Ai Love Bunpou

Learn Japanese from Tokyo Podcast

2006-01-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

A little about the Japanese Podcast 101:

Our goal is to make Japanese, easy and fun, while incorporating culture and current issues into our lessons. We believe the more you speak the quicker you learn, so we have designed our program to get you speaking right away. Situational Japanese is heavily stressed, and our 4-member team role play various situations to demonstrate what form of Japanese to use when speaking with friends, customers, executives, etc. Knowing which form to use, separates good speakers from great speakers.

I admit, the dialogues are a little slow, but it's great listening practice and they break down vocabulary wonderfully. Also, you can' t beat having a native speaker.

GET YOUR PODCAST HERE: http://www.japanesepod101.com/

Conquering Japanese Verb Myths, Part 2 - Verbs in Costume

2006-01-04T22:22:00.000-05:00

Quick question:

Is tabemasu a verb?

If you said yes: congratulations - you're about to defeat your second myth of learning Japanese Verbs.

I bet, if you're anything like me, you probably started out learning all kinds of Japanese 'verbs' like the above tabemasu. One of the first sentances I learned in Japanese was:

Nani o tabemasu ka?
What will you eat?

At the time, I figured (logically) that tabemasu was the verb in the sentence. Worse, to an extent, it is the verb of that sentence. It does everything a verb should. It creates action in the sentence. It shows 'what' someone or something is doing.

So why does believing that tabemasu is a verb make your life difficult?

Imagine you are an alien who lands on Earth and beams into a Halloween Party to ask for directions. The person who opens the door is wearing a black cloak, bone white face makeup, platform shoes, red contact lenses and Dracula teeth. Behind him/her is a host of other people dressed like the living dead. You’ll form some pretty quick (and possibly gruesome) impressions of the people on this planet.

Why shouldn’t you?

How are you supposed to know (without turning on your super space-aged scanning equipment) that the natives are in costume?

It’s the same with Tabemasu. Tabemasu is a verb in costume.

And as with people, it is a bad idea to form your real impression of a verb based on it’s costume.

The first step to really knowing your verb is to take off the costume it is wearing.

Tabemasu is wearing a very common costume generally called the masu form.

This costume is very easy to put on, and relatively easy to take once you know how it is put on.

So let’s get dressed:

First, start with the real/naked verb. The best way to find naked verbs is to look them up in the dictionary. The naked verb is just the dictionary form of the verb. It is also called the plain form, or the infinitive.

The naked form of Tabemasu is:

Taberu to eat.

This is an ichidan verb. You can easily recognize ichidan verbs because they always end in iru or eru. If your naked verb ends in either iru or eru, 98% of the time it is an ichidan verb.

Other fun ichiban verbs include:

Iru to exist (animate objects)
Dekiru to be able to do
Uragiru to betray
Eru to gain/get
Tsutomeru to work for

The other type of verbs are called godan verbs. If you see a plain verb and it doesn’t end in eru or iru, it is a godan verb (with the exception of Kuru (to come) and Suru (to do), the only two really irregular verbs)

Godan verbs come in nine flavors:

RU eg: Odoru to dance (note this ends with oru NOT eru or iru, hence a godan verb)
SU eg: Hanasu to speak
KU eg: Iku to go
GU eg: Oyogu to swim
MU - eg: Yasumu to take a break/vacation
BU eg: Yobu to call (out to someone)
NU shinu to die (often Romanized Sinu)
Vowel + U Eg: Warau to laugh

Occasionally, a godan verb will look exactly like an ichidan verb. The three most common examples of these are:

Hashiru to run
Kaeru only when it means to return home/to your place of origin
Hairu to enter

Highly Irregular: (You have to memorize these)

Suru (to do) and Kuru (to come)

When learning verbs, is vitally important to learn the naked/plain form of the verb and form all of your conjugations from there. The plain form is the center of your wheel of conjugation. The masu form of the verb is one of many, many spokes that come from this plain form of the verb. It is one of many costumes.

Here is how you dress your naked verb up in the masu form:

For Ichidan verbs:

Take your base verb.
Drop the RU.
Add masu.

