Japanese Discussion 日本語の討論会

[Yui.]

nuweraさん、

＾＾；；はじめまして。　日本語を一年習いますよ。　上手じゃないと思います。　でも、日記で日本語を練習ほうがいいですよ。　

Nice to meet you. I learned Japanese for a year [officially]. I don't think I'm that good at it. But, I think it's better if you practice Japanese by writing diary entries.

XD Correct me for grammar mistakes...I need to start reviewing for year 2 and I think I'm starting to forget some things. I'm a newbie newbie...

どうぞよろしくお願いします。

Please take care of me ^^

[Guest rain101]

hi there, i just need help in combining adjectives and verbs

i already know that for　い　adj you replace it with　くて　and for　な　 adj it's　で

so for example: 大きい　＋　たかい　＝　おおきくてたかいです。

but i'm just wondering what happens when i change it into past tense； instead of 'is big and expensive' i want to say 'was big and expensive'

therefore 大きい　＝　大きかった　＆　たかい　＝　たかかった

as you can see above 　くて　replaces　い　in　大きい　but what happens when it's 大きかった?

(sorry if the example isn't good)

and for verbs i get the idea of changing it from　た　to　て　form

for example this sentence: 起きて朝ごはんを食べます。 （起きるー＞起きたー＞起きて）

i'm assuming that this sentence is 'wake up and eat breakfast' because the ending is ます.

but i realised that 起きた is in plain past affirmative form while 食べます (食べる）　is non past..

although i think that that doesn't matter and the ending is what determines whether it's past or non past right?

therefore 起きて朝ごはんを食べました。would be 'woke up and ate breakfast'

thanks in advance

[Guest <3 Kim]

^ It should just be 大きくて、高かった。

and for your second question, 起きて朝ごはんを食べました sounds correct to me.

[Guest Domek]

Hi guys!

Tomorrow I have an exam (Japanese grammar) and I have some questions.

I would be very grateful if you could help me~ (it's my 'to be or not to be') : 3

1. When I want to create a sentence with form ～できるようになる　or するようになる I have to do it like that -> 私ははしでごはんをできるようになります？　or 私ははしでごはをできるようになりました？ or (with する) 私は子供とあそぶようになりました？or 私は子供とあそぶようになります？ I mean, is part "ようになる" always in past tense?

2. Past negative form for this ^ is something like: 私ははしでごはんをできるようになくなった？ I have to change only part "ようになる" to negative past tense?

3. How do I know which ending should I use to create an intransitive verbs from transitive verbs?

4. What is the difference between 車が止めてあります and 車がとめられました and 車が止まりました and 車が止まっています?

5. What is the difference between 明日映画に行こうと思ってます and 明日映画を見に行くつもりです?

Thanks in advance~!

[Guest rielihui]

Keigo makes me want. to. die.

[Guest <3 Kim]

^ Same here. Just had my exam today and had to write so much keigo in it T_T

[kissez*]

Hey guys! I really want to learn how to read Japanese. Is there an easy way to do this? lol

I just want to be able to read my manga without waiting on scanlators T__T

Any suggestions?

I really don't want to take a college course...

[Guest nuwera]

kissez*:

Learning Japanese will take quite a while. It took me years but since I didn't learn continuously and read more than one source it slowed my progress alot. Recently, I bought a book that is too useful when it comes to grammar. Moreover, I always use the dictionary to search for the words meanings and such.

As for reading mangas, you have to know as much vocabulary as you could and be able to use the dictionary well as well as study kanji too. Not all mangas have furinaga text written near the words to make it easy to read. Therefore, there are times when you have to use the dictionary to know the meaning.

If you're interested in reading mangas, I recently re-opened my website which contains manga translations. I don't have that much collection though, but am trying to update as soon as possible. You can check it out

[Guest XxTwilightSecretsxX]

Gosh I love Japanese :] I've only been studying for a year so I'm really rough but I'd love to learn from you guess (great reading practice here haha) but can anyone help me?

I don't know how to type in Japanese on my computer T.T

[Aziraphale]

Gosh I love Japanese :] I've only been studying for a year so I'm really rough but I'd love to learn from you guess (great reading practice here haha) but can anyone help me?

I don't know how to type in Japanese on my computer T.T

Maybe play around with the language settings in your computer? Surely there should be something that enables you to type in kana and kanji.

I googled and found some links:

http://www.autopenhosting.org/unicode/type-Japanese.html

http://www.coscom.co.jp/learnjapanese801/howtotypejapanese.html

Hope that helps.

[Shinobu]

I've been doing some self learning off and on but there's little progress since I didn't really follow a proper way. I find writing kanji very addicting so I spent a lot of time writing kanji but I still don't know how the sentences form and stuff. I wonder what kind of textbook the school use for JP lessons. Maybe I can follow that format.

[Aziraphale]

I've been doing some self learning off and on but there's little progress since I didn't really follow a proper way. I find writing kanji very addicting so I spent a lot of time writing kanji but I still don't know how the sentences form and stuff. I wonder what kind of textbook the school use for JP lessons. Maybe I can follow that format.

