日語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread2 質問

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Japanese - Ask questions thread
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1174719097/l50

Really hoping someone can help me understand the Japanese grammar particles.

の = Possession

は = Topic Marker

に = Marks a specific time

Those are the ones I know, except for は a little bit.  By a little bit I mean that I don't know which word it needs to follow in a sentence to be grammatically correct.

lols doublepost

don't worry bout it though

wish i could help ;-;

>>241
anything before "wa" is the sentence subject

>>243
so, "anything before" is the sentence subject

Since japanese writing has no spaces how do you tell when a は or の is being used as a particle or if it's part of a word?

>>245
No explicit rules. Read a lot and get used to the standard structures. By the way, if you write a sentence all in hiragana, even a native Japanese speaker may be confused and take minutes to get the sentence structure. So it's better to use kanji so that a particle lies in between kanji and/or katakana when you write a confusing sentence.

Added note to >>246:
There are famous confusing sentences. For example:

李も桃も桃のうち (Both Japanese plums and peaches are peaches anyway.)

If you write it in hiragana, it becomes すもももももももものうち.

>>243
yes
better example is 父は高いです(dad is tall)

so 父は... (makes dad the subject)

父は高い = dad is high

Okay, here's one that's really been bugging me recently. And no matter what textbook/website description I read, I still don't fully get it. How do you use the particle から　and when/where is it placed in a sentence, and what difference is there between it and ので　?

から tends to be literally translated as 'from' but as it's almost used as a particle I really need to know its proper use.

>>250
you need to read some better textbooks if they don't explain 'kara'. It is very common and has many uses. Like other particles it is placed the word it modifies.

から
(prt) from (e.g., time, place, numerical quantity); since; from (originator); because; out of (constituent, part); through (e.g., window, vestibule); after; since (following te-form verb); (P)

It is used in the same way as 'node' to mean 'because' but node is more formal and does not use polite endings.

it is placed the word it modifies.
that should read 'after the word' or word(s) since it can be many words

>>249
takai has a pretty broad meaning

I'm curious about about some of the net slang I've seen in Japanese. Anyone have a good site or article that lists some of the current net slang and such? One puzzling instance in particular that I saw was this: "何もry" at the end of a sentence. What does the "ry" part stand for or represent?

>>254
Here's an online monolingual slang dictionary:
http://zokugo-dict.com/

The dictionary contains a vast amount of slang, but if you can't find some 2ch slang, this 2ch slang dictionary may be helpful:
http://www.media-k.co.jp/jiten/

I don't know if there's an Japanese to English (or another foreign language) dictionary of net slang.

As for "ry," it's an abbreviation of 省略 (syou-ryaku), which means "omission." It's used when you omit part of an obvious sentence or sentences such as a set phrase and 2ch meme. The original post may be quite long and you should guess the whole from the context.

And this is the entry for "ry" in the dictionary:
http://zokugo-dict.com/01a/ry.htm

What does the お in the end of a sentence mean? Is it like slang for よ or something?

>>257
could mean a lot of things...
give an example

I couldn't see 4chan
this is the first time in 5 days

ITT: what's the best mistake you've ever made/heard?

My case:
牛乳が飲みたいです->巨乳が飲みたいです
イヤホンありますか？->エロ本ありますか？
イクラが好きです->イルカが好きです
温故知新->うんこちんちん

i seem to have forgotten the expression used to say you are good at something. i know you wouldn't use 上手　for yourself.

>>261
You mean "得意"? Or more complex phrases like "自慢できるほどじゃないですが、それなりの腕前はあります。"?

>>262
maybe 得意

this work would be used in place of 上手 when talking about yourself
eg 私はサッカーが好きも上手です

using 上手 there sounds a little stuck up. i know there is another word

>>263
得意 is probably the best way to say youre good at something. or maybe saying you have confidence in your skill

i.e

〜することに自信がある

Is 趣味の悪いこと the same as 悪趣味? I tried looking it up the meaning but couldn't find an answer.

