Random things...

[rquethe]

食う? I have never read an entry in the regular Japanese dictionary that said a word was vulgar. This is the first. Why is it so? Is there a good translation as opposed to merely "eat?" Also how does it's forms change? Like if I wanted to say in this vulgar way, Don't Eat! as an imperative? Kuwanai de?

Second item:
mizaru
kikazaru
iwazaru

I found this out today about the monkies. zaru was an ancient form of negating the verb. Thus not see, not hear, not speak. Zaru is also a play on words, so saru...

Hence the pictures of the three monkey's. cool huh?

Third item: Is there a way of typing the archaic characters for "we" and "wi?"
I have seen them represented on sites as actual text, not pictures. So I assume there must be some code to represent them. I just don't know them.ﾂ I ask because I although my grandmother told me about the "iroha" awhile back, I didn't actually get a copy of it until just now.

 

[Elizabeth]

食う? I have never read an entry in the regular Japanese dictionary that said a word was vulgar. This is the first. Why is it so? Is there a good translation as opposed to merely "eat?" Also how does it's forms change? Like if I wanted to say in this vulgar way, Don't Eat! as an imperative? Kuwanai de?

Yeah, it's more like devour or eat up (used mostly by men) and as far as I know conjugates like any regular "u" verb (au, arau, utau, etc).

 

[MikeH85]

Third item: Is there a way of typing the archaic characters for "we" and "wi?"
I have seen them represented on sites as actual text, not pictures. So I assume there must be some code to represent them. I just don't know them. I ask because I although my grandmother told me about the "iroha" awhile back, I didn't actually get a copy of it until just now.

yep, they're still available in most computer fonts, even though they're not really used anymore... see: ゑ, ゐ

just use IME and type "w","e" and then press space twice.... you'll get a little menu in which you see the "ゑ" character! same thing works for "ゐ"...

 

[rquethe]

More random things: 古い and 旧い?

Now seriously, do they have to make this any more difficult for me?

だれかせつめいして下さい！

 

[PaulTB]

Like if I wanted to say in this vulgar way, Don't Eat! as an imperative? Kuwanai de?

Nah, if you're using kuu you should be more forceful. 'くうな！'

I found this out today about the monkies. zaru was an ancient form of negating the verb. Thus not see, not hear, not speak. Zaru is also a play on words, so saru...

See 'べからざる' in the JLPT 1 grammar Q thread.

 

[kara]

More random things: 古い and 旧い?

Now seriously, do they have to make this any more difficult for me?

だれかせつめいして下さい！

古い: of age
旧い: contrary to the new, previous, out of date

But 旧 isn't a jyouyou kanji, so now we can use 古い as the meaning of 旧い.

 

[rquethe]

Let me give this a try (please correct my mistakes):

本当ですか。この前先生がその形容詞について聞きまし た。新と旧はかんけいがあると言いました。でも新と古 はかんけいがありません。

Grr I know that's wrong, but I tried my best. I was trying to say, "Is that so? The other day I asked my teacher about those adjectives. He said that "新" and "旧" go together. But not "新" and "古.""

The best words in my vocabulary was to say they are related. But he said this because I was listing adjectives that are opposites and he said 古 doesn't pair up with 新...

So I wonder, has it only recently been removed as a jyouyou kanji? I won't get to ask him about this until Monday evening. ところで,"旧"と言う漢字の音読みは何ですか。

 

[Elizabeth]

Let me give this a try (please correct my mistakes):

本当ですか。この前先生がその形容詞について聞きまし た。新と旧はかんけいがあると言いました。でも新と古 はかんけいがありません。

Grr I know that's wrong, but I tried my best. I was trying to say, "Is that so? The other day I asked my teacher about those adjectives. He said that "新" and "旧" go together. But not "新" and "古.""

The best words in my vocabulary was to say they are related. But he said this because I was listing adjectives that are opposites and he said 古 doesn't pair up with 新...

So I wonder, has it only recently been removed as a jyouyou kanji? I won't get to ask him about this until Monday evening. ところで,"旧"と言う漢字の音読みは何ですか。

Furui 古い (with the i) and Kyuu 旧 require "全あ違う" usages. Any kanji dictionary shows this at a glance. There's a shin-kyuu (old-new) combination, however. Perhaps that is what your teacher was referring to. Kyuu could be closer to mukashii 昔.

 

[Elizabeth]

Let me give this a try (please correct my mistakes):

本当ですか。この前先生がその形容詞について聞きました。新と旧はかんけいが・ると言いました。でも新と古はかんけいが・りません。

（その）前に先生に。。。

Something closer to this may be more natural. Since it's literally impossible to get your mind around the number of word pairs broadly related to each other in Japanese.

旧は古いとどう違いますか？二つは（or も？）新しいの反対という意味になりますか？

 

[kara]

Let me give this a try (please correct my mistakes):

本当ですか。この前先生がその形容詞について聞きました。新と旧はかんけいが・ると言いました。でも新と古はかんけいが・りません。

Sorry, my explanation was a bit incorrect.

古い: of age
旧い: contrary to the new, previous, out of date

the kanji 旧 itself is a jyouyou kanji, but it's kun-yomi "furu(i)" isn't the Jyouyou-onkun. We learn the kanji 旧 as "kyu"(on-yomi) only.

So, when we use 旧(kyu) in on-yomi form, we must distinguish 旧(kyu) from 古(ko), but when we use it in kun-yomi form, we may use 古い(furu-i) instead of 旧い(furu-i), because 旧い isn't the Jyouyou-onkun.

make sense?