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日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 3

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 18:11

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


Japanese Ask Questions Thread2
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1206158123/1-40

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-06 22:09

I need help with the past progressive.

「雪子はご飯を食べている間テレビを見ていた。」 This sentence makes perfect sense. Yukiko WAS watchING TV, past progressive.

However, 「友達が今日来ると言うことをすっかり忘れていた。」 is translated in ADoBJG as "I completely forgot the fact that my friend is coming today."

"Forgot" is of course is past tense, not past progressive. It doesn't even make sense to say "I was completely forgetting that my friend said he was coming today." Except maybe in the larger context of "When I promised my mom that I would help paint the living room, I was completely forgetting the fact that my friend said he was coming over today." That's the only scenario I can imagine that working in, so what's going on here?

To illustrate and belabor the point, if you were to say 「彼は死んでいました。」 there is a huge difference between "He is dead." and "He is dying." Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-07 0:04

>>401
In the example of 「彼は死んでいました」, there is a large difference between how some actions or states are viewed in Japanese. Take for example 「結婚する」.

To say "I am married", the present progressive is used: 「私は結婚しています」. It would obviously be incorrect to translate this in a direct way as "I am marrying". Likewise, the sentence: 「隣人の犬は死んでいる。」 does not say "My neighbor's dog is dying" but rather "...is dead". In the past progressive 死んでいた is translated as "...was dead".

I can't speak for the exact reasons but, in a way, the present or past progressive form sometimes describes actions or states which aren't thought to be properly "completed" in a certain understanding. I would focus less on trying to make a verbatim translation from Japanese to English by tacking "ing" onto any te-iru constructions you see and instead refocus on how to get a general estimation.

I've personally seen the Japanese past progressive of some verbs translated in the English perfect verb tense (a decision with which I usually agree). Your sentence would then become "I had completely forgotten that my friend was coming today". Though in English "had forgotten" is seen as perfect, not continuous, you can hopefully begin to tell how it might work as a past progressive action in the same sense as marriage and death. If not, take it with a grain of salt.

Name: Japanese 2010-10-07 12:06

忘れている
結婚している
死んでいる

These are never progressive but are always states.
死んでいる means being dead.
Dying is 死にかけている.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-08 10:45

Hello all, i have a question regarding japanese grammar! I just started 2nd year at university and i just came across this expample (Note, i`m already starting homeworks for practice, lessons will start next week):

1) 明日宿題をします > 宿題は明日します。

2) ここで靴を脱いで下さい > ???

Ok so, what`s the difference in example 1?

Thanks all.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-08 11:11

>>405
What's the purpose of the exercise? I can't imagine a scenario where 「宿題は明日します」 would be more appropriate in a dialogue.

If you want to follow a similar pattern for the second sentence, it'd likely be something to the effect of 「靴はここで脱いでください」.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-09 4:37

>>406

It`s 405 here.
Well, i have no idea but there is an exercize that wants the phrase in that order, i know it sounds "bad".

Other 2 examples:

1)テーブルの上に「車のかぎを」置きました。 > 「車のかぎは」テーブルの上に置きました。

2)今晩「その映画を」いっしょに見ませんか。 > 「その映画は」今晩いっしょに見ませんか。

Is this correct? If so, what is the difference? Only more emphasis to a noun? It REALLY sounds strange to me.

Thanks anons.

Name: Japanese 2010-10-09 11:20

When you want to emphasize the object, you can place it at the begining of the sentence, with は instead of を.

The phrases in >>407 can be used in situations like the ones below.

Aさん: かぎが無くなっちゃった。どこにあるか知らない?
Bさん: 何のかぎ?車のかぎはテーブルの上に置いたよ。

In this example, 車のかぎ「なら」テーブルの上に置いたよ is also fine.

Cさん: ハリーポッターの1話目と2話目のDVDを買ったんだけど、あとで一緒に見ない?
Dさん: いいね。でも2話連続で見たら疲れそう。
Cさん: じゃ、今日は1話だけね。2話目は明日見よう。

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-09 11:52

このスレには、日本語のちゃんとできる人がいますね。よろしいです。

…っていうか。まだいるかな?

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-09 19:00

Hi, I'm trying to identify some kanji I've seen in a video and I'm having impossible luck. I was wondering if you guys could help me out.

Screenshots of both the original video size and @ 300%:

http://i54.tinypic.com/fe2bdi.png

1. I've got 国境, just can't figure out the 3rd kanji.
2. No clue, I can't even get the radicals right. It's really pathetic.

Name: Another Japanese 2010-10-09 22:36

>>405
Not having got any expertise in teaching Japanese, I can't assure my thought is right but here is an answer of mine.

