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日語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread2 質問

Name: Anon 2008-03-22 1:37

If you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.

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

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-09 1:01

を is wo and o.
Like Ha is ha and wa, he is he and e.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-09 10:12

>>319
True, I haven't been to Japan.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-10 3:49

>>40
What is the context? Instead of putting it all into a single question, it may be better to break it up.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-11 2:14

抜く
引く
掛ける、掛かる
付く
込む

I can never figure out the context when I see any of those verbs.
Can anyone give a good explanation with examples of how each of them are used in different situations?

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-11 8:00

Is there a difference between してて, してって and していって?
I saw the first one in a manga as 「安全にしてて下さい。」 I don't remember where I've seen the second one. The latter I've only seen in 「ゆっくりしていってね!」

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-11 9:48

There's no difference.
Those three are just variations of して(いて).

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-11 11:18

>>324
Generally 抜く means to pull out something long and narrow from a hole or similar place. Usually the thing you pull is sticking, clogging, closing, occupying or jamming. It is one of the most frequent words and has various usages; it's like asking what "get" means. These are some typical examples:

白髪を抜く pull out a white hair.
ワインの栓を抜く open a bottle of wine. (栓 is a stopper, so in this case it means a cork.)
刀を抜く draw my sword.
DVDをドライブから抜く take the DVD out of the drive.
本を本棚から抜く choose a book from the bookshelves.
風呂の湯を抜く let the water out of the bathtub (A water outlet is a hole and water through it is considered kind of narrow).
財布を抜く pick a wallet ("Pick" in this example is kind of "steal" + "pull out," so you use 抜く).

Some words collocate with 抜く. In such a case, the sense of "remove" or "take out" is often emphasized:

インクの染みを抜く remove an ink stain.
脂を抜く remove the fat.
髪の色を抜く bleach the hair (you're "getting rid" of a pigment.).
力を抜く relax (in the sense of "try not to be nervous" i.e., "get rid" of tension).
昼食を抜く skip lunch.

Another important meaning is to overtake/pass:

先頭走者を抜く overtake the lead runner.

There are millions more usages, but I think you can get the gist of any sentence if you grasp the basic meaning unless it's an idiom. Most of the time 抜く means either "pull out," "pick out," "get rid of," "omit," "scoop," "takeover," "pierce" or whatnot.

The other words you asked are also very common so it's hard to give concise definitions and make you understand by few examples. If this post helped a bit, I might post definitions and examples for other words when I find time.

Maybe it'll be helpful to ask a native Japanese speaker who speaks English better than I do to translate the pages for the words in a monolingual dictionary for native Japanese speakers.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-11 11:38

>>325
>>326
してて is a colloquial expression for していて and has a connotation of "keep" or "stay."

安全にしてて下さい means "stay in a safe place" or something.

〜してって is a colloquial word for 〜していって, which means "to do/be 〜 while you're here/there/another place."

ゆっくりしていってね is literally "take your time while you're here" so it means "please make yourself at home."

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-12 22:53

舐 what is this kanji useful for?
never seen it in any words, only ever by itself and still i cannot find a clear meaning for it

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-12 23:02

舐めとんか!

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-12 23:42

チ〇ポをペロっと舐めてくれ

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-13 2:28

>>329
Dictionaries, motherfucker, do you use them?
ttp://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-13 2:39

>>330
ah thanks
>>332
yeah there are about 30 different ways it can be used. i just wanted to see one of them.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-13 3:50

I'm confused when to use intransitive and transitive verbs when it seems like it could be one or the other.

Here's an example, if you hear a door shut, but you don't know if humans did it or it was just the wind which would you use? I asked my teacher and she said 自動詞(intransitive) so that's out of the way

but what about other things like why is 振り仮名がついている and not 振り仮名をつけている? People had to do that, or maybe it's because people did it but then machines printed it (hmm, are machines transitive or intransitive)
Another example might be like you're driving a truck and you turn and a box falls out of the truck, which do you use for to fall? The turn caused it which was caused by the person, but then again something is just telling me it's intransitive. There's a hell of a lot better examples I thought of but can't recall..

