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[ { "body": "A large part of the reason for so many loanwords in Japanese is that it has a\nway of picking them up from just about every language it interacts with—much\nlike English, as was mentioned in a comment to the original question.\n\nTruth of the matter is, depending on how broadly you want to define it, you\ncould say that every word outside of 大和言葉【やまとことば】 is in fact a loanword, as\n漢語【かんご】 vocabulary is largely derived from Chinese readings of kanji, if not\ndirectly-imported words from classical Chinese texts.\n\nOutside of Chinese, the next major batch to come in arrived with the\nPortuguese missionaries prior to Tokugawa expelling the foreigners, and is\nwhere Japanese got words such as パン and 煙草【たばこ】.\n\nDuring the Tokugawa era the flow of new foreign words into the language was\nreduced to a trickle, however with the opening of the country and the start of\nthe Meiji Restoration a great deal of interest was taken in foreign culture.\nMany new words were borrowed or coined to accommodate new facets of everyday\nlife that were starting to appear.\n\nProbably the biggest boom in importing foreign words has been since the end of\nWorld War II, between the constant presence of US military personnel exposing\npeople to new vocabulary, Japanese businesses trying to expand into English-\nspeaking countries, and the overall trendiness of outside culture generally\nbeing on the rise (much like how many foreigners learn a bit of Japanese\nbecause they're into anime). Ultimately, as long as the cultural climate\nremains amicable towards increased cultural imports the proportion of foreign\nvocabulary integrated into the Japanese language will continue to rise as\nwell.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-20T19:28:14.730", "id": "14967", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-20T19:28:14.730", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "14966", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "As I've explained when teaching, each language's quirks add value to it or\nelse they wouldn't be retained. If you embrace the differences by learning\nKana quickly and then not being afraid of Kanji thereafter, it will come\nfairly easily with practice. If you view kanji as a monolithic set of\nthousands of symbols with nothing in common with each other, you're going to\nhave a hard time.\n\nThe trick with Kanji in particular is to remember that it forms a visual\nsystem of roots, prefixes, and suffixes that, among other things, enable you\nto guess the meanings of words you've never seen before or \"coin\" new words on\nthe fly when needed. Further, if you become acquainted with the breakdown of\nkanji as you learn them you'll discover patterns (visual, semantic, and\nphonetic) that create a useful web of knowledge for holding everything\ntogether.\n\nIn short, it's as hard as you choose to make it.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-20T20:43:18.557", "id": "14969", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-20T20:43:18.557", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "14968", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Like others have said this is highly opinion based. I like to think of the\nstructures as art works and have their own flow. If you look up videos of\njapanese students and natives writing kanji and certain hiragana words, you\ncan notice those little nuances that can make your writing legible to natives.\n\nThink about why english (romanized language) was easy. You learned young -\nwere awful at the start - then a few years of schooling later you developed\nyour own style. It just takes practice!\n\nWhat you can do to practice is make haikus on paper in all japanese. It builds\nan understanding of the language and lets you write it out and practice.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-20T23:27:29.053", "id": "14973", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-20T23:27:29.053", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4919", "parent_id": "14968", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "The average Japanese person you pull in off the street would not be able to\nread a mantra or sutra without special training. Due to the way Buddhism came\nto Japan, even though these texts are pali in origin, Buddhists texts brought\ninto Japan were written completely in Chinese characters. Many of these\ncharacters are not common or part of the joyo. Graduate school in \"Indian\nphilosophy\" in Japan is largely about learning how to decipher this.\n\nSome famous ones might have a katakana version that people would recognize due\nto popularization, but the meaning is gibberish to them unless they've been\ntold it -- as Japanese is not anything like Pali.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-21T00:51:59.493", "id": "14975", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-21T00:51:59.493", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "14970", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Thanks to the spread of Buddhism in Japan, there are certain mantras that are\nwell known, and their meanings are well known, too:\n\n南無妙法蓮華経 [Na Mu Myou Hou Renge\nKyou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namu_My%C5%8Dh%C5%8D_Renge_Ky%C5%8D)\n(maybe something like \"namo [praise be to the] cosmically resonant natural law\nof the lotus .. sutra) wikipedia has \"Devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus\nSutra\"\n\nSo a statement that starts with \"Namo\" or \"Nama\" is probably pretty clear in\nwhat it means.\n\nIt is pretty wild though! The earliest mantras that traveled to Japan are\nwritten, as Kaji says, in Kanbun, so it's approximation of sound via chinese\n\"letters\" .. mainly because the Chan/Zen masters that inseminated realization\nfor those periods were all Asia-based.\n\nAlthough if you ever go to a temple service in Japan (early morning on\nweekdays) there is chanting and Taiko drums and following there is usually a\nsmall sermon/speech given by the residing master or whoever, so in a way,\nmeaning is imparted into the syllables, but not really through \"training.\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-03-08T06:46:07.247", "id": "23121", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-25T21:28:33.470", "last_edit_date": "2015-09-25T21:28:33.470", "last_editor_user_id": "11104", "owner_user_id": "9542", "parent_id": "14970", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "I know I've seen とし in classical Japanese texts before; don't know about とせ\noffhand. That said, the few examples I can find in the dictionary using とせ all\npair it with native Japanese numbers (一年【ひととせ】, 百歳【ももとせ】, 千歳【ちとせ】, etc.),\nwhich suggests that its history is close to as long. As such, my hypothesis\nwould be that it's something of a counter variant for it, kind of like how\nChinese numbers would use 年【ねん】 or 歳【さい】.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-21T01:17:55.627", "id": "14977", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-21T01:17:55.627", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "14976", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Classical Japanese is not necessarily my forte but here is what I do know.\n\nI would say that the two readings are just as old as each other because they\nboth appear in Classical Japanese. As far as I know, the reading depends on\nthe positioning of 「歳」 in a word. Needless to say, I am only talking about\n[大和言葉]{やまとことば}, not loanwords from Chinese.\n\nWhen 「歳」 appears at the beginning of a word or it is used by itself, it is\nread 「とし」.\n\n> 「[歳]{とし}」= \"year\"\n>\n> 「[歳返]{としかへ}る」= \"the year changes\" or \"the new year comes\"\n>\n> 「[歳長]{とした}く」= \"to get old\"\n\nWhen 「歳」 appears in another place in a word, it is read 「とせ」.\n\n> The examples that @Kaji listed\n>\n> 「[幾年]{いくとせ}」= \"(how) many years\"\n>\n> 「[千歳飴]{ちとせあめ}」= \"a candy for kids that people buy to pray for longevity\"\n\nThere might be exceptions out there that I am not aware of. I ask the experts\nhere to feel free to correct me.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-21T07:00:48.593", "id": "14978", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-21T07:00:48.593", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "14976", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Short answer:\n\n * と = and (giving an exhaustive list where you're enumerating everything)\n * も = also (could be creating a new list or adding to an existing list)\n * や = things like...and... (clearly only giving samples from the list)\n\nMore detailed answer:\n\nI'll start by stealing one of my examples from [whats the difference between し\nand と?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/14954/whats-the-\ndifference-between-%E3%81%97-and-%E3%81%A8)\n\n> [八百屋]{やおや}で[林檎]{りんご}とニンジンとピーマンと[買]{か}うつもり。\n\nThis example clearly states that I'm buying 3 things: apples, carrots, and\npeppers. If we change と to や, however, we get:\n\n> [八百屋]{やおや}で[林檎]{りんご}やニンジンやピーマンを[買]{か}うつもり。\n\nHere we're probably buying more things, but the only ones we decide to list\nfor the listener are the above-mentioned apples, carrots, and peppers. The\nfull list may very well be too exhaustive to list everything out in\nconversation.\n\nAs for も, It's not used so much for _creating_ lists as for expanding them.\nFor example, it wouldn't be inappropriate to follow either of the above with:\n\n> 米【こめ】も買わなきゃ。\n\n...indicating that I need to buy rice as well. I could even list a couple of\nitems in this case:\n\n> あぁ、米【こめ】もニンニクも買わなきゃダメ！ \"Ach, it's going to be real bad if I don't buy rice\n> and garlic, too!\"\n\nNow that said, so far we've dealt with lists of objects. When it comes to\nlists of people, my observations are a little bit different:\n\n * I've never seen や used in listing people (although I imagine in this case it'd be similar to adding 〜達【たち】 to their name—it indicates a group of people associated with the named person\n * It's not uncommon to initially create a list of people using も. For example:\n\n> [俺]{おれ}は _[武]{たけし}も[夏美]{なつみ}も_ 一緒【いっしょ】に[東京]{とうきょう}へ[行]{い}った。 \"I went to\n> Tokyo _with Takeshi and Natsumi_.\"\n\nis a perfectly acceptable construction. It's just like substituting \"with\" for\n\"and\" in such a list in English, and presents a slightly softer nuance.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-21T09:51:41.417", "id": "14980", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-21T09:51:41.417", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.207", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "14979", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "1. \nnatural / acceptable\n\n> 僕が 君を 好きだと思うのは そういうところだ \n> 僕が 君を 好きに思うのは そういうところだ \n> 僕が 君を 好きなのは そういうところだ \n> 僕は 君の ～が 好きだ \n> 僕は 君の ～なところが 好きだ \n> 僕は 君の ～を 好きだと思う \n> 僕が 好きなところは 君の ～だ \n>\n\nnot possible\n\n> 僕が 君の 好きな/好きだと思う のは、そういうところだ (君「の」is not possible) \n>\n\n2. \nfor 「思う」 \n○「感じる」 △「考える」\n\n* * *\n\nnatural\n\n> この文の中で あなたが おかしいと 思うところは？ \n> あなたが この文の中で おかしいと 思うところは？ \n>\n\nnot in dayly use\n\n> この文章について、あなたがおかしいと思うところを挙げなさい (テストでの設問) \n>\n\nacceptable\n\n> あなたが この文で おかしいと 思うところは？ \n>\n\nnot acceptable\n\n> あなたが この文の おかしいと 思うところは？ (この文「の」is not possible)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-07-13T17:22:35.160", "id": "17787", "last_activity_date": "2014-07-13T17:22:35.160", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "6798", "parent_id": "14981", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I know this question is old, but I'll give my answer.\n\nNatural/unnatural aside, the OP is asking specifically about the structure of\nthe sentence\n\n> あなたがこの文のおかしいと思うところは？\n\nIt is true that this structure is a bit unusual and not so straight forward\nfor a English speaker, but here's how to break it down:\n\n> [あなたが][[この文のおかしい]と思う][ところ]は？\n\nこの文のおかしいと思う is what we'd call a relative clause in English that modifies ところ,\nand means\n\n> [1この文]の[2おかしい]と[3思う][4ところ] \n> [4places] that [3(you) think] [1this article] is [2strange]\n\nWhy の? Well, that's because in ancient Japanese, の and が were interchangeable.\nLook up のーが conversion. That practice is still around today, but its use is\nrestricted to subordinate clauses only.\n\nFor example: `海の見える街 = 海が見える街` but `見て！海が見える ≠ 見て！海の見える`. In fact, the latter\nis just plain wrong in Modern Japanese. So\n\n> この文 **の** おかしいと思うところ = この文 **が** おかしいと思うところ\n\nSo to your question:\n\n 1. Yes grammatically I find no problem with `僕は君の好きなのは…`, but virtually no one speaks like this. It’s grammatical but not idiomatic.\n 2. As I said, のーが conversion applies in most, if not all, relative clauses so `海の見える街` `雰囲気の悪いところ` and `お金のない人` are all examples.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2022-08-13T04:17:25.993", "id": "95787", "last_activity_date": "2022-08-13T04:17:25.993", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "39855", "parent_id": "14981", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "Native speaker here (if that means anything).\n\n「読みは音読みのみ」 is surely grammatical and it conveys perfectly what needs to be\nsaid. However, it might sound a little awkward to some people with three み's\n(and two 読み's) in such a short phrase. 「のみ」 itself is a very good word choice\neven though it is adding another み and this is clearly no place for the\ninformal 「だけ」.\n\nI am going to say that you could keep it as is. It is not as though one would\nneed to say 「読みは音読みのみ」 three times in a row in one breath.\n\nOther suggestions:\n\n「訓読みはありません。」\n\n「音読みのみ（です）。」", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-21T13:16:59.097", "id": "14983", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-21T13:16:59.097", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "14982", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "There are probably people that teach that が can only mark subjects. I don't\nlike that theory, since it makes it really hard to explain some other things.\n\nSo I will proceed under the assumption that が can also mark objects of stative\nverbs (adjectives like 好き, verbs like 分かる, the ～たい form and the ~える・れる\npotential form etc). In fact, it seems that が and を are in competition in\nthese positions.\n\n> りんごを食べたい - りんごが食べたい\n\nI personally prefer the が version, but it seems that many speakers (mainly\nyounger ones) like the を version.\n\nIn the given example, I personally like を better, and I think it's because 気持ち\nis not really the object of the stative verb もらえる, but of 受け入れて (i.e. 気持ち\nattaches to 受け入れて before the whole thing attaches to もらえる).\n\n> [気持ちを受け入れて]もらえる\n\nBut I suspect that for some, the power of the potential form is so strong that\nit forces the が. Or maybe they parse it thus:\n\n> 気持ちが[受け入れてもらえる]\n\nSorry for the vague answer. But in many cases, different native speakers will\nuse particles in slightly different ways.", "comment_count": 10, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-21T15:15:52.930", "id": "14986", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-21T15:15:52.930", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "14984", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "から is really only used to designate the location/point/time from which things\nstart, whereas を is a rather generic particle.\n\nBecause of this, から makes the reader mentally picture a time range\n(今夜から明日にかけて雪になります), a motion (東京から大阪へは３時間かかります), a coverage (揺りかごから墓場まで), etc.\nIn contrast, を just doesn't have this sense of motion/breadth/width. And so\nwhen this effect is useful, you'll intentionally choose から.\n\nIn the sentence you give, I think this is why the author went for から, even\nthough を would have been OK, too. Here, we are talking about someone ending a\nrelationship and moving out. The emphasis on the movement by から reinforces the\nsplit better, compared to 家を出て行って.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T06:09:05.127", "id": "15085", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T06:09:05.127", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "14985", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Adding just a bit more to Mr. Kawaguchi's answer, I think that 家を出る is usually\nheard in a situation where someone (a teenager, a spouse) leaves the home\nwhere they are \"supposed to be\", often under not good circumstances (running\naway from home, domestic violence, imminent divorce, ...). C.f. 家出\n\nIn this case, the situation is about a presumably unmarried couple, where one\nperson decides to move out of the place they were sharing, and because they\nwere not married and therefore the 家 was not officially the place s/he was\n\"supposed to be\" から was a more appropriate word choice. から also seems to\nconvey a sense of 離れる, whereas 家を出る feels like cutting off all contact.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T03:58:00.940", "id": "15231", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-04T03:58:00.940", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5078", "parent_id": "14985", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "These are similar words with subtle differences.\n\n学習 has a bit more formal sound than 習う, and the difference in their meanings\nderive from that.\n\nFor example, 学習 tends to refer to \"at desk\" formal studies you do at schools\nand institutions. Mathmatics, science, English, that sort of things. In\ncontrast, 習う often refers to lessons and extra-school activities such as\nkarate, piano, cooking, and so on (see Worthy7's answer for sentences.)\n\nThe border line is blurry, though.\n\nFor example, take Worthy7's sentence \"向こうの大学じゃ、習ってなかったし\" as an example. This\nrefers to a study in an university. But in this case 習う is used because the\nform of speech is informal.\n\nLikewise, 学習 can be used even if it doesn't involve studying at formal\ninstitutions, when a rigid sounding noun form is needed. For example, 生涯学習センター\n(life-long learning center) is normally just a community center that has short\nprograms, but you don't want to call it 生涯習い事センター because it lacks dignitiy.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-06T19:01:10.007", "id": "15277", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-06T19:01:10.007", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "14987", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "It's the second one -- \"as it is supposed to\".\n\nBut it doesn't say \"in there\". The proper interpretation is:\n\n> But, will it be okay? Does your portion exist as well, as it is supposed to? \n> (Since you're giving this all to me) Do you have a portion (elsewhere) as\n> well, as you should?\n>\n> (implying: You shouldn't go without food)\n\nI can't think of a direct way of expressing \"is...supposed to...?\" for the\nfirst interpretation. You might have to say something like:\n\n> この中にお前の分も入ってるんだけど、もらっていいのか？", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-22T00:16:04.513", "id": "14989", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-22T13:44:49.810", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-22T13:44:49.810", "last_editor_user_id": "315", "owner_user_id": "315", "parent_id": "14988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "The more \"properly\" you try to translate 「ちゃんと」, the funnier the result might\nsound. Why? Because it is not such a big word to begin with as the look and\nsound of the word may suggest. It is an informal, everyday kind of a word for\nus native speakers.\n\nSo, instead of the bookish translations \"properly\", \"in an appropriate\nmanner\", \"to be supposed to be\", etc., the best I could think of would be\n\"alright\", believe it or not, in the sentence in question.\n\nYou are actually reading the sentence incorrectly even without the 「ちゃんと」\npart. It does not mean \"Is your portion supposed to be in there too?\" 「お前の分」,\nif it exists, is not in the bag in the first place.\n\nMy own TL:\n\n> \"You sure, tho? You keep some to yourself (somewhere) alright?\"\n\nThat is how \"light\" this convo is, to speak on a native level; Hence, my word\nchoice of \"alright\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-22T02:11:53.157", "id": "14991", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-22T02:11:53.157", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "14988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "To join the party and incorporate what I'm seeing in both answers (neither of\nwhich completely please me).\n\n> だけどいいのか？\n\n--> [But are] you sure it's okay?\n\nI'm putting the [but are] as optional depending on just how casual this is\nsupposed to be.\n\n> お前の分もちゃんとあるのか？\n\nLiterally \"You have also appropriately a portion for yourself\" but\ncolloquially:\n\n--> You kept some for yourself too right?\n\nI'm depending on TokyoNagoya for part of it but I think some of the\ncolloquialisms in that answer are pretty unnatural English as a whole.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-22T07:11:12.547", "id": "14995", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-22T08:36:38.897", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-22T08:36:38.897", "last_editor_user_id": "4091", "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "14988", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "When being used as a **grammatical particle** ([助詞]{じょし}), は is pronounced わ\n(wa), を is pronounced お (o), and へ (which you may not have come across yet) is\npronounced え (e).\n\nI've never used Rosetta Stone but it seems quite strange that it would not\nmention this...\n\nInformation as to the historical reason for this difference between spelling\nand pronunciation can be found in the answer to [this\nquestion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/348/why-is-%E3%81%AF-\npronounced-as-%E3%82%8F-when-used-as-a-topic-particle).", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-22T06:12:22.040", "id": "14993", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-22T09:18:19.853", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:48.447", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "3010", "parent_id": "14992", "post_type": "answer", "score": 20 }, { "body": "Often the particle は is written \"wa\" in Latin letters, because は, when used as\na particle, is in fact pronounced the same as わ. Of course, は, when it is not\na particle, is usually pronounced \"ha\".\n\nを is pronounced お, and therefore sometimes transcribed \"wo\" and sometimes \"o\".\n\nSimilarly, the particle へ is pronounced the same as え, whence \"he\" or \"e\".\n\nFor text input, you have to write \"ha wo he\" for は を へ, but for best\npronunciation approximation, \"wa o e\" are often used.\n\nSo, as it should, Rosetta stone is writing correct Japanese and chooses rōmaji\n(not ~~Romanji~~ , see [this\nquestion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9913/why-\nis-%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E5%AD%97-spelt-without-an-%E3%83%B3)) for\napproximating pronunciation (presumably [Hepburn\nromanization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization#Particles)).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-22T06:27:25.250", "id": "14994", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-22T06:27:25.250", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.260", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "14992", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "「どっち」 can only mean \"which one of the two\"; No exceptions. It is simply the\ncolloquial way of saying 「どちら」.\n\n「どちら」, however, has another meaning of \"which place\" or \"where\" out of many\nplaces. When it is used for that meaning, it is NOT interchangeable with\n「どっち」. Instead, it becomes interchangeable with 「どこ」.\n\nTo answer your second question, which is actually more complicated than you\nseem to think because of the place-related meaning of 「どちら」, I am going to say\nthat GENERALLY, 「どちら」 and 「どっち」 strictly mean \"which one\", not \"which ones\",\nbut when 「どちら」 refers to a place, it can mean \"which places\" in the plural.\n「どれ」 can swing both ways between singular and plural.\n\nHand-made example sentences:\n\nYou are asking someone which one of the two candies s/he wants.\n\n> A: 「どっち/どちらのお[菓子]{かし}がほしい？」\n>\n> B: 「こっち (or そっち)。」 B will say either of the two by pointing a finger to one\n> of the two candies.\n\nA and B are in a clothing store selecting tee-shirts to buy.\n\n> A: 「どれにする？」= \"Which one(s) are you getting?\"\n>\n> B: 「この[青]{あお}いのと、あの[赤]{あか}いのにする。」= \"This blue one and that red one.\"\n>\n> B could have just chosen one instead. This is what I meant by \"どれ can swing\n> both ways\".\n\nB is going to Europe.\n\n> A: 「[今回]{こんかい}はどちらを[廻]{まわ}られるんですか。」= \"What places/countries are you going to\n> this time?