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Ask your Japanese language questions (Moved from Learning Japanese in romaji)

面白い聞き間違いですね。

ありがとうございます、鉛筆さん、、とりとりべさん。

前にわたしがもらったそのややこしい説明では、わたしは「によりの文法」がわからなくなってしまったみたいですね。
今週末、調べ続けたいよ。
 
「手」のような具体的なもの(メカニズム）を作ったから、「により」が使えないかもしれない例文は。。。

たとえば。。
漢和辞典により、知らない漢字を調べる。 ？
その老人たちはわずかの貯金により、生活している。 ？


それとも、ほかの理由で、ちょっと可笑しくなるでしょう？
 
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最初の文では「より」でも「によって」でもいいと思います。
It seems to me that both "によって" and "により" are appropriate in the first. sentence.

2番目の文では、「よって」が better でしょう。
"によって" would be better in the second.

その理由を説明するのは難しいのですが、
It is hard for me, a native Japanese speaker, to explain why is that.

私には、主語がある文では「によって」が自然に思えます。
"によって" sounds naturaly to me in a sentence with the subject.

最初の文には主語がありません。
The first sentence does not have its subject.

もし「私」という主語があれば、「私は漢和辞典によって知らない漢字を調べる」がベターに思えます。
If it have had the subject of "I", "私は漢和辞典によって知らない漢字を調べる" would be better.

二番目の文には「その老人たち」という主語があります。
The second sentence has the subject "その老人たち", the old people.

なので「によって」が適切です。
Thus "によって" would be appropriate.

以上はあくまで一つの意見に過ぎません。
The above is not the theory, but a theory.

いずれにせよ、「によって」「により」ではなく「で」を用いるのが普通です。
Anyway, The best is to use "で" instead of "により" or "によって".

"によって""により"は普段あまり用いられません。
"により" and "によって" are not commonly used in conversations.
 
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その意見を耳にしたことはあります。
ありがとうございます。鉛筆さんの指摘は、私にとって 非常に参考になりますよ。
鉛筆さんの言葉が私は嬉しいで す。


「By means of、ａｎ ｉｎｓｔｒｕｍｅｎｔ ｂｙ ｗｈｉｃｈ ｔｏ ｄｏ ｔｈｅ ａｃｔｉｏｎ]というみたいな意味で使う場合は、いつも、「で」が、「によって」を代わることが出来ますね。

会話的表現だったら「で」だけで良いですね。
 

The above two examples with により sound awkward to me because により/によって suggest passive. These sentences are not.
(Or it is just me...)

As KakikataEmpits san mentioned, usually で would be used more commonly in such a context.
 
ありがとう、ｕｎｄｒｅｎｔｉｄｅさん！

一般的な会話でも、主語が行う行為を示すかどうかによって「によって」」と「で」が分かれるという文法のことをちょっと心配していろんですね。


そして、あまり親しくない人にも、「で」などはよくつかわれるんですけどね。


確かに、話し言葉と書き言葉 にはっきりした文体の差があるけど。。どんなときにどちらを使ったらいいのかよく分からない言葉は難しいですね。
 
Does anyone know how to tell the difference between a feminine and masculine verb in Japanese?
 
RavenPhoniex said:
Does anyone know how to tell the difference between a feminine and masculine verb in Japanese?
Click to expand...

Easy. There is no gender in Japanese grammar. Not in verbs, not in nouns, nowhere.
 
I was on a Japanese learning thing (not a translator this time ^^ and there's a segment on ordinal numbers. I don't understand why 11 is zyuuitniti would it make 12 zyuuhutuka? Where did the zyuu come from? Everything else makes sense, but this little hang up...help please >,<
 

There are different ways of rendering Japanese into English and you stumbled onto a place that uses a different system (and one typically used only by Japanese people). This is one of the practical benefits of not learning using romaji (we all use the same thing if we all use kana).

You've somehow gotten dates and ordinal numbers mixed up. The word you saw for "11" is in fact "the 11th day".

Could you share with us the site so we can take a look at it?