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-13 6:35

>>334
i default to using intransitive unless it's clear that you went out of your way to make something happen or you're trying to emphasize that

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-15 0:07

Hey all. So, I'm making some flash cards for kanji and their readings, but I'm having trouble with one in particular - 下 (specifically, the verbs)

The dictionaries I'm using don't really clearly differentiate between their usages. Here's what I've got on my card at the moment:

さ(がる)- (v5r) to step back; to hang down
さ(げる)- (v1) to lower
くだ(る)- (v5r) to get down; to descend
くだ(す)- (v5s) to make [a decision]; to pass [judgement]
くだ(さる)- (v5aru) (hon) to give; to bestow
お(ろす)- (v5s) to take down; to let off [bus, etc.]
お(りる)- (v1) to go down; to get off [bus, etc.]

Wondering if anyone could comment or come up with better definitions - though, I'd like to keep them simple at this point in my studies. Thanks in advance

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-15 2:58

>>336
Maybe one or two examples for each definition would help grasp senses/usages while keeping your flash cards concise. Does your dictionary not contain illustrative sentences?

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-15 4:34

>>337
I suppose I should incorporate examples somehow... So far I've been making separate cards for on-yomi, kun-yomi, and verbs - drilling (just) the readings and associated meanings. As far as finding them though, none of the books I own have them and the only site I know of would be WWWJDIC... will look around though, thanks

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-19 17:34

Would someone care to explain what "さすが<name>!" means?

Oh, and also "なきゃ". I see this at the end of some sentences in emails I get from a Japanese person. I asked what it meant but I'm not quite sure I grasped the Japanese explanation. Is it related to "なくちゃいけません"?

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-19 18:24

>>339
さすが(name) is used in a kind of "I knew you could it!" way, or maybe "just what we'd expect from you!". I fail at explaining it though, I never really understood さすが when it was explained to me, it just became clear once I saw it a few times in different contexts. It's one of those akward words, IMO.

You're basically right with なきゃ, it's shortened from ~なければ(ならない/いけない/だめ). People often leave out the negative afterwards because it's strongly implied and not really necessary when you're being casual like that. You'll also see sentences ending in なくちゃ or ないと just the same.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-19 18:41

>>340
I see. Thanks for the reply.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-21 18:54

Can anyone break down and translate this sentence for me?
I know it's something about a key and not remembering but the かけたか bit that confuses me
Whole sentence: かぎをかけたかどうかわおぼえていなかったし

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-21 20:59

かぎをかける means to lock the door or literally turn the key, I believe. So, "I couldn't remember whether I locked the door" kakeru has loads of definitions.

Can anyone tell me what マジ受ける means? ukeru again has loads of definitions. Context is that this girl says it in response to some things that I say.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-21 21:10

WHAT THE FUCK DOES にって MEAN? THIS IS DRIVING ME INSANE.
CRUISE CONTROL ETC.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-21 22:01

>>343
She's saying she thinks what you're saying is funny or whatever.

>>344
Where did you hear/read it? I don't think にって is a word in it's own right or anything, unless you mean にて in which case it's basically a more formal で.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-22 12:50

>>345
Maybe I'm being an idiot but the sentence is
そんなにってなんだよ!

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-22 13:10

What does it mean in raw manga when a normal word like メシ or ホント that should be in hiragana are in katakana?

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-22 13:54

>>346
Well if you've never come across って before you're not being an idiot, and if you have I'll forgive you.

って is a casual version of と or という or variations thereof. It gets used all the time in many different ways, often as a handy way of talking about or descrbing whatever it's "quoting", which can be pretty much anything.

Here's it's talking about the word そんなに itself, which presumably someone else said before - I would guess something along the the lines of なんでそんなにxxx? or そんなにxxxなくてもいい"? If so (and if not you should be able to understand from this example anyway) your sentence means something like "What do you mean 'so xxx'?!". It's just questioning why the other person considers xxx to be at a level worthy of the "そんなに".