\"\n>\n> B: 「フランス、イタリア、スペインです。」", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T05:50:24.987", "id": "14998", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-23T05:50:24.987", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "14997", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "I am going to say that in this context, 「と」 ≠ 「として」. I would call it the\nquotative 「と」.\n\n「『[変人]{へんじん}』と[面白]{おもしろ}がられていた」 ＝ 「『変人』と[呼]{よ}ばれ面白がられていた」\n\nThe verb form 「面白がられていた」 is in the \"passive voice past progressive\". The\nsubject of this is タモリ in the original Japanese, but it would be difficult to\nretain that in an English translation. I myself would use \"the locals\" as the\nsubject and opt for a verb phrase in the active voice like \"to get a kick out\nof\".\n\nThe phrase 「『[変人]{へんじん}』と[面白]{おもしろ}がられていた」 sounds informal and conversational\nand it is barely acceptable as written language; Hence, the confusion.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T10:57:43.597", "id": "15000", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T03:19:38.110", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-24T03:19:38.110", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "14999", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "The character 金 can refer the idea of gold, metal in general, or money. Most\ncommonly, it is read as かね (kane, kun-yomi) and キン (kin, on-yomi) when\noccuring in compounds.\n\nThere is also the コン (kon, on-yomi) reading which you mention. As Zhen Lin has\npointed out, this is an older reading that is due to interaction between\nJapanese and Middle Chinese. Compounds that use this reading are e.g.\n\n> [黄金]{おうごん} - yellow gold\n>\n> [金色]{こんじき} - golden (colour, color)\n\nHowever, the other two readings are far more common.\n\nIn general, for the purpose of learning Kanji, I'd suggest studying the more\nfrequent readings first (かね and キン in this case) and memorizing other ones on\ndemand when encountering a word containing them.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T19:17:24.833", "id": "15002", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T01:11:29.073", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "4669", "parent_id": "15001", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "The readings \"kin\" and \"kon\" are on-yomi pronunciations for 金. The \"kon\"\nreading is the older one (go-on 呉音) and \"kin\" is newer (kan-on 漢音). They\nultimately stem from Middle Chinese /ki̯əm/; notice that 今 has the same on-\nyomi pronunciations.\n\nAs a general pattern, go-on pronunciations are somewhat less common (relative\nto kan-on) in everyday words and more usually found in words related to\nBuddhism. (But that is not to say Buddhist words only use go-on either.) In\nthe case of 金, the kan-on pronunciation is more common (among the two on-yomi\npronunciations) by far. You will simply have to memorise the exceptions.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T23:35:08.437", "id": "15009", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-23T23:35:08.437", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "578", "parent_id": "15001", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "As noel_lapin mostly answered, this form of sentence does not assume any\nimplicit question. I don't know the grammatical classification that describes\nthis use, but \"もらうのだった\" has a sense of repeated occurrences that became\ncustomary, that they have always done so, not just in this particular\noccasion. It is a particularly common form of speech for old story telling, so\nmuch so to the point that whenever I hear it it mentally plays in my mind in\nand old man's voice of 日本昔話 TV series :-)\n\nAs for your second part of question on why \"もらったのだ\" wouldn't do, \"のだ\" adds a\nsense of emphasis, that you are absolutely positive that it had happened. It\nis natural if the speaker was present at the scene, but does feel a bit odd if\nthe speaker is telling a story that happened hundreds of years ago somewhere.\nIn addition, you lose the sense that two men always relied on 渡守 to bring them\nback. I'm not sure if I can call this use wrong, but its meaning does change\nconsiderably.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T05:28:12.283", "id": "15050", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T05:28:12.283", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15003", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "_A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar_ has the following to say about this:\n\n> When って is attached to a noun, it is close in meaning to the topic marker\n> は。When って is attached to a sentence as in\n>\n\n>> 外国で暮らすって難しいね。\n\n>\n> it is closer in meaning to 「..というのは、..」. However, it is more colloquial and\n> emotive than は and というのは。In fact, if the predicate does not express the\n> speaker's emotive judgement / evaluation, って cannot be used. For instance,\n> the following is ungrammatical:\n>\n\n>> 山口さんって先生です。\n\n>\n> The following use is correct\n>\n\n>> 山口さんって変な人ですね。\n\nThere are also a few more examples in that section which use the って\nconstruction with nouns:\n\n> アメリカ人ってフットボールが好きですね。 \n> 漢字っておもしろいですよ。 \n> 日本人ってよく写真を撮りますね。", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T22:41:52.680", "id": "15007", "last_activity_date": "2023-08-20T04:05:57.017", "last_edit_date": "2023-08-20T04:05:57.017", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": "4669", "parent_id": "15004", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 }, { "body": "は is fairly matter of fact. \"Where is Shinjuku?\"\n\nって is a little more nuanced. Its like \"Oh, now that you mention\nShinjuku...where is it?\" or \"Speaking of Shinjuku, where is that?\"\n\nFor all intents and purposes I gather the actual end-point meaning is the same\nbut って is linking it more with something that has been previously said whilst\nは could just be bringing it up out of the blue. I feel that because it has\nthis prior link it comes across as less forceful, just like such a situation\nin English.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T01:11:53.117", "id": "15012", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T01:11:53.117", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4968", "parent_id": "15004", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "研究所 means \"research institute\". I have never seen 研究屋 (and it's not to be\nfound in the BCCWJ corpus). I think that 研究屋 is 研究 \"research\" with the suffix\n屋, which could have a number of nuances, e.g. \"someone scientifically-minded\",\n\"Mr. Research\". For a better translation, you'd have to provide some context.\n\nIn any case, 研究屋 is definitely not a way to refer to a research institute.\n\n_Edit._ 研究室 is a type of 室 \"room\", so \"research lab\".", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T22:34:49.313", "id": "15006", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-23T23:55:01.603", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-23T23:55:01.603", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "15005", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "研究所 is a research institute whereas 研究室 is more like a lab.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-23T23:15:24.447", "id": "15008", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-23T23:15:24.447", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4965", "parent_id": "15005", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I think the other answers address it pretty well but I just want to throw in\nsomething that's a little weird about [研究室]{けんきゅうしつ} gets used versus \"lab\".\n\n[研究所]{けんきゅうしょ} is the place of study on the level of university or more likely\nresearch center. I say research center is more likely than university, because\nJapanese universities are, in my experience, more an amalgamation of different\n[学部]{がくぶ} that function mostly independently and then within that professors\nmanage multiple labs that are the 研究室.\n\nNow the interesting thing about 研究室 is that these exist not just in fields\nlike chemistry and physics but in fields like philosophy and religion. What it\nmeans in the [文学部]{ぶんがくぶ} cases is a room that the students can use to study\nwhere many of the related books are there. At my particular university, these\nbooks are even cataloged by the library and can be checked out using a\nhandwritten notebook -- even by non-university affiliated persons.\n\nIn my friend's 研究室, even though he works in fisheries science, the room they\ncall the 研究室 is just their respective desk areas. The room next door is a lab\nwith an HLPC. Also they their shoes off in the lab but not the 研究室\n\n* * *\n\nThe same thing goes for professors and faculty. A professor's office is his\n研究室. Translating it to lab won't work in these cases at all.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T07:15:57.353", "id": "15014", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T09:29:39.737", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-24T09:29:39.737", "last_editor_user_id": "4091", "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "15005", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "The most common reply among us native speakers would be a simple\n「ありがとうございます。」.\n\n「はい」 would sound pretty strange. You could say 「はい、ありがとうございます。」, though.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T00:51:23.023", "id": "15011", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T00:51:23.023", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15010", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "Since this is a very old construction, I don't think there is an absolutely\nclear origin, but my understanding is that the popular theory is\n\n `k-u + ar-i → k-i-ar-i → ker-i`\n\nwhere `k-u` is the カ変動詞 \"to come\" and `ar-i` is the ラ変動詞 \"to be\".\n\nHowever, there is also a minority theory of\n\n `ki + ar-i → ki-ar-i → ker-i`\n\nwhere `ki` is the 体験回想 (recollective) 助動詞 and `ar-i` is the ラ変動詞 \"to be\". This\ntheory doesn't make much sense to me, since to my knowledge the 助動詞 `ki` is\nnever syntactically in this position otherwise (i.e., it doesn't have a 連用形).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T14:20:31.637", "id": "15022", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T14:20:31.637", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3097", "parent_id": "15013", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Just doing a quick survey of the kanji spellings used for けり in the first five\nbooks of the\n[_Man'yōshū_](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ajti.lib.virginia.edu%2Fjapanese%2Fmanyoshu%2F+%E3%81%91%E3%82%8A),\nafter excluding false positives (matches for けり belonging to _-ku_ verbs),\nhere's the breakdown for spellings by frequency and 甲類【こうるい】 ( _ke 1_) vs.\n乙類【おつるい】 ( _ke 2_):\n\n * 来: 21 -- N/A, non-phonetic use\n * 家里: 11 -- _ke 1ri_\n * 家利: 5 -- _ke 1ri_\n * 家理: 2 -- _ke 1ri_\n * 鶏里: 2 -- _ke 1ri_\n * 計理: 1 -- _ke 1ri_\n * 有: 1 -- N/A, non-phonetic use\n\nThough the kanji used as man'yōgana vary, the readings are consistently of the\n甲類 variety. As noted in Shibatani's _The Languages of Japan_ starting from\naround [page 134](http://books.google.com/books?id=sD-\nMFTUiPYgC&lpg=PA134&vq=particle%20i&pg=PA134#v=snippet&q=particle%20i&f=false),\nsome scholars view the 甲類 variant _e 1_ as arising from _i_ + _a_ , consistent\nwith the previously mentioned theories that _keri_ derives from _ki_ + _ari_.\n\nShogakukan's _Kokugo Dai Jiten Dictionary_ (their title in the copyright\nnotice, though the \"dictionary\" is redundant) explains the origins of _keri_\nas:\n\n> 回想の助動詞「き」と「有り」、または「来（き）」と「有り」の結合したもの \n> A fusion of past recollective auxiliary verb き and 有り, or of 来 ( _ki_ ) and\n> 有り\n\nAs @DariusJahandarie noted, the past recollective き has no 連用形{れんようけい}, so き +\n[verb] is unlikely. I've poked around in a few dictionaries now, and nowhere\ncan I find any mention that き might have been irregular in this way (i.e. that\nit might have allowed for the 終止形{しゅうしけい} of き to attach to another following\nverb). Likewise, I can find no mention that 有り could be preceded in verb\ncompounds with anything other than the 連用形, which apparently rules out the\npossibility of [verb in 終止形] + 有り.\n\nGiven also the prevalence of spelling けり with 来 in what appears to be a\nconceptual as opposed to phonetic way, it seems most likely that けり derives\nfrom 来{き} + 有{あ}り.\n\nThat said, human language is nothing if not wonderfully exceptional, so past\nrecollective き + 有り remains a potentially viable hypothesis despite the\nunlikely grammatical construction, and in some ways this seems to be the\nbetter semantic match.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-21T23:34:10.400", "id": "16072", "last_activity_date": "2018-03-20T07:31:43.927", "last_edit_date": "2018-03-20T07:31:43.927", "last_editor_user_id": "5229", "owner_user_id": "5229", "parent_id": "15013", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "Think of it as being in the same boat as ～ては（いけない・ならない） which I'm sure you've\nprobably come across as the default phrases for prohibiting an action. It's\nthe same thing with ダメ. Using ダメ instead of いけない or ならない makes it sound a\nlittle harsher or colloquial, I think.\n\n\"You don't have to beat every enemy, but you can't run away all the time.\"", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T09:03:37.633", "id": "15016", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T09:03:37.633", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "15015", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "There are a few reasons for the usage of Katakana, but the main one here is as\nyou suspect, to provide emphasis.\n\nKatakana is not only used for loan words, but also words with unusual Kanji\n(especially technical terms) and for onomatopoeia. They are also used to\nprovide a break in a train of Hiragana to limit risk of confusion.\n\nダメoriginally comes from a term in the game Igo, where it refers to useless\npoints on the board. This might be one of the reasons why Kanji usage is less\ncommon. Also, writing it in Katakana has a harder feeling to it than writing\nit in Hiragana would have, which is usually more appropriate considering the\nmeaning of the word.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-03-17T09:27:54.313", "id": "44507", "last_activity_date": "2017-03-17T09:27:54.313", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "20305", "parent_id": "15015", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "As evidenced by [this question on\noshiete](http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/949261.html), Japanese people don't\nreally know either. The asker doesn't understand why there are subtitles being\nplaced on screen, even for when someone like the Prime Minister is saying\nsomething in clear Japanese. The answerers agree, that they don't understand\nwhy, and put forward their best guesses.\n\n[Here, too](http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2004/0719/008379.htm?o=0), is a\nlong-term resident gaijin asking why subtitles appear without having turned on\nclosed captioning. The highest-rated guess is that producers do it to keep\npeople watching. The rest of Japanese television (commercials, variety shows)\nare so frenetic and covered with decoration that such an effect, however\nmodest, can hold interest for longer.\n\nWhile I'm sure it helps for differentiating homophones, or understanding\nsomeone with a unique accent/dialect, I think it caught on as a general\nattention-catching technique, so even someone speaking perfectly clear\nJapanese will have their words transcribed on screen.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T06:00:15.233", "id": "15100", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T06:00:15.233", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "271", "parent_id": "15017", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "The [Online Kanji Etymology\nDictionary](http://www.kanjinetworks.com/eng/kanji-dictionary/online-kanji-\netymology-dictionary.cfm?kanji_id=PUAK06) has some rather terse notes on how\nthese two meanings came to be. _A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters_\n(Henshall) describes its history as:\n\n> Once written  showing a boat 舟, a\n> person 卩, and a hand 又. [...] The early meaning is known to have been\n> **work** , and some scholars feel that it meant literally bend down in order\n> to work on [a boat]. **Yield/serve** is felt to derive from a combined idea\n> of bending down and performing work. How exactly it came to mean **clothes**\n> , however, is not clear. It is assumed to be a borrowed meaning, though it\n> is also possible that 服 once came by extension to indicate a **servant's\n> livery**.\n\nGoing back to the Online Kanji Etymology Dictionary, you can see that the\noriginal form () had 舟 (boat) replaced\nwith 肉 (⺼; flesh) in seal script (),\nwhich may be where \"clothes\" comes from---\"clothes that spread over/cling to\nthe body\".", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T12:53:51.300", "id": "15020", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T12:53:51.300", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "104", "parent_id": "15019", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 }, { "body": "It's a question about Chinese rather than Japanese. The word 服從 once appeared\nin [Book of Rites](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Rites)\n(道合則服從，不可則去。Obey if you share the same idea, or else leave), and the meaning\nof clothes once appeared in\n[ZhanGuoCe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhan_Guo_Ce) (朝服衣冠 put up clothes in\nthe morning). Both of them were from Chinese thousands of years ago.\n\nAccording to this [link](http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3534), 服\nmeant to put shackles on prisoners when it was invented. Then its derivative\nmeanings forked here: to put something on, or to force someone obey or accept.\nFrom the latter, there once again derived a new meaning 服用 to take (medicine).", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T13:14:23.487", "id": "15021", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T13:28:41.447", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-24T13:28:41.447", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4973", "parent_id": "15019", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "As this is a Chinese character, I think it would be easier to describe it in\nChinese Historical War terms.\n\nThe traditions of clothing, is actually determined by a dynasty. Notice one of\nthe major changes during any Chinese civil war or revolution is the changes of\nclothing. Good Example: Tang Dynasty clothing or Qing Dynasty clothing. In\nfact, if peasants refuses to change the way how they dress (even the way how\nhair looks), the peasants then will be considered as being against the\ngovernment.\n\nIdeogrammic compound: 卩 (“kneeling person”) + 又 (“spread hands”) + ⺼\n(“person's back”) = a kneeling person attending another person's back.\n\nAnother very interesting way to look at clothing: there was an idioms named\n\"被发左衽\" (as the way how Mongolians dress). The saying of \"Chinese might ended\nup 被发左衽\" literally means that Chinese might ended up losing their country to\nMongolians.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T22:26:39.767", "id": "15033", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T22:26:39.767", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4985", "parent_id": "15019", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "The semantic extension of「服」is in the following sequence:\n\n 1. _Submission_ , _subdue_ , or _serve_\n 2. _Servant clothing_ or _uniform_\n 3. _Clothing_\n\nThese meanings were found in Chinese before importation into Japanese. Compare\nsimilar English words using terms of clothing to describe the status of a\nperson ( _blue-collar_ , _white-collar_ ).\n\n> 「服」( _submission_ ) can be seen as representing a similar or identical word\n> to「伏」( _prostrate, bend down_ ); they are both [_Baxter-\n> Sagart_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_\\(2014\\))\n> [_OC_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese): **/*[b]ək/** > [_Kan-\n> on_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kan-on): **ふく**.\n\n* * *\n\n「服」was originally「」(that is, without the left hand side component).\n\n> 「」was originally a picture of a _hand_ 「又」 _subduing_ a _kneeling person_\n> 「卩」.\n>\n> # `[商](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty) \n> [甲](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script) \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VCHze.png) \n>\n> [甲](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference)3834 \n>\n> [合集753](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&bh=753&jgwfl=)``[西周](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou) \n> [金](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions) \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FzCgu.png) \n> 㝬鐘 \n> [集成260](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=260&jgwfl=)`` \n> [篆](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script) \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/67PoU.png) \n> [說文解字](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi) \n> ``今 \n> [楷](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script) \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sv7Rp.png) \n> \n> `\n\nSemantic「凡」was added later, bringing out the meaning of _to serve_.\n\n# `商 \n甲 \n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WMVrC.png) \n[林](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference)1.24.5 \n[合集36924](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&bh=36924&jgwfl=)``西周 \n金 \n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jFSYt.png) \n作冊䰧卣 \n[集成5432](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=5432&jgwfl=)``西周 \n金 \n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hD0iB.png) \n毛公鼎 \n[集成2841](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2841&jgwfl=)``[秦](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty) \n[簡](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips) \n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hufY6.png) \n[睡](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts)・[為](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference)35 \n``今 \n楷 \n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tO760.png) \n \n`\n\nThe third form above contains「舟」, and the fourth form contains「⺼・肉」; these\nchanges should be considered as graphical corruptions of「凡」.\n\n> 「凡」originally depicted a _large tray_ used for carrying things or people,\n> now written as「盤」or「槃」, which also contains the corrupted「凡」in the form\n> of「舟」on the top left. The meaning _general, common_ of「凡」is a phonetic loan.\n>\n> # `商 \n> 甲 \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wlsnJ.png) \n> [燕](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference)147 \n> [合集18875](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&bh=18875&jgwfl=)``秦 \n> 簡 \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LUdyY.png) \n>\n> [睡・效](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference)30 \n> ``今 \n> 楷 \n> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6ZKYE.png) \n> \n> `\n\n* * *\n\n**References:**\n\n * 李學{{kr:勤}}《字源》\n * 季旭昇《說文新證》\n * [小學堂](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/)\n * [國學大師](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2019-01-14T14:24:42.547", "id": "64887", "last_activity_date": "2019-01-14T15:02:56.570", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "26510", "parent_id": "15019", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "In descending order of formality: ならない、いけない、ダメ.\n\nThere is no difference in meaning.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T15:48:30.733", "id": "15027", "last_activity_date": "2017-03-16T21:03:29.627", "last_edit_date": "2017-03-16T21:03:29.627", "last_editor_user_id": "9971", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15023", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Without context, I would say it's one hundred twenty three. \"One, two, three\"\nwould probably look like `一・二・三`, or some other common delimiter.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T15:23:04.467", "id": "15025", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T15:23:04.467", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "15024", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Japanese-speaker here.