11 is juuichi (or "zyuuiti"....same thing)
12 is juuni (zyuuni)

If you know that 10 is "jyuu" and 1 is "ichi" and 2 is "ni", then it is easy to spot the pattern going on.

Unfortunately, the largest problem you are encountering is that the web is full of well-intentioned but bloody useless sites meant to help you learn Japanese. Everybody who learns a half-dozen words gets all on fire to teach the world Japanese and they have absolutely littered the web with junk that is worse than having nothing at all.
 
"Nichi" means "day". "Jūichinichi" and "jūninichi" are written 11日 and 12日 respectively, not just 11 and 12.

There are two sets of readings of numerals in Japanese; Japanese origin ones and Chinese origin ones.

Japanese numerals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinese origin ones("On reading" in the wiki page linked above) are used for numerals put before nichi.

EDIT:
Ooops. Mike-san beats me...
 
RavenPhoniex said:
linguanaut.com was the site.
Click to expand...

If you stepped in the content of that site, your mother would make you sit on the back porch and scrape it out of the tread of your sneakers before she'd let you in the house, if you catch my drift.

That is among the "worse than nothing at all" category.

Ask among the current learners for a good TEXTBOOK recommendation for those doing self-study.
 
How do you express several desires in one sentence in present and past tense? Would the following examples be correct?
国へ帰りたくて、家族に会いたいです。
国へ帰りたかったで、家族に会いたかったです。
 
Ki,
The 2nd sentence is grammatically incorrect. Even if everything you are talking about is past tense, you can still use 国へ帰りたくて, blah blah blah.. In most cases, what makes the sentence present or past or future is the verb at the end, and not what comes in the beginning of the sentence. This is one of the important aspects where Japanese differs from English.

That being said, I think the most natural way to say it would be （国に）帰って家族に会いたいです。 This still means the same thing you tried to express in the first sentence, even if the 'desire' form is not used for 帰る. The main issue is you don't usually see a たい form of a verb after -たくて (ie, two of them strung together like that).

However, you can still say something like 家族に会いたいので、帰りたいです, which is perfectly fine.
 
Thanks tokkyo,
But I have another question, this time regarding time. If I'd want to say "I didn't go anywhere for 3 weeks", would this be correct?
３週間にどこも行きませんでした。
And if I'd want to say "I didn't go anywhere for 3 months", would this be correct?
３ヶ月にどこも行きませんでした。
I'm uncertain whether I'm correctly using に here.
 
Close, but not exactly

I didn't go anywhere for three months
3ヶ月もどこにも行きませんでした

You don't normally use に after talking about a length of time like that. When used when talking about time に is used more for specific times, such as １月にどこにも行きませんでした 'I didn't go anywhere in January'

When you use も after a number, such as 3ヶ月も, it puts emphasis on the number ("I didn't go anywhere for 3 whole months!"), and makes it sound more natural

Also, どこも行きませんでした instead of どこにも行きませんでした isn't incorrect, but どこも is used more in speech than in writing
 
So would も still be used after ３週間 and ３ヶ月 if the sentence would be positive instead of negative?
１週間もどこも行きません - since 行きません is a negative verb we use も after どこ
but in case of 3ヶ月も日本語を勉強しました, with 勉強しました being positive, would も still be applicable for the mentioned time period of 3ヶ月?
 
Yes, ３ヶ月も日本語を勉強しました is a perfectly acceptable sentence

Another example of both positive/negative:
一人もいませんでした There wasn't even one person there
百人もいました There were as many as one hundred people there / There were one hundred people there!

and like you wrote:
３ヶ月も日本語を勉強しました I studied Japanese for as long as 3 months
but also ３ヶ月も日本語を勉強しませんでした I didn't even study Japanese for 3 months (kind of awkward sounding with 3ヶ月 but the grammar is fine)
 
Perezard said:
no you cant. It would mean a different thing. 一人しかいませんでした would mean: There a single person there.
Click to expand...
sorry, "was only" was deleted for some unknown reason. it should have been:
no you cant. It would mean a different thing. 一人しかいませんでした would mean: There was only a single person there.
 
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