日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 6

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/1174719097/1-40

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

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 3
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1267485093/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 4
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1302350850/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 5
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1330050873/1-40

>>340

Actually, we say "cut into savings" frequently in English, so that comparison doesn't necessarily work.

There is actually some discussion about which is "proper". I don't really think prescriptive grammar is the best thing to base our language learning on, but we have to choose something.

One Chiebukuro answer (also on goo and some other question sites) simply says "取り崩す is right because it's in the dictionary like that" and leaves it at that, mostly:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1251006017

But there is also this NHK article: www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/kotoba/kotobax3/pdf/063.pdf which I rather like because the author realizes that dictionaries only reflect the way people use words, and not the other way around.