That’s it!

EG:

Taberu
Tabe
Tabemasu

For Godan Verbs:

Take the last U of your verb
Turn it into an I
Add masu

That’s it!

EG:

Hanasu
Hanashi (remember, there’s no SI in the Japanese Alphabet, so SI is pronounced SHI)
Hanashimasu

How about this one:

Warau
Warai
Waraimasu

Easy isn’t it?

Lastly, the two Irregulars: (there is no rhyme or reason to these, just be glad there’s really only two of them)

Suru (to do) = Shimasu (this looks exactly like what would if you just put SU ending of a Godan verb into this masu form. Scroll up and take a look. That is the best way to remember how Suru conjugates in this form)
Kuru (to come) = Kimasu (Other than the fact it sounds like Shimasu a little you just have to memorize this)

What’s even better is that you can attach more than just masu to the step two of this conjugation.

For example, what if you want to say, I start to speak:

Start with Hanasu (to speak)
Take it to Step 2 of the Masu shift = hanashi
Add hajimeru = hanashihajimeru

Congratulations you’ve just made your first compound verb.

If you want to continue doing something, try tsuzukeru.

I continue to speak = hanashitsuzukeru.

You can combine tons of verbs using the base just before where you usually put the masu.

That’s because, in reality, the familiar masu form is just one of many endings you can attach to the STEP 2 base conjugation of your naked verb.

So, make sure to get your verbs naked before you have fun dressing them up.

Part 3: How to Conjugate Verbs without Sweating Blood.

Japanese Verb Myths: Part 1

2006-01-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

The road to understanding Japanese in littered with lies. These lies aren't intended to harm. The fact is, in the beginning the lies seem natural and helpful. They help make the language 'feel' closer to our native language (English, most likely). Unfortunately, the more knowledge you try to pile on the top of these lies, the more your house of learning resembles a home built on a foundation of sponges. Instead of helping, these myths only make life harder.

At points, they can make you wonder:

"Why can't I understand Japanese?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"I must just be stupid."

When I started taking a formal Japanese class a few months ago, I realized how harmful those 'friendly lies' can be. I noticed that a class full of people who had completed almost three quarters of a textbook still couldn't conjugate verbs in a negative plain form. I realized that it was difficult for my classmates to naturally conjugate an adjective. My classmates were intellegent and motivated to learn. It just seemed like things had been taught out of order for them. My classmates genuinely didn't understand how verbs worked. Though they had the benefit of a native Japanese teacher, and classroom conversation time, still, the basic verb seemed to evade them.

I realised, as the class progressed, that my classmates were victims of a number of myths that I had also faced. These myths seem inherent in most of the learning materials for students. Unless you are the kind of person who looks at an inconstancy, and really searches to find out why that inconsistancy is there, it's easy to drink in these lies, until they grow so big they claw their way out of your brain, and go skittering into the night. .

So over the course of the next week, I'm going to post up all of the myths I've learned about Japanese verbs, and how you can defeat them. Hopefully you'll find them helpful.

Know Your Verb! (Some myths about Japanese Verbs as seen from a student of Japanese)

Desu = Is

If you think 'desu' = is, congratulations, you are about to defeat your first big myth about Japanese.

Let me make this clear:

DESU DOES NOT MEAN IS!
Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Desu is a word that has no equivilant in English. In short, it makes what you are saying more polite. This is exactly, word for word, what a Japanese friend told me.

Okay, but what about:
Kore wa penu desu
This is a pen.
(This is possibly the most inane sentence ever)
Doesn't desu mean is in that sentence?
Now we get to the real secret of desu. Desu will sometimes pretend to mean is, if it is the last word in the sentence, and if there isn't a more active verb at the end of your sentence. It's exactly the same thing as using the masu form of a verb to make a verb more polite (The Masu Myth we will defeat next).
So why does believing that desu = is give me problems?
Because, a whole bunch of the time, desu doesn't mean is at all. Further, if you try to think 'desu' means 'is' it will only confuse you to what's really going on in a sentance.
EG:
Kore wa penu ja nai.
This, a pen, is not.
(casual)

Kore wa penu ja nai desu.
This, a pen, is not
(more polite - not normally heard, but gramatically correct and equivilant to penu ja arimasen)

Kore wa penu ja nai 'n desu.
This, a pen, is not.
(I'm saying this to explain something - see previous post: no da/no desu. Polite. Seen often.)

