Days

[Knave]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new here and I've just now committed myself to learning Japanese. I've have recently learned Spanish, French, and Russian. German is another language that I can understand, but I'm not very fluent in it. Please help me with these questions. How do you say...

Today is Monday - 今日は月曜日です。 kyou wa getsuyoubi desu.
Yesterday was Sunday - 昨日は日曜日でした。 kinou wa nichiyoubi deshita.
Tomorrow is Tuesday - 明日は火曜日です。 ashita wa kayoubi desu.

Also, please help me with the different forms of the copula. I've read many charts and things, but they give me soooo many different ways of saying it. Please tell me what is mostly used by adults, teenagers, or whatever it may be.

Present Tense
Plain - だ da では dewa or じゃない ja nai?
Polite - です desu では dewa or じゃありません ja arimasen?
Please also tell me what the past, future, and tentative forms of the copula are.

I would appreciate your help.

Thanks a lot

 

[BrennaCeDria]

Well, my Japanese isn't very good, but the three sentences about days look pretty right. I think my book says that the "bi" on the end of the days can sometimes be dropped, but it doesn't seem like such a major thing to worry about.

 

[Glenn]

Today is Monday - 今日は月曜日です。 kyou wa getsuyoubi desu.
Yesterday was Sunday - 昨日は日曜日でした。 kinou wa nichiyoubi deshita.
Tomorrow is Tuesday - 明日は火曜日です。 ashita wa kayoubi desu.

Correct!

Also, please help me with the different forms of the copula. I've read many charts and things, but they give me soooo many different ways of saying it. Please tell me what is mostly used by adults, teenagers, or whatever it may be.

Present Tense
Plain - だ da では dewa or じゃない ja nai?
Polite - です desu では dewa or じゃありません ja arimasen?
Please also tell me what the past, future, and tentative forms of the copula are.

That's not really present tense. It's more commonly and accurately called "nonpast." Japanese verbs, like English verbs, don't have future tense. Moreover, Japanese doesn't have a modal verb to show future tense.

Anyway, here you go:

Nonpast plain - だ, である (formal written language)
Nonpast formal - です, であります (more formal, often used for speeches of politicians, et al)
Nonpast negative plain - では (じゃ) ない
Nonpast negative formal - では (じゃ) ありません
Nonpast negative colloquial formal - では (じゃ) ないです

Note that じゃ is the contraction of では.

Past plain - だった, であった
Past formal - でした, でありました
Past negative plain - ではなかった
Past negative formal - ではありませんでした
Past negative colloquial formal - ではなかったです

Plain conjectural ("probably") - だろう
Formal conjectural - でしょう

If you learn some verb and adjective inflections then getting things like であれば and じゃなかったら shouldn't be a problem, because you can see that ある is a verb and ない is an adjective. I would suggest reading through the Teach Yourself Japanese site (link in my sig) and searching for verb and adjective conjugations or inflections to get a better understanding of the processes at work here.

 

[Knave]

question

Thank you!

But I still have a question about it.

When does one use ja nai and dewa, or is it dewa nai?

That's confusing me. Which one does one normally use.

Thanks!!!

 

[Glenn]

じゃ is used more frequently colloquially, but even in formal speaking situations (e.g. at work, with elders) it is used. You'll hear じゃありません more frequently than ではありません. では is used more frequently (exclusively?) in formal writing, i.e. research papers, dissertations, scientific books, etc. I think that by listening and reading Japanese you'll get a better feel for when to use which. では is probably a bit too stilted in most situations, and I don't think you can really go wrong with じゃ, so I'd use じゃ mostly until you get the feel for it. This is the impression that I have gotten from my experience with the language.

 

[Elizabeth]

じゃ is used more frequently colloquially, but even in formal speaking situations (e.g. at work, with elders) it is used. You'll hear じゃありません more frequently than ではありません. では is used more frequently (exclusively?) in formal writing, i.e. research papers, dissertations, scientific books, etc. I think that by listening and reading Japanese you'll get a better feel for when to use which.

It may show my age, but the people I correspond with nearly always use ではありません even in email, although of course it depends on the other noun-verb combinations (more likely for instance with わけではありません and 好きじゃありません）。 Of course speaking is a different matter, even news programs and interview shows use "じゃ" on the air and with their guests, just not so much in written editions.