\n\n\"One hundred twenty-three\" = 百二十三\n\n\"One, two, three\" = 一二三 or 一、二、三", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T15:44:55.800", "id": "15026", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-07T09:14:57.740", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-07T09:14:57.740", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15024", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "When you only see 一二三, the context always matters. (As you may know, Japanese\nlanguage generally rely very much on the context to decide the meaning.)\n\nYou use 百二十三 kind of way only when you want to specify that numbers are like\n\"one hundred twenty-three\". This kind of expressions however tends to be\nredundant (二億三千五百九十五万三千百四十五=235,953,445). So you usually write 一二三 or\n二三五、九五三、四四五 especially these days.\n\nFor your information, These KANJI numbers generlly used when you write\nvertically and when you write horizontally you generally use degits.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T18:57:53.390", "id": "15028", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T18:57:53.390", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4983", "parent_id": "15024", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Numbers written with Arabic numerals are usually **positional**. The place\nvalue of each digit depends on its position in the sequence:\n\n> **1** _b_ 2 + **2** _b_ 1 + **3** _b_ 0 = **123**\n\nNumbers written with kanji are typically **non-positional**. Although they\nusually appear in the same order, rather than use position alone to indicate\ntheir place value, they're generally combined with characters like 百 or 万,\nwhile zeroes are left unwritten. (Some numerals, like 十, 百, [and\n千](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/14845/1478) can appear as numbers\nwithout being preceded by 一.) So, as Tokyo Nagoya says, _one hundred and\ntwenty three_ would be written:\n\n> 百二十三\n\nThis is interpreted as:\n\n> **100** + **2** × **10** + **3** = **123**\n\nHowever, this is only **typically** true. There are a number of situations in\nwhich kanji are used as a **positional** numeral system. For example, you\nmight find a receipt that says `一二三円`, meaning \"one hundred and twenty three\nyen\". Or you might find a reference to page one hundred and twenty three in\nthe index of a book written with kanji:\n\n\n\nIn other contexts, the kanji 一二三 might be used to write the name\n[一二三{ひふみ}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8A%A0%E8%97%A4%E4%B8%80%E4%BA%8C%E4%B8%89).\n\nThe truth is, you'll have to use your common sense to figure out what 一二三\nmeans in a particular context. Is it a name, a listing like \"one, two, three\",\nor a number like \"one hundred and twenty three\"? Without context, it's\nimpossible to say for sure--even if we can make a reasonable guess.\n\nLet's talk about English for a moment. If I asked you what the word _bear_\nmeant, you might think I was referring to [a type of\nanimal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear). But without context, you'd have no\nidea whether I was asking about the noun or [the\nverb](http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bear)--and there's\nno way to pick one meaning or the other, even if a particular meaning is more\nlikely or comes to mind first. In short, context is required.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-25T02:44:28.360", "id": "15037", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-25T02:55:20.443", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.740", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15024", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "In this context, 死に【しに】 is acting as a prefix meaning \"dead\" or \"death\" (e.g.\n死神【しにがみ】). Generally speaking, I would say that it is primarily used in set\nphrases or words, whereas 死んだ can be used more broadly (c.f. 死んだ【しんだ】犬【いぬ】,\netc.). In any case, 死に or 死 (both read as しに in this case) should only be used\nwith 大和言葉 (kun-yomi). If it's being used as part of a compound with other\ncharacters using 音読み【おんよみ】 then it should be read as し (e.g. 死体【したい】).\n\nThe exception to using 死んだ is with people. While 死んだ人 isn't entirely unheard\nof (and is, in fact, grammatically accurate), it's typically considered too\ncallous for general use. 亡くなった【なくなった】 is more appropriate in this context.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-24T19:48:55.497", "id": "15031", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-24T19:48:55.497", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15029", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "[死]{し}に[馬]{うま} sounds archaic to me. I don't think you can use this 死に for\nother animals (*死に猫, *死に犬, *死に牛...) at least in modern Japanese. I can only\nthink of [死]{し}に[人]{びと} (and maybe [死]{し}に[金]{がね}?). 死んだ人, [死人]{しにん},\n[死者]{ししゃ} are more common.\n\n死んだ/死んでいる馬に鞭を打つ is grammatically fine and makes perfect sense. Maybe 死に馬に鞭を打つ\nsounds better as a proverb.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T08:57:22.233", "id": "15104", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T09:05:33.427", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-28T09:05:33.427", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15029", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not sure if my answer will suffice because I don't know what you know and\ndon't have perfect comprehension of how this works. I will start with what I\nknow:\n\n> 象は鼻が長い。\n\nThis translates to \"elephants have long noses\"\n\nOne of the most basic distinctions is that は is used for categorical\nstatements and が to refer to particulars. The second thing going in the\nsentence you are considering above is that when there is subordinate clause,\nit takes が and the main clause takes は. That I take is the main thing trying\nto be expressed by the example sentence there.\n\nMoving to your other sentence:\n\n> 新しい合金が開発された。医療用や通信用など、用途は広い。\n\nIn English, \"a new alloy was discovered. Its medical uses, transmission uses,\n,etc., are broad.\"\n\nThe first sentence uses が because the emphasis is on the discovery of the\nmetal alloy. The second second sentence uses what I take to be a は of judgment\nserving to summarize the different applications and express something about\nthem generally. In this case, it's pretty similar to the は about elephants --\nmaking a general statement about a category (\"its applications\" / \"elephants\")", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-25T01:46:01.210", "id": "15035", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-25T01:46:01.210", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "15032", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 }, { "body": "If you list to people speaking, usually after they say は there is a slight\npause. This also happens in English when we are staying something...... and\nthen want to say something about it.\n\n医療用や通信用など、用途は広い。 This sounds like a line from a documentary. In medicine,\ncommunication - its uses ..... are VAST!\n\nThe point of the sentence is that the usages are vast, which is being said at\nthe end of the sentence as if you didn't catch how vast from the example of\n'medical allll the way to communications'.\n\nBasically the thing about は is that it can override を or が. So usually a\nsentence might be using を or が as normal, but if focus want's to be put on\nthat area of the sentence then は can be swapped in instead.\n\n象は鼻が長い。 Elephants: Their noses are long (weird because there aren't many times\nyou would actually say something like this right?)\n\n象が鼻が長い。 Elephants have noses that are long. (notice how this sounds off in\nenglish, well it sounds a bit off in japanese too and its kind of random.)\n\n用途は広い。 Uses are vast! Sounds like that's the point of the sentence. が just\ndoesn't do it justice in this sentence simply because it doesn't give the\nsentence a decent 'point'.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T19:23:46.873", "id": "15246", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-04T19:23:46.873", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I just finished reading a book about Japanese grammar and there was a very\nenlightening discussion on the difference of は and が. I'm just a native user\nof Japanese trying to rediscover the language, so please don't take this\nanswer as authoritative or formally correct. It's just my current\nunderstanding of the difference. Probably this isn't new to those who have\nbeen studying Japanese as a second-language, but being native I have never\nthought about the difference in a structured way.\n\nBoth は and が are used for subjects, but the main difference is that は\nindicates where the topic of the conversation is, while が simply indicates\nwhat subjects are for each clause that may exist in a more complicated\nsentence. That is why a sentence that contains more than one は sounds very\nawkward (the topic focus should be on one and only one item at a time), while\na single は can be accompanied with multiple が in a single sentence.\n\nFrom that view point, it seems the sentence\n\n> 新しい合金が開発された。医療用や通信用など、用途は広い。\n\nis most naturally rephrased as\n\n> 新しく開発された合金の用途は、医療や通信など多岐に渡る。\n\nI used a slightly different expression 多岐に渡る, which in this context means the\nsame thing. To me, the key here is that the topic of this particular\nconversation lies in the wide variety of use, and not just the fact that the\nnew alloy was developed. That makes sense given that the new development of\nalloy is exciting only because it has broad applications.\n\nWhat makes slightly complicated is that the original phrasing sounds very\nnatural when broken up into two like given. The development of alloy itself is\na new piece of information, so it should be introduced in that way before\nleading to a sentence that conveys a more exiting piece of information which\nreally is the topic of the conversation.\n\nAs for\n\n> 象は鼻が長い。\n\nthe topic of the sentence is an elephant itself. Perhaps the conversation\naround this sentence is about elephants, and the fact that their nose is long\nis an additional piece of information that got into the conversation.\n\nIf instead you say\n\n> 鼻は象が長い。\n\nthen the topic of the sentence shifts to nose. Perhaps the conversation was\nabout nose of animals in general, and someone just mentioned the fact that\nelephants have a notably long nose compared to other animals.\n\nOn the other hand, both\n\n> 象は鼻は長い and 象が鼻が長い。\n\nsound very awkward to me, since the former is ambiguous as to where the topic\nlies, and the latter simply does not makes sense. Likely because 象が長い does not\nmake sense by itself.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-28T16:51:02.260", "id": "15639", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-28T16:51:02.260", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1692", "parent_id": "15032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "(Sorry for my late post)\n\nIn the case of 新しい合金が開発された。医療用や通信用など、用途は広い, the 用途 is already one of common\nagenda for readers of the technical article. That's why it's marked with は. In\nother words, it's virtually the same as a case when the auther is asked how\nversatility of goods is.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-29T09:21:53.193", "id": "16185", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-29T09:21:53.193", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4092", "parent_id": "15032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "You are correct regarding the first sentence:\n\n> 新しい合金が開発された。\n\nが is being used for two good reasons here:\n\n * New information is being revealed to the reader.\n * 開発された is a passive verb.\n\nAs for the second sentence:\n\n> 医療用や通信用など、用途は広い。\n\nは is marking the subject of this sentence, which is 用途.\n\nThis differs from the third sentence for the following reasons:\n\n> 象は鼻が長い。\n\n * In this instance, は is forming a contrast to something else, for example: これは短いけど、これは長い。The latter is a valid sentence and the double use of は is acceptable because it forms a contrast to another thing which is different. So 象は silently implies that there are other animals whose noses are not long.\n * 象 is the subject of this sentence, so が must be used here to pave way for the adjective, 長い.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-29T10:13:51.890", "id": "16186", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-29T10:13:51.890", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4965", "parent_id": "15032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I think the example sentences might just be clumsily formulated; and some of\nthat clumsiness translates to English:\n\n> 新しい合金が開発された。 医療用や通信用など、用途は広い。\n>\n> A new alloy has been developed. Its uses, such as in medicine and\n> communications, among other things, are many.\n\nAs it seems to me that the sentence might have been constructed to teach kanji\nrather than grammar, a better phrasing, retaining all kanji, might be as\nfollows:\n\n> 用途の広い新しい合金は開発された。医療用や通信用などある。\n>\n> A versatile new alloy has been developed. Its uses include medicine and\n> communications, among other things.\n\nAs for the elephant in the room:\n\n> 象は鼻が長い。\n>\n> Elephants have long noses.\n\nWhile it would seem as if the way to rephrase this to focus on the nose would\nbe to simply flip the は and が; this is not really the case; although that'll\nwork as well:\n\n> 鼻は象が長い。\n>\n> As far as noses are concerned, elephants are long.\n\nWhile this is (kind of) true, it's not a very good sentence: Its focus is not\non elephants' noses, as such, but on noses in a more universal sense.\n\nA more natural and idiomatic phrasing would be:\n\n> 象の鼻は長い。\n>\n> Elephants' noses are long.\n\nThis focuses on the nose aspect of the elephant (as opposed to say the fur\naspect or the leg aspect, of the elephant).\n\nDispensing with は entirely, you then get:\n\n> 象の鼻が長い。\n>\n> Elephants' noses are long.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-06-02T11:28:52.040", "id": "16262", "last_activity_date": "2014-06-02T11:28:52.040", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "519", "parent_id": "15032", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "First to deal with the Japanese language related question as to whether we\ncould use 交番 to refer old British telephone boxes: As a result of the\ndiscussion on these pages I would say yes because although there seem to have\nmany types of British police boxes, they were on the whole very similar in\nfunction to the 交番 to be found in Japan.\n\nA Japanese 交番 is more like a mini-police station manned 24/7, or if you like\nsomewhere between a glorified sentry-box (where a soldier would stand on duty)\nand a guard-hut, rather like you find at gates, where there might be one guard\nwatching out on duty and perhaps another in the back room which probably\ncontains a small office and place to rest. My dictionary give the expression\n交替で番に当たること which I translate as \"to guard in shifts\".\n\nWe can see from this site: henderson-\ntele.com/policeboxes/policeboxes/bytown.html that Dr Who's Tardis was only one\na huge variety of police boxes in Britain, and although the main function may\nbeen for police officers and the general public to contact their local station\nin the early days of telephones and portable 2-way radio was portable, they\nalso functioned as a \"local police office\". (The Tardis type was smaller than\nmany but also fell into this category.) googling \"交番 明治 photos\" reveals that\nearly Japanese 交番 have also varied in design and size but given that they\nusually also functioned as a \"local office\" 交番 is probably correct expression.\n\nSecond, to deal with Dr Who and translation of Tardis: When the show was put\non Japanese TV several years ago it was referred to as a ターディス. The wiki-link\n([http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ターディス](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%B9))\nand related wiki-entries explain Dr Who, what the Tardis is and where the name\ncomes from. I am not an expert on the show or the Tardis but, as a time\nmachine (タイムマシン）, its ability to travel through Time and Relative Dimensions\nin Space (TARDIS) seems to lead to it being referred to as an asteroid (小惑星）of\nsome sort. The real fans can probably explain better than I but:\n\nIf you google \"Dr Who Japanese\" several pages come up including some English\nfeatures in Japanese papers. Police boxes are vary rare in the UK now so they\ndon't mean much to many fans there either but one article suggests:\n\n\"The fact that on almost every corner in Tokyo there is a Police Box\n(otherwise known as a Koban) and some of these places actually say 'POLICE\nBOX' on the front, is unlikely to have been lost on NHK. Expect some\nintergalactic police advertisements soon.\"\n\n(Link: <http://www.sylvestermccoy.com/doctorwhojapan/>)\n\nSo to summarise: The Tardis is known as ターディス in Japan. People are familiar\nwith time travel etc but its guise as a police box probably means about the\nsame (ie is as confusing) to Japanese fans as it must be to its British fans\nunder 40 although the existence of 交番 in Japan might be of some help. The old\nBritish police boxes were, on the whole, very similar in function to the 交番 to\nbe found in Japan and therefore 交番 is probably the appropriate expression.", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-25T01:49:43.143", "id": "15036", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T00:49:12.427", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-26T00:49:12.427", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15034", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "This may be a weird thing to say but if one already knew what\n「[Noun]が[Noun]なだけに」 meant, that explanation in your book would make pretty\ngood sense with minor alterations.\n\n> \"unlike other things, [Noun] is special, so...\"\n>\n> ↓\n>\n> \"unlike other [Noun]s, this particular [Noun] is so special that...\"\n\n「[Noun]が[Noun]なだけに」 describes a special kind of situation requiring an equally\nspecial kind of action or treatment.\n\nFrom the sentence:\n\n> 「部長に連絡しなきゃいけないんだけど、時間が時間だけに電話はまずいよね。」\n\nOne would know that an unexpected event occured very late at night, so it\nwould not be a good idea to call the boss immediately. It does not say \"too\nsoon\" as you stated. It is saying \"too late at night\". How do I know? I know\nfrom the last part of B's reply --- 「明日の朝報告したら？」 = \"Why don't we report to him\ntomorrow morning?\".\n\nTo repeat, it is saying:\n\n> \"unlike other times (of the day) this time (of the day) is special, so ~~\"\n\nIt is NOT saying:\n\n> \"unlike other things, this time (of the day) is special, so ~~\"", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-25T08:30:20.867", "id": "15040", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-25T10:02:00.670", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15039", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Since nobody has touched upon this:\n\n> [Noun]が[Noun]なだけに\n\nis just one manifestation of a more abstract pattern, which is \"[Noun] [(same)\nNoun] _copula_ \".\n\n> 時間も時間だし、帰るか It's getting late, let's go home \n> 性格が性格なので、友達があまりいない He doesn't have a lot of friends because of his\n> personality\n\nThe rough meaning is that the [Noun] is unusual/extreme, or calls for\n(special) action in some way. Like in the second example above, it can\nsometimes be useful when you want to be purposely vague about how [Noun] is\nunusual/extreme.\n\n\"[Noun]が[Noun]なだけに\" is just this pattern with だけに and its usual meaning.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T01:43:42.427", "id": "15044", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T01:43:42.427", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "15039", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "If you're looking at a book store you'll probably find those kinds of books in\nthe 語学{ごがく} section. You'll generally find JLPT test prep or other English-\nlanguage materials for learning Japanese there (at least in my experience), as\nwell as a variety of other foreign language learning materials.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T00:12:31.053", "id": "15043", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T01:51:24.903", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-26T01:51:24.903", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "15042", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "I think the name will vary and in smaller book shops where sales of foreign\nbooks let alone Japanese text books are rare you may not find anything.\n\nBy chance today I noticed in Kinokuniya, one of the largest book shops in\nTokyo, that the Japanese text book section was next to the foreign books and\nmagazine section and split into:\n\n> 日本語教育 and \"Learning Japanese\".\n\nThe more difficult books seemed to be in the 日本語教育 section.\n\nBooks on 国語 are normally near the foreign books, in between you will probably\nfind sections on Japanese text books, how to teach Japanese (in Japanese),\n\"About Japan\"/Japanese Culture, Japanese readers and learning other languages\n(eg Chinese).\n\nAs I said, I think the name varies but if you don't want to ask for 日本語の教科書\n(中古＝2nd hand) then I would start by looking for foreign books or 国語 sections.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T10:41:25.580", "id": "15061", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T10:41:25.580", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15042", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Symbols like ⇔ and ↔ are, well, just symbols. They are formal enough that\nUnicode assigns distinctive code points, but it's certainly not in the same\nleague as ひらがな or かたかな, and I wouldn't consider them to be a part of the\nsyntax of Japanese.\n\nDictionaries almost always develop their own shorthand notations to pack more\ninformation into the same amount of pages, and use of ⇔/↔ as antonyms are just\none of them. The use of such notations have to be consistent within a given\ndictionary, but I don't think there's any universal convention across major\ndictionaries. So one dictionary using ⇔ while another using ↔ doesn't surprise\nme. Every dictionary has a legend in the beginning describing what all those\nshorthands mean, so if you want to learn more about them, just check the first\nfew pages.\n\nI don't think these shorthand notations are unique to Japanese dictionaries,\neither. I believe English dictionaries refer to nouns simply as \"n.\", for\nexample.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T06:05:41.147", "id": "15052", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T06:05:41.147", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15046", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "These arrows aren't part of the Japanese language, and therefore aren't part\nof Japanese syntax. They're written symbols, and they aren't used to\ncorrespond to any particular spoken utterance.\n\nIf you did consider `⇔` or `↔` syntactically, you could call it a **unary\nprefix operator** , taking a single operand which follows the operator itself:\n\n> ⇔はやい\n\nAlthough to fit with its semantics, you might pretend it's a **binary infix\noperator** with the first operand obligatorily deleted, with the missing\ninformation recoverable from context:\n\n> ~~おそい~~ ⇔はやい\n\nBut these analyses would only be useful in particular contexts, as in the\ndictionaries where you found them. As you noticed, these conventions _do_\ndiffer from dictionary to dictionary. Most dictionaries explain how they use\nspecial symbols in a section inside the front cover or available online. For\nexample, see the [凡例 for\n大辞林](http://www.sanseido.net/main/Dictionary/Hanrei/daijirin_v3.aspx).\n(However, these symbols aren't usually described in syntactic terms.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T09:31:26.457", "id": "15056", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T09:39:57.797", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-26T09:39:57.797", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15046", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "1. ↔ ⇔, etc. are not a part of Japanese.\n 2. Convention.\n\nTurn to the 「凡例」 part of any dictionary and you will find the the notation and\nconvention it uses. Obviously, there are differences among them.\n\n[大辞泉・凡例](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/help/jn/06_01.html)\n\n> 5. 語義解説の末尾には対義語・対語を↔で示した。 \n> あが・る【上がる／揚がる／挙がる】…↔おりる。 \n> だい‐じょう【大乗】…↔小乗。\n>\n> 6. 参照する項目などについては、語義解説の末尾に → で示した。 \n> あい‐そ【愛想】…→愛嬌(あいきよう)［用法］\n>\n> 7. 語義解説のすべてを別の項目にゆだねるときは、⇨を用いてその見出しを示した。 \n> きゃく‐し【客思】⇨かくし（客思） \n> こくさい‐ろうどうきかん〔‐ラウドウキクワン〕【国際労働機関】⇨アイ‐エル‐オー（ＩＬＯ）\n\n[大辞林・凡例](http://www.sanseido.net/main/Dictionary/Hanrei/daijirin_v3.aspx)\n\n> 3. 子見出しとなる慣用句・ことわざなどの句項目は、[句] → の後ろに行を改めて、漢字仮名交じりで示した。 \n> あげ く [0]【 挙（げ）句・揚（げ）句 】 \n> ［句］ → 挙げ句の果て \n> あし [2]【 足・脚 】 \n> ［句］ → 足を洗う\n>\n> * * *\n>\n> (10) 対義語は ↔ を用いて示した。対義語が二つ以上の語義区分に共通する場合は ▽ でまとめて示した。\n>\n> (11) 参照項目は→で示した。\n>\n> (12) 解説をすべて他の見出しで行なった場合は、その見出しを⇒ のあとに示した。\n\n[新英和大辞典](http://kod.kenkyusha.co.jp/demo/eidai/honmon.jsp?id=0040110)\n\n> cf. 参照すべき語句を示す. \n> ⇒ その先の語句に詳しい説明があることを示す. \n> (←→) 訳語の後で対照語(句)を示す.\n\n[故事ことわざ・慣用句辞典](http://www.sanseido.net/Main/Dictionary/Hanrei/kotowaza.aspx)\ndoes not use ⇔ or ↔.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T09:46:17.913", "id": "15058", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T10:25:14.733", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "4833", "parent_id": "15046", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "As you seem to have already answered yourself in your own translations, \"の\"\nwith accent/intonation in the end turns a sentence into a question.\n\nNote however that if you don't put such an emphasis in the end, \"の\" just act\nas a slight softner of the sentence and doesn't turn the sentence into a\nquestion. This form sounds like a child speak, so I don't recommend you use it\nyourself.\n\n```\n\n 今日はコーヒーを飲んだの: I had some coffee today\n \n```", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T05:02:36.897", "id": "15048", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T05:02:36.897", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15047", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Generally speaking a sentence ending in の will be less formal equivalent of\nthe \"の／んです\" construction. Hence:\n\n> Questions ending in の, as in your examples, are less formal equivalents of\n> the same questions ending in んですか.\n\nLikewise\n\n> Questions ending in the plain/past form are less formal equivalents of (in\n> your examples) questions ending with 来ます（か？）／食べました（か？）\n\n_**Notes_** : \n1) I have assumed you are familiar with the use of \"の／んです vs です／〜ます\" but for\nreference:\n\n> \"When んですis used in questions or in the でしょう constructions, it is used to\n> express one's conjectures on the basis of what one has heard or observed\" eg\n> 雨が降っているんですか〜\"Is it that it is raining\" as opposed to \"Is it raining\" (ref\n> below)\n\n2) I have also assumed your focus is on questions: Sentences that are not\nquestions using \"の／んです\" (and its variants) are used for explanation, rapport,\nreproach and \"backgrounding\". This is covered in the same reference given\nbelow. [I would classify \"soft sounding affirmation\" discussed below as an\nexample of rapport.] \n3) Your examples are probably spoken with slightly raised tone at the end of\nthe sentence to make it clear you are asking a question, as you might do in\nEnglish. \n4) If the sentence ends in か then raising your voice at the end of a sentence\nis less important. \n5) I said の is equivalent to のですか rather than のです because I think you are less\nlikely to hear questions asked that way but its not inconceivable (in your\nsentences it is clear from the the 何時に／何を that they are questions).\n\n_Ref: A students' guide to Japanese Grammar, Naomi Hanaoka McGloin, p89/90_", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T05:04:05.757", "id": "15049", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T15:48:57.460", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-26T15:48:57.460", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15047", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The main thing to take into account here is the ~てもらう that's used in the\nsecond sentence. With this construction, the subject receives the benefit of\nan action.\n\nTo illustrate:\n\n> 母【はは】に晩【ばん】ご飯【はん】を作【つく】ってもらった。 (My mother made dinner for me.)\n>\n> 先生【せんせい】に文章【ぶんしょう】を読【よ】んでもらった。 (The teacher read the sentence for us.)\n\nSo in this case, it's not simply that people are asking directions, but that\nthey're asking directions for the policeman. It would imply that the policeman\nprobably gets lost a lot.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T06:38:10.960", "id": "15053", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T06:45:03.280", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-26T06:45:03.280", "last_editor_user_id": "4039", "owner_user_id": "4039", "parent_id": "15051", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Yes, you are missing something important in the second sentence\n「よく道を聞いてもらいます。」. Your understanding of the first is good, judging from the TL.\n\nThe second sentence, by the way, is 100% grammatical but its content/meaning\nis more than just weird. It is highly unlikely that a policeman would say it\nunless there was an incredibly super-shy policeman somewhere.\n\n> 「よく道を聞いてもらいます。」 = \"I often have people ask others for directions FOR me.\"\n\nThis means that the cop not only often gets lost but he also chooses to ask\npeople around to ask others for directions instead of asking them himself when\nhe gets lost. Thus, I called it more than weird.\n\n(I must mention that in highly colloquial speech, the second sentence with\n「聞いてもらいます」 is actually used occasionally by a small group of native speakers\nto mean the virtually same thing as 「聞かれます」. That is, however, a substandard\nusage and it would be unlikely that your professor would have meant to\nintroduce it in class.)\n\nやる/あげる/もらう/くれる are very important key words (and that is just an\nunderstatement). One will not be able to speak or write natural Japanese\nwithout being able to use those correctly because with no exaggeration, we use\nthem all day every day.\n\n「～～てもらう」 implies that the person in question is the receiver of a favor or\nservice. In the sentence 「よく道を聞いてもらいます。」, that person is the speaker who is a\ncop.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T08:04:29.303", "id": "15054", "last_activity_date": "2020-01-10T03:07:31.807", "last_edit_date": "2020-01-10T03:07:31.807", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15051", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "Er... Looks like I had the ability to find out but was looking in the wrong\nspot.\n\nTurns out the [loan words](http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00755NTNI) \"husk\" and\n\"powder\" are normally used. (ハスク)(パウダー)\n\n(I'll probably accept this as my accepted answer in 2 days but if anyone finds\nany alternative writings that would be great.)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T10:13:20.347", "id": "15059", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T10:13:20.347", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4824", "parent_id": "15055", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "This is just a helpful guess based on some research (below) but it would be\ninteresting if someone could use this as an example to explain how to come\nwith the expressions such as this, based on potential components.\n\nAnyway my final suggestions were:\n\nプランタゴ・オバタ種皮の粉末\n\nas per\n\n<http://kakaku.com/item/K0000571718/>\n\nor\n\nプランタゴ・オバタ種皮末\n\nas per\n\n<http://www.tomatolife.com/pino/Plantagoovata.html>\n\n**Research**\n\nBased on the list of words below, I came up with the following expressions:\n\n> オオバコの種子の殻の粉・粉末\n>\n> 粉・粉末のオオバコの種子の殻\n>\n> オオバコの種子の殻粉\n\nand then just googled オオバコ種子\n\nI thought the main problem was the number of ingredients (pun intended) that\ngo into the expression \"psyllium seed husk powder\". It is quite easy to come\nwith the parts, fairly easy to come up with an expression but not so easy to\nstreamline for a label.\n\n**List of words** : \n(These were collected from the my dictionary, space-alc and google-guessing)\n\nオオバコの種子 | psyllium seed\n\nコーヒー豆の殻 | coffee husk \n粉ミルク | Powdered milk \n粉チーズ | Powdered cheese \n粉末原料 | powder raw material \n粉末クリーム | powdered cream 小麦粉 | wheat flour\n\nThere is also a word 殻粉 (から‐こ) which has two meanings:\n\n１ 麩(ふすま)。| wheat bran \n２ 米の粉や小麦粉で作った団子。|Dumpling made from rice powder or flour", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T10:19:04.717", "id": "15060", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T10:47:09.143", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15055", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "For what it's worth, I know of psyllium husk powder both in English and in\nJapanese. I've seen it as\n\n> サイリウムパウダー \n> サイリウムハスクパウダー \n> サイリウムシードパウダー \n> オオバコの粉末 (サイリウム)\n\nin the context of raw food diet recipes (as binding agent). Recipes often just\nwrite something like 「サイリウム (オオバコ) 5g」 though, even if the recipe definitely\ncalls for powder.\n\n(You can find all sorts of transcriptions of \"psyllium husk\" on the internet,\nlike サイリ **ア** ム, but these are usually free transcriptions by vendors, who\nthemselves don't know who uses psyllium husk and for what.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T12:15:19.463", "id": "15063", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T12:30:44.027", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-26T12:30:44.027", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "15055", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Your confusion appears to come from the fact that there are **two completely\ndifferent** 「だと」's.\n\n1) When 「だと」 is used as the **colloquial form of 「であると」** , only nouns can\ndirectly precede it. Here, the na-adjective stems are naturally included as\nwell.\n\n> 「[花子]{はなこ}さんはとてもきれい **だと** [聞]{き}いている。」 = \"I hear that Hanako is very\n> pretty.\"\n>\n> 「[日本]{にほん}で[最]{もっと}も[住]{す}みやすい[町]{まち}は[横浜]{よこはま} **だと** [思]{おも}う。」 = \"I\n> think the town that is easiest to live in in Japan would be Yokohama.\"\n\n2) 「だと」 as an **exclamatory quotative sentence-ender**. With this, you quote\nbasically the exact words that were said to you that you find surprising,\nunexpected, etc. Since what someone says can end in any part of speech, all\nkinds of words can directly precede the 「だと」. The best \"translation\" that I\ncould think of for this 「だと」 would be **\"?!\"** without any words.\n\n> A:「なんでもします。[許]{ゆる}してください！」 = I'll do anything; Please forgive me!\n>\n> B:「なんでもする **だと** ？ なら[小指]{こゆび}よこせっ！」 = You'll do anything?! Gimme your\n> pinky, then!\n\n（なんちゅう会話やねん・・）", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T12:56:14.060", "id": "15064", "last_activity_date": "2019-11-09T01:22:21.443", "last_edit_date": "2019-11-09T01:22:21.443", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15057", "post_type": "answer", "score": 17 } ]

[ { "body": "They are all variations of the same word. The only difference here is the\ndegree of emphasis and where the emphasis is. For example, \"っ\" in \"すっ\" just\nrepresents a bit of pause between \"す\" and \"げ\".\n\n\"ぇ\", \"え\", and \"ー\" all represent dragging of the \"げ\" sound, but \"ー\" is longer\nthan \"え\", and \"ぇ\" is a very short addition. None is more correct than others,\nand the difference is really only significant when you want to precisely\nconvey the way the speaker has pronounced it.\n\nAs a variation, you also see these letters repeated to convey the duration,\nsuch as \"すげええええええええ！\" or \"すげーーーーーーー！\" In addition, because the size of the\nletter of \"ぇ\" is smaller than \"え\", it is also sometimes used not to represent\nthe volume of the sound as in \"すげえええぇぇぇ...\" vs \"すげええええええ\"\n\nYour observation is right that \"ー\" is normally used with Katakana and not with\nHiragana, and in formal writing you almost never see \"ー\" with Hiragana. But\nthe interesting thing about languages is that in some circumstances that\nbecomes the very reason one intentionally chooses to use \"ー\" with Hiragana,\nlike \"すげー\" to adds a subtle hint that the speaker is not very intelligent.\n\nI'm skipping the last part of your question about how to type it in, since\nthere's enough answers on that in the comment section.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T05:55:25.547", "id": "15083", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T05:55:25.547", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15062", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Rather than emphasis, I think such inverted questions occur only in spoken\nlanguage, because the asker wants to know 何ですか \"What was that?\" and just asks\nstraight away. Noticing that he could be asking about any number of things, he\nspecifies, 今の音は.\n\nSuch inverted questions are so common that they're less a sign of surprise or\n\"being startled\" than properly formed questions are a sign of a calm and\ncollected attitude.\n\nSo, 今の音は何ですか? conveys that the teacher is 100% calm and nothing can \"rock his\nworld\". (That said, the difference is very subtle.)\n\nThe meaning, of course, is exactly the same, whether the question is inverted\nor not.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T15:42:25.393", "id": "15068", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T15:42:25.393", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "15066", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "According to Japan Meteorological Agency, by definition, \"AのちB\" stands for \"A\nfor the first half (of the period being forecasted), then B for the latter\nhalf.\"\n\n<http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/kishou/know/faq/faq10.html>\n\nObviously the actual time depends on the \"forecast period\". Unless otherwise\nspecified, \"weather reports for tomorrow\" on evening TV shows refer to the\nweather from 0:00 to 24:00 on the following day. So in this case, \"AのちB\" means\n\"A in the morning (until noon), then B until midnight\".\n\nHowever, \"weather reports for today\", announced 5:00AM daily by JMA for\nexample, covers the resting 19 hours of that day. Theoretically, in this case,\nthe border between A and B will be around, 14:30.\n\nThat said, I think most Japanese people do not care for such details. After\nall, there are always errors in weather forecasting, and when precision is\nneeded, they just avoid using \"のち\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T16:08:56.137", "id": "15093", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T18:08:25.637", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-27T18:08:25.637", "last_editor_user_id": "5010", "owner_user_id": "5010", "parent_id": "15069", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Always use 行 (ぎょう) for the lines (in a book chapter, a programming code,\netc.), _no matter_ whether the sentence is written horizontally (横書き) or\nvertically (縦書き).\n\nFor example, \"Removing three lines from the CSS file\" is as follows:\n\n> CSSファイルから3行抜く", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T15:32:56.960", "id": "15090", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T15:32:56.960", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5010", "parent_id": "15070", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "> Is it true that the meaning of あ可よろし is unknown?\n\n## Short Answer\n\nNo, it's not true.\n\n## Longer Explanation\n\nAccording to [the JA Wikipedia\narticle](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E6%9C%AD), particularly [the\n絵柄【えがら】に関【かん】する注釈【ちゅうしゃく】\nsection](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E6%9C%AD#.E7.B5.B5.E6.9F.84.E3.81.AB.E9.96.A2.E3.81.99.E3.82.8B.E6.B3.A8.E9.87.88),\nthe etymology might not be fully pinned down:\n\n * 「あかよろし」と書かれている。「の」のように見える2文字目は「可」の草書体に由来する変体仮名の「か」（） である。「あかよろし」とは「明らかに良い」という意味かという説もあるが定かではない。 \nWritten as _akayoroshi_. The second character that looks like の ( _no_ ) is\nactually the _hentaigana_  for か ( _ka_ ), derived from the\ncursive form of the character 可. One theory is that \" _akayoroshi_ \" has the\nmeaning of \" _akiraka ni yoi_ (clearly good)\", but this is not certain.\n\nSo let's break this down.\n\n### Part 1: あか\n\nEtymologically, we know that 明らか【あきらか】 comes from a root form _ak-_ that\nunderwent various inflectionary changes, of which _aka_ is one. The Shogakukan\nKokugo Dai Jiten Dictionary entry for あか【赤・紅・朱・緋】 notes:\n\n * 「あか（明）」と同語源という。 ... \nApparently cognate with \" _aka_ (明)\"... \n\n\n### Part 2: よろし\n\nThis is the root of modern adjective 宜しい【よろしい】. Shogakukan's etymology for\nthis states:\n\n * 「よらし」の変化、または、それと同じ経過で「よる（寄）」から派生した語。古代では「よし」が積極的な判定を下すのに対して、「よろし」は消極的で、「よし」よりも低い評価を表し、積極的な「あし」に対する消極的な「わろし（わるし）」の反対 \nA change from _yorashi_ , or a derivative by similar means from _yoru_ (寄る).\nIn ancient times, _yoshi_ indicated an affirmative judgment, whereas _yoroshi_\nwas more reserved, implying a lesser valuation than _yoshi_ , contrasting with\nthe affirmative _ashi_ and more reserved _waroshi_ ( _warushi_ )\n\nDrilling down, _yorashi_ was an adjective with an original meaning indicating\n\"something inviting approach, something you want to get closer to\" (c.f.\n寄る【よる】, \"come near, draw near\"), extending then to \"good\". The bit about\naffirmative versus reserved can be further explained as _yoshi_ == \"good\",\n_yoroshi_ == \"not bad\", _waroshi_ == \"not good\", _ashi_ == \"bad\".\n\n(Note that this four-way breakdown is for ancient Japanese -- in modern\nJapanese, _yoi_ == \"good\", _yoroshii_ == \"good [in polite speech]\", _warui_ ==\n\"bad\", and _ashi_ has almost disappeared, persisting only in certain set\nphrases like 善し【よし】悪し【あし】 \"the good and the bad\".)\n\n### Conclusion\n\nWithout further research to document this as a phrase used in older forms of\nJapanese, this remains only a theory, as noted in the JA Wikipedia article\nnotes. I did search the online _Man'yōshū_ at [the University of Virginia's\nsite](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/), but I found [zero\nhits](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aetext.lib.virginia.edu%2Fjapanese%2Fmanyoshu%2F+%22%E3%81%82%E3%81%8B%22+%22%E3%82%88%E3%82%8D%E3%81%97%22&oq=site%3Aetext.lib.virginia.edu%2Fjapanese%2Fmanyoshu%2F+%22%E3%81%82%E3%81%8B%22+%22%E3%82%88%E3%82%8D%E3%81%97%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.11551j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8)\nwhere _aka_ was immediately followed by _yoroshi_. But then the _Man'yōshū_ is\nonly one ancient text, leaving open the possibilities that any _aka yoroshi_\nphrase appeared later in the development of the language, or might have been\ndialectal, or might simply not have been used by the authors of the\n_Man'yōshū_.\n\nAll that said, given the etymologies of the parts, there appears to be ample\nroom for this phrase to have been in existence originally as 明か宜し ( _aka\nyoroshi_ ), without it necessarily being a corrupted or broken-down version of\n_akiraka ni yoroshii_.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-15T01:03:45.157", "id": "15945", "last_activity_date": "2015-11-05T00:05:16.593", "last_edit_date": "2015-11-05T00:05:16.593", "last_editor_user_id": "5229", "owner_user_id": "5229", "parent_id": "15072", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, the two sentences about kanji have the same meaning, but there is a\nslight difference in nuance or, I should say, focus.\n\nSentence #2 「[学年]{がくねん}ごとに[学習]{がくしゅう}する[漢字]{かんじ}が[決]{き}まっています。」 sounds more\n\"neutral\" or \"generic\" than Sentence #1. It does not place a focus on\nanything.\n\nSentence #1 「学年ごとに学習する漢字が決められています。」, being in the passive voice form, places\nan amount of focus on the fact that people with power got together and decided\nwhich kanji should be learned by what grade kids.\n\nHowever, if I had seen #1 all by itself, instead of side by side with #2, I\nactually might not have felt the focus I mentioned as much as I did when the\ntwo sentences were given in a pair from the beginning.\n\nYour second pair of sentences about a thing being placed on the desk is a\ndifferent story. The first sentence 「[机]{つくえ}の[上]{うえ}に[載]{の}っている。」 sounds much\nmore neutral and natural. It just says that something is on the desk.\n\nThe passive voice version 「机の上に載せられている。」 sounds like someone went to the\ntrouble of putting something on the desk for a specific purpose. It could\nsound like there is a problem with the thing that was placed on the desk.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T02:32:33.660", "id": "15076", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T02:37:46.143", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-27T02:37:46.143", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15074", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Fascinating find! The list is breaking apart the 教育漢字 into the six historical\ngroupings identified around the second century. Their relevance to kanji\neducation is disputed in modern times, but scholars like myself find it\ninteresting nonetheless.\n\nYou can read about it in great detail on\n[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification),\nbut here is a quick overview:\n\n * 象形 **Pictographic characters.** These are intended to illustrate concrete objects\n * 指事 **Ideographic characters.** These are combinations of simpler characters intended to convey more complex concepts\n * 会意 **Compound Ideographs.** These combine characters from the second group to convey still more complex ideas\n * 形声 **Phonetic Compounds.** By far the largest group; these characters usually consist of a semantic radical (by which it is usually classified) paired with another character that has the intended reading. Since the pairing was typically made several hundred years ago, there is a chance of shift in the relationship between the phonetic compound and the character that provided the reading. Common reasons for this include when both characters were imported into Japanese and shifting patterns in which readings are preferred.\n\nThese four groups address the origins of all characters as they were\noriginally conceived and used. The last two groups address what happened to\nsome characters over time as the needs of the Chinese language evolved:\n\n * 仮借 **Phonetic Loans.** These characters were borrowed to convey a concept for which there was no existing character. The choice was driven by the fact that the sound associated with the concept happened to match that of the character borrowed. To steal Wiki's example, 來 (modern 来) was originally a pictographic character for \"wheat\", however it eventually started being used to represent the sound \"lai\" as in \"come\"—a usage that persists to the modern day.\n * 転注 **Derivative Cognates.** Characters that are supposedly of the same origin (e.g. variants as opposed to distinct characters) that eventually diverged to represent completely different concepts (such as 考 and 老, as cited by the article). A disputed and hard-to-grasp grouping.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T03:08:35.630", "id": "15079", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T03:08:35.630", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15075", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "Why don't you post this question in Chinese Language Stack Exchange?\n\nBoth 見 and 光 should be 会意. The 儿 parts are actually “人”. 風 is 凡+虫(animals, not\ninsects). For some reasons, consonant endings “-m” and “-ng” in old Chinese\nwere sometimes used interchangeably, so 風 and 凡 were homophones. Similarly 鳳\ncontains the 凡 part too.\n\nAs for 花, 雪, 時, 島, etc. you can of course create poetic explanations, just as\nexplaining かんなづき as 神無き月 rather than 神の月, but I'm afraid it will not be\naccepted by serious scholars.\n\n花 was originally written as 華, which is a 象形文字.\n\nGenerally speaking, 形声 and 会意 are usually more abstract (adjectives, verbs,\nabstract nouns, etc.) and 象形 is usually more concrete. (name of objects, etc.)\nThere are of course many situations in which its not easy to tell if a\ncharacter is 会意, 形声 or 象形.\n\nFor example, 浅 little depth, 銭 little weight, 贱 little value, 盏 small cup,\netc. All of them seem to have the same origin 戋 small.\n\n雪 was originally written as 雨 + 彗(clear, broom, sweep). It can be either 形声 or\n会意. 雪 can be used as a verb meaning “to clear”.\n[雪冤](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/124191/m0u/)\n\nSee wiki [右文説](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B3%E6%96%87%E8%AA%AC) for\nmore information.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T15:55:41.023", "id": "15092", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T16:16:12.627", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-27T16:16:12.627", "last_editor_user_id": "4833", "owner_user_id": "4833", "parent_id": "15075", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "「状況が直った」 sounds kind of informal and depending on who you are speaking to, it\ncould sound a little bit unadultlike. How about a 「状況が[改善]{かいぜん}した or された」?\n\n「余計な」 would sound too colloquial here. I would use 「[不要]{ふよう}な」 or\n「[不必要]{ふひつよう}な」.