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p1atdev

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japanese-stackexchange

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[ { "body": "For the first one, it is correct, except that it sounds like a single person\nwent around and did it. To avoid that, you can change it to\n\n> 正月はそれぞれの家が門松を立てる。\n\nThe second one can also be rewritten, but yours is wrong. You should do it as\n\n> 木村さんは会う人それぞれに挨拶している。\n\nNote that `Xごと` means \"every X\", and you cannot always change it to `それぞれ`.\n\n> 5メートルごとに門松を立てる。\n\ncannot be rewritten using `それぞれ`.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-26T01:23:25.443", "id": "5963", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-26T01:23:25.443", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5962", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "A relative clause construction cannot act in all ways that a noun can.\nAdjectival modification, genitive noun phrase, and relative clause are all\ndifferent things, and behave differently syntactically.\n\nAssuming that a relative clause attaches to a noun phrase and creates a noun\nphrase, whose categorical status is the same, is correct.\n\nThe problem is with adjectival modification and genitive phrases. There is a\nneed to distinguish between a noun and a noun phrase for them.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-28T12:33:54.110", "id": "5985", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-28T12:33:54.110", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "5964", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "FWIW, I just had a look in Shogakukan's _Progressive Japanese-English\nDictionary_ entry for それぞれ. In all the sample uses where それぞれ came right after\nthe initial は clause, the それぞれ was referring to the topic. This agrees with my\nown subjective experience hearing this term in use. Excerpted examples\n(emphasis original):\n\n * 少年たちはそれぞれ犬を飼っている _Each_ boy [ _Each_ of the boys] keeps a dog. / The boys _each_ keep a dog. \n * 子供たちはそれぞれの席についた _Each_ of the children took his (own) seat. \n * 人はそれぞれの長所がある _Everyone_ has _his own_ strong point. \n * トムと太郎とフィリップはそれぞれ英語,日本語,フランス語を話した Tom, Taro, and Philip spoke English, Japanese, and French _respectively_. \n\nAs such, 「木村さんはそれぞれの会う人に挨拶している。」 wouldn't work because the それぞれ in the middle\nthere refers to 木村さん, not the 会う人. This appears to be specific to how それぞれ is\nused, and is thus outside the scope of your question about modifying nouns.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-15T18:20:17.123", "id": "15973", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-15T18:31:28.023", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-15T18:31:28.023", "last_editor_user_id": "5229", "owner_user_id": "5229", "parent_id": "5964", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "When written with kanji it is 若しかして.\n\nI imagine it to be made up of:\n\n * 若し\n * particle か\n * して (て-form of する)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-26T14:08:44.080", "id": "5966", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-26T14:08:44.080", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "5965", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "> What is the literal meaning of it?\n\nA literal translation will sound very awkward: (just) if doing. In any case,\nit is an expression of supposition about something that may be possible.\nHence, \"perhaps\".\n\n> Does it have a Kanji form?\n\n若しかして (perhaps even 若しか為て), but it will usually be written in hiragana.\n\nWhile not recognized as modern readings, the following characters have all\nhistorically been glossed as mosi in various 漢文 texts: 仍, 假, 儻, 卽, 如, 或, 爲, 由,\n皆, 縦, 脱, 苟, 設, 謂, and 頗.\n\n> What root(s) does it contain\n\nAdverb mosi + interrogative partical ka + verb s- + particle -te. The particle\nka strengthens the interrogative (\"if\") sense of mosi.\n\nJust for the record, there are other compounds of mosi-ka, including \"mosika\nsitara\" and \"mosika suru to\".\n\n> What about the もし part?)?\n\nAn adverb meaning \"if\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-26T14:33:09.917", "id": "5967", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-26T14:39:21.703", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-26T14:39:21.703", "last_editor_user_id": "1141", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5965", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "As a sentence-final particle, it's `わ`, not `は`. See more about in\n[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/244/78) post and\n[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/2886/78) post.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-26T21:36:08.197", "id": "5970", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-26T21:36:08.197", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.157", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "5969", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "* 義務 is a general term meaning \"obligation\".\n\n> 国民には納税の義務がある \n> 船長は自分より先に全ての客を避難させる義務がある\n\n * 本分 particularly means \"duty\", or \"activity that someone is supposed to be spending most of their time on according to their title/occupation\", and does not necessarily have the strong meaning of \"obligation\".\n\n> 学生の本分は学ぶことである\n\nUsing 本分 in your example is completely wrong.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-27T03:50:30.457", "id": "5972", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-27T03:57:25.063", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-27T03:57:25.063", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5971", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "* 誇り is a kind of pride concerned with your characteristics like: membership to some group (i.e., nationality, alumnus status, etc.), your belief, activity, or achievement.\n\n> 誇りを持って仕事をしている \n> 日本人であることに誇りを感じている\n\n * 自尊心 is the pride about being yourself, and is not tied to any of the particular characteristics mentioned above.\n\n> 自尊心を持つことは、よい人格形成にとって必要だ \n> 犬の自尊心を育てるためには、小さいときに他の犬と一緒に過ごさせることが重要だ\n\n * 自慢 is the act of showing off something related to yourself, like the characteristics mentioned above, or your belongings.\n\n> スネ夫がラジコン飛行機を自慢した \n> 出木杉君は、試験の結果がよくても、決して自慢はしない", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-27T08:34:53.763", "id": "5975", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-27T08:48:49.423", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-27T08:48:49.423", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5974", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "1. は is expressing the contrastive topic \"even to the slightest extent\" as contrasted to \"to the normal extent/fully\".\n 2. This is a rhetorical question. It is syntactically a question, but the intent is a suggestion.\n 3. You are on the right track. The preceding clause is a conditional clause.\n\n> 'How about if you eat it in such a way even to the slightest extent (if not\n> fully) to make it look delicious?'", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-27T16:15:04.853", "id": "5977", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-28T01:36:49.313", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-28T01:36:49.313", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5976", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Ok. So after some searching and accidental googling, I think I've figured it\nout.\n\n`<verb>` \\+ たらどう（ですか）？ Means \"why don't you `<verb>`\". It indicates a\nsuggestion. It can also be used to express a negative connotation when the\nspeaker is dissatisfied with how the listener is performing (or not\nperforming) the .\n\n美味しそうに - an `<i-adjective>` \\+ そう = \"seems/looks like `<i-adjective>`\". そう\ncould also be translated as \"as if\" instead of \"seems\" or \"looks\" if the\ntranslation requires it.\n\nちょっとは - has already been explained above.\n\nSo the sentence means (as others have pointed out):\n\n> Why don't you eat as if the food is delicious, just a little?\n>\n> or\n>\n> Why don't you eat, just a little bit, as if it's delicious?", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-29T15:18:09.263", "id": "5991", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-29T15:18:09.263", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "769", "parent_id": "5976", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "The answer that I think is the most likely [is on\nWikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizu_sh%C5%8Dbai), which is that the\nterm derives from maybe as far back as the Tokugawa era, where there was\noverlap between bath houses and the sex trade. The water in the bath houses\nbecame a euphemistic reference for the sex trade.\n\nHowever, I noted that the reference cited on the Wikipedia page for that\nexplanation linked to a text by [Boye De\nMente](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy%C3%A9_Lafayette_De_Mente), who is far\nfrom a reliable source of information about Japan. So a more believable\nreference would be advised if you need something truly authorative.\n\nOn that same page, they also have references to possible origins from Japanese\nphrases that link water to aspects of the sex trade:\n\n * `勝負{しょうぶ}は水物{みずもの}だ` (\"Gain or loss is a matter of chance\"). The idea here is that the entertainment industry (which extends to the sex trade) is fickle, and success comes and goes like the flowing of water.\n * `泥水{どろみず}稼業{かぎょう}` (\"muddy water earning business\"), a term for illicit business\n * `水茶屋{みずちゃや}` (\"public teahouse\"), which seems to imply that at some point in Japanese history you could probably find your way to the sex trade by going into certain teahouses.\n\nI think the origins in these phrases are a little bit overthought, but then\nwhat do I know? Maybe they're true.\n\nIn any case, it seems like the true origin isn't known for sure, but hopefully\nthese will be helpful for you.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-28T06:38:09.843", "id": "5983", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-04T09:36:23.373", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-04T09:36:23.373", "last_editor_user_id": "290", "owner_user_id": "119", "parent_id": "5979", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A few explanations found on the\n\n * 水 comes from 水物, as in 勝負は水物だ. This expresses the lack of guarantee regarding return.\n * Like a flow of water, income is indefinite\n * Work in red light districts was called 「泥水稼業」or「泥水商売」 (ie. work in dirty places)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-28T06:51:38.933", "id": "5984", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-28T06:51:38.933", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "5979", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "In old Chinese--where Japan borrowed the term--口 was a counter for people.\nMore specifically, it referred to the number of people needing food. English\nhas this construction too: the number of \"mouths\" (=people) to feed.\n\nAs for 個, it generally refers to individual non-animate items.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-28T00:20:57.840", "id": "5981", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-28T00:20:57.840", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5980", "post_type": "answer", "score": 16 } ]

[ { "body": "Both of your guesses are wrong. You don't have to interpret it as passive. The\nexperiencer (subject) is implicit. `で` means \"by\" or \"from\".\n\n> (We) came to understand from ... that ...\n\n`分かる` means \"come to understand\". Be careful that it does not mean\n\"understand\", which is expressed by the perfect form `分かっている`.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-28T19:46:41.627", "id": "5987", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-28T21:40:53.110", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-28T21:40:53.110", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5986", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "A devil's-advocate, non-rigorous argument from etymology:\n\n(1) /wakaru/ is morphologically /wak.ar.u/, and so in /ar/ already contains a\nspontaneous/passive morpheme that is equivalent (in some ways, different in\nothers of course) to modern /((ra)r)e/.\n\n(2) Constructions like /nihongo ga wakaru/ are often explained as equivalent\nto \"[somebody] understands Japanese\" not only in meaning but also in\n(underlying) structure. That is, the \"nihongo ga\" is interpreted as a direct\nobject, marked with \"ga\" instead of \"o\" for reasons that aren't relevant here.\nBut if we take the construction at face value, based on the etymology outlined\nin (1) above, it actually means \"Japanese is understood\".\n\n(3) Therefore it is unnatural to say /*nihongo ga wakareru/ for the same\nreasons that it would be to say *\"Japanese is understood-ed\" in English. There\nis no passive version because the original phrase is already passive, or at\nthe very least contains no direct object. Since the passive and the potential\nare closely linked in Japanese, there is no potential version either ( _this\nis probably the most hand-wavey part of this entire argument_ ).\n\nThoughts:\n\n * We cannot say /*kazoku ga areru/, *\"a family is had\" either (with the intended meaning of \"able to have a family\"). But we can say /kazoku ga sonzai dekiru/, \"a family can exist\". I think the important distinction here is that /aru/ implies an attachment to some sort of /X ni/ while /sonzai suru/ does not.\n\n * Words like /umareru/ \"be born\" have similar etymology, but you still see /umarerareru/ sometimes (e.g. \"悪人でも極楽浄土に生まれられる\" \"Even bad people **can be reborn** in the Pure Land\"). I have no good counter-argument against this and don't really have good judgment of its naturalness either.\n\n * We _do_ see similar patterns in words like /sirareru/ \"be known\"; I do not think that /*sirarerareru/ \"be able to be known\" is allowed. This is perhaps evidence for the hand-wavey portion noted above.\n\n * One way to test my proposal would be to investigate Japanese speakers whose idiolects allow/require the construction /o wakaru/, and find out if they _do_ in fact use constructions like /wakareru/, or at least find them less unnatural than speakers who only allow /ga wakaru/.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-04T06:58:52.217", "id": "6045", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-04T06:58:52.217", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "5988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Shogakukan's _Kokugo Dai Jiten Dictionary_ (JA-JA) contains an entry for 分かれる,\nfor which sense 4 is:\n\n> 〔自ラ下一〕 \n> 区別がつく。差別ができる。 \n> (Intransitive, ラ, _shimo ichidan_ conjugation) \n> To have a clear distinction. To be discernable.\n\nAs to why this form might not be used that much, a brief survey of Google\nBooks searching for\n[\"が分かれる\"](https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22%E3%81%8C%E5%88%86%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B%22)\nshows lots of hits where 分かれる is being used in the intransitive sense of \"to\nsplit into different pieces\". 分かれる appears to be used more often for this\nsense than for the potential of 分かる.\n\nMoreover, both Shogakukan's and Daijirin's definitions for 分かる include\nphrasing like 「知れる」 and 「理解できる」, suggesting that a sense of potentiality is\ninherent in the verb 分かる.\n\nThese two factors combined might lead speakers to be overtly explicit about\npotentiality, resulting in constructions like 「分かる **ことができる** 」.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-06-03T19:07:45.163", "id": "16285", "last_activity_date": "2014-06-03T19:07:45.163", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5229", "parent_id": "5988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "As pointed out in other answers, わかる is etymologically an\npotential/intransitive/passive verb of わける/わく. Then there are two questions:\n\n * why cannot potential/passive/intransitive verbs have potential form.\n * why the intransitive わかる is always used.\n * how the potential form works\n\n## Why cannot potential verbs have potential forms\n\nI have had this questions for years and my explanation is: making the object\nthe subject is just the way to express “result” in Japanese. A “result” is\nsomething you can assert it happens/will happen/happened only after if\nactually happens. It is not something can be controlled by the agent.\n\nIt is common to see people say お茶が入った, 風呂が沸いた, ご飯ができた, etc. Some people think\nusing intransitive verbs are more polite and being polite is a feature of\nJapanese. However, I hardly think so.\n\nIt is interesting that in Chinese, we say neither 1~3a nor 1~3b. Instead, we\nsay something like 1~3c. The point is, the transitive verb and passive verb\nare used to report the whole process.\n\n> 1a) お茶が入った \n> 2a) 風呂が沸いた \n> 3a) ご飯ができた \n> \n> 1b) お茶を入れた \n> 2b) 風呂を沸かした \n> 3b) ご飯を作った \n> \n> 1c) 茶沏好了 (お茶が、入れられて、うまくなった) \n> 2c) 水烧开了 (風呂が、沸かされて 、沸いた) \n> 3c) 饭作好了 (ご飯が、作られて、できた)\n\nIn a context where some action is supposed to be taken / have been taken, if\nyou just want to report the result, which has no duration, you must use a\ndifferent expression, that is, the intransitive form.\n\nThe difference between Chinese and Japanese is that in Japanese you can just\nmake the original object the subject of verb without explicitly mentioning its\ncause, while in Chinese the relation between the consequence and its cause\nmust be explicitly conveyed. I am not good at English and I do not know how\nwhat expressions will be used in this context in English.\n\nBecause the result is not something we can control, we might be interested in\nwhat the result is supposed to be, ie its potentiality. When there is an\nunstated agent and his effort in the context and no adverbs, it can be usually\nassumed that an adverb うまく (successfully/skillfully) is implied.\n(Historically, 能く{よく} (well, skillfully), which was similar to うまく, was\nanother way to express potentiality)\n\n> 4a) ご飯が作れる \n> 5a) 漢字が読める \n> 6a) 運転ができない\n\nThey roughly equal their more verbose conditional versions.\n\n> 4b) ご飯を作りたければ、作れる \n> 5b) 漢字を読めたければ、読める \n> 6b) 運転をしようとしても、できない\n\n**In other words, the difference between “will” and “can” mainly depends on\nthe context -- whether there is an implied effort or not.**\n\nIn the last sentence 6, the distinction between “will” and “can” are\nneutralized in negative statements, which is unexceptional because\nhistorically, the “potential” function of られる only appears in negative\nsentences.\n\nFor example, 得ず{えず} means both “will not get” or “cannot get”, 能わず might be\nthe intransitive verb of あたえる, which means “will not get” or “cannot get”,\ntoo.\n\n## Why わかる is always intransitive\n\nI do not have a confident answer. But I think, there are several verbs of\nperception that are usually intransitive, such as 見える, 聞きこる, わかる.\n\nI think it reflects the process of human mental activity. We are always\nlooking, listening, observing the circumstance around us, and thinking about\nthe information we perceived. So what concerns us is not whether we performed\nthe action or not, but the result we got.\n\nI looked around, but we do I see? The result will be 靴が見えた.\n\nI though about it, but we do I realize? The result will be お客さんが来ていることがわかった.\n\nMaybe because their intransitive versions are frequently used, they are\nirregular. The active wakeru or waku might have never been used to mean \" to\nunderstand\". I think I have read a paper about the etymology of wakaru, but I\ncannot find it.\n\n## The weirdness of the potential form\n\nAlthough I consider the potential form is as a special case and productive\nform to express “the result”, it do not mean it always works as you may\nexpect. Compare:\n\n> 10a) ご飯ができる \n> 10b) ご飯が作れる \n> 10c) ご飯ができない \n> 10d) ご飯が作れない \n> \n> 11a) 富士山が見える \n> 11b) 富士山が見られる \n> 11c) 富士山が見えない \n> 11d) 富士山が見られない\n\nWe can see a clear difference in how these action succeed or fail. Some forms,\nsuch as ご飯が作れる and ご飯ができない are not likely to be used.\n\nHowever, adding some adverbs will make a difference.\n\n> 12a) ご飯がおいしくできる \n> 12b) ご飯がおいしく作れる \n> 12c) ご飯がおいしくできない \n> 12d) ご飯がおいしく作れない\n\nWe can even use adjectives.\n\n> 13a) おいしいご飯ができる \n> 13b) おいしいご飯が作れる \n> 13c) おいしいご飯ができない \n> 13d) おいしいご飯が作れない\n\nIt is a little hard to determine the naturalness and differences between all\nthese expressions, but the meaning of potential form is not easy to explain.\n\nWith adverbs expressing desirable resultative state, the difference between\nthe potential form and the active/passive form can sometimes be more or less\nneutralized.\n\n> 14a) 絵がうまく書いてある \n> 14b) 絵がうまく書かれている \n> 14c) 絵がうまく書けている\n>\n> 15a) 英語を話す \n> 15b) 英語を話せる \n> 15c) 英語を流暢に話す \n> 15d) 英語を流暢に話せる\n\nSince うまく and 流暢 are desirable state, it can usually be safely assumed that\nthey are the results of the agent's effort.\n\nFor some verbs, the passive form can be used instead of the (regular)\npotential form.\n\n> 17) 残念に思われる \n> 18) 残念に思える\n\nSometimes, non-volitional verbs can have passive forms\n\n> 30) 得る <> 得られる (得る has become a volitional verb now) \n> 31) 知る <> 知られる\n\nSome potential/passive forms become volitional verbs and can further be put\ninto the potential form.\n\n> 32) 痩す <> 痩せる \n> 33) 生まれる <> 生まれられる \n> 34) 覚える <> 覚えられる\n\nFor some verbs, they are primarily passive/non-volitional, the potential forms\nare not often used.\n\n> 35) 教わる <> ?教われる, but 教わることができる \n> 36) 知る <> ?知れる, but 知ることができる", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-06-04T04:21:06.463", "id": "16292", "last_activity_date": "2014-06-04T06:24:47.150", "last_edit_date": "2014-06-04T06:24:47.150", "last_editor_user_id": "4833", "owner_user_id": "4833", "parent_id": "5988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "If you look in a Japanese-Japanese dictionary, the primary definition of 分かる\nis 明白になる (Sanseido) \"become clear\" or something equivalent. It gets translated\nin English as \"understand\" not because that is what it actually means but\nbecause that is what an English speaker usually says in cases where a Japanese\nspeaker uses 分かる.\n\nSo \"(watashi wa) hon ga wakaru\" gets translated as \"I can understand the book\"\nbut what it actually says is \"The book is clear (to me)\". Note that the ga-\nmarked shugo (subject) is _not_ me, as in the standard English non-literal\nrendering. It is the book.\n\nSince the word really means to be clear, we can see that a thing either is or\nisn't clear. It can't be in a state of \"possible-to-be-clear\".\n\nBy contrast, rikai suru _does_ mean to understand, so naturally it can take a\npotential form _rikai dekiru_ - to be capable of understanding.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-06-27T21:01:46.383", "id": "48809", "last_activity_date": "2017-06-27T21:01:46.383", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22554", "parent_id": "5988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "The first two are used in contexts like: \"do it properly.\"\n\n> ちゃんと手を洗ってください\n>\n> きちんと部屋を掃除してください。\n\nTo me, it seems that きちんと implies more concentration/involvement. The result\nis cleaner, more polished. Thus, ちゃんとできた would be \"I did it as required\",\nwhile きちんとできた would be \"Not only did I do it as required, but I also paid\nattention to every detail.\"\n\nThe last one is used to express a perfect fit.\n\n> このズボンがぴったり合う\n\nI've never used/noticed きっちり, so I won't discuss it.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-29T09:22:02.377", "id": "5990", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-01T01:26:58.200", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "5989", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "記載 means to write down, and cannot be used here. 名が出る means identity exposed\nor revealed, and cannot be used either. 掲載される or 載る would fit in this context.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-29T17:16:54.300", "id": "5994", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-29T17:16:54.300", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5993", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "直観 is a term coined by translation. (In Japanese we call this 訳語)\nSpecifically, it is used to express German \"Anschauung\" or English / French\n\"intuition\". In the 1881 dictionary 哲学字彙, English \"intuition\" and German\n\"Anschauung\" are both translated as 直覚力. But by 1912, the two terms are\ndistinguished in 英独仏和哲学字彙 which gives English intuition as 直覚 and German\nAnschauung as 直観.\n\nAlso notice that in the historically spelling (歴史的仮名遣) system, the two words\nwere spelled differently: 直感 is チョクカン (chokkan) while 直観 is チョククヮン (chokkwan).\n\n直観 is a philosophical term, while 直感 may be more widely used.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-29T20:46:31.470", "id": "5997", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-29T20:46:31.470", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5995", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "The verb bare-ru is a 下一段 verb, so you can expect that it was 下二段 bar-u before\nthat, hence bar-u > bar-uru > bare-ru. It is noteworthy in that it begins with\na voiced consonant (b), which essentially does not happen in words of Japanese\norigin. Rather, it is more likely that it is a recent contraction of another\nword, which I assume was abare-ru (暴れる). And in fact, it is a recent verb with\nearly citations from the mid 17th century. Reasons to write it in katakana are\n1) lack of kanji, 2) emphasis, 3) colloquial. Hiragana works just as well,\nthough.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-30T03:44:57.430", "id": "6002", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-30T03:44:57.430", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5998", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "The accepted answer to [this question on\nchiebukuro](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q138768193)\nsuggests that there is no sure answer to the origin of バレる. Some of the\nsuggestions given include 暴く/暴かれる, 破{ば}れる, and 晴れ晴れ.