To begin with, a noun followed by "は" doesn't make a significant part of a sentence. It (almost) always makes only a complement.
Therefore, the backbone of the sentence would remain intact even if you eliminated the noun followed by "は" from the sentence.

Then, "宿題は明日します" arguably is a reply to a question like "When will you do your homework?"
If so, "Tomorrow." or "明日します." is a sufficient answer to the question.

However, "明日宿題をします" probably is a reply to a question like "What are you going to do tomorrow?"
To answer this question, in contrast, a noun followed by "を"  could never be eliminated from the sentence because it is itself the backbone of the sentence.
As a result, in turn, an adverb "明日" turns into a complement of the sentence.
Your reply this time will be like "I'm gonna do my homework." or "宿題をします."

All of my knowledge is based on a thin paperback:『日本語という外国語』(荒川洋平、講談社現代新書)

Name: Another Japanese 2010-10-09 23:11

>>410
I think they're Chinese.
I've never seen both of them.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 11:45

>>408
>>411

405 here. Guys really thank you for the perfect explanations! Really simple and clear. Now i understand eheh thanks again, anons!

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 12:57

>>410
If I'm not mistaken, Chinese 线 and 敌 are Japanese 線 and 敵.

When you can't find a certain kanji it's not always your fault, it can be (as >>412 pointed out) a (simplified) Chinese hanzi. You can use a site like www.nciku.com to enter it. This will give you the traditional character which usually will hint to the kanji.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 16:15

Something bugs me.

Why Japanese lang STILL USES Han characters ("kanji")? They made sense in Chinese, but Chinese* is as dead as Latin. And Japanese isn't even a Sinitic language!

(* yes, Chinese is dead - before argue with me, Mandarin is NOT Chinese, as Italian is NOT Latin.)

Wasn't just stiking to hiragana or hiragana+katakana? Han+Japanese doesn't make fucking sense.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 16:33

>>415
Save the language as it is!

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 17:39

>>415
Chinese isn't dead faggot, it's an umbrella term used to describe several languages (or dialects, if you consider them that).

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 21:04

>>402
>>404

thank you, gentlemen.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-10 22:44

>>415

1. Culture
2. It's difficult for people who are fluent in Japanese to read Japanese without kanji, because they use the kanji to understand what the word means. Kanji all have hieroglyphic value.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 1:20

>>416
It's not the language. It's its WRITTEN REPRENSATION.

>>417
The "umbrella term" is Sinitic languages. They aren't mutually intelligible now, so they aren't dialects. And their parent language - Chinese - died about 1000 years ago.

Calling them all "Chinese language" is like call German, Scandinavian and English just "Germanic language".

learn2learn faggot.

>>419
1. I agree that Hanzi is part of Japanese culture, no doubt, but culture isn't something untouchable, it's something that you change and grow.

2. Things can be made slowly, like obsoleting first the least common Hanzi and, in about 50 or even 100 years, replacing them all with hira/kata.

And note that they have 100% hieroglyphic value only in Japanese. Most of them have a meaning and a rhyme radicals - rhyming in Chinese, not in Japanese.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 2:02

>>420

419 here.
It might happen... but if it does, it certainly shouldn't be a human initiative... as you said, culture changes and grows... by itself. Your point of view in this matter is ethnocentric, as you're viewing a culture that is not your own from the outside and judging it. Ask any Japanese, and 99% of them will tell you that they have no intention of getting rid of Kanji any time soon. Before Hiragana and Katakana were developed, Kanji were all they had. For what your proposing (phasing out Kanji) to even be an idea worth glancing at, it would have to be considered a 'social problem' by enough Japanese so that they'd start a movement to do just that. Until then, Kanji are here to stay.

Also, I'd like to point out for 416 that Kanji are part of the Japanese language... words written are as good as those spoken.
Also, I'd like to point out that they're called "Kanji" in Japanese. "Hanzi" is Chinese.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 7:31

>>415
漢字が速読に寄与していることはご存知でしょうか。
漢字混じりのおかげで、一目で文の意味を読み取ることができるんですよ。
日本語の読み書きができない人には理解しにくいことかもしれませんが、
>>419さんが書かれているとおり、非常に読みにくくなってしまいます。

例えば↓
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
このようにかんじをまったくつかわずにかくと、めりはりがなくなります。
ぶんによってはぶんせつのくぎりがわかりにくくなることもあります。
にほんごがくしゅうしゃにとっては、かんじをつかわないほうがよみやすいのでしょうか。
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

また、漢字を基に作られた日本語の語彙が数多く存在しています。
日本語とは切って切り離せないものになっているのです。
1500年以上も使われている便利な漢字を敢えて廃止する意味があるとは思えません。

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 15:32

>>421
I call them "Hanzi" only because I'm used with it. Kanji, Hanzi... both are OK to me.

