to" has various uses.

What does it mean in the given context, though?


Also, I have one more question for the time being.

You express the verb 'looking' by changing the word miru (look) to 'mite iru'.
How would you do the same for the verb tatsu (changing tatsu [stand] to standing)? And once again, for the verbs kuru and suru?

 

[Mike Cash]

I take it you are not using a textbook or other such pedagogically structured material?

I didn't attempt to answer what "to" meant in the given context because that particular cart is too far out in front of your horse.

 

[Kalmah]

I didn't attempt to answer what "to" meant in the given context because that particular cart is too far out in front of your horse.

Alright, I'll figure it out in due time then ;P.

How about the other question I edited into my last post? Can you (or anyone else) answer that for me?

 

[Kirakira1232]

To change a verb to the progressive form you need to have it in the "te" form and add "iru" to the end. In the case of "tatsu", the te form is "Tatte" (stand) and so therefore the progressive form (standing) is "Tatteiru".

Suru -> Shite -> Shiteiru

 

[Kalmah]

Thanks, that's a big help. But would it be 'tatteiru', or 'tatte iru'? Or does it matter?

Edit: Am I going crazy, or did you edit out what you had for Kuru before?

 

[Kirakira1232]

Hmm well I prefer Tatteiru because "iru" is a conjugation after all...and to have that gap between Tatte and iru just looks odd to me. It doesnt really matter all that much anyway once you can write in kana.

 

[Kalmah]

Ah, okay. For now I'll probably use them as seperate words, that'll help me understand a bit better.

Before, though, your post had said:
Kuru -> Kite -> Kiteiru

Was that correct?

 

[Kirakira1232]

Yes thats correct as far as I know.

 

[Kalmah]

Okay, thanks again.

Taisetsu: Just use the negative copula for negation. "Taisetsu (de ha nai)/(ja nai)/(de ha arimasen)/(ja arimasen)/(etc)".

But bleh. Can someone help explain this for me? I prefer having someone actually talk to me over reading something.

I'm pretty much filled in on everything I've had questions about so far, so after I get this covered I'll be good to go.

 

[Kirakira1232]

Its rather difficult to explain. The main copula of Japanese is "desu" and this roughly corresponds with the verb "to be" in english. Things like "am" or "is" roughly correspond with "desu"

Watashi ha Nihonjin desu.
I (subject marker) Japanese am. (I am Japanese)

Yamada-san ha amerikajin desu.
Yamada-san (subject marker) American is. (Yamada-san is American).

The negative copula is the negative form of "desu" which is "de ha arimasen". The remaining ones he said "Ja nai", "Ja arimasen" etc. are used depending on the situation and what sort of politeness is needed. The polite negative copula is "de ha arimasen" and the others you can learn how to use when your japanese gets a bit more advanced.

Watashi ha nihonjin de ha arimasen
I (subject marker) Japanese am not. (I am not Japanese)

So when he says use the "negative copula" just use "de ha arimasen" in place of desu.

You can do this with Taisetsu because taisetsu is a "na" adjective and "de ha arimasen" can be can be used with na adjectives to express the negative. Aoi is not a "na" adjective and so you cant have "Aoi ja nai" it needs to "Aokunai". When you learn about "na" and "i" adjectives this should become more clear.

I hope that wasnt too confusing.

 

[Toritoribe]

青い(aoi); i-adjective → 青くない(aokunai)
大切だ(taisetsuda); na-adjective → 大切ではない/大切じゃない(taisetsude wa nai/taisetsu ja nai)

大切で(taisetsude; the te-form of the na-adjective "taisetsuda") + は(wa; the particle) + ない(nai; the conclusive form of the auxiliary verb "nai" which indicates "negation")
*じゃ(ja): the contraction of では(de wa)

In another theory, "taisetsu" is considered a noun, not the stem of the na-adjective "taisetsuda".
大切(taisetsu; the noun) + で(de; the particle/the adverbial form of the auxiliary verb "da") + は(wa; the particle) + ない(nai; the conclusive form of the auxiliary verb)

 

[Kalmah]

What if you were using a combination of past tense and negation? As in, telling someone that something wasn't important?

I know how to do this with an i-adjective (aoi -> aoku nakatta), but I'm not sure about na's. Would you use a combination of deshita/datta with the copula?

Edit: Can someone recommend me a good site to learn from? The one I'm using is great at explaining things, but it leaves out too much information.

 

[nice gaijin]

-na adjectives are conjugated like nouns. You should know how to do that before you try your hand at verbs and adjectives.

 

[Kalmah]

Conjugating nouns? What?!

Damn this eLanguage site.

 

[Mike Cash]

As I intimated earlier, you'll be far better off if you learn from a structured textbook. This stuff is easier to pick up when it is presented in some sort of logical order with the stuff that comes earlier building a foundation for what comes later. You're leap-frogging and dashing about aimlessly among various grammar points succeeding mainly in frustrating and perplexing yourself mostly because of that approach, and not due to the language itself.

 

[Kirakira1232]

What if you were using a combination of past tense and negation? As in, telling someone that something wasn't important?
I know how to do this with an i-adjective (aoi -> aoku nakatta), but I'm not sure about na's. Would you use a combination of deshita/datta with the copula?
Edit: Can someone recommend me a good site to learn from? The one I'm using is great at explaining things, but it leaves out too much information.