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-30T05:21:52.903", "id": "6005", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-30T05:21:52.903", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5998", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "* 動 is 動詞, verb.\n * ラ means the verb conjugates on the r-.\n * 下一 (shimo ichi) and 下二 (shimo ni) are abbreviations for [下一段](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8B%E4%B8%80%E6%AE%B5%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (shimo ichidan \"lower monograde\") and [下二段](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8B%E4%BA%8C%E6%AE%B5%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (shimo nidan \"lower bigrade\"). These are verb conjugation types. There are other conjugation types: [四段](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E6%AE%B5%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (yodan), [五段](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E6%AE%B5%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (godan), [上一段](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E4%B8%80%E6%AE%B5%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (kami ichidan), [上二段](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E4%BA%8C%E6%AE%B5%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (kami nidan), [サ変](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E8%A1%8C%E5%A4%89%E6%A0%BC%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8) (sa-hen), カ変 (ka-hen), ナ変 (na-hen), and ラ変 (ra-hen).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-30T03:18:39.633", "id": "6000", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-30T03:47:45.727", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-30T03:47:45.727", "last_editor_user_id": "54", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5999", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "動 stands for 動詞, and means it is a verb. ラ means that the last consonant of\nthe stem is \"r\" (belongs to ラ row), which does not have significance in modern\naccount for this type of verbs. 下一 stands for 下一段活用, a terminology used in\ntraditional grammar. In modern terms, it means the stem ends with \"e\". I.e.,\nthe stem is \"otozure-\". 下ニ stands for 下ニ段活用, a terminology in traditional\ngrammar for classical Japanese.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-30T03:22:10.300", "id": "6001", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-30T03:42:02.303", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-30T03:42:02.303", "last_editor_user_id": "54", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5999", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "According to [this page](http://homepage2.nifty.com/osiete/seito216.htm), the\nず in 負けず嫌い is not negation, but from an old way of writing\n[むず/んず](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?index=17922800&p=%A4%E0%A4%BA&dtype=0&stype=1&dname=0na&pagenum=1).\n\nIt says むず connects to an [imperfective\nform](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation#Imperfective) of\nverbs/some auxiliary verbs etc, and it's said that it's a transformation from\n`auxiliary verb\n\"[ん/む](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%80&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=17838000&pagenum=21)\"`+`particle\n\"と\"`+`verb \"す\"` (\"[んとす/むとす](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch/0/0na/17954300/)\").\nIt says \"むず\" usually has basically the same meaning as\n\"[ん/む](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%80&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=17838000&pagenum=21)\",\nbut it incorporates extra emphasis.\n\nAccording to [this page](http://nhg.pro.tok2.com/qa/jodoushi-1.htm), it means\nsomething like 負けるだろうことが嫌い, or \"hate thinking that you'll lose\".\n\n* * *\n\nAlternatively, according to [this page](http://www.asahi-\nnet.or.jp/~hi5k-stu/nihongo/gogenjpn2.htm), it quotes the\n[新明解国語辞典](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Meikai_kokugo_jiten) as saying\n負けず嫌い is a mixture of 負け嫌い and 負けず, and says that it may originally have been\n負け嫌い but came about via incorrect usage.\n\n[Daijisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E8%B2%A0%E3%81%91%E3%81%9A%E5%AB%8C%E3%81%84&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=17277000&pagenum=1)\nsays it might have come from a mixture of 負け嫌い and\n[負けじ魂](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E8%B2%A0%E3%81%91%E3%81%98%E9%AD%82&dtype=3&dname=2na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=04122800)\n(\"unyielding spirit\") etc (I'm not sure which is correct).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-30T03:46:23.920", "id": "6004", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-30T05:19:20.710", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-30T05:19:20.710", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6003", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "There are historical reasons for the names. Currently, they stand for\ndifferent political structure. For four kind of prefectures have different\nkind of organization and management systems. For examples, you can set \"特別区\"\nin a \"都\", but not in \"道府県\". The corresponding of name and organization and\nmanagement structure is regulated by law. So when the management structure\nchanges, the name changes as well.\n\nA further review of this [wiki\narticle](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ja/wiki/%E9%83%BD%E9%81%93%E5%BA%9C%E7%9C%8C)\nshowed that \"都\" is different from others. The naming difference of \"府県\" are\nmainly historical, and currently have no difference in law. There are a few\nspecial regulations of \"道\" relating to police, river management, road\nmanagement, etc.\n\nThe characters \"都道府県\" can also be used in a name of place. In \"京都府\" and \"京都市\",\nthe name is 京都, not 京. It may have historical reasons how it became like this.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-01T01:20:50.503", "id": "6009", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-01T01:29:10.633", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-01T01:29:10.633", "last_editor_user_id": "903", "owner_user_id": "903", "parent_id": "6006", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "This question is about the history of Japan. Before Meiji Restoration (明治維新),\n県 had never had the meaning of prefecture or province.\n\nAccording the Wikipedia article\n[府藩県三治制](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%9C%E8%97%A9%E7%9C%8C%E4%B8%89%E6%B2%BB%E5%88%B6),\nwhen the Meiji government defeated Tokugawa shogunate 徳川幕府, they began to\nreorganize local territories and domains ruled by the shogunate, independent\nlords 大名 and shogunal vassals 旗本 in the following manner.\n\n * The cities directly ruled by the shogunate with 奉行所 were reorganized into 府.\n * The other regions ruled by the shogunate and 旗本, and ones ruled by 大名 but abolished by the Meiji government were reorganized into 県.\n * The other regions ruled by 大名 were remained and renamed to 藩.\n\nAfter that, the other 府 than 東京府, 大阪府 and 京都府 were renamed to 県, and 藩 were\nabolished and reorganized into 県 by the order of\n[廃藩置県](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BB%83%E8%97%A9%E7%BD%AE%E7%9C%8C).\nThen, the small 府 and 県 gradually consolidated with neighbouring ones and\nformed into the current regions\n([府県制](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%9C%E7%9C%8C%E5%88%B6)).\n\nKyoto had 京都所司代 and 京都町奉行 during Edo period, so 京都町奉行 became 京都府.\n\n北海道 was a special region directly controlled by the central government before\nWorld War II, and once there were three 県 under it\n([北海道庁](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97%E6%B5%B7%E9%81%93%E5%BA%81_%281886-1947%29)).\n\n東京都 was formed by consolidation of 東京府 and 東京市 under World War II\n([東京都制](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E9%83%BD%E5%88%B6)).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T10:05:59.147", "id": "6031", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-03T10:05:59.147", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1119", "parent_id": "6006", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "This is an interesting topic but I think the question could stand to be a bit\nmore focused. I will throw out an answer in an attempt to inspire other people\nto dig up better info and perhaps the OP to make the question more specific\nand answerable.\n\nSo \"what is happening\", in general terms to avoid specific theoretical\nassumptions:\n\n> In certain kinds of speech, almost always non-formal, usually associated\n> with young people, we see adverbial use of adjectives in their -i form (e.g.\n> /osorosii/, /sugoi/) where Standard Japanese requires their -ku form (e.g.\n> /osorosiku/, /sugoku/).\n\nPoints of interest:\n\n * The usage is often associated with young people but not necessarily a particular generation. However, particular _words_ are often associated with a particular generation. Your examples from \"modern literature\" (all 3+ generations old now) are all /osorosii/; the modern canonical example in Eastern Japan is /sugoi/. This suggests that _specific words_ used in this function might be dependent on generational slang, but it seems that the _pattern_ of using -i adjectives this way is stable over time (or is prone to repeated reinvention).\n\n * The usage seems to be restricted to adjectives which are \"semantically bleached\" and just convey intensification. I do not think you would be able to find \"赤い光るのね\" or similar.\n\n * The usage is not limited to one-word \"natural adjectives\". In natural speech you can hear things like \"ありえない暑い\" and \"はんぱない暑い\". It seems that anything that is adjective-like and has a general intensifying meaning can in theory be subject to this process. (By \"adjective-like\" I basically mean \"has the -i ending\", but I also mean to include things like ぱねー etc. that are _derived_ from the -i ending.) **EDIT:** You know what? I don't actually think that adjective-likeness is a requirement. See second-to-last paragraph below.\n\n * This is from memory, but I believe that in 若者言葉に耳をすませば, Yamaguchi Nakami argues that adverbial /sugoi/ is a _different lexical item_ than the adjective /sugoi/, citing as evidence the fact that speakers use _both_ adverbial /sugoi/ AND /sugoku/, but in different situations (and not just differentiated by formality etc. -- the meanings are slightly different).\n\n * It is interesting to note that we see something similar in informal English: compare \"That guy is mad/crazy/wicked ugly\" to ?\"That guy is madly/crazily/wickedly ugly\". \n\nPerhaps what is happening is that the semantic bleaching of the adjectives is\naccompanied by a sort of \"morphological bleaching\", so that they are no longer\nfirmly in the \"-i adjective\" category any more for those speakers -- they\nbecome general intensifiers with no particular inflection required that happen\nto end in /i/.\n\n**EDIT:** In fact, I'm less and less convinced that the original class of the\nword has much to do with it at all. ちょう, めっちゃ etc. are examples of words that\nseem to be the result of a similar process but were not originally -i\nadjectives. Perhaps the -i adjectives just stand out because their non-\ninflection stands out as an \"error\" when compared with the standard adverb-\nforming -ku ending.\n\n(We should note that these speakers may still keep the actual adjective in\ntheir lexicon as well, a la Yamaguchi cited from memory above, so maybe it is\nbetter understood as a form of branching.)", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-02T06:45:13.367", "id": "6021", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-02T09:06:18.243", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-02T09:06:18.243", "last_editor_user_id": "531", "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "6007", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "They are different. You use かけて with an endpoint, and わたって with a span.\n\n> 20世紀の終わりにかけて ... \n> 今夜にかけて ...\n>\n> 3世紀に渡って ... \n> 3世代に渡って ...", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-01T01:50:05.383", "id": "6010", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-01T01:50:05.383", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6008", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "にかけて は 連続的でなくてもいいです。\n例えば、「5時から六時にかけて雨が降った」と言うと、「五時から六時まで雨が降ったけど、一。か時間中、降ってはいなかった」という意味。\n一方。「にわたって」の前には範囲を表わす言葉がくる。\n例えば、「三時間にかけて」「一世紀にわたって」「数回にわたって」「政治家、一般市民、知識人にわたって」などなど。", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-01-12T01:19:10.493", "id": "30368", "last_activity_date": "2016-01-12T01:19:10.493", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "12189", "parent_id": "6008", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not Japanese, but I know a few places where I've seen this word used which\nmight help to define it better.\n\nWhen I researched the word 「投入」, I found that there are usually two\npredominant meanings.\n\nThe first would be \"to invest\" as you had previously stated. From what I have\nseen, phrases that carry this meaning usually involve money, resources,\neffort, and energy. For example, 資金、資源、努力、エネルギー. The important thing to\nremember is that things that are used with 「投入」in this way can be deposited or\nstored.\n\nThe second meaning that I saw meant \"to be thrown into\". Situations where this\nmeaning was used involved realeasing a product into the market, being thrown\ninto orbit, and soldiers being put in another area/country. For example,\n製品を投入、軌道に投入、軍隊を投入、政策を投入.\n\nSo to answer your question, 投入 probably doesn't need to be only limited to a\nthin paper, but probably can be applied to something that you\nstore/deposit/place in a container/invest. For this there is 投入口 which is\nclose to \"slot\".\n\nAs far as 「投入場」, I honestly am not sure. However, I would guess it means\nsomething like \"an area where you throw things into\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T20:39:25.177", "id": "6127", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T20:39:25.177", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1328", "parent_id": "6013", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "A typical phrase in japanese for this situation is \"勉強になりました\", though it is\nobviously not a direct translation. Maybe you could say:\n\n> 前よりもっと分かりました\n\nOr from Chocolateさん:\n\n> 前よりずっと理解が深まりました", "comment_count": 10, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-01T20:52:17.060", "id": "6016", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-01T23:34:59.777", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-01T23:34:59.777", "last_editor_user_id": "706", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "6014", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I doubt one says \"上手に\"+\"分かる\", since 分かる is \"come to be understood\", rather\nthan \"actively understand\".\n\nThe suggested 勉強になりました is pretty common.\n\nIf you really want to say \"I understand much better than before\", you could\nsay \"やっと、分かってきた\", \"やっと理解するようになった\", or \"前より理解できた\". Although _I_ would probably\nadd \"かも(しれない)\" at the end of all these examples, to be somewhat less assertive\nabout my comprehension faculties.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-02T03:08:51.967", "id": "6019", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-03T12:23:59.623", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-03T12:23:59.623", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6014", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "> Given the definition of the noun, why does this word possess this adverbial\n> meaning?\n\nYour definition list is incomplete. Another sense means \"the whole\",\n\"entirety\", \"general\". This sense--while still a noun--is used like an adverb\nand may be accompanied with に, such as 一体に今年は寒かった. It is from this usage that\nthe adverbial sense derived. Adverbially, the meaning changes to \"on the\nwhole\", \"in general\", \"in short\" etc. Adverbial quote: 一体生徒が全然悪いです (Sōseki,\nBotchan*) When used in a question, it emphasizes the questioner’s feelings,\nwhich you are translating as \"what the heck\".\n\n * Note: This is a famous, well-known quote with 全然 + non-negative predicate.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-01T22:28:47.550", "id": "6017", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-01T22:28:47.550", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6015", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "* ゼット is the most common pronunciation for Z.\n * ズィー is used by younger generation or by realists, but elderly and conservative people may not understand it.\n * ゼッド is rare. Actually, I have never heard of it.\n\n* * *\n\nTraditionally, there are several English alphabet letters that are pronounced\ndeparting from mere transcription of the sound. They are\n\n * デー【HL】 for D\n * エッチ【HLL】 for H\n * ブイ【HL】 for V\n * エッキス【HLLL】 for X\n * ゼット【HLL】 for Z\n\nI (as well as many people) thought that they (particularly D and Z) are\nmixture of German pronunciations, but that does not necessarily seem to be the\ncase. It may have come from some British English dialect.\n\n 1. Among them, the following have almost replaced the old forms in present Japanese:\n\n * エイチ【HLL】 for H\n * エックス【HLLL】 for X\n\nThus, the old form `エッチ` will imply \"sexuality\" and `エッキス` is used mostly to\nrefer to the variable `x` by some mathematicians dragging the old habit.\n(There is a rumour that this pronunciation `エッキス` can be traced back to a\ncertain academic school, which happens to be my alma mater. Not sure of the\ncredibility).\n\n 2. Younger people or \"realists\" will pronounce\n\n * ディー【HHL】 for D\n * ズィー【HHL】 for Z \n\nbut aged or conservative people will not necessarily understand them. `デー` and\n`ゼット` are the most widely comprehended pronunciations.\n\n 3. For V, there is a more realistic pronunciation:\n\n * ヴィー【HHL】 for V\n\nbut I don't think this is very popular yet.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-02T06:50:16.417", "id": "6022", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-02T12:33:05.880", "last_edit_date": "2014-08-02T12:33:05.880", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6018", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 }, { "body": "I hate to bring anime into this reply but all Japanese people I have met know\nthe pronunciation \"zetto\", and all of them have heard of Dragon Ball Z. Which\nin Japanese is \"Doragon Bo-ru Zetto\". I work in a Junior High School in Japan\nand whenever students don't understand \"zee\" if I say \"zetto\" or even \"zeddo\"\nthey understand immediately what letter I mean - even 6 year olds in\nElementary School,a fact I would attribute to Dragon Ball Z.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-02T12:29:25.847", "id": "6024", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-02T12:29:25.847", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1480", "parent_id": "6018", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "I have the feeling that `に` under the relevant usage is used adverbially and\nimplies \"remembering the item one after another while listing\", and I think it\nrequires at least three items. Two is too short for remembering one after\nanother.\n\n> AにBにCが来た \n> ?* AにBが来た \n> AにBにCが結婚した \n> ?* AにBが結婚した\n\n`結婚する` cannot have a dative argument, and I guess the structure of\n`AにBにCが結婚する` is `Aに[Bに[Cが結婚する]]` \"C will get married, in addition to B, in\naddition to A\", rather than `[AにBにCが]結婚する`, so it cannot have the reciprocal\ninterpretation. `BがAに結婚した` is completely ungrammatical.\n\nIf you wanted to do a listing interpretation for `会う`, which takes a dative\nargument, then you can do this:\n\n> AにBに(それに)CがDに会った (A, B: listing interpretation, D: dative) \n> 'A, and B, and also C, met D' \n> AがBにCに(それに)Dに会った (B, C: listing interpretation, D: dative) \n> 'A met B, and C, and also D'", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-02T08:36:52.900", "id": "6023", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-02T10:11:12.757", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-02T10:11:12.757", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6020", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Why is `together` \"needed\" in the English expression\n\n> go shopping together with dad\n\nwhen you can say\n\n> go shopping with dad\n\nDoesn't the latter already convey the idea of \"together\"?", "comment_count": 14, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-02T23:00:51.360", "id": "6027", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-02T23:00:51.360", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6026", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "At the coffee shop after practice, 行こうか is a perfectly good sentence if the\nhighest ranking person says it. Everyone will get up and leave. In other\nsituations, _do you want to go home_ is very different from _do you want to go\nhome with me._ Japanese can drop the _you_ , but still needs the 一緒 (but not\nthe me/us/them). I remember hearing a lot of 一緒に without names or pronouns. I\nknow this is an example sentence, but I wonder if since 一緒に is so often\nrequired in this kind of question, it isn't automatically used and then names\nare added for emphasis. By 'then added', I mean some kind of mental process\nthat assembles the sentence before speaking, not final word order.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-31T06:14:24.700", "id": "6341", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-31T06:14:24.700", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1345", "parent_id": "6026", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\"一緒に\" gives an impression that Kenshin and his father do shopping together all\nthe way through. Even if you don't say \"一緒に\", the sentence would mean the same\nbasically.\n\nHowever, it would also be taken as \"I would go shopping with you. You drive,\nand drop me at the entrance of the department, you do shopping for your own, I\ndo mine. Let's get back together at the entrance when we both finish\nshopping.\" ...Because you didn't mention \"together\" for shopping.\n\nI guess this explanation would work the same in other languages through.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-08-01T07:40:47.263", "id": "6363", "last_activity_date": "2012-08-01T07:40:47.263", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1044", "parent_id": "6026", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "> Aren't both sentences the same?\n\nProbably not sentimentally. There's much more of a bond in the use of 一緒に.\n\nAlso, I think that it expresses ((with-me go) shopping) more than (go (with-me\nshopping)).\n\n> I can't see the second sentence not relaying the idea of \"together\". So what\n> does the 一緒に do exactly? It seems, to me, that the sentence doesn't really\n> need it.\n\nIn many languages, there are words that are often used, but are not necessary,\nor not even meaningful. In this case, it is meaningful, but not necessary.\nSometimes, it's just a habit. Or some improper sentence that goes uncorrected\nfor it's perfectly understood. Just to tease you more, consider the sentence\n\"約10人ぐらいいました\", which means \"there are approximately around 10 people.\" Bad\nEnglish, very natural Japanese…\n\nThe notion of \"need\" you have needs to be loosened :)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-08-02T07:52:31.857", "id": "6365", "last_activity_date": "2012-08-02T07:52:31.857", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6026", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "せ is like そう。\n\nせや = そうだ\n\nせやねん ~ そうだよ\n\nや is the famous copula that generally means だ。", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T03:29:57.347", "id": "6029", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-03T03:56:52.710", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-03T03:56:52.710", "last_editor_user_id": "1065", "owner_user_id": "1065", "parent_id": "6028", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I think I say:\n\n * せや (or そうや) for そうよ / そうだ / Yes. / You're right. / Oh, (I just remember)... etc. \n * せやねん (or そうやねん）for そうなのよ / そうなんだよ/ Exactly. / Yes, (actually you're right)... \n * せやな (or そうやな) for そうね / そうだな/ You're right. / You may be right. / Let me see... etc. \n\nI also say:\n\n * せやで (or そうやで) for そうなのよ / そうなんだよ (Compared with せやねん, I think せやねん is more subjective and せやで sounds a bit more objective) \n * せやて / せやって (or そうやて・そうやって) for そうだって / そうだってば / Right,(trust me, that's the truth...) / (sounds like you're trying to persuade or repeating what you've just said) \n * せやかて (or そやかて) / せやけど (or そやけど) for そうだけど / それでも / そうだとしても / You're right, but... / You may be right, but... / You say so, but... \n * せやし (or そやし) for だから / そうだから / so... / therefore... \n * せやった (or そやった) for そうだった (the past tense of そうだ)", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T04:32:40.750", "id": "6030", "last_activity_date": "2020-04-11T15:53:18.947", "last_edit_date": "2020-04-11T15:53:18.947", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6028", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "You have already received several answers. Rather than repeat them, let me\ngive you the resources so that you can answer this and similar questions on\nyour own. Look for a book titled 『大阪ことば辞典』 by 牧村史陽 (Makimura Shiyō) and\npublished by Kōdansha, 1984. The ISBN is 4-06-158658-0. Below are a few short\nexcerpts.\n\n * (page 376) セヤ: そうやの訛。そうだ。例：セヤセヤ（そうだそうだ）。セヤよって（そうだから）。\n * (page 543) ネン（助）: の。のだ。（ネ・ネヤの項参照）例：そやネン（そうなのだ）。行ったるネン（行ってやるんだ）。行ったんやネン（行ったのだ）。何しててやんネン（何をしていらっしゃるの。これが下品になると、何してけっかるネン）。\n * (page 508) ナァ（助）: ね。原語はそやノォ・ええノォののう（喃）である。例：あのナァ。そやナァ。ええナァ。知らんナァ。