\n\n「抜く」 also sounds conversational. You might go with 「[削除]{さくじょ}する」\n\nExamples:\n\n> 「不要な行を削除したところ、状況が改善した。」\n>\n> 「不要な行を削除したところ、状況に改善が見られた。」 ← My best TL.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T03:48:17.507", "id": "15080", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T04:05:34.973", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15077", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "「Noun + だ + Noun + だと」 is a pretty common way to list 2-3 items. The 「と」 at\nthe end of the list is indispensable, too.\n\nNothing to do with the question but the 「就職したらして」 part makes little sense. I\nwould expect a 「就職したらしたで」 there.\n\nExample:\n\n> 「[夏]{なつ}になるとビールだアイスクリームだかき[氷]{ごおり}だと、つい[冷]{つめ}たいものを[摂]{と}りすぎてしまう。」\n>\n> = \"In the summer, I tend to consume too much cold stuff like beer, icecream,\n> shaved ice, etc.\"\n\nThis listing construction is often, but not always, preceded by the\nexclamation 「[やれ]{HL}」. See #6 here:\n<http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/223445/m0u/>", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T06:06:15.177", "id": "15084", "last_activity_date": "2020-02-22T14:55:53.937", "last_edit_date": "2020-02-22T14:55:53.937", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15082", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "That is clearly two sentences and you divided it correctly at the end of\n「[私一人]{わたしひとり}でいい」.\n\n「[闘]{たたか}い」 is the [連用形]{れんようけい} of the verb 「闘う」 and it has the same meaning\nas 「闘って」, the inexplicably popular form among Japanese-learners. 「闘い」 is\nsurely more formal than 「闘って」 but it is NOT for literary use only as you seem\nto have learned incorrectly somewhere. 連用形 is used in fairly informal speech\nas well.\n\n「ただしお[前達]{まえたち}の[相手]{あいて}は私一人でいい。」 is 100% natural. You could replace the\n「でいい」 by a 「だ」 if it were only for grammatical correctness. Meaning-wise,\nhowever, 「でいい」 adds much more. It expresses the speaker's agreement to the\nfighting rules that could possibly be disadvantageous to him. In other words,\nthe speaker is already very confident of his victory as he speaks.\n\n「いい」 does not modify 「一対一で」 as the first sentence ends with the 「いい」. And no,\n「闘い」 is not a noun here; It is a verb.\n\n> \"However, I do not mind being you guys' only opponent.\"\n>\n> \"We will fight one on one (at a time) and if i win, the next guy will fight\n> with me again.\"", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T14:15:35.850", "id": "15088", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T14:15:35.850", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15086", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "At its core, the difference is that う is the 音読み, and thus is used in 漢語【かんご】\n(words of Chinese origin). あめ and its related forms are 訓読み, and are used in\ncombination with other readings of Japanese origin.\n\nNow to get into some specifics...\n\n**Using あま**\n\nあま is related to あめ, and is used when あめ appears at the front of a compound\nand a vowel shift is required. For example:\n\n * 雨燕【あまつばめ】 a type of bird\n * 雨漏り【あまもり】 a leak\n * 雨水【あまみず】\n\nさめ as in 小雨【こさめ】 is another sound shift-based derivative, this time for when\nit appears at the end of a compound.\n\nあま is also a reading for 天 (which has to do with the sky in this case),\nhowever this is in fact distinct from 雨 in nearly all cases. A review of\nmatched pairings in 大辞林 produced just three such cases, each of which is\nclose-but-not-quite:\n\n * 天雲・雨雲 - technically it's くも for the first and ぐも for the second, but the dictionary indicates they are near-synonymous words for \"the clouds in the sky\". The distinguishing factor being that in the case of 雨 they naturally appear like they could start to rain any time.\n * 天衣・雨衣 - both あまごろも. 天 indicates what a heavenly being would wear, while 雨 indicates rain gear.\n * 天彦・雨彦 - both あまびこ. 天 indicates an echo, 雨 is a name from classical poetry\n\n**Using う**\n\nう is the Chinese-derived reading, and as such is used in 漢語. The 大辞林 entry on\n雨【う】 provides several meanings and example uses:\n\nRain\n\n * 雨滴【うてき】 raindrop\n * 雨天【うてん】 rainy weather\n * 雨量【うりょう】 rainfall; amount of precipitation\n * 降雨【こうう】 rain; rainfall\n * 慈雨【じう】 a welcome rain\n * 驟雨【しゆうう】 a sudden shower\n * 雷雨【らいう】 a thunderstorm\n * 霖雨【りんう】 a rain that continues for several days\n\nExamples of happiness or blessings\n\n * 雨露【うろ】 great blessings (c.f. a country that benefits from the rain and dew). あめつゆ lacks the poeticism, and is simply \"rain and dew\".\n * 慈雨【じう】 see above\n\nExamples of things that fall like rain\n\n * 弾雨【だんう】 a rain of bullets\n\nIn short, poetic usages seem to consistently fall under う. Beyond that あめ or\none of its derivatives is your safest starting point when guessing on an\nunknown compound.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T14:29:26.397", "id": "15089", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T03:13:28.507", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-28T03:13:28.507", "last_editor_user_id": "4914", "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15087", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The same as \"also\" in English. The word \"も\" implies the existence of another\noption.\n\n「お前達の相手は私一人でいい。」 is natural. Simply, the speaker must be very confident about\nthe fight against many opponents in front of him.\n\n「お前達の相手は私一人でもいい。」 sounds weird, but it seems that the speaker implies another\nperson stronger than him is standing by.\n\nカレーライスでいい。 = Curry and rice is acceptable / enough / OK.\n\nカレーライスでもいい。 = Curry and rice is also acceptable (but implies the speaker has\nother choices in his mind.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-27T17:00:36.603", "id": "15094", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-27T17:00:36.603", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5010", "parent_id": "15091", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Your understanding is spot on. In that sentence,\n\n> 「それだけ」＝「その[分]{ぶん}だけ」 = \"just as much\"\n\nHowever, I would be careful about saying that 「[人数]{にんずう}が[多]{おお}ければそれだけ」\nmeans exactly the same thing as 「人数が多ければ多いほど」 in this particular context. This\nis because the latter phrase puts no limit on the number of people.\n\nAdmittedly, I am not familiar with the story, so I have no idea about how many\npeople it is talking about. Knowing the exact context, you are in a better\nposition to decide whether or not 「多ければ多いほど」 can replace the existing phrase.\n\n「それだけ」 does not always mean this. It can mean \"only that\" or \"that is all\" in\nother contexts.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T00:08:57.797", "id": "15097", "last_activity_date": "2021-12-02T00:55:41.270", "last_edit_date": "2021-12-02T00:55:41.270", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15096", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Your observation is correct. In here, \"それ\" refers to \"(人数が)多い\", and \"だけ\" means\n\"to such an extent\" or \"as much as\".\n\n「人数が多ければそれだけ」 = 「人数が多ければ多いだけ」\n\nAnother example:\n\n```\n\n 努力すればそれだけ点数が上がる。\n = 努力すれば努力するだけ点数が上がる。 (それ = 努力する)\n = 努力すれば努力するほど点数が上がる。\n = The more you make an effort, the more your score improves.\n \n```", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T00:27:26.660", "id": "15098", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T00:27:26.660", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5010", "parent_id": "15096", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The correct answer should be 1-4-2-3.\n\nYou have probably seen the common structure \"〜〜という + Noun\" before. 「と」 is a\nquotative particle so you have a good choice in #4 with quotation marks to\nprecede it. So, we have a 4-2 for a start.\n\nThe only choice that starts with a noun is #3, making a 4-2-3 an sure bet\nalready. The only thing you now need to think about is whether to put 「したら」\nbefore or after the 4-2-3.\n\nSince there is no such phrase 「プレッシャーはしたら」 possible, you would put 「したら」 in\nfront of the 4-2-3. 「Person + にしたら」 makes perfect sense, meaning \"to/for\n(person)\", so 「彼にしたら」 sounds good.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T06:04:34.713", "id": "15101", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T12:48:22.930", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-28T12:48:22.930", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15099", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't know what you mean by \"-せる\" form.\n\n-せる can appear at the end of the verb in at least two ways.\n\n * As the potential form of a verb, which ends in -す. 帰す -> 帰せる\n * As the causative form of a verb. 帰る -> 帰らせる\n\nHere, -せる is the potential form of the verb 倒す, so\n\n> 倒す \"to throw over, to knock down\" \n> 倒 **せ** る \"to **be able to** throw over / knock down\" \n> 倒せ **ない** \" **not** to be able to throw over / knock down\"\n\nby which you get\n\n> 倒しません e.g. I don't throw it over (polite) \n> 倒さない e.g. I don't throw it over (informal) \n> 倒 **せ** ません e.g. I **can't** throw it over (polite) \n> 倒 **せ** ない e.g. I **can't** throw it over (informal)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T09:38:12.660", "id": "15105", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T13:19:31.913", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-28T13:19:31.913", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "15103", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "「[働]{はたら}きたくにゃい」 is just a cute way of saying 「働きたくない」. It makes you sound\nlike a kitten speaking.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T09:58:20.643", "id": "15107", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T09:58:20.643", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15106", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "It does indicate a more childish audience—or at least that you don't think\nthey _can_ read kanji. It also, interestingly, makes things much harder to\nread for those who know kanji—doubly so if you don't put spaces in between\nwords or after particles.\n\nHiragana can also be used in place of kanji at times to allow for the\nexecution of Japanese puns in text as well, since all-kana text requires more\ncontext to be clearly understood. Best example of this I can recall is a\nchapter title from Ranma 1/2 called \"ちちと母\" where the expected 父 was left in\nhiragana to provide an allusion to 乳 and the mother's anticipated disapproval\nof her son's transforming condition.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T13:37:27.530", "id": "15109", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T13:43:19.760", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-28T13:43:19.760", "last_editor_user_id": "4914", "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15108", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Extensive use of hiragana by intent will make yourself look immature,\nchildish, unserious, drowsy, cute, innocent, or sometimes less intelligent,\ndepending on the context.\n\nA good but exaggerated example is found\n[here](http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E9%81%8A%E4%BD%90%E3%81%93%E3%81%9A%E3%81%88).\nA very childish character in a game, who is always talking in hiragana.\n\n>\n> …ふわぁ…あなただぁれぇー？…ぷろでゅーさー？…えぇー…かわいいー？…あいどる？うんー…いいよー…やるぅー…あいどるやるぅー。…で、なにするのー？…わらうのー？…ふわぁ\n>\n> Huuuoaaa... who are you? a produucer? eeeh, ... cuuute? an idool? yup...\n> ookay... i do... i do, idol ... so what do i do...? to smile...? Huuoaa....\n\nCombination of 長音符(ー) and hiragana, which is generally prohibited, is also a\ngood way to add extra childishness, as in \"とーきょー\" instead of \"とうきょう\" (東京 or\nTokyo).\n\nIn addition, recently, extensive use of smaller hiragana, when possible, has a\nsimilar effect. It has become a popular way of chatting via their smartphones\namong young schoolgirls (google 若者言葉 or ギャル語 for details and more extreme\nexamples).\n\nSee the following example (the last one may be rather extreme):\n\n```\n\n 今日は雨が降っているよ。 (It's raining today.)\n => きょうは、あめがふっているよ。\n => きょーは、あめがふっているよ。\n => きょーゎ、ぁめがふってぃるょ。\n \n```", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T13:54:05.890", "id": "15110", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T18:09:07.833", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "5010", "parent_id": "15108", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "Thousands of Japanese 熟語 were created in this way.\n\n * 岩石 (がんせき) ≒ 岩 (いわ) (rock)\n * 河川 (かせん) ≒ 川 (かわ) (river)\n * 絵画 (かいが) ≒ 絵 (え) (picture)\n * 自己 (じこ) ≒ 己 (おのれ) (oneself)\n * 身体 (しんたい) ≒ 体 (からだ) (body)\n\n[Japanese Wikipedia\ndescribes](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%86%9F%E8%AA%9E_\\(%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97\\))\na simple reason for this. One kanji character was not long enough to be\ndistinguishable with each other when pronounced with on-yomi. There are [only\na few hundred](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/24378/5010) different on-\nyomi in use. Naturally, people needed to stack two similar characters to\nconstruct one 熟語 usable in everyday speech.\n\n> 類義語を並列させた構造は非常に数が多い。これは以下のような理由による。\n>\n>\n> 漢語の本家である中国語において、一つ一つの単語は単音節的であり、1字が1語を表現する漢字は原則的に1音節の読みしかもたない。しかしその一方で中国語は古代のものに比べ、音韻がより単純なものへと徐々に変化していった。このような過程で\n> **1音節では語の弁別が困難になる** という事態が生じ、その結果、並列構造の漢語は増加し続けてきたという。", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T14:38:02.573", "id": "15112", "last_activity_date": "2018-07-26T09:54:53.553", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "5010", "parent_id": "15111", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Well, for starters, 校 also has the meaning of \"proof\" (as in a proof print of\nsomething; not \"proof\" as in evidence) which is associated with its additional\n音読み \"きょう\".\n\nThat aside, 漢語 **very** strongly favors multi-character compounds. With\nsimpler concepts it therefore makes sense to choose two characters with\nsimilar meanings to convey it, after which one of them can be substituted out\nfor something more specific (c.f. 学校、高校) or further prefixes and suffixes can\nbe added (小学校、中学校, etc.).", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-28T14:43:50.170", "id": "15113", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-28T16:01:03.510", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-28T16:01:03.510", "last_editor_user_id": "4914", "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15111", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "`校` isn't **the** character for \"school\", it's **a** character for \"school\".\nHere are some of the others: `塾`, `学`, `學`, `宗`, `斈`, `泮`, `黉`, `院`, `黌`, ...\n\nCharacters are not a neat logical mapping of one picture to one concept.\n\nIn fact characters are not even Japanese, as I'm sure you know.\n\nCharacters evolved over **_thousands_** of years in China. This means meanings\nchanged, characters changed, new concepts were invented or discovered,\ncharacters were adapted, simplified, devised, etc. Probably over and over\nagain..\n\nThe result was characters with multiple meanings and concepts with multiple\ncharacters, sometimes with subtle differences in nuance, other times just used\nin different regions or in different eras, etc.\n\nMany compound words also evolved, made of two or more characters.\n\nThen Japan borrowed the Chinese characters both as concepts and as pre-formed\nChinese compound words, adapted to Japanese pronunciation, which is utterly\ndifferent to Chinese pronunciation, of which there are many utterly different\nkinds.\n\nCharacters were adapted to Japanese words, new characters were invented in\nJapan, characters changed slightly in how they were written in Japan, new\ncompounds were created of Japanese parts written in characters, and also of\nChinese parts written in characters.\n\nMeanings and pronunciations and concepts also shifted in the time since Japan\nacquired characters.\n\nThen Japanese writing was standardized and simplified, with a smaller number\nof characters remaining common compared to the larger set used formerly.\n\nOne of the results of this long slow natural process was the two characters\nyou've noticed which have among their several meanings at least once meaning\nthat is vaguely similar, with one being used in some rather arbitrary but now\nstandard ways, and the other used in some other rather arbitrary but now\nstandard ways.\n\nYou can expect this with the majority of the words in all languages of the\nworld. And you can also expect it for the majority of characters or\nhieroglyphs, in languages that use such symbols as part of their writing\nsystems.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T07:51:02.610", "id": "15139", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T08:02:58.233", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-30T08:02:58.233", "last_editor_user_id": "125", "owner_user_id": "125", "parent_id": "15111", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not 100% sure if I'm right, but my guess with this is that it just makes\nthe name seem more _unique_. The Zelda universe is full of unusual names, and\nthis might be a shortcut in Japanese to indicate a slightly more exotic name\ngiven the limitations of the syllabic writing system. If I see ナビィ instead of\nナビ it makes me think that the \"i\" sound should be inflected in some non-\nstandard way, even if the characters themselves don't specify exactly which\nway. In Okinawa, for example, ナビィ is the word for 鍋{なべ}. I can't find a\npronunciation guide for it, but the fact that it's used for Okinawa-ben alone\nshould be enough of an indication of what the effect is, I hope.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-05T04:38:21.940", "id": "15250", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-05T04:38:21.940", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "15114", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "As you suggested, by adding 見【み】 in 見殺し the implication is that you're\nstanding by and _watching_ it happen (read: not intervening). For 見捨てる【みすてる】\nit's more along the lines of \"get out of my sight\" in English—someone is being\ncast out.\n\nSince the focus is on etymology and not simply defining things, however, let's\ntake a look at others in this family:\n\n * 見上げる【みあげる】 - to look up to\n * 見下す【みくだす】 - to look down upon\n * 見交わす【みかわす】 - to exchange glances\n * 見付ける【みつける】 - to discover (\"to come into view\")\n * 見入る【みいる】 - to fix one's eyes on\n * 見兼ねる【みかねる】 - to be unable to look at something (e.g. without being moved by pity to act)\n * 見出す【みだす】 - to discover (c.f. 見付ける above)\n * 見分ける【みわける】 - to distinguish (to use the eyes to separate)\n\nAs we can see, each one slightly modifies the base verb to focus on how the\neyes or one's vision is involved. Except for perhaps 出す, 分ける, and 捨てる, it also\nextends the concept of the base action involved (those three still convey\nbringing something out into the open, separating into groups, and throwing\nthings away, however the rest of them would not be appropriate to use in the\nsame sentences without the attached 見).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-29T01:56:20.927", "id": "15117", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-29T01:56:20.927", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15116", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "There is no hidden meaning in the 「見」 part of those verbs -- none.\n\nFirst, not that I think you are mistaken, I want to make sure that we are not\ndiscussing the kanji 「見」 here. Instead, we are discussing the 連用形 of the verb\n「見る」, which only happens to be 「見」. 連用形 is the form of the verb that comes\nfirst in [複合動詞]{ふくごうどうし} , two-verb compound verbs, which words like 見捨てる and\n見殺す are called.\n\nIn all compound verbs starting with 「見」, that part always has to do with\nlooking, watching or seeing. It also needs be clarified that you just happened\nto list two compound verbs with negative meanings. Many have neutral and\npositive meanings.\n\nHere is a sample list of 複合動詞 that start with 「見」, taken from:\n<http://ir.c.chuo-u.ac.jp/repository/search/binary/p/5299/s/3119/>\n\n見合う 見飽きる 見上げる 見あたる 見誤る 見合わせる 見出す 見入る 見受ける 見失う 見送る 見落とす 見下ろす 見返す 見限る 見かける 見かねる\n見交わす 見切る 見極める 見下す 見くびる 見比べる 見越す 見込む 見下げる 見定める 見知る 見据える 見透かす 見過ごす 見捨てる 見損なう\n見初める 見損じる 見出す 見立てる 見違える 見尽くす 見つける 見繕う 見つめる 見積もる 見通す 見とがめる 見とどける 看取る 見とれる 見直す\n見習う 見慣れる 見抜く 見逃す 見計らう 見放す 見張る 見間違う 見守る 見回す 見回る 見向く 見破る 見分ける 見渡す 見忘れる", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-29T02:00:38.313", "id": "15118", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-29T02:00:38.313", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15116", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "見殺し might be similar to 萌え殺し, 飼い殺し, 褒め殺し, 棄て殺し. I think it means\n見ることによって、人を殺す, that is, 見る＝殺す.\n\n見捨てる might be similar to 見限る, 見切る and 見放す. Maybe, the 見 in these words more or\nless contains a kind of “passive” or “inactive” feeling, something like\n面倒を見ていられないから、しかたなくやめる.\n\nAs for the etymology, my hypothesis is 見 might mean “to experience” here. It\nseems that words meaning “to see” often develop into grammatical voice\nmarkers. e.g. “見” is a “passive” marker in Chinese, “相” is a “reciprocal”\nmarker in both Chinese and Japanese (～合う{あう}, 相{あい}～).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-29T17:48:54.213", "id": "15125", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-29T17:48:54.213", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4833", "parent_id": "15116", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "**Heads up:** Some of this is going to be a bit obscure.\n[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handakuten#Phonetic_shifts) covers\nsome of this ground; examples consisting of proper names, place names, etc.\nwere checked via Japanese Wikipedia articles.\n\n> ウィ、ウ、ウェ、ウォ\n\nDue to holes in the ワ column (including the general restriction of 「ヲ」 to\ngrammatical duties), 「ウ」can pair with other vowels to replicate /w/\ncombinations. 「ウ」 on its own fills the role of /wu/. Examples include:\n\n * ウィナー (winner)\n * ウェイジ (wage)\n * ウーマン (woman)\n * ウォーカー (Walker)\n\n> ヰ、ヱ、ヲ\n\nAs they are considered archaic, 「ヰ」 and 「ヱ」 are not typically used. Along with\n「ヲ」, however, they will sometimes appear when a writer or graphic designer\nwants a certain visual impact.\n\n * Ebisu beer spells its name ヱビス in Katakana.\n * The character Kaworu in Evangelion spells his name カヲル. (This does not affect its pronunciation, however, which remains /kaoru/)\n * An archaic spelling for whiskey is ウヰスキー\n\n> ファ、フィ、フェ、フォ\n\nAll of these are in common use, and are rarely to never replaced with their\ncounterparts in the ハ column (where 「フ」 resides) on the basis that they\nrepresent a sound not used commonly in Japanese. When Romanized, however,\n「フ」on its own can be subject to some variation between F and H, for lack of a\n/hu/ sound in Japanese. The ハ column is relatively unique in this blend of two\nconsonants.\n\n * ファイト (fight)\n * フィクション (fiction)\n * フェア (fair)\n * フォーカス (focus)\n\n> クヮ、グヮ\n\nUsually used in the context of Chinese names (e.g. クヮン = Kwan) or phonetic\nspellings of historical Japanese words.\n\n> ヴァ、ヴィ、ヴ、ヴェ、ヴォ\n\nウ with a 濁点【だくてん】 added to it represents V, as in the following:\n\n * ヴァルブ (valve)\n * ヴィデオ (video)\n * ヴ (Vu)\n * ヴェイン (vain)\n * ヴォルテックス (vortex)\n\nWhile these combinations exist, however, using the corresponding character\nfrom the バ column is preferable as it matches the pronunciation that will be\nused in practice (e.g. バルブ、ビデオ、ブ、ベイン、and ボルテックス)\n\n> ティ、ディ\n\nThis is used to get an explicit \"ti\" or \"di\" sound, as opposed to \"chi\" or\n\"dji\"\n\n * バプティスト (Baptist)\n * レディー (lady)\n\n「ティ」is usually replaced with 「チ」for the same reason 「ヴ」usually becomes\n「ブ」(e.g. バプチスト). 「ディ」 is in comparatively common use on the other hand, as the\n/di/ sound does not exist natively in Japanese. Using 「ヂ」 in its place is not\ncommon.\n\n> トゥ、デュ\n\nJust as the previous set provided a regular alternative to \"chi\" and \"dji\",\nthese ones add a regular alternative to \"tsu\" and \"dzu\":\n\n * トゥナイト (tonight)\n * デュオ (duo)\n\n「トゥ」can be replaced with 「ツ」, and many times is (e.g. 「ツー」 “two”). Depending\non the circumstances, however, it is may be left in place. This is especially\nthe case for standardized spellings of names (e.g. 「トゥーレ」 “Touré”).\n\n「デュ」is not usually replaced with 「ヅ」 for the same reason 「ヂ」doesn’t replace\n「ディ」 above; that would require the use of the uncommon kana ヅ.\n\n**Rest from here on are almost purely academic, and most people will never\nencounter them in actual practice.** The following add 濁点 and 半濁点 to\ncharacters that normally would not take them to allow for uncommonly-specific\nrenderings of katakana words, as one might find in linguistic texts.