I'm assuming you jumped straight to kanji without doing hiragana and katakana? I've been taking night classes and started first on hiragana, where we also learnt basic grammar structures. I'm using the "Japanese for Busy People" series (still on Vol 1), so if you're just learning on your own, maybe you can consider this series. It starts you off with hiragana, which is important to master before you progress to katakana and kanji. I understand the fascination with kanji since I also try to figure them out when I can, but learning hiragana first will be very useful (eg: particles such as は, に, で, pronunciation of certain kanji characters).

Anyway, here's the series: http://www.ajalt.org/e/publications/textbooks1.html

There are two versions - the romanised and kana. I use the kana version (revised 3rd edition), where there's also a workbook. The textbook introduces the basic grammar structures, while you can use the workbook to practise writing hiragana and katakana. You should be able to buy them on Amazon or in your local bookstore.

[Shinobu]

I'm assuming you jumped straight to kanji without doing hiragana and katakana? I've been taking night classes and started first on hiragana, where we also learnt basic grammar structures. I'm using the "Japanese for Busy People" series (still on Vol 1), so if you're just learning on your own, maybe you can consider this series. It starts you off with hiragana, which is important to master before you progress to katakana and kanji. I understand the fascination with kanji since I also try to figure them out when I can, but learning hiragana first will be very useful (eg: particles such as は, に, で, pronunciation of certain kanji characters).

Anyway, here's the series: http://www.ajalt.org/e/publications/textbooks1.html

There are two versions - the romanised and kana. I use the kana version (revised 3rd edition), where there's also a workbook. The textbook introduces the basic grammar structures, while you can use the workbook to practise writing hiragana and katakana. You should be able to buy them on Amazon or in your local bookstore.

Thanks. I did hiragana and katakana. I just didn't go through using kana to learn vocabulary as well as sentence structure but jumped to kanji. Now I can write kanji fairly easily since I'm used to stroke order, can read kana and some kanji but can't understand the sentence structure nor do I know a lot of vocab. I was impatient. So I was thinking of getting a textbook or something to follow the right way.

[Aziraphale]

Thanks. I did hiragana and katakana. I just didn't go through using kana to learn vocabulary as well as sentence structure but jumped to kanji. Now I can write kanji fairly easily since I'm used to stroke order, can read kana and some kanji but can't understand the sentence structure nor do I know a lot of vocab. I was impatient. So I was thinking of getting a textbook or something to follow the right way.

Haha, I know what you mean Well, I think you can still consider the series I mentioned since you already know kana - there are 3 volumes, so maybe you can do the more advanced ones. Even Vol 1 assumes you know kana, so it may still be useful since your focus is on grammar.

Some other textbooks you can consider are Genki and Japanese for Everyone. They seem to be pretty good.

[Shinobu]

Haha, I know what you mean Well, I think you can still consider the series I mentioned since you already know kana - there are 3 volumes, so maybe you can do the more advanced ones. Even Vol 1 assumes you know kana, so it may still be useful since your focus is on grammar.

Some other textbooks you can consider are Genki and Japanese for Everyone. They seem to be pretty good.

Oh yeah, I heard of "Genki" and just looked up on Amazon. They're pricey. It has been a long time since I bought a book. They seem so pricey to me now. Maybe I'll get "Genki" since it has good rating.

[Guest free2breathe]

o.o nice I know where to come to now when I start my Japanese course next semester

[Guest nuwera]

戻ってきましたみなーさん！

この間にもっと日本語を勉強をしました。

今、少し上手いになりました。

そして、進み続けます。

[Tamago86]

Oh yeah, I heard of "Genki" and just looked up on Amazon. They're pricey. It has been a long time since I bought a book. They seem so pricey to me now. Maybe I'll get "Genki" since it has good rating.

A month late..but.there are a few good resources online too, and free..the best kind! If you have a constant internet connection and/or an iphone type thing you will never need an electronic dictionary with this:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C

it's basically a dictionary, a huge one, with most words having a recording of a native speaker saying it

you can also search by radicals and look up people's names etc, how to draw a kanji, etc.

you should ignore the example sentences though many are unnatural

For grammar, this is probably one of the most extensive guides on the web

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/

[Guest astral_romance]

こんにちは～

昨年から大学で日本語を勉強しています。。。でも、私の日本語がまだ下手です。　上手になりたいですから、沢山の日本のドラマを見ています。だから、日本語が少し分かります。でも、話す事があまりできません。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

[Guest shufflepuck]

I have been trying to decipher this for the past hour or so... but no success >_<

元気にしてたようで何よりです♪

すごく日本語上達してるじゃないですか！

Does it say something like (*completely butchers it*):

"It's good that you've been doing well/ it's good that you're doing well.

You're Japanese hasn't improved a lot?"

That's probably completely wrong, but they're using bits of grammar I haven't tackled yet:/