西鶴の『好色一代男』（天和）巻六に「うまいなあと云はせしことも」\n\nThis reference also indicates the accent for all terms. I am not able to\nreplicate the notation here, though.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T12:13:58.303", "id": "6033", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-03T12:13:58.303", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6028", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "お元気で could be paraphrased as\n\n> これからもずっと元気であるように\n\nお元気で would be used when you won't see someone for a while and you are\nbasically saying \"stay healthy\".\n\n気をつけて could be paraphrased as\n\n> 注意をするように\n\n気をつけて is used when seeing someone off, in other words, you know the person is\nfrom this point on is going on a trip overseas, or is going to get in their\ncar and drive home. It implies the idea of \"be careful on your trip (or when\ndriving home)\".\n\nSo to distinguish the two, if you are not sure what the person is going to be\ndoing from the point you part ways, お元気で would be more appropriate.\n\nお元気に as Chocolate mentions is not used by itself like that. However, you could\nsee it in phrases like 早くお元気になってください or お元気になさっていますか.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-16T01:48:54.127", "id": "5537", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-16T01:48:54.127", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "6032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "* [`気をつけて`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E6%B0%97%E3%82%92%E3%81%A4%E3%81%91%E3%81%A6/UTF-8/): \"take care\", \"be careful\" (is more generic than the other ones, for example it can be used in `足元に気をつけて` \"watch your step\")\n * [`お大事に`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E3%81%8A%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%8B%E3%81%AB/UTF-8/): \"get well soon\" (often said to people recovering from illness etc, literally something like \"treat (yourself) with value/respect/care\")\n * [`お元気で`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E3%81%8A%E5%85%83%E6%B0%97%E3%81%A7/UTF-8/): \"be well/healthy\", \"all the best\", \"take care of yourself\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T12:57:36.080", "id": "6034", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-03T13:27:23.283", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-03T13:27:23.283", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 17 }, { "body": "I normally say 気をつけて when I part from someone going/traveling somewhere or\ngoing home, お大事に to someone sick/ill/injured etc., and お元気で when I part from\nsomeone who's older/superior to me, like my senpai, teacher, professor,\nboss... お元気で sounds more polite than 元気でね so I'd say 元気でね to my\nfriends/coworkers/family/relatives.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T13:02:02.820", "id": "6035", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-16T06:29:08.340", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-16T06:29:08.340", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 19 }, { "body": "お元気で/[達者]{たっしゃ}で is used when you won't meet the person for a long time. You\ndon't say it friday night if you meet them next week. You say it when someone\nis leaving for long terms.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-04T01:05:01.430", "id": "6040", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-16T06:28:51.230", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-16T06:28:51.230", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1065", "parent_id": "6032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Firstly, as was noted in the comments (by Tsuyoshi Ito), that the same thing\ncannot be done with other adjectives ending in `～らか`.\n\nOn the other hand, there exists a number of adjectives, which can function\nboth as イ-adjective and as ナ-adjective, e.g.\n\n```\n\n 大きい 大きな\n 小さい 小さな\n 真っ白い 真っ白な (etc.)\n 細かい 細かな\n 暖かい 暖かな\n 四角い 四角な (etc.)\n 柔らかい 柔らかな\n \n```\n\n(but, of course, やわらかい is the only one ending in `～らかい`). An investigation of\nthe differences here might deserve a separate question.\n\nAs for the difference in usage, I have talked to quite a few native speakers,\nwho maintain that there is no substantial difference in meaning between\n`やわらかい` and `やわらかな`, which is only a handful of anecdotal evidence. On the\nother hand, [here](http://www.yano.bc.ca/vansin/vansinpo095.htm) is an article\n(blog post?) about the difference between `やわらかいお餅` and `やわらかなお餅`, where the\nauthor says something along the lines, that a `やわらかなお餅` has a more gentle feel\nto it (he says `「やわらかな」のほうが落ち着く感じがする`). Which, too, is at best anecdotal\nevidence.\n\nOne can only guess that maybe he means that `やわらかい` is a more objective\nstatement about the physical properties of the `お餅` (softness), whereas\n`やわらかな` suggests a subjective experience of softness, or rather gentleness.\n\nBut even if this is the case, not every Japanese person seems to perceive\nthese subtleties in the same way...\n\nP.S. I noticed that I haven't answered your question, regarding the history of\nthe difference. I will delete my answer, if it isn't contributing anything to\nthe problem of answering your question.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-09-02T01:50:41.257", "id": "6674", "last_activity_date": "2012-09-02T02:13:55.737", "last_edit_date": "2012-09-02T02:13:55.737", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "6036", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "According to a\n[dictionary](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%84%E3%82%8D%E3%81%84%E3%82%8D/),\n色々(と) is an adverb, while 色々な is an adjective. It means this と is not\nconsidered a particle but a part of a word in the widely accepted grammar.\n\nYou can say, 彼女のために甘いものを色々と買ってきた, which shows 色々と works as an adverb.\n\nMoreover, [this\ndictionary](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/154670/m0u/%E3%81%A8/) says\nthat the particle と has 13 meanings/functions including a suffix to make an\nadverb.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-03T16:44:30.357", "id": "6038", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-03T17:09:10.130", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-03T17:09:10.130", "last_editor_user_id": "1119", "owner_user_id": "1119", "parent_id": "6037", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "No, the 「と」 and 「な」 do not have the same meaning or function. 「と」 enables an\nadverbial function and 「な」, an adjectival one.\n\nIn the sentence:\n\n> [彼女]{かのじょ}のために[色々]{いろいろ}[と][甘]{あま}いものを[買]{か}ってきた。\n\n「色々と」 modifies the verb 「買ってきた」.\n\nBut in the sentence:\n\n> 彼女のために色々[な]甘いものを買ってきた。\n\n「色々な」 modifies the noun 「（甘い）もの」.\n\nPart of your confusion may have arisen from the fact that the first sentence\nis difficult to translate into natural English in such a way that it will show\nthat 「色々と」 modifies 「買ってきた」.\n\nThe second sentence would translate swimmingly into English --- \"bought and\nbrought a variety of sweet things\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-02-27T01:33:04.397", "id": "14640", "last_activity_date": "2022-08-24T01:27:33.077", "last_edit_date": "2022-08-24T01:27:33.077", "last_editor_user_id": "30454", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6037", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "For the first example `ながい`, I can think of a two reasons why: 1) The person\nwho entered the text didn't really think about it or didn't care, or 2) There\nare two versions `永い` and `長い`, and the author didn't know which one to use\n(this probably isn't the case, but you never know). However, there could be\nother reasons, and as mentioned in the comments \"no one but the author knows\nthe actual reason\".\n\nFor `おさない`, did you know there are two readings for `幼い`? There is `いとけない` and\n`おさない`, I don't know if that played a role in the author using hiragana, but\nit is something to think about (`いとけない` is generally not used very much any\nmore, but you will still see it on occasion).\n\nAlso, it is good to know that in some situations, 漢字 are prohibited. For\nexample, [常用外漢字]{じょうようがいかんじ} will generally not be used in newspapers because\nthey are not part of the official set of characters to be taught. Also, words\nlike `障害` are usually written as `障がい` recently because `害` has a negative\nmeaning. Also, `子供` is written as `子ども` and there is some controversy over\nthis, but I will leave the reason behind that a mystery.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-04T05:24:00.007", "id": "6043", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-04T06:34:33.803", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-04T06:34:33.803", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "6039", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "[Standard Japanese learner disclaimer.]\n\nTo me, 知力 is more related to 知能 than it is to 知恵.\n\nI think the 力 in 知力 implies mental _ability_ , which is somewhat synonymous\nwith the meaning of 能.\n\nFor 知恵, I can't do a comparison by kanji, but the definition seems more\nclosely related to wisdom and knowledge (acquired intelligence), than it does\nto the abilities that come with talent (natural intelligence).\n\nFor example which is more applicable to an IQ test vs. a subject specific test\nlike the [LSAT](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_School_Admission_Test)?", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-05T04:17:12.280", "id": "6050", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-05T04:28:21.063", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-05T04:28:21.063", "last_editor_user_id": "54", "owner_user_id": "54", "parent_id": "6041", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Both examples are grammatically correct. 電話により通報する is just a verbal\ntransformation of 電話による通報, but I think it is not colloquial. 電話で通報する is\ncommonly used in daily conversation.\n\n**UPDATE** ～により/による is a bit more formal(rigid) expression than ～で, and it\nworks more effectively when you intend to focus strongly on the method. Maybe\n電話により通報する is too much matter of course to emphasize its method. (because we\nalways use phone to call the police)", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-04T06:15:06.930", "id": "6044", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-04T08:50:14.510", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-04T08:50:14.510", "last_editor_user_id": "1490", "owner_user_id": "1490", "parent_id": "6042", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "According to the どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型500, `noun+によって` is used for means and methods\n(`noun+により` is a slightly more formal version of `noun+によって` but they have the\nsame meaning AFAIK).\n\nWhen the noun is something that's concrete/tangible (a 具体的な物), `noun+で` is\nmore commonly used than `noun+によって`:\n\n> × わたしは自転車によって通勤している。 \n> ○ わたしは自転車で通勤している。 \n> \"I commute by ~~train~~ bicycle.\"\n>\n> × その件をメールによって通知してください。 \n> \"Please report that matter via e-mail.\"\n\nAnd when in a place where the noun is explained, `noun+による` is frequent:\n\n> ○ 自転車による通勤は禁止されている。 \n> \"Commuting to work via ~~train~~ bicycle is prohibited.\"", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-10-30T10:30:22.457", "id": "8275", "last_activity_date": "2012-10-30T23:17:51.967", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6042", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "* It is not appropriate to say あなた to your boss. Call by the title plus the name.\n * happyo → happyoo\n * ha → wa\n * Using the non past form here is wrong. Use the past tense.", "comment_count": 10, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-04T12:35:22.073", "id": "6047", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-04T12:35:22.073", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6046", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 }, { "body": "Here are some options:\n\n * スピーチ／演説{えんぜつ}お疲{つか}れ様{さま}でした。\n * 今日は、 _社長{しゃちょう}／Aさん_ のお話{はなし}を聞{き}くことができて本当{ほんとう}によかったです。\n * _社長／Aさん_ のお話、たいへん[感銘{かんめい}](http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E6%84%9F%E5%8B%95)を受{う}けました。\n * _社長／Aさん_ のお話、たいへん感動{かんどう}を受{う}けました。\n * _社長／Aさん_ のお話、たいへん勉強{べんきょう}になりました。\n * _社長／Aさん_ のお話、たいへん **ため** になりました。\n\nMostly inconsequential, but someone could object the use of 発表{はっぴょう} when\nreferring to a distinguished figure such as one's superiors in rank.\n\nAlso note the use of Hiragana for 大変{たいへん} in the written language when you\nare praising someone or _want to appear smart or knowledgeable_. You can use\n大変 in Kanji when you talk about something negative or adverse:\n\n * 今日の仕事{しごと}、本当に大変でした。", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-11-08T12:35:52.827", "id": "19426", "last_activity_date": "2014-11-08T12:55:25.233", "last_edit_date": "2014-11-08T12:55:25.233", "last_editor_user_id": "7671", "owner_user_id": "7671", "parent_id": "6046", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "No. スマート does not mean \"smart\". It means \"skinny\". Your sentence means totally\ndifferent thing. Actually, it is not clear what \"skinny jobs\" mean.\n\nI do not know exactly what you intend, but if you are comparing physical labor\nand labor that requires intelligence, it is `肉体労働と頭脳労働の相違点`.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-05T13:51:28.680", "id": "6054", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-05T13:51:28.680", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6053", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I would make it into カタカナ and add parenthetical explanations:\n\n> ハードワーク(非効率的な働き方）とスマートワーク（効率的な働き方）の違い\n\n**EDIT** My original translation was based on the English \"Difference between\nHard Work and Smart Work\", which are using two buzzwords, not the sentence\n`The Difference Between Working Hard and Working Smart`.\n\n\"Hard Work\" means work the requires a lot of effort in English, so if you use\n\"Hard Work\" to mean something different, you have to add and explanation.\nAlso, \"Smart Work\" is a buzzword which can mean different things.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-06T03:37:56.920", "id": "6055", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-06T07:36:21.197", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-06T07:36:21.197", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "6053", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "[重労働](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E9%87%8D%E5%8A%B4%E5%83%8D&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=08718800)\nusually means “hard _physical_ work,” so it is not appropriate here unless you\nare talking about physical work. Also, some people may have difficulty\nunderstanding what スマートな労働 means at all, because\n[スマート](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%B9%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=10015400&pagenum=1)\nused to mean “slender” instead of “smart.” (But this may not be a big problem\nanymore because it seems that the latter meaning is becoming more popular\nrecently, as in スマートフォン and スマートカード.)\n\nI might translate the title as 懸命に働くことと賢く働くことの違い, but I am not good at\ntranslation.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-06T03:59:47.673", "id": "6056", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-06T03:59:47.673", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "6053", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\"to work hard\" and \"to work smart\" I think can be expressed with 懸命に取り組む and\n要領よく取り組む.\n\nThe corresponding nouns would be 懸命に取り組むこと and 要領よく取り組むこと.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-06T06:34:30.383", "id": "6057", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-06T06:34:30.383", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "6053", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "やつ is used as a head noun modified by a relative clause or an appositive\nclause. My guess is that it can be used only when the referent is what is\ntechnically called _d(iscourse)-linked_ , or the set of possible choices is\n(assumed to be) established within the context. The interest is setting the\nchoice from a given set rather than introducing a new entity to the context.\n\nFor example, 細いやつ presupposes that the set of things under consideration is\nestablished in the context. Among them, there is/are thing(s) that can be\ncategorized as 細い. What 細いやつ is doing is not introducing an entirely new\nentity into the context but is picking one from the set of possibilities\nestablished in the context.\n\n> A: 君はどんな麺が好きなの。 \n> 'What **kind** of noodle/ **which** noodle do you like?' \n> B: 僕は細いやつが好きだ。 \n> 'I like the thin ones'.\n\nAs you can see above, when there is a relevant wh-question proceeding it in\nEnglish, the wh-expressions `what kind of ...`, `which ...`, can be used\ninstead of `what`, `where`, `who`. A good English translation for `...やつ`\nwould be `the ... one(s)`.\n\nIt has a rough nuance compared to the alternative `の`, and a conservative\nperson may not expect it to be used by a female. This is probably connected to\nthe fact that another usage of やつ is an impolite third person pronoun.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-06T12:35:52.170", "id": "6059", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-06T13:10:03.220", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-06T13:10:03.220", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6058", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "Regarding your question after the edit, I think you are poisoned with English.\nIt is the English word \"memory\" that can mean two different things: stored\ninformation and a device that stores information. Do not assume that an\nEnglish idiosyncracy can be carried into Japanese. The Japanese word 記憶 means\nstored information but not a device. The Japanese word メモリ means a device but\nnot information.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-07T00:18:08.707", "id": "6064", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-07T04:16:06.947", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-07T04:16:06.947", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6061", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "words from foreign languages (other than Chinese language) that are used in\nJapanese are always in katakana. Kanji is useful to distinguish between two\nwords with same phonetics but diffrent meanings", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-07T10:15:36.407", "id": "6067", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-09T08:58:53.430", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-09T08:58:53.430", "last_editor_user_id": "1499", "owner_user_id": "1499", "parent_id": "6061", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "You forgot the other option: abbreviations like IPアドレス, HDD, etc. This is\nquite common when you start getting long, unwieldy strings of katakana.\n\nI think there are multiple factors going on:\n\n 1. People who work in electronics/computing are more likely to have a good command of English, and know the terms in English, and direct borrowing of English terms is quite natural in that case. Particularly if the meaning of the term in English, in the computing context, is not directly the same as the dictionary meaning of the word, making it more sensible to transliterate rather than translate.\n\n 2. Where there is a pre-existing kanji compound that fits the bill and isn't ambiguous, that will be used.\n\n 3. There is a general trend to use more katakana, so terms that are older, like 半導体, are more likely to have kanji forms.\n\n 4. The person who names the item, or at least gives it the name that sticks, as sometimes there are multiple versions, will have their own personal preferences. (This might be the inventor, the documentation writer, translator, textbook writer...)\n\n> Why not just stick with one method?\n\nTo turn it about: what would be the benefit of doing so?\n\nIn many cases these will be compounds of existing terms, and you're sticking\ntogether a concept usually expressed in katakana and one for which a standard\nkanji term exists, it is logical that the result will be part katakana, part\nkanji.\n\nTo borrow from sawa's example, if \"メモリ\" has an existing meaning (separate from\n記憶), and 不揮発性 as well 半導体 are existing terms, then 不揮発性 + 半導体 + メモリ is an\neasily understandable compound. There's no particular advantage to replacing\nthe word \"メモリ\" with a less-used kanji equivalent.\n\nIf all the parts exist in katakana, you'll get an all katakana string\n(although this might end up being shortened: メディタブ I've seen; スマホ is probably\nas common, if not more, than the full equivalent). If all the parts have kanji\nthen you'd get a long kanji compound (for example: 超々大規模集積回路).\n\nNow for an opinion from somebody in the field, from\n[this](http://blog.nishinos.com/archives/2698925.html) blog.\n\nThe main reason he gives near the bottom as to why there are a lot of katakana\nwords in IT in particular:\n\n時間がない (there's no time) The pace of the IT industry is fast, and there are\nconstantly new terms/concepts being invented. There isn't the time to come to\na consensus on the standard translation for each one. So transliterating into\nkatakana is the easiest way. Even if you were to coin a kanji term, chances\nare that the majority would just use the katakana word.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-07T15:04:52.183", "id": "6069", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-08T09:46:22.937", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-08T09:46:22.937", "last_editor_user_id": "571", "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "6061", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "If the word, with a given meaning, got established outside of Japan and was\nthen introduced, then what I find is that if the person introducing the term\nhas good enough English that they are thinking in English, they'll tend to\nwrite the word in katakana. The same if a non-specialist translator is being\nused: their choices are:\n\n * Write the word as it sounds\n * Contact experts in the field to get an explanation of the concept in Japanese, and agree a kanji compound that captures the meaning reasonably well.\n\nWhether they are getting paid by the source word, of by the hour, the katakana\noption is more likely to be chosen. For a simultaneous translator, they simply\ndon't have time: they katakana-ize any unknown word.\n\nHomegrown concepts, especially incremental advances on concepts that already\nuse kanji, are more likely to be in kanji.\n\nWhat actually happens with a lot of words is they get introduced to Japan by\nmultiple people. In many cases they are independently invented, in different\ncountries. So you start off with multiple words for the same thing: some\npeople have gone for katakana, some for kanji. If the concept is quite\nspecialized and is mainly used in the scientific community (in which I include\nthe research divisions of large companies) then the kanji term has more chance\nof sticking. If it is more a consumer-facing concept, then marketing divisions\nare more likely to use the katakana term.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-09T02:51:10.377", "id": "6078", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-09T02:51:10.377", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1501", "parent_id": "6061", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "A hearty いらっしゃいませ! from the staff or owner brings back happy memories of\nJapanese restaurant/bar life. いらっしゃい is a perfectly ordinary word of greeting.\nA person who feels like the 'owner' of the get-together might well shout a\nいらっしゃいませ especially if alcohol is involved. There is also the possibility of\nusing it ironically or with hostility on a late-comer - again the alcohol\nissue. In Japan, if you act drunk, you can be safely forthright. Watch a lot\nof daytime drama to get a handle on the many uses of keigo.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-07T23:42:03.347", "id": "6072", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-07T23:42:03.347", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1345", "parent_id": "6065", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "> What exactly is なり?\n\nIt is a conjugable suffix (助動詞). It attaches to the attributive (連体形), a\nsubstantive, or an uninflected adjective. It expresses designation (指定) or\npredication (断定). It is basically equivalent to である or だ. You may consider it\na copula.\n\nAs a conjugable suffix, it has multiple forms: nar-a, nar-i / ni, nar-i,\nnar-u, nar-e, nar-e. Etymologically, it is a contraction of particle ni + verb\nar-.\n\n> Is it なる?\n\nAs indicated above, nar-u is the attributive form of the suffix nar-. However,\nyou are probably asking if it is the verb 成る, and the answer is no; it is a\nsuffix as explained above.\n\n> Is it 也, an archaic version of です or ある?\n\nYes.\n\n> If so, does that mean that in the past, Japanese verbs did not all end in\n> the う-sound?\n\nIf by end in -u you are referring to the basic conclusive form (終止形), then\nyes. The verb ar- in conclusive form is ar-u (ある) is modern Japanese, but it\nwas ar-i (あり) historically while the attributive form (連体形) was ar-u (ある). And\nas indicated above, this nar- is a contraction of particle ni + verb ar- so\nhas a conclusive form of nar-i.\n\nNote that there is also a hearsay or inference nar-i as well. This is a\ndifferent word and attaches to the conclusive form rather than the\nattributive. Do not confuse these two. Here is a well-known example using both\nnar-.\n\n男もすなる日記といふものを、女もしてみむ、とて、するなり。 \"A woman, too, will try her hand at the diaries\nthat men are said to write.\" (From Tosa Nikki, c. 935)\n\nNotice that the first nar-u attaches to su, which is the conclusive form of\nthe verb, so it is a hearsay nar-. And the nar-i at the end of the sentence\nattaches to suru, which is the attributive form of the same verb su, so this\nis the predicative copula.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-07T15:19:20.917", "id": "6070", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-07T15:24:28.960", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-07T15:24:28.960", "last_editor_user_id": "1141", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6068", "post_type": "answer", "score": 18 } ]