\n\n> ヷヸヴヹヺ\n\nThis is another (archaic) method of rendering V. It is created by adding a 濁点\nto the characters in the ワ column:\n\n * ヷルブ (valve)\n * ヸデオ (video)\n * ヴ (Vu)\n * ヹイン (vain)\n * ヺルテックス (vortex)\n\nAs noted with the other way of representing V, ウ acts as a stand-in for /wu/.\n\n> カ゚キ゚ク゚ケ゚コ゚\n\nAdding a 半濁点 to kana in the カ column produces an initial \"ng\" sound, like can\nbe found in a lot of Vietnamese or Cantonese words:\n\n * パンカ゚ー県 (Phang Nga)\n * キ゚・ロ゙ク (Nghi Lộc)\n * ク゚エン (Nguyễn)\n * ケ゚アン省 (Nghệ An)\n * コ゚ (Ngô)\n\nIn practice these words usually end up being written using the corresponding\nガ行 character instead.\n\n * **TECHNICAL NOTE:** U+309a _(combining handakuten)_ blends naturally with characters that regularly take a 濁点 such as those in the カ、サ、and ダ columns.\n\n> ラ゙リ゙ル゙レ゙ロ゙\n\nAdding a 濁点 to kana in the ラ column is Japanese's way of distinguishing\nbetween L and R in writing.\n\n * ラ゙テン語 (Latin)\n * リ゙スト (list)\n * ル゙ーブル (Louvre)\n * レ゙イト (late)\n * ロ゙ング (long)\n\n * **TECHNICAL NOTE:** U+3099 _(combining dakuten)_ will cause characters that don't normally take a dakuten (such as ラ) to bulge a bit, since it doesn't know where to place the mark.", "comment_count": 11, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-29T02:38:44.147", "id": "15120", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-21T17:37:33.483", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-21T17:37:33.483", "last_editor_user_id": "4914", "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15119", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "「気張らず」 ＝ 「気張らずに」 ＝ 「気張らないで」\n\nThose are the negative and continuative forms of 「気張る」 = \"exert or strain\noneself\".\n\nThus, 「気張らず」 means \"without straining oneself\", \"taking it easy\", etc.\n\n> \"Let's take it easy and go slowly, shall we?\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T01:13:25.520", "id": "15130", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T01:13:25.520", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15121", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The site you've linked to is an interface to the dictionaries Jim Breen has\nput together using both his own resources (as I understand it he has a _lot_\nof dictionaries, including the Morohashi) and crowd-sourced submissions. It's\nthe same data you'll find at WWWJDIC.\n\nIn response to your questions:\n\n 1. Neither source is wrong. They've just chosen to include different things. Your book includes only the readings from the official [常用漢字表](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/pdf/jouyoukanjihyou_h22.pdf). But that doesn't mean the other readings are \"wrong\" or don't exist in some sense. People can and do use readings (and kanji) that aren't on the official chart.\n\nWhen I look up those kanji in 新漢語林, I see しし for 肉 and ベイ for 皿 as well as the\nreadings you've listed. But the same dictionary also tells me that しし and ベイ\naren't included on the official chart. (It's probably worth noting that ニク and\nさら are much more common than しし and ベイ.)\n\n 2. There are a lot of character dictionaries, but none is \"official\" as far as I know. The closest you'll get to official would be the lists published by the government for education, such as the 常用漢字表 (linked above), but these aren't descriptive resources that contain all of the possible/historic readings for a character. \n\nYou might look for a 漢和辞典 at a bookstore. I have 新漢語林, but I've heard that 漢字源\nis a good choice.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-29T18:03:39.087", "id": "15126", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-29T18:20:32.900", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-29T18:20:32.900", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15124", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not really sure what you mean. Looking at the sample sentences at\njisho.org which are Tanaka/Tatoeba, they all fit roughly with that definition.\n\nまさか is an exclamation, so it's going to be hard to provide an exactly\ntranslation that explains how it's used, but I take it that it is used for\nsurprising information.\n\nLooking at the first example:\n\n> まさか、[嘘]｛うそ｝でしょう\n\nI might translate it depending on the level of formality you want the English\nto have as any of the following:\n\n(1) Wow, you've got to be kidding! (2) No way, that's a lie right? (3) That's\nunbelievable. It's a lie right?\n\n* * *\n\nI haven't really seen it used this way much which is also in the corpus (but\nthat could just be a limit of who I encounter and when):\n\n> まさかの時のために彼は保険に加入した。\n\nIn these まさかの時 constructions, I take the meaning to be \"unbelievable/unlikely\ntimes\"\n\n= He insures himself for unlikely times.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T01:13:53.393", "id": "15131", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T01:13:53.393", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "15127", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "You can use まさか with negation.\n\nまさか itself means something is unbelievable and not likely to be true. So the\nsentence following it almost always ends with ない.\n\nE.g. まさかもう彼が来た のではないでしょうね。You can split the sentence into two parts-- It's\nunbelievable that he has already come here. It's probably not true, right?\n\nまさかもう彼が来た とは思わなかった. It's unbelievable that he has already come here. I didn't\nexpect that.\n\nEtymologically, まさか might be related to まさに まさしく and まことに, which all contains\nthe root 真{ま}. So you can imagine まさか is a “REALLY!?”. This might help you\nremember it.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T07:33:27.430", "id": "15137", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T07:33:27.430", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4833", "parent_id": "15127", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "The most common word, according to pretty much all the frequency lists I've\nfound, is:\n\n## する\n\nAlthough if you count particles and auxiliaries, then **の** is probably the\nmost common.\n\nSources:\n\n * [Frequency list 1](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/Japanese)\n * [Frequency list 2](http://www.manythings.org/japanese/words/leeds/)\n * [Frequency list 3](http://shang.kapsi.fi/kanji/jawp-mecab-words.csv)\n * [Frequency list 4](http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/wordfreq_ck.gz)", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T00:11:48.857", "id": "15129", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T00:11:48.857", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15128", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "There are specific verbs which don't take the potential form (offhand I\nremember する, which changes to できる, and 分かる, which you can circumvent by using\n理解できる. Naturally, できる can't be put in the potential form either, due to\nrecursion.). Other than that, I don't recall any verbs that are prohibited\nfrom using specified forms. Transitivity affects particle usage, but all of\nthe verb forms remain available. In the case of intransitives and the\nimperative you can think of it as an order to put things in the state dictated\nby the verb (e.g. 消えろ = \"get yourself gone/make yourself scarce\"; 立ち上がれ =\n\"rise up!\").", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T07:13:14.933", "id": "15135", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T07:26:56.697", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-30T07:26:56.697", "last_editor_user_id": "4914", "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15132", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "another verb that cannot change to potential form is ある However, you can\neither use 可能性がある or advance grammar (~うる) to form ありうる (or ありえます、ありえない）to\nexpress it is possible or impossible", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T08:37:20.730", "id": "15143", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T08:37:20.730", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5040", "parent_id": "15132", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 } ]

[ { "body": "おてもと does refer to chopsticks but it is not \"another word for chopsticks.\"\nThat is, you won't say おてもとを取ってください nor 新しいおてもとを買ってこようかな.\n\nAccording to [the source\narticle](http://www.otuki.co.jp/stories/stories0.html) that Chocolate's\nWikipedia article mentions, the word came from a reference to \"お手もと箸\"\n(chopsticks for your personal use) in contrast to \"お取り箸\", which refers to\nchopsticks for shared dishes that you use to bring food from a shared dish to\nyour personal dish.\n\nGood question about お手許 vs お手元. I couldn't find any source that tells me how\nthose two uses came about being, although I suspect this kind of writing\nvariations aren't all that uncommon.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T04:20:02.820", "id": "15177", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T04:20:02.820", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15134", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "The act of assigning kanjis to words that ignore kanji's meaning is called 当て字\n(ateji), and that has a long history. According to [Wikipedia article on\n当て字](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BD%93%E3%81%A6%E5%AD%97), this was very\ncommon in the past because the language used to rely on Kanji/Hiragana\nboundary to help distinguish nouns, verbs, etc from particles. The article is\nfull of great examples like 珈琲, 滅茶苦茶, and 出鱈目. Country names are full of\nthose, too, such as 亜米利加 (America), 仏蘭西 (France), etc.\n\nAs others have mentioned, 夜露死苦 is an 当て字 unique to [the 暴走族\nculture](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9A%B4%E8%B5%B0%E6%97%8F#.E6.9A.B4.E8.B5.B0.E6.97.8F.E3.81.AE.E6.96.87.E5.8C.96),\nwho tend to proud themselves in being unique, outlaw, and unafraid. They tend\nto prefer kanjis that have negative conotations (死 or 苦), and kanjis that are\nbusier (露).\n\nI should also note that as with any such words whose value depends much on\nnovelty, 夜露死苦 no longer carries its coolness simply because it's been around\nfor too long and is now known by too many people. So today its only used to\nsarcastically refers to the dying 暴走族 culture, and I doubt if any 暴走族 member\nwould use it (if there are still such people, since they are in decline.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T04:55:08.117", "id": "15179", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T04:55:08.117", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15138", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "Having read it several times, I could only say that that is good writing. It\ncontains no errors, ambiguity or unnaturalness; therefore, it would not cause\nany misunderstanding among the readers.\n\nMixing active voice with passive voice in a sentence is nothing new in\nEnglish, is it? Consider the following sentence.\n\n> \"Tofu is made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing to remove the\n> liquid. \"\n\nI find the structure of this English sentence similar to that of the Japanese\nsentence in question. Only, the passive voice verb phrase \"is made\" (「書かれています」\nin the Japanese) will come at the end of the sentence in the Japanese.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T09:25:45.520", "id": "15145", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T09:25:45.520", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15140", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "There's probably too many different reasons why カナ and 漢字 are used / not used\nin contemporary Japanese. I don't know all the rules, but I will mention two:\n(1) katakana are used when the 漢字 are considered too hard to write (癌 becomes\nガン) and (2) grammatical uses of verbs, i.e. helping verb type uses do not use\n漢字.\n\n```\n\n ×　出来る　\n ○　できる\n \n ×　遊んで見る\n ○　遊んでみる\n \n ×　貰って下さる\n ○　もらってくださる　\n ×　～て下さい\n ○　～てください\n ○　下さる　[in some uses but not all]\n \n```\n\nThere are some exceptions where some rather academic grammar points can be\nwritten normally with kanji, e.g., 従って. I think this is per the joyo.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T08:26:01.273", "id": "15142", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T08:41:54.317", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-30T08:41:54.317", "last_editor_user_id": "4091", "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "15141", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "If we want an authoritative source, we could look at [the official terminology\nused by the Japanese\ngovernment](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/joho/kijun/sanko/koyobun/pdf/kunrei.pdf)\nas set out by the Agency of Cultural Affairs (文化庁) (might be familiar name to\nsome people as their page about\n[二重敬語](http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkashingikai/soukai/pdf/keigo_tousin.pdf) gets\nreferenced here sometimes).\n\nThey start by saying only to use kanji from 常用漢字表・付表 in the normal form of the\ncharacter.\n\nThey go on to give certain 代名詞 which should be written in kanji,\n\n> 例 俺、彼、誰、何、僕、私、我々\n\nand 副詞・連体詞 to be written using kanji.\n\n> 例（副詞） 余り、至って、大いに、恐らく、概して、必ず [...] (long list)\n>\n> 例（連体詞） 明るく、大きな、来る、去る、小さな、我が（国）\n\nThey go say 副詞 such as the following in should be written in kana.\n\n> 例 かなり、ふと、やはり、よほど\n\nThey prescribe writing 御 in kanji when the word it is attached it is in kanji,\nand kana when the word is in kana.\n\n> 御案内、御挨拶 vs. ごもっとも\n\nand they give the following 接尾語 to be written in kana.\n\n> げ（惜しげもなく）、ども（私ども）、ぶる（偉ぶる）、み（弱み）、め（少なめ）\n\nThey prescribe writing in kana for 接続詞 such as the following\n\n> 例 おって、かつ、したがって、ついては、ところが、ところで、また、ゆえに\n\nand kana for the 助動詞・助詞 such as the following\n\n> ない（行かない）、ようだ、ぐらい、だけ、ほど\n\nFinally, they prescribe kana for a whole lot of words when used in certain\nways (take a look at キ under 1(2)) such as ある・いる expressing existence, the こと\nin 許可しないことがある, **できる** such as in だれでも利用ができる, and te-form + verb\n(てあげる、ていく、ておく、てください、etc etc)\n\n* * *\n\nMy only problem with all this is: to what extent do prescriptive rules such as\nthese reflect actual usage? Writing te-form + verb in kana seems to generally\naccepted, as does writing words such as わけ、はず、ようだ、だけ、ほど etc in kana.\n\nHowever (and here I have a problem with TN's comment) 出来る in kanji is seen\n**all the time** in contexts both formal and informal. 従{したが}って, ご案内 (not\nusing 御 as the Agency prescribes), 又{また}, etc are also common.\n\nAs [this\nquestion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/15732/question-about-\nmixed-kana-in-%E3%81%8A%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B9%E3%83%A1) or [this\nquestion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/565/which-kanji-to-use-\nfor-\nsaying-%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%81%86%E3%81%94%E3%81%96%E3%81%84%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99-in-\nemails) (see Uberto's answer and Tsuyoshi Ito's comment) for example show, a\nwriter can make use of the 3 writing systems in Japanese to give different\nimpressions (オススメ vs お勧め, ありがとうございます vs 有難う御座います). Some of these will only be\nappropriate to casual writing, sometimes you will have a choice even in formal\nwriting. This is one of the most fun/interesting parts of Japanese, though I\ndon't know how one could comprehensively describe it...", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-04T16:12:26.263", "id": "15744", "last_activity_date": "2018-01-22T08:27:51.017", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "3010", "parent_id": "15141", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "I would definitely need to add the furigana.\n\n[逃]{のが}す: Unintentional - \"to fail to catch\". You tried to catch something but\ndid not succeed. \"Not catching\" was not intentional though that was the\nresult.\n\n[逃]{に}がす: Intentional - \"to set one free\". You meant to let him go.\n\n[逃]{に}げさせる: Intentional - \"to let or allow one to escape\" You meant to do so.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T09:37:48.570", "id": "15146", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T11:38:13.470", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-30T11:38:13.470", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15144", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "「やんの」 ＝ 「やがる」 + 「の」\n\nIt is attached to the て-form of a verb to express one's contempt or disdain\nfor another. It is also used to make fun of a person or his/her action.\n\n> \"The fool did/is doing (this or that)!\", \"Watch that a**hole do ~~!\"", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T10:53:41.083", "id": "15149", "last_activity_date": "2017-09-08T05:21:13.513", "last_edit_date": "2017-09-08T05:21:13.513", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15147", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "I'll quote part of [Tokyo Nagoya's\ncomment](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/15148/how-do-i-know-\nwhether-%E6%AF%8E%E6%9C%88-should-\nbe-%E3%81%BE%E3%81%84%E3%81%92%E3%81%A4-or-%E3%81%BE%E3%81%84%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8D/15174#comment32840_15148):\n\n> I say it まいつき 100% of the time and hear others say it the same 99.99% of the\n> time.\n\nSo it seems that まいつき is the common reading. Other speakers corroborate this,\nwith one saying that まいげつ is rare and another saying that まいげつ isn't even an\nacceptable reading--although I'm not willing to make that claim myself.\n\n(However, if you ever have occasion to read\n[毎月抄](http://reservata.s123.coreserver.jp/waka-teika/maigetu-syou.htm), you\nshould read it まいげつしょう.)\n\nUnfortunately, there's no universal rule for deciding which reading to use for\na compound when more than one reading is possible:\n\n 1. You want to pick the reading that makes the most sense in context. (In this case, both readings represent words with the same meaning.)\n 2. You want to pick the reading that the author intended, so if one reading is more likely (in general or in a particular context), you should favor that reading. In this case, the favored reading is まいつき.\n\nUnfortunately, you'll have to memorize this on a case-by-case basis.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T04:01:12.527", "id": "15174", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T04:01:12.527", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:48.447", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15148", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "「[割]{わ}る」 here means \"to dilute\".\n\nSee meaning #II-4 in\n[http://kotobank.jp/jeword/%E5%89%B2%E3%82%8B?dic=pje3&oid=SPJE04759100](http://kotobank.jp/jeword/%E5%89%B2%E3%82%8B?dic=pje3&oid=SPJE04759100)\n\n「[泡盛]{あわもり}のコーヒー割り」 = \"awamori diluted with coffee\"\n\nOther common terms containing 「割り」:\n\nウイスキーのソーダ割り/[水]{みず}割り\n\n[焼酎]{しょうちゅう}のウーロン[茶]{ちゃ}割り", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T14:53:11.240", "id": "15151", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T14:53:11.240", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15150", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "I didn't know of 泡盛 until I looked it up just now in Wikipedia but I think 〜割り\nis often used when you dilute a drink (probably alcoholic like 泡盛）with\nsomething else.\n\nThe one I am most familiar with is ウイスキー水割り, which is whiskey diluted with\niced water, often ordered by salary-men in hostess/entertainment clubs/old-\nfashioned Karaoke bars.\n\nIn your case it sounds like the 泡盛 is diluted with coffee.\n\nAn English equivalent might be whiskey \"cut with\" water.\n\nMy Apple dictionary tells me 水割りする is a verb (to dilute with water) and gives\nthe example:\n\n> ウイスキーの水割りを1杯くれ｜Give me a whisky-and-water.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T14:56:10.430", "id": "15152", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T14:56:10.430", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15150", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "> コーヒー割り “split / divided coffee”\n\nNo, it is コーヒー modifying 割り, not the other way around. Japanese is left-\nbranching in an almost completely consistent way. Keeping that meaning of 割る,\nit would be “split / divided _by/with_ coffee”.\n\nAs others have explained, 割る here means dilute, by which you reach the\nexpected meaning.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T01:09:06.247", "id": "15161", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T12:45:58.757", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-01T12:45:58.757", "last_editor_user_id": "1073", "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "15150", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "For ratios, 割{わり} is also used in other contexts to mean something like \"10%\",\nextending from the meaning of \"split\". So 十割そば are noodles that are 10 x 10%\nbuckwheat, i.e. 100% buckwheat. 七割そば would be 70% buckwheat (the rest usually\nmade up of wheat).\n\nFor beverages, other kinds of 割 include:\n\n * [コーラ割り](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A9%E5%89%B2%E3%82%8A%22), like rum and coca cola\n * [牛乳割り](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E7%89%9B%E4%B9%B3%E5%89%B2%E3%82%8A%22), like milk and brandy\n * [ココア割り](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E3%82%B3%E3%82%B3%E3%82%A2%E5%89%B2%E3%82%8A%22), such as (apparently) shochu and cocoa\n * [果実割り](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E6%9E%9C%E5%AE%9F%E5%89%B2%E3%82%8A%22), like a screwdriver (orange juice and vodka)\n\nPretty much, if it's possible to mix an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic beverage\ntogether, you'll probably find evidence of \"[ _non-alcoholic beverage_ ] +\n割り\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-18T06:45:54.530", "id": "16015", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-21T22:15:13.483", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-21T22:15:13.483", "last_editor_user_id": "5229", "owner_user_id": "5229", "parent_id": "15150", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "As you may have guessed, you got the bold part wrong. This is what it actually\nis:\n\n> 鬼は外！鬼は水 **なんて飲む資格ないんだよ** ！あっち行け！ \n> oni ha soto! oni ha mizu **nante nomu shikaku nain'dayo**! acchi ike!", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-30T17:34:04.303", "id": "15154", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-30T17:34:04.303", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3097", "parent_id": "15153", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "One could argue that the sentence in question may not be logical, but it is\ncertainly a sentence that follows all the grammatical rules that I can think\nof. In that sense, it \"makes sense\" even if some people might not agree with.\n\nOn that regard, I don't find your second sentence any better. It is a\ngrammatically correct sentence that contains the same kind of logical leap.\n\nIt seems to me that there's a confusion between a discussion about the\ntranslation (which belongs to this site) and a discussion about whether the\nsentence is right (which is more of a moral question that has nothing to do\nwith the language it's written in.)\n\nI think the meaning of 信じてもらえなくなる is clear enough. Your translation looks OK,\nthough I'd be tempted to translate it to something bit more axiomatic, like\nperhaps this:\n\n```\n\n Those who cannot trust the words and kindness of others will lose their trust in return\n \n```", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T04:03:55.730", "id": "15175", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T04:03:55.730", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15155", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "To throw a couple of other similar constructions out there:\n\nI remember that the phrase ”どうにもならなくなる” had me flummoxed for a while.\n\nAlso, when I asked an acquaintance in his mid-30s why he wasn't married yet,\nand he responded that \"もらわれてくれる人がいない\", my head exploded on the spot.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T04:17:58.623", "id": "15232", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-04T04:17:58.623", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5078", "parent_id": "15155", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Overall your sense is on the mark. A good way to view the example in Genki is\nalong the lines of \"How _[are you spending]_ your winter vacation?\", as\nopposed to the looser translation they provide.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T00:22:14.243", "id": "15158", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-31T00:22:14.243", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15156", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "This is a good example of where direct or literal translation does not work\nwell between Japanese and another language.\n\nWe often use 「どう」 where English-speakers would use nothing but \"what\".\n\n> 「どうしよう。」 or 「どうしたらいいの。」 vs. \"What should I do?\"\n>\n> 「どうしましたか。」 vs. \"What happened?\"\n\nIf you used 「なに」 instead of 「どう」 in the phrases above, you would sound more\nforeign than you might think just like I would sound very foreign if I said\n\"How should I do?\" or \"How happened?\".\n\n「[冬休]{ふゆやす}みはどうしますか。」 would often be preferred over 「冬休みは[何]{なに}をしますか。」\nbecause the latter sounds like a pretty personal question to Japanese-\nspeakers. We might not want to be asked that question at least by someone we\ndo not know well because 「なに」 requires specific and detailed information\nwhereas 「どう」 only requires rough or vague information. \"Specifics vs. Overall\nApproach\", so to speak.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T00:47:40.247", "id": "15160", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-31T00:47:40.247", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15156", "post_type": "answer", "score": 15 } ]