Past negative copula -> de ha arimasen deshita, ja arimasen deshita, de ha nakatta, ja nakatta etc. Conjugating nouns simply means adding the appropiate copula to the noun.

koohii desu, koohii deshita, koohii de ha nai, koohii de ha arimasen deshita.
"(there) is coffee", "(there) was coffee", "(there is)no coffee", "(there) wasn't any coffee"

That sounds really odd but thats the gist of it. The copula basically denotes the tense of the overall sentence. In english the copula comes at the start ie. There is coffee, there wasn't any coffee. Whereas in Japanese the copula is found at the end; koohii de ha nai

na adjectives behave in the same way as nouns.

Taisetsu de ha arimasen deshita.
(That) wasn't important.

 

[Kalmah]

As I intimated earlier, you'll be far better off if you learn from a structured textbook. This stuff is easier to pick up when it is presented in some sort of logical order with the stuff that comes earlier building a foundation for what comes later. You're leap-frogging and dashing about aimlessly among various grammar points succeeding mainly in frustrating and perplexing yourself mostly because of that approach, and not due to the language itself.

Thing is, I don't intend on buying a textbook (or anything for that matter). ☝

But you know what, just disregard everything in this thread and tell me this: what's a good site I can use to learn from? Preferably a site that has worked for someone from personal experience.

 

[Tomii515]

Thing is, I don't intend on buying a textbook (or anything for that matter).
But you know what, just disregard everything in this thread and tell me this: what's a good site I can use to learn from? Preferably a site that has worked for someone from personal experience.

Then obviously you don't want to learn Japanese that much. If it's because you don't have money to buy a book, then get a job and then buy one. If it's that your too cheap, then that's your own fault. The way I see it is, since you don't plan on buying a textbook, you seem obnoxious. Or, at least the way you wrote it seemed obnoxious.

And plus, if you're going to be like that, no one, except for maybe a nice person that seems to not care if you're polite or not, will give you any sites to learn from.

Plus, learning from the internet will not give you a good feeling of the language. (Been there, done that.) There are a lot of websites that have misinformation and a lot of them also leave out a lot fo things.

I suggest you get a textbook, as all the other people said, before you start trying to learn things that require previous knowledge to understand how to do those things.

 

[Chidoriashi]

I agree @Tomii515 , you are not going to be able to learn by just asking questions on the internet. Get a textbook, take a class, heck go to the library and check out a book, find a Japanese person and offer to do language exchange (if they are interested in learning, otherwise pay them). People on the net can help you with your questions here and there, but the fact is, to learn a language properly you just gotta get down and dirty on your own.

 

[Ashikaga]

koohii desu, koohii deshita, koohii de ha nai, koohii de ha arimasen deshita.
"(there) is coffee", "(there) was coffee", "(there is)no coffee", "(there) wasn't any coffee"

Just a quick correction.

koohii desu "It is coffee"
koohii deshita "It was coffee"
koohii de ha nai (koohii de ha arimasen) "It is not coffee"
koohii de ha arimasen deshita "It was not coffee"

There is coffee "koohii ga arimasu"
There was coffee "koohii ga arimashita"
There is no coffee "koohii ga arimasen"
There was no coffee "koohii ga arimasen deshita"

 

[Tomii515]

(ASHIKAGA, I don't think you realized that you randomly switched to informal, with the 'de ha nai' where the rest in formal xD I just thought I'd let u know so yah.... >_>)

 

[Ashikaga]

I was quoting Kirakira, and I thought I made the correction in parenthesis.

 

[Kalmah]

Just a quick correction.
koohii desu "It is coffee"
koohii deshita "It was coffee"
koohii de ha nai (koohii de ha arimasen) "It is not coffee"
koohii de ha arimasen deshita "It was not coffee"
There is coffee "koohii ga arimasu"
There was coffee "koohii ga arimashita"
There is no coffee "koohii ga arimasen"
There was no coffee "koohii ga arimasen deshita"

Thanks, both you and KiraKira .

Then obviously you don't want to learn Japanese that much. If it's because you don't have money to buy a book, then get a job and then buy one. If it's that your too cheap, then that's your own fault. The way I see it is, since you don't plan on buying a textbook, you seem obnoxious. Or, at least the way you wrote it seemed obnoxious.
And plus, if you're going to be like that, no one, except for maybe a nice person that seems to not care if you're polite or not, will give you any sites to learn from.
Plus, learning from the internet will not give you a good feeling of the language. (Been there, done that.) There are a lot of websites that have misinformation and a lot of them also leave out a lot fo things.
I suggest you get a textbook, as all the other people said, before you start trying to learn things that require previous knowledge to understand how to do those things.

Well way to be a dick.

Not wanting to use a textbook makes me obnoxious? Why is that? And no, it's not that I'm too cheap. Nor is it because I "don't want to learn Japanese that much". It's simply a matter of preference; I never have enjoyed learning from books, and it's much easier to browse through the internet than it is to browse through loads of pages. Besides, there's nothing wrong with wanting to learn through the internet in the first place.

Also, I don't intend on just going by some website to get a feel for the language. I plan on finding other people that know Japanese as well to talk with, and other things of that sort.

I agree Tomii515, you are not going to be able to learn by just asking questions on the internet. Get a textbook, take a class, heck go to the library and check out a book, find a Japanese person and offer to do language exchange (if they are interested in learning, otherwise pay them). People on the net can help you with your questions here and there, but the fact is, to learn a language properly you just gotta get down and dirty on your own.

I'm not relying on the people here to learn Japanese. I've learned a good bit on my own so far, and I asked here about the things I didn't understand.