[ { "body": "It's polite imperative. It is derived from Edo-ben (as is all 丁寧語), but is\nstill considered modern even though it isn't used outside 尊敬語 verbs.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-08T00:52:53.357", "id": "6075", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-08T00:52:53.357", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "6073", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "`~ませ` is the imperative form of the polite auxiliary verb `~ます` which connects\nto the conjunctive form of verbs. According to Daijirin it's used with the\nverbs `いらっしゃる`, `おっしゃる`, `くださる`, `なさる`, `申す` and `召す` etc (I've only seen\n`いらっしゃいませ`, `くださいませ` and `なさいませ` used myself though, so I'm not sure how\ncommon the other ones are).\n\nIt's used in modern Japanese, and I think it's frequently used with honorific\nlanguage (though maybe not restricted to it as `申す` and `召す` are humble\nlanguage). It's used to make requests/demands more polite as well as to add\npoliteness to greetings as in `お帰りなさいませ`.\n\n`いらっしゃいませ`/`くださいませ` etc are euphonic changes from the conjunctive forms\n`いらっしゃり`/`くださり` to `いらっしゃい`/`ください` (rather than being the imperative\n`いらっしゃい`/`ください`), together with the imperative polite `~ませ`.\n\n* * *\n\n(References: [Space ALC\n日本語Q&A](http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/jpn_npa?stage=2&sn=102),\n[Dajirin](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%BE%E3%81%9B&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&index=118441100000&pagenum=1),\n[Dajisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%BE%E3%81%9B&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=17315400&pagenum=1))", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-08T02:00:01.240", "id": "6076", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-08T06:12:04.763", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-08T06:12:04.763", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6073", "post_type": "answer", "score": 15 }, { "body": "Just to supplement the others, here is the scheme of ます：\n\n未然形 (Irrealis form) - ませ (ましよ) \n連用形 (Continuative form) - まし \n連体形 (Attributive form) - ます \n已然形 / 仮定形 (Realis/Hypothetical form) - ますれ \n命令形 (Imperative form) - ませ (まし) \n\nSource:\n[Nihongoresources](http://grammar.nihongoresources.com/doku.php?id=conjugation#special_verbs%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99)\n\nAnd also from nihongoresources [further congujations of\nます](http://grammar.nihongoresources.com/doku.php?id=conjugation#special_verbs%E3%81%BE%E3%81%991)", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-09T06:39:58.190", "id": "6085", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-09T06:47:02.253", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-09T06:47:02.253", "last_editor_user_id": "542", "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "6073", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I think 身が縮む思いをする/身の縮む思いをする means you're so afraid, scared, or frightened. 広辞苑\nsays \"ちぢむ[縮む]③恐れなどで体がすくんで小さくなる。身がすぼまる。「身が縮む思い」\"", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-09T04:56:28.150", "id": "6082", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-09T04:56:28.150", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6079", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Doing some [google searching](http://goo.gl/v2SMX), it looks like\n\n`日常生活を描くアニメ`\n\nmight be a good translation, but since it is such a mouthful I doubt it is a\ncommon way to categorize anime in Japanese.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-09T05:07:41.490", "id": "6083", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-09T05:24:25.570", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-09T05:24:25.570", "last_editor_user_id": "814", "owner_user_id": "814", "parent_id": "6081", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "I don't think there's a direct translation of \"slice of life\" into Japanese in\nthe context of Anime genres, however I think `空気系{くうきけい}` would be a close\ncandidate. This genre is also sometimes called `日常系{にちじょうけい}` (See also the\nJapanese Wikipedia article for\n[`空気系`](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A9%BA%E6%B0%97%E7%B3%BB)).\n\nIt means something like \"atmosphere type\", and refers to Anime which doesn't\nhave any dramatic developments or ongoing plot, and basically consists of\neveryday life. A lot of them are based on `萌え4コマ` (or [4 cell\nManga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonkoma) with\n[`萌{も}え`](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_%28slang%29) characters).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-09T05:50:37.893", "id": "6084", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-09T07:00:10.440", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-09T07:00:10.440", "last_editor_user_id": "814", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6081", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "It's read as 「24割る8は4」「にじゅうよんわるはちはよん」[nijuu yon waru hachi wa yon]. (I think\nwe often say「24割る8イコール4」「にじゅうよんわるはちイコールよん」[nijuu yon waru hachi ikooru yon]\nafter junior high school...) Wait, 24÷8=...4? Isn't it 3?", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-10T06:55:51.503", "id": "6088", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-10T07:05:21.947", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-10T07:05:21.947", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6087", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "As Chocolate answered correctly, \"equal\" is usually omitted, but if you want\nto say it, it would be である, or なり (natural in this context but archaic). The\none with イコール that Chocolate mentions is often heard, but I do not think it is\na grammatical Japanese sentence. It is tracing the mathematical notation token\nby token.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-10T11:17:37.547", "id": "6089", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-10T11:17:37.547", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6087", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "No it is not a proverb, but it includes a fragment of an idiom.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-10T18:29:44.993", "id": "6091", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-10T18:35:28.077", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-10T18:35:28.077", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6090", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "About 「根も葉もない」, only 「根」 and 「ない」 are important to form the meaning, 「葉」 is\nadded as a way of humor.\n\n「火種」 may be referring to another idiom about rumors, 「火のないところに煙は立たぬ」 which\nmeans \"if there is no fire , there is no smoke (rumor) rising.\" Addition of\n「火種」 works as an enhancement for 「根も葉もない」. 「根も葉も火種も」 is not a common idiom. It\nseems the song writer mixed two idioms to form the phrase.\n\n「ありゃしない」 is an informal form of 「ありやしない」 and it has the same meaning as 「ない」.\nUse of 「ありゃしない」 may imply that the singer is somehow upset about people\nspreading unfounded rumors.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-29T11:43:25.363", "id": "6310", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-29T11:43:25.363", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1560", "parent_id": "6090", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "> What is the etymology of the word プラスアルファー\n\nIt is usually プラスアルファ, without a long vowel at the end.\n\nIt is a compound of two word: プラス + アルファ. プラス is from English \"plus\". アルファ is\nthought to have represented a variable x but it was mistakenly identified /\nread as Greek α and hence アルファ. The intent was \"+ x (=something)\".", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-10T22:56:11.413", "id": "6094", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-10T22:56:11.413", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6093", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I asked this same question to my Japanese co-worker the other day and he told\nme the following reason (although, I'm not entirely convinced)\n\nDuring baseball in Japan they used to write an X in the 9th inning score box\nif the team had already won in the 8th inning. This was often written in a\nshorthand way (1 stroke) which resulted in the X looking like an alpha. From\nthe idea of having done so much more than was needed that they didn't even\nkeep score in the 9th inning - came the associated meaning of doing more than\nis expected. Just like a baseball team can \"プラスアルファ\" their score, so can a\nperson \"プラスアルファ\" an action.\n\n(I'm afraid I have no idea about baseball, so this might not be totally\ncogent)", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T18:42:28.950", "id": "6125", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T18:42:28.950", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1480", "parent_id": "6093", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I think the emphasis is on the part with closest proximity to the main verb\nfor the Japanese sentences.\n\nAs noted by Chocolate's comment:\n\n> * スミスさんは かいしゃのひとと おおさかししゃに **あした** いきます has an emphasis on あした.\n> * スミスさんは ひとりで おおさかししゃに **きのう** いきました has an emphasis on きのう.\n>\n\nI think there are differences with English as well. The first sentence you\nprovided seems neutral, the second one has some emphasis on \"tomorrow\" and the\nthird one has some emphasis on \"with a colleague\". This is what I feel.\n\nFor the extent of difference in Japanese sentences, my intuition says that\nthere are changes, but not as dramatic as you may think they are. Even in\nEnglish the nuances are not just determined by order within the sentence, but\nalso by cues such as type of words used (if they carry connotations),\ntonality, volume, body language et cetera.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-11T15:06:12.247", "id": "6097", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-18T15:52:42.517", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-18T15:52:42.517", "last_editor_user_id": "542", "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "6095", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "If you compare the corresponding verbs in different languages, they all have\nthe same hierarchical structure. What make difference at the surface include\nthe following factors:\n\n1) The hierarchical structure-to-word order mapping is different among\nlanguages. The most basic word order in Japanese and English that corresponds\nto the first example are\n\n> [あした[スミスさんが[かいしゃのひとと[おおさかに いきます]]]] \n> [[Mr. Smith is [[going to Osaka] with a collegaue]] tomorrow]\n\nNotice that the elements are combined together in the same order: first the\nverb and destination, next with means, with whom, and so on, but since the two\nlanguages have different mapping rules from the hierarchical structure to the\nword order, they appear differently.\n\n2) Phrases can be moved around by various rules, which give word order\nvariations.\n\n * Your second English sentence is derived by moving `tomorrow` to the front by a rule called _topicalization_. Your third English sentence is derived by moving `to the Osaka branch office` to the right of the verb phrase before `tomorrow` by a rule called _heavy NP shift_.\n * Japanese has a rule called _scrambling_ in addition to _topicalization_. Your first Japanese sentence is derived by topicalizing `スミスさんが` and moving it to the front. If you apply scrambling, you get 4 factorial = 24 different word orders including the following ones:\n\n> スミスさんが あした かいしゃのひとと おおさかに いきます \n> おおさかに あした スミスさんが かいしゃのひとと いきます \n> おおさかに スミスさんが あした かいしゃのひとと いきます\n\nbut sentences like\n\n> あした かいしゃのひとと スミスさんが おおさかに いきます\n\nare not preferred because they are ambiguous.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-11T16:21:06.173", "id": "6099", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-17T10:48:04.957", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-17T10:48:04.957", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6095", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Comment from personal experience:\n\nJNat: I cannot add to the technical explanations but I started learning\nJapanese with \"Japanese for Busy People\" in my own country, completing the\nsecond half after I arrived in Japan.\n\nIf you are anything like me and at the same stage I was then, it might be\nencouraging to know that a few months after mastering the basics you give in\nyour question, this structure and its variances/nuances will _passively_\nbecome second nature as you continue your studies.\n\n(None the less, this is a good question. Even today as I flick through model\nsentences in Anki for JLPT N1 , changing the word order sometimes stimulates\nmy interest and make them easier to remember.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-31T07:47:45.740", "id": "6342", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-31T23:45:37.637", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-31T23:45:37.637", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "6095", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "> Does anyone know what might be the correct kana for this name?\n\nIt is your name, so you are entitled to choose the correct kana.\n\nHowever, there is historical precedent for ジョアン. There is a famous Portuguese\nmissionary João Rodrigues who came to Japan in the late 16th century. He left\nseveral important books including \"Arte da Lingoa de Iapam\" (日本大文典) and \"Arte\nbreue da lingoa Iapoa\" (日本小文典). In Japanese he is known as ジョアン・ロドリゲス. Hence,\nジョアン is quite likely.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-11T15:20:45.457", "id": "6098", "last_activity_date": "2012-10-10T00:00:39.663", "last_edit_date": "2012-10-10T00:00:39.663", "last_editor_user_id": "1575", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6096", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Like the Poster \"Dono\" said, you can choose your own characters when you come\nto live in Japan and register as a temporary citizen. But, you need to be\nconsistent in everything you register. If you register for one thing with a\ncertain kana style, like a bank account, and then change your mind later and\nregister for a credit card account with a different kana, they will NOT be\nable to link both names. So, you should think carefully and once you choose a\ncombination, you need to stick with it forever (or else, you will face some\nnasty bureaucracy and problems). Also, you need to consider the easiness of\ntyping that kana combination hundreds of times.\n\nAnd like the poster above mentioned, there is indeed a strong precedent for\nジョアン. I am Portuguese too, but my name is not Joao. You will not be able to\ntranscribe the current Portuguese pronunciation of Joao successfully, I can\nguarantee that. If you move to Japan and follow this precedent, at least some\nmore Japanese people will be able to remember and write your name, as opposed\nto you finding a more obscure combination of sounds. Even if you find it cute\nto create a more complicated combination of kana, this might work against you\nduring your everyday life in Japan. So, once again, consider these things, and\nif you decide to go against the precedent, be consistent and stick with it\nuntil the end.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-10-09T06:18:32.727", "id": "7070", "last_activity_date": "2012-10-09T06:18:32.727", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1782", "parent_id": "6096", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I'd recommend you, just like some other contributors have said before, to\nstick to a simple and easy remembering combination, such as イオアウ or ジョアウ.\n\nThose combinations resemble its real portuguese pronunciation and will give\nyou less troubles when typing it, and registering everywhere.\n\nGreetings from Colombia.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-10-10T16:04:58.277", "id": "7078", "last_activity_date": "2012-10-10T16:04:58.277", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1785", "parent_id": "6096", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "It's my name, too. I'm from Brazil and if people call me ジョアン, I'll never\nthink they're referring to me (no one here pronounces \"ョ\", and the ending \"アン\"\nsounds rather feminine).\n\nThe closest I could find to the way we pronounce João here is ジュオン.\n\nI know it sounds like a horror movie, which can be odd, but there's a musician\nwho goes by this name, too: <http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2133227655867022401>\n\nDo you think it'd sound aggressive? Or laughable?", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-11-14T15:47:41.720", "id": "29226", "last_activity_date": "2015-11-14T15:47:41.720", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "11707", "parent_id": "6096", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Good observation that you mention deictic expressions. That is correct.\nDeictic pronouns with accusative case tend to be used adverbially rather than\nas pronouns; they already incorporate the meaning of `on` or `に`, so it would\nbe redundant to have another ending. In traditional grammar, this is called\n_adverbial accusative_ or _adverbial objective_. Latin clearly had an overt\nmarking for this.\n\nAs for `には`, it means a different thing. It means \"by\", and that will not make\nthe expression redundant.\n\n> * on today \n> by today \n> * 今日に \n> 今日には", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-11T17:45:28.597", "id": "6101", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-11T17:45:28.597", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6100", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "に応じて means \"in response to\", \"being adopted to\", \"proportional to (in the non-\ntechnical sense)\", and does not fit the expected meaning. に基づいて means \" based\non\", and fits the meaning.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-12T08:15:24.367", "id": "6103", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-12T08:15:24.367", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6102", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "* につれて: used to express change along something else. \"His fever cooled as hours passed.\"\n\n * に応じて: used to express a response or solution. \"This helmet was designed to account for the increase number of head injuries among cyclists.\"\n\n * に比べて: used to compare. \"Compared to Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings is for children.\"\n\n * に基づいて: used to express foundations: \"The prices are calculated according to this chart.\"\n\nAs you see, the choice is obvious! :)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-12T09:02:11.403", "id": "6104", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-12T09:02:11.403", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6102", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I'm pretty much just saying what everyone else has already, but to add some\nexamples etc...:\n\n * `基づく` means \"to be based on\", so `に基づいて` means \"based on\":\n\n> 税金はこの表に基づいて計算されています。 \n> Taxes are calculated based on this [table/chart].\n\n * `応じる` means \"to respond\", so `に応じて` means \"in response to\", \"dependant on\", \"in accordance with\" etc. \n\n`Aに応じてB` can have nuances of \"`B` is done to the extent/degree of `A`\"/\"`B` in\na way which caters to `A`\" (examples from [Tatoeba](http://tatoeba.org/eng/)):\n\n> あなたは収入に応じて生活しなければならない。 \n> You must live according to your income.\n\n * `AにつれてB` means \"As `A` happens, so does `B`\", for example:\n\n> これらの木が大きくなるにつれて芝生に光がなくなる。 \n> As these trees get larger, the light that shines on the lawn also\n> diminishes.\n\n * `比べる` means \"to compare\", so `Aに比べてB` means \"compared with `A`, `B`\" (this example from [浜島書店 Catch a Wave](http://catchawave.jp/)):\n\n> 20代の人々に比べて、10代はめったに映画館に行かない。 \n> Compared with people in their twenties, teenagers rarely go to the cinema.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-12T10:36:32.710", "id": "6105", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-12T10:36:32.710", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6102", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "As Chocolate said, ネガティブ means “pessimistic” when used to describe someone’s\npersonality. The same meaning exists also in the English word “negative” (see\n[Wiktionary](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/negative#Adjective), sense 2 of\nadjective), although the meaning is unclear if someone asks “Who is the most\nnegative teacher?” (Maybe math teachers are the most negative in some sense :)\n)\n\nIn the particular news which you are talking about, the high-school teacher\nwho posed this exam had been talking in a class that some other teacher is\nworried too much about entrance exams for colleges and universities, and the\nsupposed solution to this question was the name of this teacher. The meaning\n“pessimistic” matches the description that he is worried too much. (Of course,\nI do not know if he is really pessimistic.)\n\nInterestingly, neither\n[Daijirin](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%83%8D%E3%82%AC%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%96&stype=1&dtype=0&dname=0ss)\nnor\n[Daijisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%83%8D%E3%82%AC%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%96&stype=1&dtype=0&dname=0na)\nlists this meaning. ネガティブ which means “pessimistic” might be a rather new\nusage, and phrase ネガティブシンキング (negative thinking) might have entered Japanese\nearlier than this meaning of ネガティブ itself, but this is just a speculation.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-12T14:23:35.293", "id": "6107", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T01:58:43.273", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-13T01:58:43.273", "last_editor_user_id": "15", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "6106", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "You will find \"chi\" in the \"t\" row and \"i\" column, hence \"ti\". There are\nvarious ways to transcribe Japanese into Latin script. Whether you spell it\nchi or ti, it is the same Japanese sound: ち.\n\nFor cha, chu, and cho, it is chi + ya, chi + yu, and chi + yo. You could also\nspell it tya, tyu, and tyo.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-12T14:47:00.533", "id": "6109", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-12T14:47:00.533", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6108", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "As @Dono answered, \"chi\" is the \"t+i\" sound in the chart. Some others that\nmaybe are not obvious are \"shi\" (s+i), \"tsu\" (t+u), and \"fu\" (h+u).\n\nAlso, the singular \"n\" can be difficult in some instances. Since you are a\nbeginner, you are probably mostly seeing words in romaji (Roman letters). A\nromaji \"n\" will be associated with a vowel immediately following it unless a\ndash (-) or apostrophe (') is used. For example, \"tanin\" (other people) is\n\"ta+ni+n\". However, \"man'in\" (many people) is \"ma+n+i+n\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-12T15:03:23.913", "id": "6110", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-12T19:29:26.260", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-12T19:29:26.260", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "6108", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Some terminology: Hiragana and katakana together (as opposed to kanji) are\ncalled \"kana\". They may have used \"hiragana and katakana\" so as not to bombard\nyou with new terminology. Also, \"gairaigo\" is a Japanese term for loanwords\nfrom western countries.\n\nI don't know an awful lot about English. I'm merely a native speaker of it. So\nI can't really comment about loanwords in English, except to quote the\nfollowing from [James\nNicoll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll#.22The_Purity_of_the_English_Language.22):\n\n> The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that\n> English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words;\n> on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them\n> unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.\n\nBut there are some words in Japanese that don't have a non-gairaigo form\nbecause they were invented in European countries. As an example [Is タオル used\nfor the towels used at\nonsen?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/5462/is-%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AB-\nused-for-the-towels-used-at-onsen) had the following as an answer:\n\n> Towels were introduced in the Meiji era and were almost exclusively imported\n> from England. That's why the word タオル came from English, and there is no\n> other word for them (although Japan of course had their own fabrics before\n> that (I'm specifically talking about terrycloth)).\n\nRegarding \"getting by\". While in beginner textbooks there's no kanji, a lot of\nhiragana and a lesser amount of katakana, in my experience of Japan as a\ntourist, there's a lot of kanji, a fair amount of katakana, and a small amount\nof words made up entirely of hiragana. There's some words made up of kanji\nplus hiragana, but knowing only the hiragana part won't help you much.\n\nThe main time I've noticed hiragana in Japan are words like です and ください and\nさん. I didn't notice many nouns, or many verbs being written entirely in\nhiragana, though I could be mistaken.