[ { "body": "It's a different way of saying the causative-passive 行かせられる, so it means that\nthe speaker was made to go to the hospital.\n\nNote in an earlier version of this answer I confidently asserted that this is\na more colloquial example. A comment was posted to the contrary and, after\nresearching it more in depth, I was surprised to find I was indeed _wrong_ in\nthat regard. 行かされる has numerous entries on the corpus of modern written\nJapanese, and appears to be totally fine in most, if not all contexts, and may\nactually be considered the _standard_. Nevertheless it seems to be a debatable\nconcept. In fact, some of the confusion about whether it's 行かされる or 行かせられる\nseems to come from Japanese people who see Japanese textbooks for foreigners\nwhere we are generally taught that 行かせられる is the Right Way. I think this is\nwhere my initial confidence and confusion came from (coupled with my general\nignorance of course). So **this confusion is probably a result of the way\nJapanese is taught to foreigners,** or at least it doesn't do much to remedy\nthe situation. Apparently at least [some Japanese\neducators](http://ameblo.jp/mekara-uroko/entry-10341599066.html) share in this\nfrustration.\n\nPersonally as someone who always struggles to say ～させられる I feel somewhat\nliberated by this revelation.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T00:40:29.857", "id": "15159", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T02:46:08.123", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-01T02:46:08.123", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "15157", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "> あなたが映画を見ているあいだ、私は買い物に行きます。 \n> みんなが遊んでいるあいだ、私は働いています。\n\nBoth sentences are perfectly standard. The structure あいだ(に), is indeed not\nbound to being used with the past tense.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T03:00:52.673", "id": "15163", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-31T03:06:46.130", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-31T03:06:46.130", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "15162", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm just basically going to summarize the references from user3169.\n\nUntil now I've never known that フケ can be written as 雲脂/頭垢. I don't think\neither form is common in ordinary use of the language, as it is normally\nwritten in Katakana. But at the same time they are clearly recognized well\nenough to be on [Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A0%AD%E5%9E%A2).\n\nAccording to [語源由来辞典](http://gogen-allguide.com/hu/fuke.html), 雲脂 is 当て字 that\nmost likely came into being because it's white flaky stuff that comes from a\nhigher part (of your body), and 頭垢 is also 当て字 that most likely came into\nbeing because it literally means 頭(head)垢(grime). You are right that none of\nthose kanjis read フ nor ケ in other situations.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T04:35:24.087", "id": "15178", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T04:35:24.087", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15165", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "-i form of a verb, among other things, can be used to form nouns that are derived from this verb. For example\n\nto discount (v) -> discount (n): 割り{わり}引く{びく} -> 割引{わりびき}\n\nto rest/to have take a day off (v) -> rest/holiday (n): 休{やす}む -> 休{やす}み\n\nto apply (v) -> application (n): 申{もう}し込{こ}む -> 申{もう}し込{こ}み\n\nSo I believe this is not the case of a verb form being a suffix but rather of\na noun formed from a verb.\n\nThis is also similar in case of words from your previous question. For\nexample, my dictionary shows the following example for 水割り, which suggests it\nbeing a noun:\n\n水割りをもう一杯ください。", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T09:48:42.203", "id": "15167", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-31T10:42:28.303", "last_edit_date": "2014-03-31T10:42:28.303", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5041", "parent_id": "15166", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "This is just a thought that is too long for a comment but based on the\nfollowing 水割り seems to be the natural order:\n\n> To dilute with water = 水で割る ー＞ 水割り\n>\n> To take a 1/10th, or 10% = 一割 (same order); 15%= 一割５分 (seems logical)\n\nIf we look at other words containing 割り then the order they come is consistent\nwith what you would expect in long form, eg:\n\n> Ratio: 割合 would be consistent with 割り合う\n>\n> (I have never seen this verb used but 合う will normally be the second verb in\n> a construction such as 話し合う）\n>\n> Allotment: 割り当て would be consistent with 割り当てる\n>\n> (which does exist)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T03:37:36.440", "id": "15173", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T03:37:36.440", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15166", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Starting from zero I'm afraid there isn't, however once you have learned a\ncouple dozen you'll start to notice phonetic elements that some characters\nhave in common.\n\nFor example:\n\n * All the following are pronounced ドウ because they contain 同: 同、胴、銅、洞\n * All the following are pronounced チュウ because they contain 中: 中、仲、忠\n * All the following are pronounced チョウ because they contain 丁: 丁、町、庁\n\nThe reliability of these groupings is not necessarily universal. There are\nsome characters which are used as phonetic elements within other characters,\nbut have a different base reading themselves:\n\n * 予 is pronounced ヨ, but when serving as a phonetic marker it usually is pronounced ジョ: 序、抒、舒\n\nThere are also others that are false friends (a group exists, but apparent\nmembers fall outside of it), or where the same element can be used to mark two\ndifferent sounds depending on the character.\n\nAnother thing to remember about this is that it'll usually point you to just\none reading of a kanji character—not necessarily the most common one, and\nalways an on-reading. For kun-readings and other on-readings, your best bet is\nto learn words that use them and practice using them while they're fresh in\nyour mind. If you approach kanji unafraid, you'll find they stick in your\npassive memory (e.g. recall) relatively easily over time.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T15:29:29.523", "id": "15169", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-31T15:29:29.523", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15168", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Even though there are some similarities and some rules that might help you to\nremember kanji (as pointed out by Kaji), they are not systematic. The way the\non-reading has come to its present form from Chinese means that there are\nreally no overall rules.\n\nSee what works well for you but for me trying to remember any possible rules\nof kanji pronunciation was less important than remembering pronunciation\nitself. There's enough to learn.\n\nAs for kun-readings, they don't follow any rules at all as the kanji were just\nadopted to existing native Japanese words based on meaning mostly.\n\nYou need to establish the method of learning that will work best for you. For\nme, the best thing that worked was just a lot of practice. I found furigana to\nget in the way after a while - I was reading kana too much without looking at\nkanji. I tried to find sources without it to practice. I also try to read all\nthe kanji in my head when learning by reading - it helps to memorise them.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-31T19:18:39.093", "id": "15170", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-23T02:29:22.513", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-23T02:29:22.513", "last_editor_user_id": "4914", "owner_user_id": "5041", "parent_id": "15168", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Using が casts the focus onto the object. Think of it in a similar manner to\nusing an adjective—you're describing the state of the movie by saying you find\nthe prospect of watching it desirable. Using を instead of が focuses on the\naction—you're still saying that you want to see the movie, but you're\nemphasizing that you want to see something, as opposed to that you want to see\nanything in particular.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T00:22:46.877", "id": "15172", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T00:22:46.877", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4914", "parent_id": "15171", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Somewhat confusingly, double nagatives in Japanese can mean a range of\ndifferent things.\n\nSometimes it is used to signify that something exists at all, however little\nit is, as in the case of 疲れていなくもない or お金がなくもない. Other times it is used to\nemphasize that everyone did something or everything matches something, as in\n声を上げない者はなかった.\n\nThe former meaning has a good parallel in English , namely \"a few\" --- \"a few\ngood men\" has an emphasis on the existence of good men, however few they are.\n\nSimilarly 疲れていなくはない emphasizes the existence of tiresomeness, even if it is\njust a bit. Expressions like this refers to a small amount of something, and\nin that sense I'm in agreement with what your professor told you, that it can\nbe used as a face-saving measure; you are only admitting that you are tired\njust a little.\n\nSo yes, it is a veryy common usage of the language, not just local to her\narea.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T05:12:02.280", "id": "15180", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T05:12:02.280", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3059", "parent_id": "15176", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "In terms of etymology, みずうみ is indeed derived from two words, but it's now a\nsingle word--much like how English _housewife_ is a single word, even though\nit's clearly derived from _house_ + _wife_.\n\nThis doesn't really matter for how you pronounce two /u/ vowels in a row,\nthough. You just hold the sound for an extra beat (\"mora\"), like it's a long\nvowel:\n\n> /mizuːꜜmi/\n\nHere, the `ː` symbol indicates a long vowel and the `ꜜ` symbol indicates a\nnoticeable drop in pitch.\n\n* * *\n\nThe drop in pitch is called a \"pitch accent\", and in this word it occurs after\nthe second /u/ sound. The red line in the following shows the basic pitch\npattern of the word, rising after the first /mi/ and falling after the second\n/u/:\n\n> みずうみ{LHHL}\n\nI've checked four dictionaries, and all four say the pitch accent is in this\nlocation. However, several users have commented saying that the accent is\noften moved one mora to the left:\n\n> みずうみ{LHLL}\n\nIn any case, you can listen to a recording of this word that someone uploaded\non [Forvo](http://ja.forvo.com/word/%E3%81%BF%E3%81%9A%E3%81%86%E3%81%BF/#ja).", "comment_count": 12, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T09:15:18.080", "id": "15182", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T22:25:08.240", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-01T22:25:08.240", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15181", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't have any specialist knowledge on this but over and above telling you\nthat\n\n企業連合 is a cartel,\n\n独占禁止法 is the anti-monopolies law\n\nI can suggest how I studied a business topic recently:\n\nThere must be lots of articles on the web in English on your chosen topic so\nthat should give you the background but I should also expect there are\npamphlets put out by the government and business agencies (eg METI, MOJ,\nKeidanren, FSA) available on their websites. There is probably at least one\ncomprehensive document available in English and Japanese. The English will\ngive you the \"official\" Japanese translations, the Japanese version will give\nyou the terminology/vocabulary your looking for.\n\nThere is also an EJ/JE dictionary of Legal terms:\n\n<http://www.amazon.co.jp>/英和・和英-法律・会計・税務用語辞典-アイエスエス/dp/4872900510\n\nAnd, if you want the laws themselves, the MOJ have a web site which provides\ntranslations of many: <http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/?re=02>", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T15:01:41.123", "id": "15184", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T11:39:32.190", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T11:39:32.190", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15183", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "There are no character-level differences. Hiragana and katakana are, for all\nintents and purposes, the same, differing only in how they are used with\nregard to the broader idea of choice of system. You say you know what each is\nused for, so that's the key distinction you need to focus on.\n\nI think one thing we _might_ be able to mention is elongated vowels. Where in\nhiragana you would write ああ・いい・うう・えい・おう in katakana you would usually write\nアー・イー・ウー・エー・オー respectively. Note though that for certain effects or spelling\nsounds that aren't in _words_ , like a scream or a sigh or something, you may\nvery well see ー used with hiragana.\n\nAnother aspect that we _might_ be able to say fits the question's criteria is\nthat katakana is often used to represent foreign pronunciation or otherwise\nweird ways of talking. There isn't a standard, though, and it's more the\nchoice of katakana in itself that acts as a kind of visual metaphor for\ndifferent pronunciation. The characters themselves would not indicate any\nspecific change in pronunciation, though, so I don't think we can say this is\nan example of katakana being pronounced differently as much as it is the form\nthat _suggests_ it, if that makes sense. Maybe compare it to some angular\nrobot-looking font in English being used for robot speech. You wouldn't look\nat `a word written for robots` and say it's pronounced differently.\n\nSome characters in katakana simply aren't seen very much because of how\nkatakana is usually used. For example, grammatical bits are _usually_ written\nin hiragana, so it's pretty rare to see ヲ in katakana (since を is nearly\nalways used as a particle). But still you do see it from time to time and it's\nnot worth writing it off either.\n\nSimilarly, small kana that's used to approximate foreign sounds that aren't in\nJapanese _usually_ aren't written in hiragana, so you don't see that much\nunless it's intentional. For example, ふぁ ふぃ ふぇ, etc. In most real applications\nthese sounds/kana combinations would be in katakana. As is the pattern,\nthough, you _will_ see both.\n\nKatakana and hiragana are a one-to-one mapping. Like different fonts,\nbasically: they're the same, but they're used in different situations. Most\ndistinctions that you make will fall into the \"usually but not always\"\ncategory anyway. Focus on the more meta idea of what the choice of _system_ in\nitself means and not so much on specific character level differences.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T16:37:04.097", "id": "15186", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T03:58:14.047", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-02T03:58:14.047", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "15185", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "> 「これからほんのわずかな時間だけ... テレビにおジャマさせてもらう事にした。」\n\nThe agent of もらう is the speaker, not television. The speaker is the one who\nwants to be the receiver of a favor. (In this case, he wants to make himself\nbe the receiver of a favor by force.)\n\nThere is no 「お[前]{まえ}たちを」 implied anywhere in this sentence. Is that used in\nanother place in the same context? The thing is this person's speech style is\nactually fairly polite, so a derogatory word like 「お前たち」 would not fit in. I\nwonder if it is possible that your knowledge of the story is making you see\nthings that are not in the actual text.\n\n「～～させてもらう」 means \"to take the liberty of doing ~~\". It is not that the speaker\nwas asked to make an appearance on TV, is it?\n\n> \"I have decided to take the liberty of interrupting you all on TV for a few\n> seconds.\"", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T22:16:37.920", "id": "15189", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-01T22:53:21.507", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-01T22:53:21.507", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15187", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "It means \"after doing 〜\". Almost like `〜てから`.\n\n> * 両親とよく相談した上で、留学することにした。 → After discussing it with my parents, I decided\n> that I'll study abroad.\n> * 家を買う場合は、十分調べた上で、決めた方がいい。 → When you buy a house, you should choose (it)\n> after doing sufficient research.\n> * よく考えた上で、返事をするつもりだ。 → I intend to reply after careful consideration.\n>\n\n \n~~There is some other nuance I believe, but I'll have to look it up later.~~\nThe nuance to it is that the second action is performed based on the result of\nthe first action (as @TokyoNagoya mentioned). With `〜てから`, no such\nrelationship is required, meaning that it simply indicates temporal order. For\nexample\n\n> ○ 昼食を食べてから銀行に行く → \"I'll go to the bank after I eat lunch\" → Going to the\n> bank doesn't depend on me eating lunch; simply states the order of what I'm\n> doing. \n> ?/× 昼食を食べた上で銀行に行く → It introduces a dependency for going to the bank on\n> eating lunch. Almost like \"As a result of eating lunch, I'll go to the\n> bank.\" Doesn't make much sense.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-01T22:33:32.423", "id": "15191", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T18:17:23.180", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-02T18:17:23.180", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "15190", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "This is just a supplement to the above answer & comment.\n\nYour question was specific to ~た上で (so I won't expand unless you expand the\nquestion) but FYI there are other different uses of 〜上. I found the following\nsentence (from one the Soumatome-goi series) helpful to remember:\n\n> 地図の上では近いのに\n>\n> 行ってみると\n>\n> 遠い上に、ひどい道だった\n>\n> よく調べた上で行けばよかった。\n>\n> On the map it looked close, but\n>\n> when I actually went there,\n>\n> it was far and the roads were bad.\n>\n> I should have checked before I went.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T01:30:28.940", "id": "15195", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T01:30:28.940", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15190", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "The short answer is \"anything that can be described by a word containing 機{き}\nand can justifiably be one's favourite\".\n\nAs for airplanes, 飛行機 can be considered a type of 機, mostly because it's in\nthe name. Otherwise, 機 is now more often used for 機器 or 機械, machines/devices.\n\nI think that, instead of カメラ・写真機, the definitions might as well have referred\nto a smartphone, MP3-player, CD-player, walkman, or any other type of device,\nwhich fits into the category of being something someone uses for fun.\n\nAs for usage, ノートパソコン, スマホ, アイホーン, ミシン, etc. could all be 愛機, because they're\nall devices that can be used for pleasure.\n\nA(n electric) razor is borderline and only valid, if your favourite thing in\nthe morning is shaving while singing along with the radio.\n\nCars don't qualify, because there's no common word XX機, which can be used to\ndescribe a car. But, 自動 **車** is a word for car and you can use 愛車.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T00:10:25.713", "id": "15193", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T02:10:59.790", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-02T02:10:59.790", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "15192", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Could **some hypothetical thing** be true ? .... mmmmm, not necessarily.\n\n\"Putting 2 more engineers on the task should get it done quicker\"\nかといえば、そうではない。\n\nIt's a rhetorical construct, similar to what politicians and C-level\nexecutives often employ:\n\n\"Do I think that it's a good thing that 200 people lost their lives? Of course\nI don't!\"\n\n\"Do I think it could have been worse had we not stopped the blah blah blah?\nYes I do.\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T04:40:38.150", "id": "15233", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-04T04:40:38.150", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5078", "parent_id": "15194", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I think the most universal way of expressing _trying_ is using て-form of a\nverb followed by みる. For example:\n\n> 電話してみるよ。 \n> I will try calling you.\n>\n> お好み焼きを食べてみたい。 \n> I want to try eating okonomiyaki.\n\nIn addition, what you can express in English as \"try\" as in \"have you tried?\"\nis sometimes asking about past experience and can be expressed in Japanese as\nた-form of a verb plus ことがある.\n\n> お好み焼きを食べたことがありますか。 \n> Have you tried okonomiyaki?", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T10:50:18.573", "id": "15197", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T15:59:43.860", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-02T15:59:43.860", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "5041", "parent_id": "15196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "My sense could be wrong, and I'm sure I'll be told if it is so, but I don't\nthink those words (with one exception) are useful for what you want as in \"to\ntry\":\n\n * 味わう = literally to taste the flavor of something as in while you are cooking\n * 嘗める = to lick something -- also a term for when someone is trying to mess with you.\n * 試す = to test something\n * 味見 = to taste as in like a sommelier.\n\nI am going to suggest a different tack instead -- use the helping verb\nconstruction of てみる which means to try or 試してみる", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T10:53:14.407", "id": "15198", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T10:53:14.407", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "15196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "* **Here try this** and tell me if you like it.\n\n> 食べてみて。。。。\n\n * **You don't have to eat it but at least try it.**\n\n> 食べなくていいし、ちょっと味だけ見て。 (Thanks Chocolate)\n\n * I like spicy food so I really **want to try** taka-no-tsume.\n\n> 食べてみたい\n\n * You can't say you don't like tequila if you **never even tried a good one!**\n\n> いいテキーラを飲んでみたことがないから。。。\n\n * **Did you ever try** scuba diving?\n\n> したことがあるか？\n\n * **I tried hitchhiking once but** I prefer to travel by bicycle.\n\n> 一回したことがあるけど。。。。\n\nIn Japanese the nuance of saying \"have you tried\" is largely just replaced\nwith ことがありますか？ Which is the default way to ask if someone has an experience of\ndoing something in the past.\n\nIn English we are not really asking if the person has 'tried' something, of\ncourse they probably didn't fail at doing it. So its kind of nuance in\nEnglish.\n\nTimes to use みたい in Japanese are basically just when you are saying you want\nto try something, if you really want to ask **_'Have you tried...' you can say\n。。。してみたことがありますか_** to people.", "comment_count": 11, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T18:18:41.577", "id": "15239", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-05T14:23:53.160", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-05T14:23:53.160", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "My Japanese is generally informal (among family), and my answers reflect that.