>>265
Pretty much the same aside from the grammatical role. 趣味の悪いこと means "things or behavior which is 悪趣味," namely "thing(s) or behavior which is vulgar/gaudy/of poor taste/nasty/perverse/immoral. I think 悪趣味 is more frequent.

>>264

same fag here. can anyone verify that 〜することに自信がある? I was kind of going out on a limb there, i know it would be understood... but would it sound natural?

>>267
私はサッカーをすることに自信があります is grammatically correct, but
私はサッカーの腕前に自信があります sounds more natural to me.
私はサッカーに自信があります is acceptable too.

>>268
thanks, now that you mention it, the second one does sound better when i say it out loud.

>>40
私はどこにいるか知らない？ may sound a little more natural...

>>270
は should be が. Also, your wording 私がどこにいるか知らない？ may sound as if you're a bit surprised the listener doesn't know where you are now. If you just want to ask if the listener knows where you are, then

私がどこにいるか知ってる？ (spoken)
私がどこにいるか知っていますか。 (neutral)
私の所在をご存じでしょうか。 (polite, using honorifics)

would be more natural.

On a side note, your wording doesn't have this connotation when you're asking if the listener knows the place where a third person or people is/are. For example,

"Do you know where he is?" is:

彼がどこにいるか知ってる？ or 彼がどこにいるか知らない？ (Spoken. The latter is slightly polite.)
彼がどこにいるか知りませんか？ (Neutral. 知っていますか sounds rough.)
彼の所在（or 居場所）をご存じでしょうか？ (Polite. Using honorifics.)

If you do want to say something like "What? You don't know where he's now??", then you may say:

彼がどこにいるか知らないの？ (spoken)
彼がどこにいるか知らないのですか。(neutral)
彼の所在をご存じでないとは。(formal).

食べなければなりません　＝　must eat right?
so
食べなければなります　=　？？？？？

食べなければなります　=　It becomes it if not eating.

>>273
thank you very much. its a question that has been on my mind for a while

>>273
>>274
you kidding me?

食べなければなりません　＝　must eat
is correct

>>271

270 here again

maybe you could help me out with something. I was trying to say it's been 4 years since i left for japan in an email today. what i wrote was 始めて日本に行4年間が経ちました。that sounded right in my head, and when i said it out loud... maybe you could assess this?

i spent my senior year of hs there, and then returned for college for a year... I passed the level 2 test for the jlpt, but it feels like my Japanese is going to shit :(

>>275
The question wasn't which is correct. The question was what does the second phrase mean.

>>276
I think you forgot to put "き" between "行" and "４." "はじめて" is usually written as "初めて" in kanji. It's not wrong to use "始" in this meaning, but I think it's a bit old fashioned. Other than these, I think it's ok.

If you'd like to sound more natural, then you may want to omit "間" so it reads "4年が経ちました." I don't know why, but "4年間が経ちました" sounds slightly foreign.

This might be beyond JLPT level, but "Aに行きX年が経ちました" often implies "I have been in A for X years," i.e., you haven't returned to your home country for X years. To avoid ambiguity, you may say "Aに行ったときからX年が経ちました" or "Aに着いた(or 向かった)ときかからX年が経ちました."

The former wording fits in perfectly when you refer to a relatively short trip. If your stay was relatively long, its meaning becomes ambiguous because it literally means "X years have passed since an ARBITRARILY GIVEN day during the trip (the speaker doesn't specify when it exactly is)." So, it's better to avoid the wording when the stay was longer than, say, a year. If you used, the listener would most likely take it that you meant "since the last day of the trip" or possibly "since the first day of the trip."

The latter wording is always clear what you mean.

Finally, if I were you, I'd say "初めて日本行きの飛行機へ乗ってから4年がたちました." This may sound a bit poetic, but I like to use these kinds of expression when I write to a friend I haven't seen for years.

>>276
>it feels like my Japanese is going to shit :(
Obviously my English (>>278) got rusty already...

初めて日本に来てから4年が経ちました。