\n\nA major benefit of learning hiragana is to help with learning how to pronounce\nJapanese. That's because the relationship between how something is written and\nhow it is pronounced is straightforward for Japanese written in kana. The\nproblem with Romaji is that you have to remember how \"a\", \"e\", \"i\", \"o\" and\n\"u\" are pronounced in the context of Japanese, as opposed to in English.", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T04:00:40.783", "id": "6114", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T04:16:20.407", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:43.857", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "English does not have a special designation for loan words. Given that there\nis no demarcation of loan words in the language, it's almost certain that\nyou're simply unaware of loan words you use every day.\n\nThe distinction between \"derived from a foreign word\" and \"loan word\" is a\ndistinction without a difference. Nearly all katakana-written loan words are\nadapted in both meaning and pronunciation in Japanese. To be more accurate,\n\"loan word\" is the term used by Japanese learners to refer to \"words derived\nfrom foreign (non-Chinese) languages\". The Japanese language happens to have a\nhandy way of demarcating these words, specifically spelling them in katakana.\n\nA huge number of these \"loan words\" are currently displacing the Japanese-\norigin and Chinese-origin words in both casual and technical language. I won't\nsay you can't get by without learning them, but it would be like only studying\nthe most common capital letters in English... you're going to regularly find\nyourself effectively illiterate.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T04:01:04.217", "id": "6115", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T04:01:04.217", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "29", "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "> But everything I've been reading all seems to say that katakana are mostly\n> used to form loanwords from other languages\n\nKatakana are used for way more than just making loanwords:\n\n * It is used for reading classical Chinese (漢文).\n * It is used for names of people, places, countries, restaurants, etc.\n * It is used in science, for example biological names of plants and animals (オニヒトデ or エチゼンクラゲ).\n * It is used for expressing something different than the original meaning: クルマ vs. 車, etc.\n * It is used for company names.\n * It is used for expressing slang or when somebody with a foreign accent is speaking Japanese (often seen in Manga).\n * It is used for onomatopoeia, etc. \n\nThis is just off the top of my head, but katakana has many more uses than just\nforeign loan words.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T04:11:46.610", "id": "6116", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T20:26:59.047", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-13T20:26:59.047", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 }, { "body": "You have a logical jump from \"learn first\" (what textbook says) to\n\"important\", and actually, your inference is wrong. Katakana is not\nparticularly important than other letters (perhaps you mean kanji).\nEventually, you would have to learn all. The reason you should learn kanas\nfirst is because they are easier and is a clear (established) set than the\nkanjis.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T05:28:37.357", "id": "6118", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T05:28:37.357", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "> I've just started, and everything says learn your hiragana and katakana\n> first.\n\nYeah, start with basic things first.\n\n> I don't see how a beginner would need to use loan words early on.\n\nWon't you ever write your own name, even though you're a beginner?\n\n> So what is the importance of the katakana?\n\nAs one of the three common ways of writing Japanese, and not an incidental\none, it is very important. It's not based on frequency of usage (although they\nare more frequent than you seem to think), but on getting the foundations of\nthe language, right from the beginning.\n\nYour question sounds a bit like \"why learn capital letters? They appear a\nridiculously small amount of times compared to lower case letters!\"", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T07:09:04.960", "id": "6122", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T08:10:44.870", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-13T08:10:44.870", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "First, you don't \"say things in hiragana\", you say in Japanese. At most you\ncan write things in it, but you can do it with katakana as well! Japanese\nwriting have two distinct parts:\n\n 1. kanji: copied verbatim or derived from Chinese writing. They form word stems, and most often have several different readings associated with them.\n 2. kana: syllabary where each symbol is always mapped to exactly one syllable (let's forget は for now). Katakana and hiragana are two different renders of same syllabary (so there's one hiragana and one katakana for each syllable that sounds exactly the same). Also you can write any word in Japanese with either hiragana or katakana.\n\nThink of those two variants as CAPS and lower case in Latin alphabet. Should\nyou learn one or other? Well, sure, in modern writing you see more lower\nletters, unless you're reading titles or advertisement, but correct answer is:\nlearn both and order doesn't matter much.\n\nActually you may even want to follow same pattern often used while learning\nother alphabets: learn hiragana and katakana symbol for same syllable at same\ntime. Them often being similar helps too.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T10:39:25.870", "id": "6124", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T10:39:25.870", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1340", "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Here's the real reason: シャーロット・ランプリング. When your Japanese is really good and\nyou're living in Japan, and reading Japanese newspapers for fun - you will\nknow what they're saying but not who they're saying it about. I still remember\nus saying シャーロット・ランプリング over and over in various ways until suddenly one of us\ngot it. Of course now it seems blatantly obvious.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T22:38:26.570", "id": "6129", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T22:38:26.570", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1345", "parent_id": "6113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "> Please help me with my imagination!\n\nWell, use it. You know that a kaomoji is a face, and I'm adding that it often\nhas arms. Try to see if something looks like a smile, a grin, or whatever… It\njust takes practice, there is no rule.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T07:17:59.337", "id": "6123", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T07:17:59.337", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6119", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Perhaps [this site](http://www.japaneseemoticons.net/all-japanese-emoticons/)\nmay be of use to you.\n\nFor each section there is a brief description and explanation of the choice of\nsymbols/characters used.\n\nThe characters used for kaomoji may represent:\n\n * Eyes (usually obvious)(may be covered by arms/hand)\n * Ears (may be absent)\n * Nose (may be absent)\n * Mouth ( `∀` and `▽` in your examples are mouths)\n * Limits of the face (usually these - `(` `)` are face delimiters)\n * Flushing of cheeks ( may be (but not limited to) `#` or `@` )\n * Sweat (usually obvious if present)\n * Tears (usually obvious if present)\n * Arms/hand ( `ﾍ` in your example)(And sometimes may be used to cover the eyes)\n * Lines of motion ( In `(-_-)ゞ゛`, `ゞ゛` is an arm with lines of motion showing a head-scratching action) \n * Objects (占 - spray bottle, 尸 - flag, φ - pen, etc.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-14T08:54:54.763", "id": "6133", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-14T12:19:23.073", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-14T12:19:23.073", "last_editor_user_id": "542", "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "6119", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "It is not a word. Perhaps people understood what you were saying and had not\nbothered to correct you. When on-reading is mistakenly read as kun-reading, it\nis often easy to tell what you mean even if it is not correct.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T07:01:12.873", "id": "6121", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T07:01:12.873", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6120", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Oddly enough I was referred to as くろじゃ by elementary school students and one\nold man when I went to Japan for a ten day exchange. I figured out こくじん was\nthe correct term before those incidents, and I became confused after hearing\nnatives say another way.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-08-16T17:29:47.163", "id": "18249", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-16T17:29:47.163", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "7041", "parent_id": "6120", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, it can mean that implicitly. I feel like it would be something found in a\n\"Women's Magazine\" talking about sex life, so I feel it is somewhat feminine.\nAlso, using polite speech in these ways is also feminine I think (or you might\nalso find it on the cover of a pornography).", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-13T20:44:38.043", "id": "6128", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-13T20:44:38.043", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "6126", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Context.\n\n> [Out of the blue] 風呂は好きですか \n> 'Do you like taking a bath?'\n>\n> A: この犬は太郎と言います。 \n> 'This dog is called Taro' . \n> B: 風呂は好きですか \n> 'Does she/he like taking a bath?'\n\nOr explicitly say it.\n\n> 次郎は風呂が好きです。 \n> 'Jiro likes taking a bath.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-14T02:14:53.390", "id": "6131", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-14T02:21:52.243", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-14T02:21:52.243", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6130", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I think part of the answer to this question is in implicit/implied topics and\nthe difference between the topic marker particle (`は`) and the subject/object\nmarker particle (`が`).\n\nThough it can sound clunky and unnatural in English, the `Xは…` can frequently\nbe translated as \"as for X, ...\", \"concerning X, ...\", \"on the topic of X,\n...\" etc.\n\nNormally, who is being talked about is figured out by context, and so it can\nbe omitted/elided:\n\n> （私は）風呂が好きです。 \n> (As for me, I) like taking baths.\n>\n> （私は）風呂は好きです。 \n> (As for me), concerning taking baths, (I) like them.\n\n> （あなたは）風呂が好きですか？ \n> (As for you), do (you) like taking baths?\n>\n> （あなたは）風呂は好きですか？ \n> (As for you), on the topic of taking baths, do (you) like them?\n\nBut (especially in places where it can't be figured out by context), you can\nexplicitly mention who, e.g.:\n\n> 田中さんは風呂が好きです。 \n> As for Tanaka-san, he/she likes taking baths.\n>\n> 田中さんは風呂が好きですか。 \n> As for Tanaka-san, does he/she like taking baths?\n\nBoth `風呂は好きです` and `風呂が好きです` are possible, but in the case of `風呂は好きです` I\nthink I'd often expect to hear a `が` after it like `風呂は好きですが,…` \"As for taking\nbaths, I like them, but...\" or something, and I think it's more common to use\n`風呂が好きです` if you want to say \"I like taking baths\".\n\nAFAIK `～は好きです` can sound more general and `～が好きです` more specific, which might\nbe why you'd generally say `あなたのことが好き` instead of `あなたのことは好き` as I think the\nlatter can be used in contexts like \"I like you (but not specifically you)\" or\n\"I like you (but there may be reservations/conditions etc)\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-14T04:32:55.720", "id": "6132", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-14T04:32:55.720", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6130", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "> Why is the Japanese government considering adding kanji such as “cancer” to\n> the jinmeiyō kanji?\n\nI do not think that the government is trying to add these kanji to the set of\njinmeiyō kanji.\n\nI think that some people are confused by the unclear description in Wikipedia.\nAt least I was confused at first. So probably it is useful to clarify it.\n\n[Article 50 of the Family Register Act\n(戸籍法)](http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S22/S22HO224.html#1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005000000000000000000000000000000)\nregulates that a name of a child in a family register must consist of common\nand easy letters, and the [Ordinance for Enforcement of the Family Register\nAct\n(戸籍法施行規則)](http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S22/S22F00501000094.html#1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000006000000000000000000000000000000)\nregulates that “common and easy letters” here means hiragana, katakana, jōyō\nkanji, and other kanji letters listed in the [appendix of the\nOrdinance](http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S22/S22F00501000094.html#3000000002000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).\n“Jinmeiyō kanji” (人名用漢字) usually refers to kanji letters in this appendix.\n(The English Wikipedia refers to both jōyō kanji and the kanji letters in the\nappendix of the Ordinance as “jinmeiyō kanji,” but I think that this\ndefinition is less common.)\n\nThe quoted paragraph of the English Wikipedia is about the situation in 2004.\nThe [Japanese\nWikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E5%90%8D%E7%94%A8%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97)\nis much clearer on what happened in 2004. Partly motivated by the public\ndemand of expansion of jinmeiyō kanji, the Legislative Council (法制審議会) of the\nMinistry of Justice published an initial proposal to add 578 kanji letters to\nthe set of jinmeiyō kanji on June 11, 2004, and called for comments. This\nproposal was controversial because the proposed kanji letters included some\nletters which did not seem appropriate for names at all, such as 糞\n(excrement), 屍 (corpse), 呪 (curse), 癌 (cancer), 姦 (rape), 淫 (obscene), 怨\n(grudge), 痔 (hemorrhoid), 妾 (mistress). The reason for this is explained in\nthe quoted portion:\n\n> This is because no measures were taken to determine the appropriateness of\n> the kanji proposed, with the committee deciding that parents could make such\n> decisions themselves.\n\nIn other words, the Council chose the kanji letters which were “common and\neasy” as the law regulated, irrespective of whether they were suitable for\nnames. There was nothing wrong about this as long as the law is concerned, but\nit was different from how jinmeiyō kanji letters were chosen before.\n\nAccording to the English Wikipedia, this made some people wonder “What is the\npoint?” and made them speculate that there was a hidden reason for the\nproposal: the Council wanted to expand the jōyō kanji list, and the expansion\nof the set of jinmeiyō kanji was meant to lead to a _de facto_ expansion of\nthe jōyō kanji list. Note that the jōyō kanji list is maintained by the\nNational Language Council (国語審議会) of the Ministry of Education, Culture,\nSports, Science and Technology, which is a different organization from the one\nresponsible for jinmeiyō kanji. I do not know if this story has any truth in\nit.\n\nOn the basis of the feedback from the public, the Legislative Council removed\nthe nine letters which I listed above from the proposal (and added one letter)\non July 23. They removed other 79 letters on August 13, and made this list as\na final proposal on September 8. This final proposal came into effect on\nSeptember 27, 2004.\n\nSince then, the set of jinmeiyō kanji was updated a little in 2009 (and also\nin 2010 because of an update of the jōyō kanji list; remember that jinmeiyō\nkanji means kanji letters which can be used for names _other than jōyō kanji_\n). But I do not think that there is a current movement to add the letters such\nas “cancer” to the set of jinmeiyō kanji.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-15T08:31:57.887", "id": "6139", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T22:58:00.703", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-19T22:58:00.703", "last_editor_user_id": "15", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "6134", "post_type": "answer", "score": 16 } ]

[ { "body": "> What is the difference between 詰まらない and 詰らない?\n\nAs the comment indicates, it is possible that the first is tumaranai while the\nsecond is naziranai, the negative of the verb nazir-. While this is\ntechnically possible, it is not so simple. First, the kanzi for nazir- is not\nso common and few people will be able to read it. Second, tumaranai may be\nwritten as either 詰まらない or 詰らない. (For the rest of this response, I will be\nignoring the nazir- reading.)\n\nTo expand on the second point, this is a matter of okurigana (送り仮名). There are\na number of similar words in which there are multiple spellings: okonau (行なう,\n行う), kotowaru (断わる, 断る), arawareru (現われる, 現れる) etc. This is documented by the\nAgency of Cultural Affairs\n[here](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kijun/naikaku/okurikana/honbun01.html).\nThis is a stylistic difference.\n\n> Are they both valid words?\n\nYes.\n\n> Are they pronounced the same and do they have the same meaning?\n\nYes.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-14T14:24:59.110", "id": "6136", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-14T14:24:59.110", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6135", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "From a politically correct point of view, the first two are discriminative and\nshould be avoided. The third one is okay. That is, キャリアウーマン has an implication\nthat women are supposed to stay at home taking care of the housework, and it\nrefers to women who, regardless of that expectation, keep a professional\ncareer in life. OL refers to women who do deskwork as a job. Since there is\nalready a widely accepted word 会社員 that expresses that job, using the word OL\nmeans that you are assuming that 会社員 should not be used to refer to women, and\nare using a new word for that conecpt, which is prejudice. In fact, there is\nnothing wrong with refering to female desk workers as well as male ones with\nthe word 会社員. ビジネスウーマン is a word that was created as a woman counterpart to\nビジネスマン for political correctness just like the English word firewoman was\ncreated as the counterpart to fireman.\n\nRegarding the type of job, キャリアウーマン does not specify any, but OL and ビジネスウーマン\nrefer to deskworkers.\n\nI think ビジネスマン and サラリーマン are almost the same, but if you want to force a\ndifference, ビジネスマン and ビジネスウーマン can refer to people who own their business\nwhereas サラリーマン is someone who is hired.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-15T07:21:59.013", "id": "6138", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-15T07:39:58.773", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-15T07:39:58.773", "last_editor_user_id": "1328", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6137", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't think that anyone alive still refers to themselves as /warawa/, which\nis the first-person pronoun* denoted by 妾. You might find it (or some cognate)\nin use by the very old or those speaking non-standard dialects (or other\nJaponic languages), but I think you can safely call it extinct in \"Standard\nJapanese\".\n\nIn a modern context I would be surprised to see 妾 used at all, but I guess\n/mekake/ \"mistress\" seems more likely than the other readings, if only because\n/mekake/ remained in common use longer (to judge from my non-rigorous sampling\nof Japanese literature).\n\nYou don't specifically ask this, but if you were also wondering why 妾 came\ninto use at all to write a first-person pronoun... I don't know all the\ndetails, but here's what I do know. /warawa/ is a very old (Man'yoshu old)\nnative Japanese word meaning \"child\". I forget the specifics, but I recall\nthat it was used for children who were old enough to walk around, talk, etc.,\nbut still not yet adults mentally or physically. I guess \"late elementary\nschool\" is about the right image. This was the meaning that was borrowed for\nthe first person pronoun, so the meaning is very humble.\n\nThe \"standard\" character for /warawa/ \"child\" was 童. I would imagine that 妾\nwas used for the female first-person pronoun because 妾 is the \"definitely\nfemale\" version of 童. I doubt that the \"mistress\" meaning was a factor; it\nmight not even have been current in Japan then (I don't know much about the\nhistory of the character).\n\nYou probably know this already, but /boku/ 僕 is kind of similar: depending on\nhow extreme you want to be, you could argue that it also means \"servant\" or\neven \"slave\". They took humbleness seriously in pre-modern Japan!\n\n> * Let's just stipulate that Japanese pronouns actually exist.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-17T07:14:30.807", "id": "6163", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-17T07:14:30.807", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "6140", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I am just guessing wildly. In Chinese TV dramas, married women would refer to\nthemselves as 妾身, especially to her husband. This would cover dramas depicting\nall time period up to maybe 1900.\n\nSo maybe わらわ is written as 妾 due to Chinese influences?\n\nYou can do a search of 妾身 in google to find more info. Of course, the ability\nto read Chinese would help.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T21:07:39.190", "id": "6203", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T21:33:41.700", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-20T21:33:41.700", "last_editor_user_id": "1242", "owner_user_id": "1242", "parent_id": "6140", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_flap) seems to say\nit is alveolar lateral flap, as opposed to the otherwise alveolar (central)\nflap. If you are serious, maybe you might want to try [the\narticle](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1799940)\ncited there. Trying this with myself, I seem to get the difference. I seem to\nbe able to freely alternate an initial alveolar lateral flap with a centered\none, but not a non-initial alveolar flap with a lateral one.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-15T12:49:16.090", "id": "6142", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-15T12:49:16.090", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6141", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "According to [\"Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: Japanese\"\nby Hideo Okada](http://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_jpn_phon-2), /ɽ/ is\npronounced\n\n> postalveolar in place rather than retroflex[...]. Initially and after /ɴ/,\n> it is typically an affricate with short friction,\n> ![\\[ɖɻ̝̆\\]](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q6HzX.png).\n\nIn a more Unicode-friendly notation, this could be transcribed as [ɖɻ̝̆]\n(where again, these aren't really retroflex but only somewhat retracted from\nthe alveolar position). The retraction would impart the _r_ -coloring you\nperceive.\n\nCoincidentally, this sound is almost identical to the American English ( **J**\nohn), except with the fricative portion extra-short, for those speakers that\ndon't palatalize it.\n\nThe Handbook continues:\n\n> A postalveolar [l̠] is not unusual in all positions.\n\nIn summary, it sounds like [ɖɻ̝̆] and [l̠] are in free variation, with the\nformer more common.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-09-12T01:58:13.190", "id": "6781", "last_activity_date": "2012-09-12T01:58:13.190", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "501", "parent_id": "6141", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "(Figured I should write more than two words for an answer). What you are\nhearing is probably 平気{へいき}. I'd say it's more 'okay' as in calm, collected,\nemotionally unaffected by something than in the physical sense.\n\n> 平気なふりをする\n\nPretend to be okay. (put on a brave face, stiff upper lip, etc)\n\nIt is sometimes used in a negative sense to refer to having no problem doing X\n(where X is something most people wouldn't do or would have some doubts/feel\nguilt about doing)\n\n> 平気で 嘘{うそ}をつく\n>\n> Be fine with lying/lie without a second thought.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-16T08:01:06.123", "id": "6146", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-16T08:01:06.123", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "6144", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "nkjt is correct. I'm just putting this here for completeness.\n\nAn [example of heiki](http://vianime.com/?p=316) (平気{へいき}) being used to mean\n`cool` or `okay`.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T00:40:33.157", "id": "6177", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T00:40:33.157", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "769", "parent_id": "6144", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "At least in daily life, there is no word マイ・ワイフ or マイワイフ.