Maybe I'm being speakcentric, lol, since for me there is no "written language" - it's about representing a spoken language. And in this view, since moraics suits Jap phonology better, are easier to learn [even for natives - Ruby characters exist for a reason :D], well, people could just... naturally stop using harder kanji.

But no, I'm not being ethnocentric... I would be if defending some Latin-Japanese alphabet, or even "use an alphabet". I even see Latin characters in Japanese text as shitty insertions.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 15:40

>>420
Fuck you faggot, it's Chinese
Fuck you

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 15:40

>>422
Well, lots of English vocabulary was created from Latin vocabulary. Yet, I don't see anybody using Latin WORDS to write proper Germanic words [somewhat equivalent of using Chinese characters to write Japanese vocabulary].

As an example, it's like writing
"I'm going aedibus hodie and oluidabo all that merda."
And still pronouncing like
"I'm going home today and I will forget all that shit."

And you know, becomes difficult to read only because you're used with it. If you were used to hiragana-only, Kanji would be hard, too.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 15:46

>>424
Obvious troll is obvious.
Want to disagree? Go on! Want to call me names? Miseriae tuae rio, asine.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-11 19:22

おい、お前ら、このスレが腐らないように落ち着けてよ

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 1:11

>>427
Torôru wa geizutudesu

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 8:22

>>415 is making complaints only because his memory is not good enough to master Kanji.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 11:50

>>429
>is making complaints

>>415
Something bugs me.

So, as can you see [I'm >>415 ], it's not a complaining... but just something that I don't understand. It's just... illogical.

BTW, I probably could learn some kanji, but my focus is in other languages than Jap.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 12:03

>>426
Troll? Are you retarded? I'm not trolling, that's not even near what a troll is. I'm just pointing out that you're a faggot and fuck you

>>425
this makes no fucking sense, the languages have different histories, so of course they're not gonna be the same

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 13:50

英語とラテン語の関係をそのまま日本語と中国語に当てはめるのはナンセンス。
変なことを言う人だなぁ。頭でっかちなのかな。

と思ったら、漢字を使えない人だったんだね。
実用してみたわけでもないのに、上っ面の知識だけで
「It's just... illogical.」と発言してることが一番illogicalだよ。

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 19:46

Quick question - kanjidicks is what kanjidamage used to be called right?

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-12 20:18

>>432
>「It's just... illogical.」と発言してることが一番illogicalだよ。
まさにその通り
うまい言うことだね
このあほを放っておくの方がいいと思う

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-13 1:29

>>431
Just calling names, with NO argument, is a shitty-style failed taunting tentative, so it's low-level trolling.

About Latin>English vs. Chinese>Japanese: it DOES sense.
A spoken language (Eng, Jap) borrows lots and lots of words from a literary, old but prestige language (Lat, Chin), its writing system (Latin alphabet, Chinese characters). This writing system doesn't adapt well to Eng, Jap, but its use goes on for enough time that people just resist change.

The analogy works. Perfectly. Everyone can see it (except maybe you).

And when the analogy stops working, I make my point... alphabets, syllabaries, abjads, etc. are much more flexible than logograms, so English can use Latin alphabet to write non-Latin words like "wind" in a way that makes [some] sense in English, instead using "uentus".

This doesn't work nor with Han characters in Jap (Kanji). 風 [wind] in old Chinese (and, to some extent, Sinitic languages) can be more or less deconstructed in  凡+虫 [phonologic+semantic]:
Cantonese - 風 fung1, cf. 芃 pung4, 鳳 fung6
Mandarin - 風 feng1, cf. 芃 peng2, 鳳 feng4

Now, let's see with Japanese:
Japanese - 風 ka·ze, cf. 芃 sa·ka·n, 鳳 hô
(NOTE: please correct any mistake I made.)

See? In Japanese, the phonologic "hints" (rhymes) just doesn't work. This could be worked around, using a rhyme radical for -ze words, other for -kan words, other for -ô...

But this still is insatisfactory, since Japanese uses mostly (C)V(n) syllables, no other contrast like tonemes or etc. Japanese phonology is the ideal type to use... syllabary. Like hiragana, it spawns for some reason!

And this would already bring "oooohhhh the change it hurts!", much more than just sticking with hiragana.

>>434
I don't speak in an "illogical" way.
In my point of view, you WRITE in an "illogical" way ;-)

I am fully aware that I'm no native Japanese speaker, and if it's about changing or not, who must decide are native speakers, not me.

I am JUST discussing this as someone who studied enough about Linguistics and language to see through the traditions and use the reason.

