Knocking off desu and wa

When a person says the word cat, do they always have to use wa or desu? Would they use wa or desu?

For example:

*Sees a cat across the street walking* *points to it*
Now would i use;
Neko ga.
or neko desu. ??
Is it possible for me to knock off desu or wa and just basically say it in a plain matter as Neko?

Also what are the other ways of saying yes and no in japanese.
I've figured iie and hai are some of them. and i believe "e" is one also.
Do you know of any others?
when a person says nope or nah or ney. or when a person says yep, yeah, yey. Are there old forms of saying yes?

Any help will be gladly appreciated.

Kamisama said:

When a person says the word cat, do they always have to use wa or desu? Would they use wa or desu?

For example:

*Sees a cat across the street walking* *points to it*
Now would i use;
Neko ga.
or neko desu. ??
Is it possible for me to knock off desu or wa and just basically say it in a plain matter as Neko?

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It should be in your Japanese textbook under something like "plain form" or "informal". If you don't have a Japanese textbook, get one.

Also what are the other ways of saying yes and no in japanese.
I've figured iie and hai are some of them. and i believe "e" is one also.
Do you know of any others?
when a person says nope or nah or ney. or when a person says yep, yeah, yey. Are there old forms of saying yes?

Click to expand...

Japanese <-> English Dictionary Server

hmm you're all over the place. let's see if i can explain:

"neko!"
english equivalent: "cat!"
well this makes sense of course, but is a little strange. i would only expect to hear this from a 2 year old, or a guy in a wheelchair with drool all over his chin (no offence to anyone in wheelchairs with drool all over their chins...).

"neko da!"
english equivalent: "a cat!"
this makes perfect sense. this is what one would say/think to themselves, or what you would say to your friend(s) who you're with.

"neko desu!"
english equivalent: "a cat!"
same meaning as above. you wouldn't say this to yourself unless it was a f*cking tiger and you were so shocked you subconsciously thought that by being slightly more formal it wouldn't eat you. if you were with people who you didn't know very well, or wanted to be polite for some reason, you could say this too.

"neko de gozaimasu!"
english equivalent: "a(n honourable) cat!"
you wouldn't ever say this unless you were talking to a king/queen about their cat

"neko ga!"
english equivalent: "the cat!"
this doesn't make sense.

"neko wa!"
english equivalent: "as for the cat!"
this doesn't make sense for the same reason as above.*


*i'm assuming you mean wa (=ha) as in the particle は。 There is also the particle わ which is used by females at the end of the sentence.

Hmm... just a few comments.

"neko da!"
english equivalent: "a cat!"
this makes perfect sense. this is what one would say/think to themselves, or what you would say to your friend(s) who you're with.

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I agree that this would be a natural utterance in this sort of situation. If we aren't limiting ourselves to forms of da/desu, I suspect that something along the lines of "Neko ga iru!" might also be appropriate.

And just to be nit-picky, I'd suggest "It's a cat!" as a closer English equivalent.

"neko de gozaimasu!"
english equivalent: "a(n honourable) cat!"
you wouldn't ever say this unless you were talking to a king/queen about their cat

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Actually, gozaimasu isn't an honorific, rather it's neutral polite -- that is, you're not showing respect to the referent (the cat) but simply being more polite to the person you're talking to. To borrow your example, if you were talking to the emperor (or whoever) you could conceivably "introduce" your own cat with something like "Uchi no neko de gozaimasu." (Okay, it's a bit of a far-fetched example, but you get the idea.)

"neko ga!"
english equivalent: "the cat!"
this doesn't make sense.

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I'd be hesitant to write this off as completely nonsensical. Though it probably wouldn't be uttered in the given context, it sounds fine to me as a sentence fragment, and something you might hear in a case where the speaker might be (for one example) too surprised or shocked to finish the sentence. For example, if the speaker just came upon a cat lying hurt in the road (let's say that he's still alive just so this doesn't get too depressing ), you might hear something like, "Neko ga...! Neko ga kuruma ni hikareta!"

*i'm assuming you mean wa (=ha) as in the particle は。 There is also the particle わ which is used by females at the end of the sentence.

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It's worth nothing that with this sentence-final wa, you would need a form of the copula before it, e.g. "Ara, neko-chan da wa!"

As always, I welcome any suggestions/corrections/opinions from native speakers or anyone otherwise more knowledgable than I.

jt_ said:

"Neko ga iru!" might also be appropriate.

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good point, but let's keep it simple

Actually, gozaimasu isn't an honorific, rather it's neutral polite -- that is, you're not showing respect to the referent (the cat) but simply being more polite to the person you're talking to.

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hmm... well i'm not exactly a keigo expert... hmm... are you sure? how do you show respect to the cat (while not talking to the cat directly)? you would have to use sonkeigo i suppose. hmm i can't remember this stuff well.

I'd be hesitant to write this off as completely nonsensical. ...you might hear in a case where the speaker might be (for one example) too surprised or shocked to finish the sentence.

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good point again, i didn't think of that.

I believe でいらっしゃいます would be the trick to show respect to "the thing that is".
:hungry: ねこでいらっしゃいます, that combination isn't likely to be in your everyday textbook though

David Hallgren said:

I believe でいらっしゃいます would be the trick to show respect to "the thing that is".
ねこでいらっしゃいます, that combination isn't likely to be in your everyday textbook though

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Yes, this is exactly right. This is why, for example, on the phone when the caller doesn't identify him/herself and you want to know who's calling, you might ask something like, 「失礼ですが、どちら様でいらっしゃいますか？」 -- here you're showing respect to the referent of でいらっしゃいます, i.e. the person on the other end of the line. On the other hand, if you call the office of some company, you might expect to be greeted with something like, 「はい、ＸＹＺ社でございます。」 Here, the receptionist is obviously speaking with politeness to you (the caller), not referring to her own organization as "The Honorable XYZ Corporation."

jt_ said:

It's worth nothing that with this sentence-final wa, you would need a form of the copula before it, e.g. "Ara, neko-chan da wa!"

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True, but there are cases when the copula is omitted. So just tacking it on to a sentence final noun could suffice given the circumstances. For example, "そうよ," "あんた、田中くんね," and the like.

(Why can I never think of a good example for what I'm trying to illustrate?!)

Glenn said:

True, but there are cases when the copula is omitted. So just tacking it on to a sentence final noun could suffice given the circumstances. For example, "そうよ," "あんた、田中くんね," and the like.

(Why can I never think of a good example for what I'm trying to illustrate?!)

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As far as my understanding goes, omitting the copula is these cases is a standard characteristic of "gentle"/feminine style speech (as in the examples you give, which both sound like they would be most likely uttered by women), but this sentence-final わ generally occurs with da (probably because it is, in itself, a gentle-style utterance).

Try, for example, doing a google search for "素敵だわ" and "素敵わ" and see what you think.

Interesting observation. I'm pretty sure that I've heard it without the copula and with 名詞/形容動詞, but I could be wrong. I'll have to concede to you on this point at the very least for now, because I just can't think of any occurences of it without the copula. That's a good point that you bring up about the gentle/feminine style, and it could very well be the case.