\n\nThe prefix マイ means \"personal (property)\" or \"private (property)\" as opposed\nto \"public\" such as マイカー \"privately owned car (as opposed to public\ntransportation or company owned vehicles)\" or マイマヨネーズ \"mayonaise personally\ncarried into restaurants (as opposed to those that restaurants are equipped\nwith)\". If there were such word as マイワイフ, it would most likely mean \"a\npersonal wife (as opposed to a shared one)\".", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-16T14:03:12.930", "id": "6150", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-16T14:03:12.930", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6149", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Well there is this open paper [English Loanwords in Japanese (Gillian\nKay,1995)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEgQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.csun.edu%2F~bashforth%2F301_PDF%2F301_P_P%2FEnglishLoanWordsJapanese.pdf&ei=_SAEULejAsHv0gGf3YSvBw&usg=AFQjCNHqaQd5AtOJdDSJq80yrOBhiQ9NIg&sig2=zZfvnrDHYGOKs8A26vBSmg&cad=rja)\nthat has a nice short summary on _The function of English Loanwords in the\nJapanese Language_ (3rd to last page of PDF) that I paraphrase here:\n\n * The existence of many loanwords which have Japanese equivalents provides an alternative tone of discourse.\n * Loanwords are sometimes used for special effect, especially in writing where the angular katakana contrasts with the curvey hiragana to emphasize or reveal a foreign connotation. \n * English loans do not have as deep undertones of meaning as native words, and can be used more easily to express sentiments or describe situations which may be difficult to talk about in Japanese. This is the euphemistic utility of Loanwords.\n\nKay doesn't really say much about all the social aspects of 外来語 but, to risk\nspeculation, I'm guessing that マイワイフ, and most 外来語 in general, are used only\nbecause they are so conspicuous. Clearly 外来語 carries a class of connotations\nthat native Japanese words don't provide (superficial or not), and its usage\nis at least one effective way to add some colour to one's diction. As for the\ndifference between マイワイフ and the lexeme 妻 or 奥さん, I would think that the most\nimportant and salient contrast is at the discourse level where it seems that\nthe set of social contexts for which マイワイフ would be appropriate are quite\ndifferent from those contexts in which 妻 would be appropriate. It is kind of\nhard to articulate specifically the contextual conditions that afford the\nemployment of マイワイフ, but to take a guess at it, I would think that the\nsituational usage of マイワフ is characterized by what social behaviour is\ntolerated or permissible. So, マイワイフ would be observed in contexts where, for\nexample, irony is permissible. Between friends, or between a manga author and\nits readership, irony is certainly a permissible language device. But between\ndoctor and patient, politician and citizen, plaintiff and defendant, teacher\nand student, etc. irony cannot be employed so productively due to the\npotential violation of social factors.\n\nSome further examples where my マイワイフ may be permissible/appropriate/tolerated:\n\n * Critical information is not being communicated\n * A low demand for explicit or unambiguous information\n * The speaker/writer is entertaining the listener/reader\n * Innovative/atypical/conspicuous word choice is acceptable, or even desirable\n * Intimacy. Specifically, an intimate relationship affords a wider or different scope of admissible words\n\nSo, in general, マイワイフ probably differs from the Japanese equivalent in the\nsame way that all 外来語 differ from their Japanese equivalents. The differences\nmight be described as particular specifications of a more general social\ncriteria of what is acceptable behaviour and what is not for which 外来語 must\nconform too.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-16T15:09:59.880", "id": "6152", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-16T15:15:52.420", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-16T15:15:52.420", "last_editor_user_id": "1454", "owner_user_id": "1454", "parent_id": "6149", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "It is an anime-subculture term. \"Mai waifu\" is commonly used to refer to one's\nfavourite female character, and may also imply having an imaginary\nrelationship with the character.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-17T13:37:15.893", "id": "6164", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-17T13:37:15.893", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "6149", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Usage of マイ is pretty important, but ケースバイケース as pointed out above. For\nexample, back in the '80s マイペース トレーニング was commonly heard on TV sumo\ncommentary to describe those wrestlers who took a (too) leisurely approach to\ntraining. If you're living in Japan and using TV as study resource, you can\ndrop this kind of thing into conversation to gain respect (especially if they\nknow you can use keigo, too). Pronunciation has to be dead-on Japanese,\nthough. At any rate You need マイ__ to read ads.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-18T05:21:34.527", "id": "6173", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-18T05:21:34.527", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1345", "parent_id": "6149", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "It is a tradition since 漢文訓読. Cf.\n<http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/~oukodou/kuzukago/kundoku.html#9>. You can simply\nregard that the 返り点 is omitted.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-16T15:38:10.037", "id": "6153", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-16T15:43:43.540", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-16T15:43:43.540", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6151", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "As sawa and Gradius say, this is part of the kundoku tradition, but I feel\nthat this particular example is more usefully identified as [sōrō\nbun](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%80%99%E6%96%87), which is a Medieval-\nthrough-Modern phenomenon and has a couple of distinguishing characteristics,\nmost notably:\n\n * Use of sōrō 候 at the end of sentences (hence the name of the style)\n\n * Use of Japanese rather than Chinese word order, with the exception of certain multi-character groups like 不被下候 (verbs were particularly prone to this because Japanese verb morphology is synthetic; to express \"(verb) + passive/honorific + not + polite\" you need four different Chinese characters. So this sort of multi-character group was written in Chinese order due to the influence of kanbun, but it was read as a purely Japanese verb (that is, its meaning was interpreted as a gestalt, and a Japanese \"reading\" was assigned).\n\nRe your last question, I would certainly expect /kudasarezu/ rather than\n/kudasarazu/ for 不被下, but I'm not confident enough in my understanding of the\nins and outs of sōrō bun to declare the latter \"incorrect\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-17T00:55:55.747", "id": "6160", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-17T00:55:55.747", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "6151", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not Japanese, but as far as I know 「むぎゅむぎゅ」depicts squeezing something\nsoftly probably more than once as Sawa pointed out. I think you can use it in\nrelation to some texture that has elasticity. The context it is used in can be\ncute, but is not limited to it. For instance, you see 「むぎゅむぎゅ」used to describe\nhow the dough of a bagel feels. However, it is probably most common to use it\nwhen talking about skin or fat. Humorously, you can find some videos of cats\non YouTube with descriptions containing 「むぎゅむぎゅ」.\n\nI'm not sure why, but I wasn't able to find it in a dictionary to my surprise.\nHowever, I know of two dictionaries that might be able to help which have\nentries for onomatopoeia or 擬音語.\n\nThose are [Nihon Jiten](http://www.nihonjiten.com/nihongo/giongo/index.html)\nand [Zokugo-dict](http://zokugo-dict.com/).", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-16T18:06:10.043", "id": "6156", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-16T18:25:48.857", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-16T18:25:48.857", "last_editor_user_id": "1328", "owner_user_id": "1328", "parent_id": "6154", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "* Working at an institution different from where one belongs to is called 出{しゅっ}向{こう}する. There are words like 出向社員, 出向職員. 出張社員, 出張職員 will mean almost the same thing as them.\n\n * Workers at local governments are called without the use of 政. 州職員, 府職員, 県職員, 市職員, etc. But for workers for the country, there is a word 国家公務員.\n\nIn your case, you can probably say 大学に勤めている州の出向職員 or 州から大学に出向している職員.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-17T01:19:44.970", "id": "6161", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-17T06:35:51.490", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-17T06:35:51.490", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6157", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "> had Japanese equivalents before the English variants were imported\n\nCoffee is not native to Japan, and did not have an equivalent; that kanji\nsequence is [ateji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji).\n\n\"Page\" is that kanji, but it's properly pronounced 「けつ」 in sequences.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-16T21:45:24.797", "id": "6159", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-17T08:13:01.010", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-17T08:13:01.010", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "6158", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I think this is more about formalizing the use of technical vocabulary and\neliminating _ambiguity_ than any concern about unnaturalness.\n\nFor example, if they didn't include that note, then a beginning student might\nmisunderstand the discussion of 弱い相互作用 to cover any sort of sufficiently weak\ninteraction (like gravity from a distance, say), rather than _only_ that\nspecific type of interaction that has been given the name \"Weak Interaction\".", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-18T02:19:13.600", "id": "6171", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-18T02:19:13.600", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "6168", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "I think 余分 can be used only when the exceeding quantity manifests as a\nproperty of some real object such as weight, length, etc.\n\nIn your second example, the result manifests as the meal, which is an object,\nand the quantity in question is the amount of it. Hence you can use 余分 (as\nwell as 余計). With your first sentence, in the most salient interpretation, the\nquantity in question is the duration, and is not an object, so you cannot use\n余分 with it. However, if you add context so that the quantity in question\nbecomes, say the number of pages read, then you can use 余分. So actually, the\nfollowing two sentences mean different things:\n\n> 他人より余計に勉強する \n> 'study longer than other people.' (salient interpretation) \n> 'go on with more pages/solve more questions than other people with\n> studying.'\n>\n> 他人より余分に勉強する \n> 'go on with more pages/solve more questions than other people with\n> studying.'\n\nThere are clearer cases where you can use 余計 but not 余分.\n\n> 家族が留守な上に、友達も出掛けているので、余計に寂しかった。 \n> * 家族が留守な上に、友達も出掛けているので、余分に寂しかった。\n\nHere, the quantity in question is loneliness, which is clearly not an object,\nso you cannot use 余分.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-18T02:18:40.090", "id": "6170", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-18T02:55:33.913", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-18T02:55:33.913", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6169", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My feeling is that 余計, unlike 余分, implies uselessness. In your sentences, I\nhave the impression that one studies more than others for no gain, while one\ncooks more but doesn't necessarily spoil food.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-18T03:41:45.730", "id": "6172", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-18T03:41:45.730", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6169", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "In principle (syntactically), there in no restriction to the subject, but at\nthe beginning of a sentence, they tend to mean that the subject of the\nconditional clause is the second person as you mention. In this context, it is\nbetter to use よろしければ \"if it is okay with you\", お邪魔でなければ \"if it does not bother\nyou\", 問題なければ \"if it is not a problem\", etc.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T00:45:31.447", "id": "6178", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T00:45:31.447", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6175", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Three sample uses, that show the differences.\n\nできればやってくさい: if you can do it, do it for me.\n\nできたら、教えてください: when you're done with it, tell me.\n\nよければ、一緒に行きましょう: if possible, let's go together.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T06:12:25.140", "id": "6182", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T06:12:25.140", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6175", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "There are different methods to use in different contexts. For form samples,\nthey tend to use the institution name in place of a family name and\nstereotypical names such as 太郎, 花子 for the given name.\n\n> 三井 太郎 \n> 河合 花子 \n> ○○大 太郎\n\nIn real estate contractions, traditional variable names are used.\n[Cf.](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1416)\n\n> 甲は乙に対して、...\n\nIn mathematical contexts, it is natural to use roman alphabets.\n\n> A は B が出発した10分後に出発した。\n\nIn mass media, to make the person annonymous, an initial may be used.\n[Cf.](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/5800)\n\n> Aさん(27)の絞殺死体が発見された。", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T02:55:40.567", "id": "6180", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T03:04:07.623", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.397", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6179", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "In most sentences, A,B,C... would work well. It's okay to use in casual essays\n/ blog/news articles too. Use 甲乙丙丁 only for contracts and laws.\n\nIn case you want to specify sex, use some suffixes such like A子 for female, B男\nfor male.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T09:30:25.610", "id": "6184", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T09:30:25.610", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1534", "parent_id": "6179", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not Japanese, but based on what I know it is up to you to choose which\nstyle you would like to write in. However, as I commented previously, I\nrecommend that you stick with the \"handwritten\" style rather than the\n\"printed\" one if you are using a pen or pencil. However, if you are using a\nbrush then perhaps the other is more appropriate.\n\nThere is a great article about the differences of Japanese scripts linked\n[here](http://www.nihongoresources.com/language/writing/typefaces.html). The\narticle notes which styles of writing you might find more frequently in Japan\nand the context. At the bottom, there is a large entry about handwriting which\ncompares many different \"styles\".\n\nAll are correct, but the criterion is whether Japanese can recognize that your\n\"ふ\" looks like a \"ふ\". I might note that stroke order and stroke count are\nreally important. For example, if you choose to draw \"ふ\" in 2 strokes instead\nof \"4\", you might just want to make sure that Japanese people can recognize\nit.\n\nProbably the two or three characters that end up being stylized are そ、ふ、and ゆ.\n\n[Here](http://japanese.about.com/library/blqow42.htm) is another short article\nthat talks about the differences in writing style.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T19:22:46.757", "id": "6189", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T19:44:38.930", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-19T19:44:38.930", "last_editor_user_id": "1328", "owner_user_id": "1328", "parent_id": "6186", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 }, { "body": "Either is fine, but in case of writing with pencils, these are mostly\nseparated (also separated for sa and ki). Those connections respect the\ntraditional writing style by fude (brushes), such like shodo, and you don't\nneed to care about it (see\n<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calligraphy>)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T09:52:05.973", "id": "6194", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T09:52:05.973", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1534", "parent_id": "6186", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Both are used and equally accepted. I suggest you learn to write both so that\nyou can understand what someone is writing and recognize that it is that\ncharacter and not some other character you didn't learn. (ie. ゐゑ, is that just\nthe full stroke of め?!?)\n\nIf you do decide to use the disjointed form (maybe the most common) you still\nwant to know the full stroke style because your stroke will peter out properly\nif you allow your stroke to flow as if you are writing the full stroke as you\nlift the pen off the paper. Do not abruptly stop then left the pen to the\nstart of the next stroke, keep your pen flowing.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T21:56:37.757", "id": "6204", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T21:56:37.757", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1523", "parent_id": "6186", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "According to [this\nexplanation](http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%BD%F7%BB%D2%CE%CF), `女子力{じょしりょく}`\nrefers to a woman's prowess with issues like fashion, make up, and style.\n\nWhich would be considerably different from the English \"girl power\", which is\nabout a woman's particular ability to succeed in all realms of life, and\nimplies women's ability to be just as good, if not better, than men.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-19T15:55:16.183", "id": "6188", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-19T15:55:16.183", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "119", "parent_id": "6187", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Dave's explanation probably hits the nail on the head, but there might be\nsomething to add.\n\nI had read that 女子力 is actually viewed somewhat as a \"skill\". (Obviously, this\nis taken in the context of the 心の力説 definition in Dave's link.) In this sense,\nthe skill is to attract males and be popular around males through fashion and\nstyle. However, I read an article about a girl who cooked for a guy in order\nto \"boost her 女子力\" which might mean there are other things than just physical\nattractiveness involved. The underlying idea being that a girl with 女子力 will\nbe able to indirectly attract males.\n\nI'm not sure, but 女子力 seems linked to 女子会 which is another term for girls\nmeeting together to talk about relationships, work, etc.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T16:19:27.737", "id": "6252", "last_activity_date": "2012-08-07T06:39:16.730", "last_edit_date": "2012-08-07T06:39:16.730", "last_editor_user_id": "1328", "owner_user_id": "1328", "parent_id": "6187", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "if you really 'met' him, like greeting and not just saw him from far away you\ncould say something like:\n\n```\n\n ご挨拶させて頂きました。\n ご紹介させて頂きました。\n \n```\n\netc.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T06:57:13.663", "id": "6192", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T23:57:54.513", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-20T23:57:54.513", "last_editor_user_id": "1065", "owner_user_id": "1065", "parent_id": "6191", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "I think the best choice would be:\n\n> ({先日 / [date] に} [event]で) お目にかかりました\n\nI think this would also work:\n\n> ご挨拶させていただきました\n\nThese sound a bit awkward to me:\n\n> * お目にかからせていただきました\n> * お会いしていただきました\n> * お会いさせていただきました\n>", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T13:24:59.413", "id": "6195", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T16:52:06.407", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-20T16:52:06.407", "last_editor_user_id": "542", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6191", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "With Japanese numbers, yes, you must know both/all readings; it is important\nto be able to tell 「[九人]{きゅうにん}」 from 「[九時]{くじ}」 from 「[九]{ここの}つ」.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T15:32:56.500", "id": "6197", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T15:32:56.500", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Regarding on'yomi, English has a very similar counterpart. You mentioned\nnumbers, so consider the following:\n\n 1. uni-, mono-\n 2. bi-, di-, duo-\n 3. tri-, ter-\n 4. quadri-, tetra-\n 5. quinque-, penta-\n 6. sexa-, hexa-\n 7. septua-, hepta-\n 8. octo-\n 9. nona-\n 10. dec-\n\nJust like in English, the more of these roots (on) that know in Japanese, the\neasier it will be for you to understand and create new words. Often multiple\non readings are generally grouped with other on readings to create a word. In\nthis sense, they are similar to roots.\n\n> Do native Japanese know both readings for every Kanji?\n\nJapanese is a citizenship. It can be obtained or lost. There is no correlation\nbetween citizenship and linguistic ability. If I am guessing your intent, then\nyou likely mean \"native speakers of Japanese\".\n\nAnd to answer the question: a native speaker of Japanese does not know all on\nand kun readings for every kanji. However, they will know most of all common\nones and likely know a few uncommon ones as well.\n\n> What influence does this have on the language?\n\nFor the most part, loanwords.\n\n> What is the use and application of this knowledge?\n\nA wider vocabulary.\n\n> Should I bother learning the non-preferred reading?\n\nAbsolutely. But why do you say \"non-preferred\"?", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T15:33:13.100", "id": "6198", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T22:18:31.317", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-20T22:18:31.317", "last_editor_user_id": "1141", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "> Do native Japanese know both readings for every Kanji?\n\nAs much has every Roman knew latin. Some kanji have a\n\n * large number of on-readings (consider 行: AN, GYOU, KOU, which are comonly known),\n * plus a large number of kun-readings (行: i(ku), okona(u), yu(ku), i(keru), kudari)\n * plus several \"Nanori\" - readings that are used in first names (行: nami, michi,...).\n\n> What influence does this have on the language?\n\nConsider the characters 大,人, and 気:\n\n * 大 (KUN:) oo(i), (ON:) DAI, TAI = big\n * 人 (KUN:) hito, (ON:) NIN, JIN = person\n * 気 (ON:) ki, ke\n\nnow combine those:\n\n * 大人 (KUN:) otona = adult\n * 人気 (KUN:) hitoke = trace of human life, (also ON: NINKI)\n * 大人気 (ON:) DAININKI = very popular\n\nyou see, context-sensitive choice of readings.\n\n> Should I bother learning the non-preferred reading?\n\nShould you encounter the character in an unfamiliar combination with another\ncharacter, you'll have to exhaust every possible reading in a Japanese\ndictionary to either find it, find that the dictionary is insufficient or that\nyou lack another reading, in which case you must consult a separate character\ndictionary.", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T15:37:07.320", "id": "6199", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-20T15:37:07.320", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1537", "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 }, { "body": "Everyone has answered this really well, but I'd like to add some points that I\nwish someone had told me when I began learning.\n\nThe On-yomi is taken from the original Chinese reading of the kanji, and the\nKun-yomi is the Japanese reading that has \"adopted\" the kanji, so to speak. As\na general rule, if the kanji is by itself, (as in, it is not attached to other\nkanji, just hiragana) it generally takes on the Kun-yomi; if the kanji is part\nof a compound, it (and the other half of the compound) takes on its On-yomi.\n\n> Should I bother learning the non-preferred reading?\n\nThe answer is \"yes\". It's the difference between guessing the meaning of a\nword and being able to read it out loud. That may not sound like much, but\nit's absolutely essential.\n\nFor example: `食べる` is pronounced with its Kun-yomi, `たべる`. `事` on its own is\ngenerally pronounced `こと`, which is the Kun-yomi. If you combine them `食事`,\nthey're both read with their On-yomi: `しょくじ`\n\nAgain, that's very generalized and not always the case, but it's the rule\nrather than the exception.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T16:38:01.870", "id": "6200", "last_activity_date": "2022-08-19T14:59:50.613", "last_edit_date": "2022-08-19T14:59:50.613", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": "921", "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 }, { "body": "That highly depends if you learn only Kanji or if you learn Japanese (so Kanji\n+ Vocabulary)\n\nFor Example nearly every kun-reading of most Kanji will be covered in\nVocabulary anyway,\n\nSo you may learn the Kanji 食 with its kun-reading 食べる, but when you learn\nVocabulary you will learn for sure the word 食べる anyway.\n\nI personally learn only kun-readings when learning kanji if the kun-reading is\nnot going to be learned in my vocabulary learning anyway.