>>347
It doesn't really mean anything. Often katakana gets used for slangy words, e.g. メシ is much rougher and more causal than ごはん and ホント correctly is ほんとう with the long vowel. Also words with difficult or rare kanji sometimes get written in katakana, especially in things aimed at a teenage audience. (In fact overall this kind of katakana use is most common in shounen, in my experience.) Lastly katakana is sometimes used to show that a word is being said with a lot of emphasis.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-22 14:15

>>348
Thanks that helped so much, it makes sense now
I'd never came across って before so it confused me greatly.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-22 16:00

What would you say was the best way to pick up Japanese quickly? I already know a lot of random words and phrases but when it actually come to translating something I can't do it. I already attend Japanese classes but they're going so slow at the moment and I know it all.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-22 16:44

>>345
Well at least she wasn't taking me seriously.

Cheers.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-23 18:30

What do the から and たら mean that seem (maybe?) to be used at the end of sentences?

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-23 22:11

352>>は自殺したら?
352>>はFAGGOTなんだから

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-23 23:38

I have some questions about combined verbs. Is there a particular word for these so I can do some googling myself?

I'm talking about stuff like 飛込む 落ち込む etc
but not just 込む, there's other ones like ~始まる ~終わる ~かける ~くる ~する 等
Pretty much I'm just curious how they work. Like how is なってきた different to なった

are there any more of these wordcombos I'm missing?

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-24 3:17

>>352
たら = conditional particle (if)
から = Because/from/for that reason

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/compound.html

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-28 20:43

In The Internationale in Japanese, what does uetaru mean? The base verb is "ueru", to starve, but what is the form used here? Is it a contraction of "te aru" or something else? I typed up the first verse so you can see it. Also what does the "zo" in the second line mean? Is it the standard "exclamation" zo or something else?

起て飢えたる者よ
今ぞ日が近し
醒めよ我が同胞
暁は来ぬ

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-29 1:09

飢えたる者 means "those who are starving," and Xぞ... (X is a noun) means "It is X that..."

These are poetic/classic language used mainly in lyrics and such nowadays. If you use these expressions, it sounds either too formal or humorous.

As for the form used there, I think たる is just an obsolete way to say ている, i.e., an old style of the progressive form. So, in short, たる = ている + certain poetic sense.

Note that this is not a formal explanation or anything. I learned this kind of grammar like 15 years ago and completely forgot how teachers explained syntax, semantics and whatnot, though I can properly use language of that register and understand the language variation. Hopefully, more knowledgeable anon will give an explanation of the grammar in detail.

In case you didn't know, 来ぬ also is poetic/old fashioned. It is pronounced こぬ or きぬ and means "do not come" or "have come (or "just came")," respectively.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-29 9:15

I realise that it is poetical language. It is a song after all.

I thought 来ぬ, specifically the ぬ, is an old way of saying "nai". In this case, "The dawn will not come". I suppose "The dawn has just come" makes more sense.

Cheers for the reply.

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-29 11:43

>>354
Maybe you're talking about 複合動詞? If so, this site explains them in great detail:

http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/26hukugoudousi.html

The article is part of an HTML version of 現代日本語文法概説, an unpublished tome on Japanese grammar. Apparently the book is for native Japanese speakers so it'll be too intricate to read through, but I think you can pick many more examples of 〜込む-ish verbs out of the page. You can find the list that looks like this:

aspect modifier: 出す, 続ける, あがる, やむ, etc.
direction: 出る, かける, 入れる, 下がる, etc.
degree emphasis: 果てる, 抜く, 尽くす, etc.
mutual action: 合う, 合わせる,
others: 過ぎる, 間違う, etc.

As for なってきた, the verb+て+verb form belongs to a different category from 複合動詞, and the attached verbs such as きた in your example is called 補助動詞. These are listed and explained here:

http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/27hojodousi.html

Name: Anonymous 2008-09-29 23:05

>>359
nice, thanks

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