And, in my humble point of view, tradition works as a rope. It can took a person out of a hole, or can hang the same person by the neck.

Think about all the time you used to learn the zyôyô. Now, think you could used it instead to learn literature. Grammar. Writing poetry. etc.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-13 2:39

rhymeは関係ないよ。音節とかモーラとか考えなくていい。
風は基本的にwindを表すものであり、「かぜ」や「ふう」という2字の代わりに使われる記号である、
というだけのこと。
ひらがなより簡潔に書けるし、読みやすいから便利。
見ただけで意味がわかるよ。
「かぜ」と書いても風のことなのか風邪のことなのかわかりにくいよ。

手紙
 日本語では「てがみ」と読み、letterを表す
 中国語では「shou3zhi3」と読み、toilet paperを表す

このように、中国の漢字とは既に切り離されて、独自のものとして(日本語として)進化してる。
政治、経済、教育など、日本で作られて中国に輸出された語彙も多数ある。

結局、漢字を覚える労力が無駄、もったいないと言いたいのかな?
日本人は小学校とかで少しずつ学んでいつの間にか身につけるから、覚えるのに苦労してないよ。
日本語学習者にとって面倒臭いものだから、漢字は廃止したほうがいい主張しているのだとしたら
本末転倒だよ。

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-13 6:49

>>436
廃止するしないの話は別にして、>>435の言うことにも一理あると思うよ
漢字はそれぞれ個別の中国語を表すための文字である以上、
日本語を書き表す文字として漢字を使うのはおかしなシステムであるのは間違いない
どのぐらいおかしいかっていうと、例えば英語の表記として生み出された英単語を日本語の表記に使うのと同じぐらいおかしい
中国語の「我 wo」を日本語の「われ」の表記として使うのは、「I」と書いて「わたし」と読ませるのとあらゆる意味で同じことだし、
「私は郵便局に行きます」を「わたしはゆうびんきょくにいきます」と読ませるのは、
「I はpostoffice にgo きます」と書いて「わたしはゆうびんきょくにいきます」と読ませるのと全く同レベルでイカれた表記システムだと思う
(「郵便局」はもともと中国語なのかもしれないけど)
このおかしな表記システムを使う必然性は
>「かぜ」と書いても風のことなのか風邪のことなのかわかりにくいよ。
この一点に尽きると思う
もし漢字がなくなったら、今ある同音異義語はほとんど機能しなくなって消滅するんじゃないかな

日本人でも同じようなことを言ってる人はいるよ
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4166601989/

>>435
I know what you mean, but nevertheless Kanji can't be disconnected from Japanese as long as Japanese is Japanese.

Without Kanji, you can't tell the words apart which have a same pronunciation in common and unlike English, Japanese have tons of them (they were mainly created in Meiji era as translations of western words.)
If Kanji disappeared from Japanese, those words would disappear too because they'd become too confusing ones to use.
If that happened, Japanese vocabulary would be completely reconstructed and the language composed of the new vocabulary would be no longer Japanese but a new language.

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-13 8:47

古代には仮名の代わりに表音文字として漢字を使ってた。

【例】
 夜久毛多都伊豆毛夜幣賀岐
 やくもたついづもやへがき

中国語のように表意的に使われたこともあった。

【例】
 天地初發之時 於高天原成神名 天之御中主神
 あめつちはじめてひらけしとき たかまのはらになりしかみのなは あめのみなかぬしのみこと

今はどちらでもなくて、日本語の一部として機能してる。
漢字の影響で大きく変わった結果が今の日本語なんだから、日本語の中で漢字を使うのはおかしくないよ。

>>435
Cantonese - 風 fung1, cf. 芃 pung4, 鳳 fung6
Mandarin - 風 feng1, cf. 芃 peng2, 鳳 feng4

それって現代の広東語と北京語の発音?
日本語の漢字の音読みは、中国の呉の時代、隋~唐の時代、宋の時代など古い時代の音が基になってるので、今の広東語・北京語の音と比べる意味はあまりないと思う。

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-13 10:07

>>435
>「It's just... illogical.」と発言してることが一番illogicalだよ。
>I don't speak in an "illogical" way

You're an idiot, just like I said. That sentence means:

"Saying 'It's just... illogical' is the most illogical thing"

お前ちゃんと漢字を読むことさえ出来ないのに何時もつべこべ煩いんだよ
現在、この瞬間こそ真に間違い無しでは何百万と言う日本人が漢字を読み書きことを出来ている
なぜその事実を認めれないのか?
たとえお前は認めることが出来なくても何年も言語学を勉強してもお前は分からないことが分からない。
小学生でさえこの手の論理を見える。

Name: Anonymous 2010-10-13 11:53

>>435
How hard is it for you to understand? Fuck you

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