\n\nYou can do the same for on-reading and then not much is left anyway because\nnearly every on-reading is used in a word\n\nI would say knowing the Readings of a Kanji is important, but its more\nimportant to do proper vocabulary learning as you will learn the readings of\nthe Kanji too.\n\nBest example for me was 飛行機, i can only remember the on-readings of those\nKanji because i know the word 「ひこうき」 and it was one of the first words i\nlearned.\n\nWhen i was learning the On-Readings of those Kanji seperatly it was hard for\nme to remember them, my brain just dont allow me to remember every on-reading\nof every Kanji (even if i try hard), but thanks to the vocabulary that uses\nthe Kanji i can remember them.\n\nTo actually know if the used reading is on- or kun-reading is more important!\n\nSo if you see a word for example 飛行機 (ひこうき) it is important to know if the\nreadings used in this word are on- or kun-reading.\n\nAnd Kun-Readings are \"Vocabulary\" anyway so i dont bother learning them when\nlearning Kanji.\n\nSo my Answer to your question:\n\nDont bother learning all readings perfectly. If you learn Vocabulary\nafterwards you can drop the kun-reading completely as they are covered there.\n\nYou should try to learn as much on-readings as possible but i tell you\nsomething.\n\nIf you see a word you never seen before, its even for japanese nearly\nimpossible to guess which reading to use as it depends on so incredible many\nthings.\n\nIf you know the Word (written with Kanji), you know how to read it. If you\ndont know the word, you can just \"guess\" the readings and meanings, but that\ndoesnt help you really. In the end you have to lookup unkown words in\ndictionary and you will see the reading then.\n\nFor me personally when learning Kanji the \"meaning\" of the Kanji and the way\nto write it (writing is _veeery_ important to remember the Kanji correctly), i\ntry to drop as many readings as possible as they are covered in vocabulary\nanyway.\n\nIf you want to become an Kanji Master knowing all readings, i recommend you to\nwait for that until you learned Japanese, if you are able to read/speak\nJapanese you know already most of kun-readings and on-readings so you only\nhave to learn a very little then.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-01T07:04:37.760", "id": "12992", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-01T07:04:37.760", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4009", "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I'm in total agreement with 白川's answer. It's difficult memorizing all the\nreadings especially the onyomi ones because much of them are the same. At\ntimes it might get confusing. I feel it better to learn the meaning, and one\nof the kun/on reading. If it is a verb, I give priority to that reading. As I\nam still a beginner, I have barely read any Japanese yet. But like 白川 says,\nI'll count on the vocabulary that I come across while reading to learn the\nreadings.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-10-22T19:47:43.147", "id": "19223", "last_activity_date": "2014-10-22T19:47:43.147", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "7252", "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "[BenderRodriguez9](https://old.reddit.com/user/BenderRodriguez9)'s\n[explanation](https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/yw8yy8/kunyomi_and_onyomi_are_driving_me_insane/iwjnjbr)\nis my absolute favorite! I edited to make it easier to read.\n\n* * *\n\nHere’s my example. Imagine if English were written with Kanji.\n\nEnglish has native Germanic words, as well as borrowings from Greek and Latin.\nFor example, English has _water_ , but also _aqua_ (Latin) and _hydro_\n(Greek).\n\nSo in English's imaginary kanji system, 水 would have the kun’yomi “water” and\nthe on’yomi “aqua” and “hydro”.\n\nThen native English speakers figure out which reading for 水 is intended in a\ngiven context, based off of your pre-existing vocabulary:\n\n> The 水rium is powered 水-electrically with sea水.\n\nNow this is a contrived sentence, sure. But you could easily figure out which\nreading of 水 to use in which situation, because you know that some readings\njust aren’t words. 水rium just can’t be “ _hydro_ rium” or “ _water_ rium”.\n\nNative Japanese speakers do the same thing. They can use all the vocabulary\nthey know to deduce readings.\n\nSo you just need to study vocabulary, and apply kanji to the vocabulary you\nknow. Don’t do it the other way around.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2023-05-21T22:51:33.210", "id": "99711", "last_activity_date": "2023-05-21T22:51:33.210", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Japanese only allows gemination and nasal as the coda of a syllable. The two\nkanas っ and ん correspond to them, and are the kanas without a vowel. Also,\nwhen a kana is followed by a glide such as in ゃ, ゅ, or ょ, it loses the vowel.\nFor example, In きゃ, き only represents k, not ki.\n\nIn general, languages disfavor coda, and nasal is among the sounds that can\neasily become a coda because the mouth is closed. For example, Chinese and\nKorean also allow a limited variety of coda, among which are nasal sounds.\n\nIn Classic Japanese, the vowel u in mu often dropped.\n\n> 風吹かむとす → 風吹かんとす", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T22:18:17.590", "id": "6205", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-21T01:27:59.863", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-21T01:27:59.863", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6201", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I think Sawa nailed it, I just want to add a few things that I think are\ninteresting. There is apparently controversy in the syllable-based model of\nJapanese prosody. This paper [Questioning the universality of the syllable :\nevidence from Japanese* (Labrune,\n2012)](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8538016)\nwhere, just taking from the abstract:\n\n> whereas the mora and the foot are indisputably present and active, the\n> evidence for the syllable is inconspicuous and disputable. Building on this\n> observation, I claim that Tokyo Japanese makes no use of the syllable.\n> Instead, two types of mora are distinguished: regular CV moras and weak\n> (deficient) moras. Weak moras include the moraic nasal, the first part of a\n> geminate and the second part of a long vowel, as well as moras containing an\n> onsetless vowel, a devoiced vowel or an epenthetic vowel.\n\nThen taking from her paper:\n\n> The linguistic tradition among Japanese has never had the need to refer to a\n> unit such as the syllable in opposition to the mora in accounts of Tokyo\n> Japanese. A number of modern Japanese phonologists belonging to the\n> traditional mora-model school of Japanese linguistic analysis continue this\n> tradition. Some of them (for instance [現代日本語方言辞典(Hirayama,\n> 1992)](http://www.meijishoin.co.jp/book/b97516.html) and [現代日本語の発音分布(Sato,\n> 2002)](http://karaimobooks.shop-pro.jp/?pid=22261336)) even operate with an\n> explicit distinction between mora-based and syllable-based dialects.\n> Dialects such as Aomori and Akita (North Honshu), and Kagoshima (South\n> Kyushu), are held to be indisputably syllabic, while others, for instance\n> the Osaka dialect and the Izu dialect (south of Tokyo) are clearly moraic,\n> and are considered to be such even by some advocates of a syllabic analysis\n> of Tokyo Japanese.\n\n> It is actually Tokyo Japanese (Standard Japanese), the most extensively\n> studied dialect, which poses a problem with regard to classification as a\n> mora or syllable dialect, as it has been analysed both as only moraic and as\n> syllabic with moras.\n\nAnd I think most importantly:\n\n> Moreover the linguistic facts that support the relevance of the syllable in\n> Tokyo Japanese can always receive an alternative, syllable-free account,\n> which works at least as well as the syllabic analysis.\n\nI haven't really read into this topic, so I don't have much opinion on the\nmatter. Just thought it would be interesting to point out.\n\nAlso, the geminate /Q/ and nasal /N/ consonants are not the only vowelless\nmora-long segments in Japanese. [だめっ]! has the transcription /dameQ/ where\n/Q/→[ʔ] the glottal stop consonant. /Q/ is a phoneme and has mora-long\nduration, but [ʔ] is not distinctive.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-21T18:46:50.057", "id": "6216", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-21T18:46:50.057", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1454", "parent_id": "6201", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "It is correct. You can also say\n\n> 来るか来ないかにかかわらず、連絡をください。 \n> 来ると来ないとにかかわらず、連絡をください。 (old fashioned)\n\nThis construction is productive. You can do it with other verbs as well.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T22:33:02.330", "id": "6207", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-21T11:18:05.553", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-21T11:18:05.553", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6202", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "As @sawa posted with the link in the comment, sometimes words have exceptional\nreadings when in compound form. `白（しろ）` is the colour white, but in certain\ncompound words it has the reading `しら`.\n\nExs:\n\n> しらゆき → pure white snow \n> しらさぎ → white heron \n> しらが → white (grey) hair", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-20T22:58:39.777", "id": "6208", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-21T03:19:45.893", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-21T03:19:45.893", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "6206", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "こいつ as well as これ can be used to refer to a situation, and you can rephrase\nthe line as 「これはまずいと思って、俺はナラの大木に登って・・・」. こいつ sounds more colloquial, blunter\nand maybe more masculine than これ. 岩波国語辞典 states \"こいつ =\nこのやつ。｢これ｣の乱暴な言い方。「こやつ」の転。\". \n \n岩波国語辞典 also states \"これ ②今話題になっている物・事をさす語。「一夜のうちに大木になった。おじいさんはこれを見て驚いた。」\" \n \n(Btw, I think the answer to「こいつ」とは何を指すか should have been written as more like\n「わたしたちが変な場所にいること」.)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-21T04:21:01.727", "id": "6211", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-21T04:35:14.877", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-21T04:35:14.877", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6209", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "> While it seems clear that the Japanese have a different sense of this sound\n\nWhat you're actually referring too is called the phoneme; a discrete\ncontrastive unit of sound of a language. In [IPA\ntranscription](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA), \"W\"=[ɰ], and \"M\"=[m], where\nthe bracket notation indicates phonetic transcription. These two are indeed\npart of the phonemic inventory of Japanese, meaning that if a Japanese speaker\nwere to use one where the other was called for, the result would be either a\nmispronunciation or an entirely different unintended word. It is most likely\nthat you are misperceiving one of them, or it is the fault of the recording or\nmachine. Look up the two permutations in a dictionary, probably only one will\nbe listed, unless the word is in fact a suffixed word.\n\nIf you had provided the words to which those supposed sounds belong, someone\ncould have disambiguated the intended sound. Given the intended sound and\nword, one could obviously write down the so-called rules that were involved.\nThere are of course rules, linguistic rules at any rate, such as, for example,\nthat one phoneme cannot neighbour another phoneme in the speech stream.\n\n> What simple rule can I apply to sort out this sound when I hear it?\n\nWhat is the sound being sorted against? I'm not sure what you mean. Perception\nstrategies for another persons speech? Acoustic cues to the articulated\nphoneme?\n\nI guess to answer your actual question \"Is this consonant...inflection?\".\nThere's different uses of the word inflection. Morphological inflection in\ngrammar is one, and the other commonplace usage, I think, is a misnomer\nmeaning \"change in intonation\" or something to that affect. I hear this word\nall the time from the common folk, and I even used to use this word myself,\nbut I've never seen the the word \"inflection\" in the context of\nphonetics/phonology. Looking at the wiki for\n[Infelction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection) it is entirely the\nmorphological sense. I think it's just a misused word in the daily vernacular.\nFor some reason people think it means change in pitch (as opposed to the well-\nknown fixed tones of certain Chinese dialects) or something. I have no idea.\nYou meant inflection in this sense of changing pitch, right?\n\nThe answer then I think is no; intonation (the pitch profile) acts\nindependently of the phonemic form of a utterance.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-21T17:15:10.713", "id": "6215", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T23:51:20.477", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-23T23:51:20.477", "last_editor_user_id": "1454", "owner_user_id": "1454", "parent_id": "6210", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "You can do a combination with two of them using one as an ateji of another:\n\n[label](https://sites.google.com/site/freedomorita/suppaman/orita0510.jpg)\n[statue](https://sites.google.com/site/freedomorita/suppaman/orita0505.jpg)", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-21T14:10:08.647", "id": "6214", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-21T14:10:08.647", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6213", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "英雄 is most normally used for heros whose status as such is established. ヒーロー\nimplies an American hero. For example, Beethoven's third symphony is called 英雄\nin Japanese, but no one would call it ヒーロー. 勇者 means someone who is brave, and\nis not the same as hero. 傑士 is not normally used.\n\nJapanese hero shows are called\n[戦隊もの](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%91%E3%83%BC%E6%88%A6%E9%9A%8A%E3%82%B7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA),\nas it comes from the early hero shows like 秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー, 電子戦隊デンジマン, 太陽戦隊サンバルカン.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-22T01:07:52.353", "id": "6218", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-22T01:37:29.900", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-22T01:37:29.900", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6213", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Syntactically, without considering the meaning, it is ambiguous, but in this\ncontext, it is clearly (2) as Chocolate comments. 入る 'go in' is always done\n'from outside' (外から), and in (1), it does not make sense to contrast 'going\ninside from outside' with other types of 'going inside'.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-22T01:43:40.453", "id": "6221", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-22T01:43:40.453", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6219", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Positive, to all of your questions.\n\n> 10万円出してでも買いたい本 \n> 'a book one wants to buy even by paying 100,000 yen.'", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-22T01:55:36.380", "id": "6223", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-24T21:43:25.530", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-24T21:43:25.530", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6220", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Here, you want an anaphoric usage of demonstrative pronoun, not a deictic one.\nI think only ここ and そこ allow anaphoric usage.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-24T16:27:54.380", "id": "6262", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-24T16:27:54.380", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6224", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "* Traditional grammar says (stupidly) that it is the 連体形 of the 助動詞 た.\n * Some modern linguists say it is the past attributive form (連体形) of する used in a relative clause.\n * I believe it is the past morpheme (attached to the stem of する) used in a relative clause.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-22T06:54:29.583", "id": "6226", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-22T06:54:29.583", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6225", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Actually it can be. Think about this simplified sentence:\n\n> 大使館は、研究家を講師にした講座を開く。\n\nAnd, compare it to this one:\n\n> 大使館は、研究家を講師にして講座を開く。\n\nBoth have almost the same meaning. However, in the former, the clause\n研究家を講師にした modifies the noun 講座, while in the latter, the clause 研究家を講師にして\nmodifies the verb 開く (or the clause 大使館は開く).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T14:35:43.377", "id": "6251", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T14:35:43.377", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1119", "parent_id": "6225", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "This is kind of tricky and subjective here. Here is my take on it, from how I\nunderstand it as a non-native speaker.\n\nA kanji has the same meaning no matter how it's read. With this in mind, you\nmight notice that when the kanji is read using it's On-reading it can take on\na more official, or fancier feel to it.\n\nIt seems to me like in English, which is also a hybrid language, with a great\nnumber of words with [French\norigin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_England#Language). Say\nyou want to compliment someone by calling them \"smart\". Well, that's all well\nand good, but if you called that same person \"intelligent\", it means the same\nthing but it feels like a higher compliment. What's different? We get the word\nthe word \"intelligent\" from French ( _intelligent_ ). (Note: This isn't really\nthe same thing as using actual French when speaking English...\"Oh what a\nlovely painting, it has a certain... _je ne sais quoi_ \")\n\nThat's just my personal understanding, and I'm more then open to critiques of\nthis, if anyone disagrees or has a better explanation.\n\n1-6 seem spot on, but as for #7 in your question, I have never heard of those\nthings in my 6 years of studying, so I would say that is highly technical and\nyou wouldn't have to worry about memorizing them at all. What I try to do when\nstudying kanji is try to remember the meaning and the two most common\nreadings. Most of the time the On-reading is only different by one sound\nanyway (カン、ガン and so on).\n\nEDIT: To clarify what I mean about changing the nuance and to not confuse the\ncomments. A kanji compound's reading is its reading, and its meaning doesn't\nchange any more then any other word in a given language. What can be changed\nis what word you find the kanji, or if you use the On-reading or the Kun-\nreading to get your point across. To call someone smart or clever you could\neither say someone is 賢{かしこ}い or you could use 賢明{けんめい}: it uses the same\nkanji (or 50%), but a different reading, an there is a different nuance.", "comment_count": 10, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-22T21:24:42.147", "id": "6229", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-22T22:38:07.077", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-22T22:38:07.077", "last_editor_user_id": "921", "owner_user_id": "921", "parent_id": "6227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "As you said, the kun reading is almost always the representation of the kanji\nin its base form. 北海道{ほっかいどう} (Hokkaido) is the name of the north island.\n北{きた} means north and is read **hoku** in this word because it is a compound\nword. If you are talking to someone about going north you say **Kita**.\n\nThere is no easy explanation for why they are used in a certain way. The\n**_ON_** were taken from a ton of different Chinese dynasties and before WW2\nthere were a million different ways to say them. During WW2 the Japanese\ndecided do remove all foreign words (like ベースボール\"Baseball\" became 野球{やきゅう})\nand tried to reduce the number of **_ON_** readings, and got it down to about\n13 different dynasties, but due to the time of use for most of the words in\nJapan, couldn't remove all of them without making their language virtually\nimpossible to speak anymore.\n\nThe **_ON_** you learn now is because of the evolution of the Japanese\nlanguage in general. The only real way to learn it is to use it. Why do\nAmericans say \"I went to _THE_ hospital\" but only say \"I went to school\"? The\nBritish don't use _THE_ with hospital. There is no rule to remember, we only\ndo it because of use.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T00:31:41.407", "id": "6233", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T09:31:49.520", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-23T09:31:49.520", "last_editor_user_id": "1523", "owner_user_id": "1523", "parent_id": "6227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "> (1) A kanji's meaning is the same regardless of reading.\n\nNot always true, and in many cases it's hard to talk about giving a kanji a\nsingular \"meaning\". Take this set of words:\n\n着る{きる}、着物{きもの}、着く{つく}、着ける{つける}、接着{せっちゃく}、到着{とうちゃく}、着衣{ちゃくい}\n\nIn some cases 着 has a meaning \"to wear\". Actually, whenever it uses the kun-\nreading き・ぎ it has this meaning. In some cases it means \"to arrive\", as in つく,\nhowever the verb つける which also uses the reading つ can also mean to put on\nclothing, as in 身{み}に着{つ}ける. In the case of the words where it is read ちゃく it\ncould take any of several meanings, including \"wear\" or \"arrive\".\n\nI would rephrase: with a few exceptions, the reading of a kanji in a\nparticular word is not linked to the meaning of the same word.\n\n> (2) A reading is a way of speaking the kanji out loud.\n\nFair enough.\n\n> (3) Kun readings are always used when the kanji appears alone, except\n> apparently with numerals, and with those kanji which lack Kun readings. (4)\n> On readings are almost always used when the kanji appears as part of a\n> compound word.\n\n(3) is not true; it's a guideline, not a hard rule. Kun readings are almost\nalways used when there is okurigana (e.g. for verbs excluding suru verbs and\nfor i-adjectives), but there are words read with on-readings which are\nstandalone kanji (e.g. 本{ほん}). If you add an \"almost\" there, as with (4), it\nwould be right.\n\n> (5) In the vast majority of cases, there is only one correct reading for a\n> kanji in a given context. That is to say, most compound words are spoken\n> aloud in only one way, as are most solitary characters.\n\nIn the comments dainichiさん and chocolateさん gave some info about when this is\nnot true, but generally, yes. A word has a reading. A 'solitary character' is\njust a word written with a single kanji, so it has a reading.\n\n> (6) If a kanji has multiple On readings, then there is no way to know which\n> On reading to use for it in a compound word except to simply learn by trial\n> and error as other people correct you, or to look up every new word you find\n> to see how it is pronounced. Unless there are furigana.\n\nNot just if a kanji has multiple on-readings. You can guess at a compound\nreading using the on-readings and be correct a fairly high percentage of the\ntime. However, even if both kanji only have one on-reading, the compound could\nuse kun-readings or have a special reading, and there may be 連濁{れんだく} (see\n[here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku) ) which isn't 100% predictable\neither.\n\n> (7) There are a series of different On readings called go-on, too-on, and so\n> on (you know what I'm talking about better than I do), and many Kanji have a\n> different reading for each one, and all are used in different contexts, and\n> a learner must memorize all of them for most Kanji.\n\nOn-readings can be categorised by what time period they were imported from\nChina. I've never paid much attention to which reading was which type as I\ndon't think it makes any difference in the modern language.\n\nI do not think that a learner should memorise every reading for every kanji,\nno more than someone learning English should learn all the possible ways ~ough\ncan be pronounced. For a start, as we've established, there isn't a rule about\nwhich reading to use where, so just knowing a list of readings isn't very\nuseful. Also, some readings might not be as common as others. It is better to\nlearn a few common words - then you will also learn the common readings and\nexceptions.\n\nTaking an example of a simple, common kanji: 白\n\nProbably if you looked this up you would see しろ・しら as the kun-readings and\nはく、びゃく and the on-readings. However, しら and びゃく are not that common, and for a\nbeginner knowing しろ as in 白{しろ}い and はく as in 告白{こくはく} is plenty; you can\nworry about the other readings when you start learning words that use them.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T13:09:05.613", "id": "6246", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T13:09:05.613", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "6227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Unless someone knows something that I don't, you just have to learn it for\neach word. Sometimes a word's pronunciation has evolved so that 9 times out of\n10 it's pronounced one way, and that 10th time its the other. For example,\nit's a pretty safe bet that the On-yomi for `一` in a compound is `いち` or `いっ`\n(depending on the sound following it), but every now and then you'll find it\nread `いつ` (as in `単{たん}一{いつ}` which is so hard for me to remember).