 

[Knave]

copula

Help me with formality please...

Informal or Formal???
Child to Parent
Parent to Child
Grandchild to Grandparent
Grandparent to Grandchild
Child to Child
Adult to Adult
Child to Elder
Elder to Child
Employee to Boss
Boss to Employee

Thanks! Here are some examples that I've written to help me learn the copula. Please check and correct them. Make sure they sound right in conversational Japanese too.

I am a Russian - 私がロシア人だ (would one use 'ga' or 'wa'?)
You are not William Ingram - あなたはウイリアムイングラムじゃありません
He was not a dog - あの人は犬じゃなかった
We were warriors - 私達は戦死でした
Are you a cat? - 猫だか。

ありがとう！！！

 

[Glenn]

Help me with formality please...

Informal or Formal???
Child to Parent
Parent to Child
Grandchild to Grandparent
Grandparent to Grandchild
Child to Child
Adult to Adult
Child to Elder
Elder to Child
Employee to Boss
Boss to Employee

I'm pretty sure that family members speak to each other in plain mode. The general rule is that anyone you're close to you use plain mode with. If you're speaking to people you aren't close to use formal mode. Also use formal mode with your boss or social superiors, like elders. Superiors can use plain mode to talk to inferiors (I really don't like those terms). Also I believe that plain mode is becoming much more common among younger speakers, and they use it in many cases that older speakers find improper, but I can't really comment on that.

I am a Russian - 私がロシア人だ (would one use 'ga' or 'wa'?)

Use は or drop 私 altogether normally. Use が if you want to say that it is you who are Russian.

You are not William Ingram - あなたはウイリアムイングラムじゃありません

This one is good.

He was not a dog - あの人は犬じゃなかった

Right again. This is a funny sentence.

We were warriors - 私達は戦死でした

Right, except that 戦死 should be 戦士.

Are you a cat? - 猫だか。

Drop the だ here: 猫か.

 

[GaijinPunch]

Word of advice. Stick to 私は＿＿＿＿です and あなたは____ですか until you can pick up on intonations, and other ways to ask/state in other forms, but not come off sounding silly or rude. The examples above are very safe middles, but can also sound right.

Truth be known, as a gaijin you're almost ALWAYS given a free pass when it comes to levels of formality.

Last one. You can throw a です after a lot of stuff, じゃない & ではない included, and keep it rather polite.

 

[Elizabeth]

Last one. You can throw a です after a lot of stuff, じゃない & ではない included, and keep it rather polite.

Yes, there is a wide middle ground, certainly, although I couldn't be absolutely sure what was being referred to above as 'plain' and 'polite.' I even know of families that speak at the level of 'desu' and 'deshou' where the husband is much more casual with his clients....at least over the phone on a Saturday morning, being in the office may present entirely different challenges.

 

[GaijinPunch]

being in the office may present entirely different challenges.

Indeed.... and probably depending on what office you're in would make a big difference. I always worked in a range from somewhere around 30% gaijin / 70% foreigner offices, but were actually foreign (UK or American) owned firms. I was hired in the UK firm basically b/c I could speak both languages, and had to know those levels of formality. The US firm was much more lax (on both sides, English and Japanese).

I guess part of the challenge of formality is knowing your place...whether it be at work, or in a host family. Of course it's all for naught if you have to take phone calls from clients/vendors, in which case it's pretty much always formal.

 

[Damicci]

When I started learning Japanese, those enders were not something we were taught. It seems more advanced if your just learning the language. I also understanding wanting to learn the more cusual ways of speaking as my friends speak very casual to me and I sometimes do not understand the forms they use b/c well we were never taught them. Better safe than sorry use the most polite forms til you distinguish the times to use plain and polite. >_<

 

[Elizabeth]

When I started learning Japanese, those enders were not something we were taught. It seems more advanced if your just learning the language. I also understanding wanting to learn the more cusual ways of speaking as my friends speak very casual to me and I sometimes do not understand the forms they use b/c well we were never taught them. Better safe than sorry use the most polite forms til you distinguish the times to use plain and polite. >_<

I agree and don't recommend using the "ka" form directly (猫か)....for women not at all, but either way it sounds really harsh and grating to my ears. Either stick with 'desu ka' or use a rising intonation to signal your question for now.