\n\n * Here try this and tell me if you like it. → これ好きじゃないか食べてみて。\n * I tried koregusu once but I didn't like it. (Am I right to guess that the \"koregusu\" is the drink from Okinawa?) → コーレーグスを飲んでみたけど好きじゃなかった。\n * You don't have to eat it but at least try it. → 食べなくてもいいけど試してみて。\n * I like spicy food so I really want to try taka-no-tsume. → 辛い物好きだから鷹の爪試してみたい。 (or ...食べてみたい)\n * You can't say you don't like tequila if you never even tried a good one! → 美味しいテキーラを飲んでみないと好きじゃないか分からないじゃん。\n\nNon-food/drink examples:\n\n * Did you ever try scuba diving? → スクーバやった事ある？\n * I tried hitchhiking once but I prefer to travel by bicycle. → ヒッチハイクしてみたけど自転車で動く方がまし。\n\n味わう → means more \"to savor, to enjoy\".\n\n嘗める → means just \"to lick\".\n\n試す → means \"to try something out\"\n\n味見する → means \"to taste something for quality\". I frequently 「味見する」when I am\ncooking to see how it tastes. I jokingly 「毒見」 when my mom cooks (she is a VERY\ngood cook... it's just an excuse to eat before the meal).\n\nAgain, my use of Japanese is generally informal, so please keep that in mind\nwhen considering the translations.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-30T14:29:46.457", "id": "16219", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-29T19:53:32.287", "last_edit_date": "2015-09-29T19:53:32.287", "last_editor_user_id": "3437", "owner_user_id": "5443", "parent_id": "15196", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "> あんパン(bread roll filled with red bean paste)、 \n> ピザまん(pizza flavored steamed bun)、 \n> じゃがバター(baked/boiled potato topped with butter)、 \n> みそラーメン(ramen with miso based soup)、 \n> エロい(horny)、 \n> ダサい(hickish), \n> etc.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T13:49:56.280", "id": "15202", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T11:01:14.373", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T11:01:14.373", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Yes - the weird one for me was always サボる because it even conjugates normally.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T13:59:17.400", "id": "15203", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T13:59:17.400", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5063", "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "After reading the first couple of examples in the comments I Googled them and\ndiscovered the English Wiktionary actually has an appendix of exactly these\nterms:\n\n> [Appendix:Japanese words written in mixed\n> kana](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix%3aJapanese_words_written_in_mixed_kana)\n\nBut they must be quite rare or the appendix very incomplete, because it\ncurrently only includes three words (plus one Proper noun):\n\n> * サボる (saboru, “to cut class”), from French sabotage + 〜る to make it a\n> verb.\n> * デモる (demoru), from English demonstrate + 〜る to make it a verb.\n> * ググる (guguru, “to search the Web”), from Google + 〜る to make it a verb.\n>", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T14:46:27.857", "id": "15205", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T14:46:27.857", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "125", "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "> * バグる → (technology) to be buggy, not work correctly; freezing; crashing\n> * スマホ、バグッちゃった！ → My smartphone froze/crashed/messed up!\n>", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T15:55:43.323", "id": "15206", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T18:07:02.870", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-02T18:07:02.870", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "There's even an exceptional word which mixes hiragana, katakana, and kanji,\n[くノ一](http://gogen-allguide.com/ku/kunoichi.html).\n\nGenerally speaking, words are written with mixed writing systems when there\nare reasons to write different parts in different ways. (Sounds obvious, huh?)\n\nFor example, in Tokyo Nagoya's example of あんパン, the first morpheme comes from\nChinese 餡{あん}, and the second from Portuguese _pão_. パン may be written in\nkatakana, reflecting its origin, while hiragana is more natural for あん.\n\nAnother common reason to use katakana is for slang terms, including slang uses\nof existing words (like モテる) and colloquial shortenings of existing words, as\nin キモい from 気持ち悪い.\n\nAny of these motivations for using katakana (foreign origin, slang,\nonomatopoeia) can compete with the tendency to write endings like い and る in\nhiragana, resulting in a mixed word.\n\nLet's take a look at your example of ググる:\n\n * Here, the loanword _Google_ (グーグル _gūguru_ ) has been reanalyzed as a verb. Since Japanese has a lot of inflectional morphology, it's harder for words to jump categories; it still happens, but it's easiest for words that already end in _ru_ like this one (or ダブる \"double\", トラブる \"trouble\", etc.). \n\nAs is usual for this sort of derivation, any long vowels are removed (グーグル\n_gūguru_ becomes ググル _guguru_ ), and then the final _ru_ is reanalyzed as _r-\nu_ , giving the godan verb ググる _gugur-u_. The ending _-u_ is usually written\nin hiragana, and therefore the _r_ before it must be as well, but the rest of\nthe word remains in katakana.\n\nIf the source word doesn't end in _ru_ , then it needs to be added, as in ミスる\n(from ミス \"miss\") or コピる (from コピー \"copy\"), and if the word is long it may be\nclipped, as in the slang ハモる (from ハーモニー \"harmony\"). In these cases the words\nstill conjugate as godan, meaning that コピる is _kopir-u_ rather than _kopi-ru_\n, even though the _r_ wasn't present in the original word. You can find more\ncolloquial examples [here](http://osaka-\nkyoiku.ac.jp/_file/gakusei/kikaku/gakudayori/166/campus_kotoba.pdf).\n\nOccasionally words ending in _i_ are reanalyzed as colloquial adjectives, and\nquite rarely from _sii_ as well, as in the rare colloquial セクしい from セクシー, and\nwhen this happens the suffix is written in hiragana. If _i_ isn't present, it\ncan be added. Less uncommonly い is added to existing words, which may be\nshortened, as in グロい from グロテスク \"grotesque\". A more common example is エロい\n\"erotic\".\n\nSo there are lots of different reasons words end up written with mixed writing\nsystems.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T22:38:22.987", "id": "15212", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T22:38:22.987", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 22 }, { "body": "Anime characters are often the case since children cannot read kanji.\n\nドラえもん ジャムおじさん タルるート", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T14:27:24.373", "id": "15236", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-04T14:27:24.373", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5081", "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Wiktionary lists\n[イく](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%81%8F#Japanese) as slang to\ncome to climax (\"to cum\"), which has the first letter in katakana and the\nsecond letter in hiragana. Unlike other katakana verbs listed in answers to\nthis question, this is derived from the Japanese word 行く, not a European word.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-03-26T00:37:08.127", "id": "44881", "last_activity_date": "2017-03-26T00:37:08.127", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "15199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "> Would you like to go out for dinner on Saturday night? I'd love to.\n\nええ。そうしましょう。\n\n> Do you want a bowl of this soup that I just cooked? I'd love to.\n\nはい。お願いします。\n\nAlthough they look like offers, but they are the “standard” “textbook-style”\nways to accept offers. I see people use the adverb ぜひ to emphasize they are\n“glad” to accept.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T13:28:49.030", "id": "15201", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T13:53:53.350", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-02T13:53:53.350", "last_editor_user_id": "4833", "owner_user_id": "4833", "parent_id": "15200", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "The word that we often use to express enthusiasm is 「[是非]{ぜひ}」= \"by all\nmeans\".\n\n> 「是非[行]{い}きます！」,「是非行きたいです！」,「是非行きましょう！」, 「是非行こう！」, etc.\n>\n> You can add 「あ」 or 「あっ」 in front of 「是非」, too.\n\nTo express even more enthusiasm, you could use 「[絶対]{ぜったい}」 or 「[必]{かなら}ず」 in\nplace of 「是非」.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T14:04:41.527", "id": "15204", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T14:04:41.527", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15200", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "There are actually two types of words here. One is `[擬音語]{ぎ・おん・ご}` which are\nonomotopoeia: words representing sounds. Some examples of this are `ワンワン` (dog\nbarking), `ガリガリ` (scratching, crunching - like ガリガリ君 popsicles), and `ころころ`\n(sound of something rolling).\n\nThe other type is `[擬態語]{ぎ・たい・ご}` which [\"depict non-auditory\nsenses\"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_sound_symbolism). Your examples\nfall into this category.\n\nNote that both categories contain many other examples that are not repeated,\nsuch as `じっと（見る）` (stare, look intently) or `どしん` (fall and thud).\n\nAs for references, check out our [resources post on\nmeta](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/756/78).", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T19:33:04.270", "id": "15208", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T15:02:31.277", "last_edit_date": "2017-03-16T15:48:25.793", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "15207", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "These onomatopeic words are also described as オノマトペ -- \"onomatope,\" オノマトペア --\n\"onomatopeia,\" as well as 擬声語 -- \"giseigo.\"\n\nFor an extensive list of them, check out <http://onomatoproject.com/list.html>", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2018-02-24T17:04:39.137", "id": "56848", "last_activity_date": "2018-02-24T17:04:39.137", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "27873", "parent_id": "15207", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "First, 全部の人 is an obscure expression because 全部 is a counter for objects*\n(that said, 私が知っている人全部のうち sounds to some extent better for some reason), so\nI'd translate \"all of the people\" to 私が知っているすべての人 or 私が知っている人全員、私が知っている人すべて.\n\nAs for your question, yes, the sentence with うち is correct too and you can\nomit the particle で after うち.\n\n~~If you use に instead of で, that is, 私が知っているすべての人の 中/うち に would be \"into all\nof the people that I know\".~~\n\nAs for the question what if you use に instead of で, well, **it depends on what\npredicate comes after**.\n\n * edit: not so much 'objects' as 'portion'.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T02:21:04.400", "id": "15216", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T23:56:08.557", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T23:56:08.557", "last_editor_user_id": "4092", "owner_user_id": "4092", "parent_id": "15210", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Both are fine.\n\nFor some reason my first text book taught どうぞよろしく but when I went to Japan the\nfirst thing I noticed was how rarely, if ever, I heard it. People always said\nよろしくお願い（いた）します, so I started to do the same.\n\nどうぞ means \"please\" and I would say it is used more often to make a request\ninto a polite invitation (\"please sit down\"/どうぞお掛けください).\n\nGrammatically どうぞ still means _please_ when you say どうぞよろしく (you are\neffectively dropping お願いします) but when making introductions it is something of\nset phrase and as you know gets translated as \"How do you do\", \"Pleased to\nmeet you\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-07T03:14:51.587", "id": "15285", "last_activity_date": "2017-05-12T10:50:18.010", "last_edit_date": "2017-05-12T10:50:18.010", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15211", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "While I think the sentiment expressed in both answers that \"both are fine\" is\ngenerally correct. I think you will hear the します and いたします forms much more\nfrequently, and I recommend using them except in contexts where you are sure\nthe other 「どうぞよろしく。」 construction is preferred.\n\nI'm sure I'll get downvoted if my reasoning is wrong, but my sense is that\nどうぞよろしく sounds quite informal in a first acquaintance context. Mainly, this is\nbecause dropping ending verbs is a feature either of 文語 (which is definitely\nnot normal for meeting people for the first time) or casual speech.\n\nTo me どうぞよろしくお願いいたします fits bets when I'm meeting people who are above me or\njoining a 学会 to which I haven't previously belonged. Used in other contexts\nwhere I'm one of the more important people in the room, it might sound overly\npolite (I think). I use this type when meeting my new coworkers or superiors.\n\n[どうぞ]よろしくお願いします is an all-purpose workhorse greeting sentence. I use it when I\nmeet equals (by status) or when I am meeting a mixed group of people. So for\ninstance, I would use this to the [事務所]{じむしょ} staff. I also hear this when the\nchair did his greeting to all of the incoming students.\n\nどうぞよろしく。 is more informal (even with the どうぞ). I use then when at a party\ndoing greetings or when meeting friends of friends for fun.\n\nSo if I don't know the layout, I will probably opt for どうぞよろしくお願いします. If I\nknow where I am expected to fit, I will go with one of the others.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-08T02:32:35.677", "id": "15297", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-08T02:32:35.677", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "15211", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Firstly, the official list of kanji is there to specify kanji themselves and\nthat doesn't really include all the words where a specific kanji can be used.\nThat would make it a dictionary which it isn't.\n\nLet me address some issues in more details:\n\n 1. The list from the link you included does include **examples** where you can check okurigana. For example, the entry for 表 includes two verbs: 表す and 表れる which in this case are transitive and intransitive versions of a verb. Those are only examples though and are not meant to show all possible words. To see other words, you should just consult a dictionary.\n\n 2. In case of the verbs and adjectives, proper usage of okurigana is important as two words using the same kanji can have different meanings. Compare:\n\n> 細{こま}かい small, fine \n> 細{ほそ}い thin\n\nYou cannot write \"small\" as × 細{こまか}い as only the presence of okurigana かい or\nい lets you read and get the meaning properly.\n\nSimilarly, for verbs\n\n> 降{お}りる to get off \n> 降{ふ}る to fall\n\nAgain, only the presence of りる or る okurigana gives you proper reading and\nmeaning.\n\n3.In case of some compound nouns, e.g. 飲み物 / 飲物, difference in spelling\ndoesn't really change the meaning. I'm not _exactly_ sure if there are any\nrules which one is preferred though.\n\n* * *\n\nI would like to address kinyo's comment here as it might be useful for future\nreaders to have it in the body of the question:\n\nDictionaries, government lists of kanji, etc. document and standardize the\nlanguage but they don't create it. The language develops first and then comes\nan effort to catalogue it and make it standard. Japanese has an especially\ncomplicated history as there was a whole body of words (漢語), grammarical\nelements and the writing system that came from Chinese which is a language\nwhich works in a very different way. That caused the need to adopt that\nborrowed writing system to the native Japanese words (大和言葉) and grammar.\n\nThe long evolution of Japanese language and its writing system means that the\nsystem is not always logical, clear and doesn't follow a few straight rules.\nThere are now 大和言葉 words which can be written just in hiragana (e.g. most\nparticles), kanji and okurigana (e.g. 降る), just kanji used by meaning (e.g. 犬)\nor by 当て字 (e.g. 風呂). All that coexists together and it's the nature of a\nliving language.\n\nComing back to your comment about dictionaries: all good dictionaries should\ngive you okurigana. Just remember that okurigana belongs to a word, not\nspecifically to a kanji. You use kanji and okurigana together to for a word.\nYou can learn kanji without okurigana. You cannot learn many 大和言葉 words\nwithout okurigana.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-06T09:24:15.083", "id": "15268", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-06T21:31:06.543", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-06T21:31:06.543", "last_editor_user_id": "5041", "owner_user_id": "5041", "parent_id": "15213", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "[This](http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~iu8y-tti/rank01.html) may serve as an\ninteresting read. It seems to be a list of the license plate numbers that\npeople wanted, sorted in order of frequency. Unfortunately, frequency lists\nare very difficult to find because they require large amounts of information\nto be accurate and few people have the resources to gather and subsequently\nanalyze that information.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T01:43:31.773", "id": "15215", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T01:43:31.773", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4293", "parent_id": "15214", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Much depends on your enthusiasm. You can start taking courses for the Japanese\nLanguage Proficiency Tests (JLPT), which is a standard proof of knowledge in\nthe language. It has an hierarchy of N5 to N1, with N5 being the most basic\ncourse.\n\nNow you can ask your PJLS how they go about with their courses or you can buy\nbook and/or self study with help of online resources. You can even choose to\nignore the tests altogether and learn from books which are not targeted for\nJLPT. For example, I have heard Japanese from Zero is quite a good series to\nlearn from (haven't read it myself).", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T03:51:52.603", "id": "15220", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T07:05:56.613", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T07:05:56.613", "last_editor_user_id": "4507", "owner_user_id": "4507", "parent_id": "15219", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "上 is a noun and を is to show the process of the act. [上]{うえ}を[向]{む}いて= with\n[your face] looking up [at the sky]", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T14:45:27.847", "id": "15222", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T15:13:24.150", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T15:13:24.150", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5071", "parent_id": "15221", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Although it is usually the transitive verb that takes a \"Noun + を\" in front of\nit, there is an important exception to this general rule.\n\nIntransitive verbs such as 向く、[走]{はし}る (to run)、[飛]{と}ぶ (to fly)、[出]{で}る (to\nget out), etc. can take a \"Noun + を\" when it describes the place of an action\nor the direction of a movement.\n\n> 上を向く = to look upward\n>\n> [公園]{こうえん}を走る = to run in the park\n>\n> [空]{そら}を飛ぶ = to fly in the sky\n>\n> レストランを出る = to leave the restaurant\n\nOther such intransitive verbs:\n\n[曲]{ま}がる (to make a turn)、[降]{お}りる (to get off)、[通]{とお}る (to pass), etc.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T15:08:44.993", "id": "15224", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T15:15:46.770", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15221", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "(This is just a supplementary note to compliment the answer above)\n\n向く is an interesting case (see below) but generally when an intransitive verb\ntakes を the English equivalent often contains an additional word:\n\n 1. You fly **across** the sky.-> 空を飛ぶ\n\n 2. You run **along** a road-> 道を走る\n\n 3. You stroll **around** a park -> 公園を散歩する\n\n 4. You go out **of** a house -> 家を出る\n\n 5. You feel sad **about** your friend's failure -> 友達の失敗を悲しむ\n\n 6. You turn left **around** a corner -> 角を左へ曲がる\n\nThis does not always work: I think some people still get off \"of\" a bus\n(〜バスを降りる) and you might turn \"to\" the left (左を向く）but I struggle to do more\nthat just look up (上を向く).\n\nHowever, the real reason I picked on 向く as interesting is to compare it to\n曲がる. In the first case we turn to the left, in the latter we turn left around\na corner. It seems that in the end there is no substitute for understanding\nthe verb and how it is used, not just knowing if it is transitive or\nintransitive.\n\n_For reference_ : \nSome books give one use of を with intransitive verbs, Makino's Dictionary of\nBasic Japanese Grammar gives three:\n\n1) to indicate a space where something moves (1,2,3 & 6 above) \n2) to indicate location from where something moves (4) \n3) to mark the cause of some emotion (5)\n\nI am not quite sure which 上を向く fits, probably 1, but it is still intransitive\n(transitive verb is 向ける).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T05:56:47.277", "id": "15234", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-04T09:44:56.523", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-04T09:44:56.523", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "15221", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "> 触\n\nComposed of 角 + 虫.\n\nRead [触]{さわ}る in this case.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T16:02:22.593", "id": "15226", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T16:02:22.593", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3010", "parent_id": "15225", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not super confident in this answer, so if it's wrong I'll delete it.\n\nThe first part I believe is something like \"When you come talk all this\nnonsense to me when/after I had lost money on the horse race and am losing it,\nI could just kill you!\"\n\nThe `スって` I believe is from `[擦]{す}る`, and my dictionary has the example\n`[競馬]{けい・ば}で大金をする` as \"lose a lot of money in the horse race\". `頭に来る` is a set\nphrase meaning \"go crazy\"/\"get worked up\" as you mentioned. And `ぬかす` is a\nslang form of `言う`.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T17:03:57.287", "id": "15228", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T17:56:00.527", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T17:56:00.527", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "15227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I'll just answer about だてに since @istrasci has explained the rest.\n\n[伊達]{≪だて≫} means \"just for appearances\", as in 伊達メガネ = lens-less glasses. \nSo in this case with the negative (じゃねぇ) it means it's not just for show, it's\ngot a real purpose.\n\n> だてに拳銃をぶらさげてるんじゃねぇんだぞ！\n\nI would translate this colloquially as \"This gun ain't just for show, y'know!\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-03T17:51:47.680", "id": "15229", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-03T18:54:47.750", "last_edit_date": "2014-04-03T18:54:47.750", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "3010", "parent_id": "15227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "> Is there kanji for しか as in. 商品がひとつしかありません。\n\nNo. There is no kanji for this usage of しか.\n\nNo evidence of a kanji for this しか can be found in any of the aggregated\ndictionaries:\n\n[Weblio](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%97%E3%81%8B)\n\n[WWWJDIC](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Ejwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C)\n\n[goo](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/srch/je/%E3%81%97%E3%81%8B/m0u/tab/)", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-04T18:03:29.857", "id": "15237", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-08T02:17:05.747", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15230", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "My Japanese dictionaries (岩波国語辞典 and 小学館現代国語例解辞典) both have an entry for 生い立ち\nbut not for 生い立つ, and my 古語辞典(角川 and 旺文社) both have an entry for おひたつ but not\nfor おひたち. So I think 生い立ち came from おひたつ, and maybe おひたつ/生い立つ is now almost\nobsolete? Because I have never seen it used as a verb.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-05T06:54:24.780", "id": "15252", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-05T06:54:24.780", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "15238", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]