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-22T21:34:48.123", "id": "6230", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-22T21:34:48.123", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "921", "parent_id": "6228", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "There really is no trick to learning how to read the ON reading, it just comes\ndown to practice. The best way is to start at the beginning with 1 nensei\nworkbooks and work your way through to college.\n\nPractice and stay positive, and get into as many real conversations as you\ncan. You will catch on a lot quicker in actual use than from a book. You will\nhear \" ** _baka_** \" a number of times a day, and then when you read 馬鹿 you\nwill remember that it is not pronounced \" ** _uma-shika_** \".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T00:00:44.163", "id": "6231", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T00:00:44.163", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1523", "parent_id": "6228", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Just to add color, there are [some\nkanji](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF#.E5.A4.9A.E9.9F.B3.E5.AD.97),\nwhere the reading depends on the semantics. However, I doubt this is common\nenough to really be useful for learning to read kanji.\n\nOtherwise, I agree with @silvermaple that the best way probably is to memorize\nthe most common on'yomi, and then memorize the most common exceptions. There\nare also kanji like 重 (ちょう and じゅう), where both readings are common, so you\npretty much have to memorize all the common combinations.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T01:24:46.447", "id": "6234", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T01:24:46.447", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "6228", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "げ can be attached to the stem of a selected set of subjective i-adjectives or\nnouns to turn them into a na-adjective meaning \"seemingly ...\". With\nadjectives that you cannot use this, you can use そう instead. With nouns, you\ncannot replace it with そう.\n\n> 涼しそう 涼しげ 自慢 自慢げ\n\nYour rewrite will change the meaning.\n\nThis belongs to derivational morphology, and is not usually considered part of\nsyntax.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T02:05:10.250", "id": "6238", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T06:53:33.523", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-23T06:53:33.523", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6235", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "Verbs and い-adjectives may be inflected with different okurigana\n\nFor example, the verb 歩く may be inflected to form:\n\n * polite: 歩きます\n\n * negative: 歩かない\n\n * polite negative: 歩きません\n\n * past tense: 歩いた\n\n * past polite: 歩きました\n\n * negative past: 歩かなかった\n\n * negative past polite: 歩きませんでした\n\n * te form: 歩いて\n\n * desiderative: 歩きたい\n\n * volitional: 歩こう\n\n * polite volitional (cohortative): 歩きましょう\n\n * plain negative volitional: 歩くまい\n\n * hypothetical: 歩けば\n\n * potential: 歩ける\n\n * passive: 歩かれる\n\n * causative: 歩かせる\n\n * causative passive: 歩かせられる\n\n * negative imperative: 歩くな\n\nAnd there are still many more inflections, these are the few I recall off\nhand.\n\n* * *\n\nThey serve to disambiguate kanji with multiple readings:\n\n * 食べる (taberu) and 食う (kuu)\n\n* * *\n\nWorth noting is that for counting, what you see are **not okurigana**. They\nare counter words. The change in sound is not inflection at all. It is just\nsimply a change in sound.\n\nFor numbers, it depends what you are counting. Different objects require\ndifferent counter words:\n\n * For 一 : When followed by a counter starting with a は—column syllable, いち becomes いっ and the **counter changes to a 'p' sound**\n\n * For 三 : When followed by a counter starting with a は—column syllable, that syllable **changes to a 'b' sound**\n\n * For 六 : When followed by a counter starting with a は—column syllable, ろく becomes ろっ and the **counter changes to a 'p' sound**\n\n * For 八 : When followed by a counter starting with a は—column syllable, はち becomes はっ and the **counter changes to a 'p' sound**\n\n * For 十 : When followed by a counter starting with a は—column syllable, じゅう can become either じっ or じゅっ and the **counter changes to a 'p' sound**\n\n* * *\n\n> Also, when are the kun readings of numerals used\n\nThis counting system is not complete. There is also the native Japanese\ncounting system of ひ、ふ、み、よ、いつ、む、なな、や、ここの、とお for one through ten. It does not\nextend to eleven and beyond.\n\nIts use is reflected in the use of the counter つ (generic counter for up to 10\nthings), the sequence is as follows:\n\nひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ、よっつ、いつつ、むっつ、ななつ、やっつ、ここのつ、とお\n\nAlso there is irregular counting for days (日 can be にち or か and is **not\nokurigana** ):\n\nいちにち、ふつか、みっか、よっか、いつか、むいか、なのか、ようか、ここのか、とおか", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T02:08:34.597", "id": "6239", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T03:08:03.417", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-23T03:08:03.417", "last_editor_user_id": "542", "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "6236", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "「[一]{ひと}」 is the number while 「[一]{ひと}つ」 is the count. 「～つ」 is used as a\n\"generic\" counter for counts less than 10 when the actual counter is unknown.\n\n> 一つの林檎をください\n>\n> 一果の林檎をください", "comment_count": 11, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T02:12:44.227", "id": "6240", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T02:12:44.227", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "6236", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I'm suspecting you're confusing two different things, morphological rules and\northographic rules.\n\nOkurigana do not have any semantic meaning per se. That would not be a logical\nway to think about it. They attach to the kanji, thereby creating a word which\nhas a reading and a meaning.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T03:37:59.483", "id": "6241", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T03:37:59.483", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "6236", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Your question assumes that people typically learn the kanji, for instance 歩,\nand then go on to try to figure out what extra meaning the okurigana impart on\nthe kanji -- for instance, the addition of く creates a verb 歩く \"to walk\", and\nthe addition of いた to 歩 creates the past tense verb \"walked\".\n\nThis is not the typical approach.\n\nThe typical approach is to learn the **word** あるく, and learn that it is\nwritten with the kanji 歩, and that the okurigana part is く (so it's not, say,\n歩るく). And you know how to inflect the word into various tenses because of its\ntype (く verb) and the grammar rules you've learned for that type of word.\n\nLooking at all your questions, I get the impression that you view Japanese as\na series of kanji (which each have many different on and kun readings that\ncould potentially be used) with okurigana and particles mixed in.\n\nInstead, you should view it as a series of words divided by particles, with\nsome of the words being partially written using one or more kanji, and each\nword being read in usually just one way which is learned when you first see\nthe word.\n\n**I've never heard of people teaching or learning \"how to use okurigana\"** \\--\nthey learn \"how to inflect verbs and adjectives\", and the fact that the kana\nyou use for this are called okurigana when they follow a kanji is incidental.\n\nWith regards to the example used in your original question, then, you are\nasking for the meaning of the **word** created when you add the character つ to\n一. In that case, if you are unfamiliar with the word, you should look up in a\ndictionary (or probably a textbook since it's a simple word). You say \"without\nspecifically looking it up\", but it is unnatural to expect a **kanji**\nresource to teach you the meaning of specific **words**.\n\nThe type of resource that lists kanji along with their readings and meanings\nis useful for the following tasks:\n\n * I've never seen that kanji before. I wonder what words it's used in (that I can then look up and learn if I don't recognize them)?\n * I wonder if this kanji is read in any ways that I'm not familiar with from the words I know, and how it's read in names? How might it be read in an unfamiliar compound that isn't listed, so I can look that compound up in a dictionary?\n * I wonder what the common thread of meaning is between words that use this kanji? What is the \"general meaning\", \"general sense\" imparted by this kanji? (aids in understanding the etymology of words and keeping straight which kanji to use)\n * Am I writing the right kanji or one that looks very similar? (check meaning/readings/compounds to see if they line up with what you expect)\n * I wonder how the okurigana is broken up for this kanji? Was it o(konau), oko(nau) or okona(u)?\n\n...things like that. Expecting the kanji dictionary to teach you the specific\nmeaning of specific words is a bad idea.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T14:00:35.580", "id": "6250", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T14:18:40.500", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-23T14:18:40.500", "last_editor_user_id": "315", "owner_user_id": "315", "parent_id": "6236", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "When I was taught vocabulary, in some cases I was given words with okuriganas,\nin some cases without, and in exams, getting the okuriganas wrong would be\nblamed. Based on this education, my answer is: \"Yes there is a difference: one\nof the two spellings is correct, and there is no rule telling you which one it\nis.\"", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T06:02:36.033", "id": "6243", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T06:02:36.033", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6242", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I had the same question as you a long time ago, and at the time a translator\nfriend gave me the following explanation.\n\nWith these kinds of compounds _(I always forget if they're compound verbs or\nsomething else, so forgive me that I'm lacking terminology)_ , writing with\nokurigana or not is equally fine. The reason the okurigana can be omitted is\nthat those particular combinations of words have become so commonplace that\nthe furigana is no longer always needed for people to know what they are.\n\nYou will see even more variance than what you have in your question. Attaching\nokurigana to only one word, for example `取引き`, can also happen. And then when\nyou throw in swapping hiragana for kanji, it gets even more varied.\n\nWhy would you choose one over the other? Knowing your audience and whether or\nnot they can infer the right compound and reading without the furigana. Also\nfor style. But make no mistake: the meaning and pronunciation are _exactly_\nthe same.\n\nHope that helps.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T07:32:03.977", "id": "6244", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T07:32:03.977", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "119", "parent_id": "6242", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Even though they are both used, there is an official one and those that are\nnot.\n\nWhen you consider the history of kanji incorporation into Japanese, first,\nthere were Chinese writings. Then, people tried to read them as Japanese. Two\ntechniques appeared: (i) kaeri-ten, which marks how the Chinese characters in\nthe original Chinese writing are to be permuted when read so that the Chinese\nwriting can be read as if it is Japanese, and (ii) okurigana, which marks the\ninflectional endings that vary in Japanese but not in Chinese.\n\nHence, the purpose of okurigana is to mark the varied part of a word. This\nworks for verbs. Now, once a verb is turned into a noun, and starts to be\nrecognized as a noun that is independent of the original verb, there is no\nmore purpose to keep the okurigana. That is where the reduction of okurigana\nhappens.\n\nVariation among the okurigana reflects the fact that it is not clear when a\ndeverbal noun is created: some people might feel a word is still an inflected\nform of a verb whereas other people may feel that the word has evolved into an\nindependent noun and has lost connection to the original verb. There is an\n[official web page\n送り仮名の付け方](https://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/joho/kijun/naikaku/okurikana/index.html),\nbut people have varied perception.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T08:20:18.993", "id": "6245", "last_activity_date": "2022-11-04T03:49:28.903", "last_edit_date": "2022-11-04T03:49:28.903", "last_editor_user_id": "38861", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6242", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "> Wikipedia says that Osaka used to be spelt 大坂, and is now spelt 大阪.\n\nIt is more complicated than that:\n\n * Initially it was 難波 (Naniwa).\n * In 1496, it was 小坂 (\"Little Hill\", Osaka AND Ozaka). 尾坂 and other spellings also exist. This is thought to focus more on the area around Ishiyama Honganji.\n * In 1583, Toyotomi Hideyoshi built 大坂城, and throughout the Edo period it was 大坂. Regardless of the kanji 大, the early pronunciation seemed to be short Osaka or Ozaka. Later Ōsaka and Ōzaka are found. Likely influenced by the area around Ishiyama Honganji, but expanded to represent the entire surrounding city. Hence, a change from 小 to 大.\n * In 1871, the government decided to spell it 大阪 and pronounce Ōsaka.\n\n> Is there a term for what happened, and does it happen often?\n\nIf you are only referring to the spelling 大坂 vs 大阪, then I would say\ngovernment respelling; there is not much in the way of linguistics involved.\nAs for the difference between Osaka, Ozaka, Ōsaka, and Ōzaka, some of it I\nhave indicated above. As for s/z, I suppose it could be related to rendaku,\nbut I can only speculate.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-23T13:43:04.697", "id": "6249", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-23T22:49:05.087", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-23T22:49:05.087", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "6247", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

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[ { "body": "Basically it depends on how the speaker feels. However, I think we usually\nsay:\n\n * 死体があります。\n * ロボットがいます。 if it looks like it has a mind of its own.\n * ロボットがあります。 if it is an industrial robot without a mind.\n * 車がいます。 if it is being driven by a human.\n * 車があります。 when we talk about cars in general.\n * 人工知能（AI）があります。 if it doesn't have anything visual, auditory or physical.\n * コンピュータのソフトウェアがあります。 \n * ゲームのキャラクターがいます。 if it is controlled by computer software.\n * 細菌/ウイルス/コンピュータウイルスがいます。 when we talk about someone's symptoms.\n * 細菌/ウイルス/コンピュータウイルスがあります。\n * ゾンビがいます。\n * 幽霊がいます。", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-24T03:52:01.127", "id": "6254", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-24T04:16:35.147", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-24T04:16:35.147", "last_editor_user_id": "1119", "owner_user_id": "1119", "parent_id": "6253", "post_type": "answer", "score": 23 }, { "body": "According to a quick google search, and agreeing with my thoughts, you should\nsay \"死体があります\" for dead body, but you would say \"死んだ人がいます\" (if you like\nzombies).\n\nFor robots and AI, well, I guess います is acceptable, provided it's like a\nliving thing (such as an aibo). I doubt you'd say it for a clever car, unless\nit's KITT from the Knight Rider… To sum up, it's quite subjective in this\ncase.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-24T03:53:54.917", "id": "6255", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-24T03:53:54.917", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "6253", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "If you said: there is a fish that is died on the table。\n\n> います or あります。\n>\n> 例：机に魚がいます。 （でも魚は死んだ。）", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2019-03-11T04:26:01.753", "id": "65956", "last_activity_date": "2019-03-11T04:26:01.753", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "33251", "parent_id": "6253", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "The つ character you're talking about is commonly referred to as \"little つ\" and\nlooks like っ. This characters is not actually pronounced, but rather it means\nto take a small pause.\n\nIn the case of にっぽん, instead of pronouncing it as \"nitsupon\", you would be\npronouncing it like \"ni [small pause] pon\" which is romanised as \"nippon\"\nwhich has a natural pause between the two 'p's.\n\nBut like sawa said in a comment, this is a very basic thing in Japanese and\nyou would have learnt this from a textbook's first chapter.\n\nFor a more complete explanation though, you can visit [the wikipedia page on\nit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokuon).", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-24T07:45:42.830", "id": "6257", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-24T07:45:42.830", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1497", "parent_id": "6256", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "> On Wikipedia and elsewhere, Japan is written like so: Nippon ( にっぽん ). What\n> is that tsu doing in there?\n\nThe chiisai-tsu (small tsu) should be covered by any basic hiragana book, a\ngood alternative is [wikipedia's hiragana\narticle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana). From the writing section:\n\n> A small tsu っ, called a sokuon, indicates that the following consonant is\n> geminated (doubled). For example, compare さか saka \"hill\" with さっか sakka\n> \"author\". It also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it\n> denotes a glottal stop, as in いてっ! ([iteʔ] Ouch!). However, it cannot be\n> used to double the na, ni, nu, ne, no syllables' consonants – to double\n> them, the singular n (ん) is added in front of the syllable.\n\n\"Doubled consonant\" is probably not the most straightforward way to describe\nit, but in general you can think of a\n[sokuon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokuon) introducing a slight pause\nbefore continuing with the next kana sound.\n\n* * *\n\n> Why isn't it represented in the romaji rendering of the name?\n\nIt actually is, that's what the doubled 'pp' represents in that particular\nromaji system. [The various romaji\nsystems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese) are often\ncontradictory with each other, but most of them use this doubling-consonant\nsystem to represent a っ.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-26T20:17:30.440", "id": "6281", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-26T20:17:30.440", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "29", "parent_id": "6256", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "* 意外 \"unexpectedly\"\n * 案外 \"after all\", \"unexpectedly in such a way that something is inferior than it was originally thought\"\n\n> 人生は案外短いものです。 \n> Implication: Life is thought to be long.\n\nIn your examples, they can be switched with some adjustment in the form.\n\n> 人生は意外に短いものです。 \n> 案外、うまく行っています。 \n> Implication: People thought it would be more difficult than it turned out\n> to be.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-24T16:35:51.283", "id": "6263", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-24T17:18:11.337", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-24T17:18:11.337", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6258", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I've always thought of them in terms of their kanji make-up.\n\n * [`案`](http://jisho.org/kanji/details/%E6%A1%88): can mean \"plan/expectation\"\n * [`意`](http://jisho.org/kanji/details/%E6%84%8F): can mean \"idea/mind/thought\" (with the thought process maybe implying some subjectivity)\n\nFrom there:\n\n * [`案外`](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%A1%88%E5%A4%96?dic=daijirin&oid=DJR_anngai_-010): \n\n> * \"not according to plans/expectations\"\n> * \"[contrary to/against] expectations\"\n> * often, but not always \"disappointing(ly)\"\n\n * [`意外（に・と）`](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%84%8F%E5%A4%96?dic=daijisen&oid=00738200):\n\n> * \"[against/not] what was [thought/expected]\"/\"(I/you) wouldn't have\n> thought\"\n> * \"surprising(ly)\"\n\nDaijisen has some usage notes differentiating the two in the definition for\n[`案外`](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%A1%88%E5%A4%96?dic=daijirin&oid=DJR_anngai_-010).\nI think it basically says:\n\n * `案外` is used when expectations/situations turn out different:\n\n> 期待していたが、案外つまらない映画だった \n> I had [expectations/hopes], but it was a disappointingly boring movie.\n>\n> 心配していたが、仕事は案外楽だった \n> I was worrying, but contrary to expectations, the job was easy.\n\n * `意外な`/`意外に` are used when the reality is different to what was thought, or with things that can't be expected:\n\n> 意外に時間が早くたってしまった \n> Time passed surprisingly quickly.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-24T22:09:03.483", "id": "6264", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-22T05:23:47.160", "last_edit_date": "2014-08-22T05:23:47.160", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "6258", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 }, { "body": "「 **意外** 」 is used when what you're describing is unexpected.\n\n「 **案外** 」 is used when what you're describing is **_contrary_** to what you\nexpected and is most frequently used with adjectives.\n\n```\n\n 「案外安い」 OK\n 「案外簡単」 OK\n \n```\n\nHowever, I don't believe that you can say 「案外に」 the way that you would say\n「意外に」\n\n```\n\n 「案外に安い」 NG　⇒　「意外に安い」 OK\n 「案外に簡単」 NG　⇒　「意外に簡単」 OK\n \n```", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-08-22T05:03:36.297", "id": "18349", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-22T05:03:36.297", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "7055", "parent_id": "6258", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "Well actually, `口が重い` is the opposite of `口が軽い` if the meaning is to be\ntalkative. From [here](http://www.geocities.jp/tomomi965/ko-\njien02/ka12.html#kuti2) (see definition 2)\n\n> 口が軽い（くちがかるい）\n> １．言ってはいけないことまで、軽率に喋（しゃべ）りがちである。秘密などを軽々しく話してしまいがちである。また、そういう性格である。 反：■口が堅い\n> ２．良く喋る。多弁である。 反：■口が重い\n\nThe idea here is that `口が軽い` can mean **two** things, while `口が堅い` and `口が重い`\nonly have one meaning respectively. I am assuming that this is because a\ntalkative person can imply that they say \"too much\" (i.e. says things they\nshouldn't say). However, a person who can keep a secret, may _not necessarily_\nbe untalkative. Therefore, it is natural for `口が軽い` to have two meanings,\nwhile `口が堅い` and `口が重い` cannot do this.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-25T02:23:23.073", "id": "6267", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-25T02:49:31.013", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-25T02:49:31.013", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "6260", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "You are aiming the structure\n\n> ピアノを[弾いたり、弾かせたり]してもらって、嬉しいです。\n\nSince the predicate outside of factorization is もらう, the surface subject of it\nis 私 rather than あなた.\n\n> (私は)ピアノを[弾いたり、弾かせたり]してもらって\n\nNow, consider the role of 私 in the two verb phrases that are conjoined.\n\n> (あなたが)(私に)弾いたり\n>\n> (あなたが)[(私に)弾]かせたり\n\nIn the first conjunct, the role of 私 is the benefactee. In the second, it is\nthe embedded (dative) subject of a causative construction. Since these phrases\nare also the surface subject of the common predicate もらう, they have to move\nout (factorize, in your terminology). However, it is known that language does\nnot allow factorization of an item from different structural positions in\nconjoined elements. Technically, this is known as _Across the Board\nGeneralization_ exception to _The Coordinate Structure Constraint_. That is\nthe reason it will not work.\n\nNow, let us consider what you can do instead. The problem arose from trying to\nmove 私. Instead of doing movement, you can leave them implicit and move the\ncommon subject of the two conjuncts: あなた. Then, あなた will occupy the surface\nsubject position of the predicate outside, so the predicate will now have to\nbe the one that fits in meaning with having あなた as the subject. That is くれる.\nHence you get the grammatical sentence:\n\n> ピアノを弾いたり、弾かせたりしてくれて、嬉しいです。", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-25T01:34:39.447", "id": "6266", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-25T01:57:21.110", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "6265", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "You may want to see [a similar question I asked about using\nlists](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3370/does-a-list-\nusing-%E3%81%A8-end-with-%E3%81%8C).\n\nBottom line, what you have there is a list of things, `観光と買い物と`, \"sightseeing\nand shopping\".\n\nWhen listing things, you can put `と` after the end of each word, _or_ you can\nput `と` after each item except the last.\n\nIn the sentence you offer, the author has opted to put `と` after each listed\nitem, and then `に` to indicate that the action of focusing, `集中している` is being\ndirected at all the items in that list collectively.\n\nIf I'm not mistaken, `観光と買い物に集中している` would be equally grammatical, but someone\nshould confirm that.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-25T06:49:46.490", "id": "6269", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-25T06:49:46.490", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.740", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "119", "parent_id": "6268", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]