If you believe (as I did) that ja nai means 'is not' and desu means 'is', the last two sentances are a complete mind-twist.

Lit: This, a pen is not, is ...WTF!

You may convince yourself: well, something like that is just an exception to the rule, and memorize it. But if you are forced to memorize everything that is an exception to the desu = is myth, eventually, you will quickly experiece desu burnout. You also really run into trouble when you meet the word has a meaning a lot closer to is: (what the Genki textbook calls the 'plain form' of desu, though calling it a plain for of desu is more of the 'desu' = 'is' crap)

Da
Is (in the sense of 'this is a pen')

I say a lot closer to is, because the word 'is' in English is a lot different than 'is' in Japanese. Japanese has a bunch of different kinds of words to express existence. The most common ones you will meet are:
da, aru (inanimate objects exist), iru (animate objects exist)
Also, because you tend to drop redundant parts of the sentence in Japanese, sometimes the word 'is' will be left off entirely. Finally, the word 'is' is wrapped up in every other verb, depending on how you conjugate it (which is why you don't need to use a 'to be' verb to say, I am going to the store - Mise ni itte iru) We will get into that more as more myths are busted.

I hope this helps clear up points of confusion with desu/da.

Future myths busted:

The Masu Form (it's not the real deal)
Adjectives and Verbs: One and the Same
How to conjugate verbs and adjectives without sweating blood

Wanted - Anime Fansubbers

2005-12-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

Anime Fansub : Translators "Japanese to English":

Hell-Fansub is currently taking on 2-3 translators to join the team. Not much is required but dedication to the fansub is a must. Requirements for the position are listed below:

Requirements:

Decent Understanding of the Japanese Language
8 Hours Free a week to logon IRC
Subtitle Skills (NOT REQUIRED but will help )

If you would like to apply for this position either visit their irc channel and message an operator or visit the website and apply online.

WebSite: www.hell-fansubs.org

Irc: irc.rizon.org

Channel: #hell-fansubs

(from sci.lang.translation)

Miyagi-ben?

2005-12-28T00:39:00.000-05:00

Most of us students of Japanese are quickly familiarized with the concept of Kansai-ben, but as with most langauages, many dialects of Japanese abound. I stumbled across this one while attempting to translate the trailer for ‘Shinobi-Heart Under Blade’

The word that tripped me up:
Subareru.

Turns out, this is a synonym for a word we all probably know:

Samui - to be cold.

Another Miyagi-ben version of this is ‘shibareru’.

Want to learn more about Miyagi-ben?

Check out this comprehensive site: http://members.tripod.com/MiyagiAJET/miyagi-ben04.html

no da/no desu

2005-12-27T10:58:00.000-05:00

This is one of the harder things to get a feel for in Japanese, because it’s almost, not quite similar but not to English. So I’m going to yeild to a greater wisdom than my own:

No: The explainer, not the possessive:

For all of you who are saying, "What does he mean? Doesn't no mean possession, as in Sore wa boku no inu desu?" let me assure you, that is 100% correct. However, no is also frequently used in another way, as an explainer. In speech, it is often shortened to just n.

Use

No can be added directly to any verb or adjective. If you add it to a noun, it needs a na, just like "na-adjectives" (kirei, kantan, etc).

No is used to say, "You see, this is why such-and-such." In this way, it's similar to wake, which I will be writing an article about soon. When asking a question that requires a reason, you often end it with no, rather than just the verb (in polite form, no desu ka instead of just desu ka). The most important thing to remember is that no gives a reason for something.

Let me give you a few example sentences, and then we can discuss each one.

Naze paatii ni konakatta no?
Kazoku majiwari ga atta n dakara....
How come you didn't come to the party?
Well, see, there was a family get-together, so....

Okay, what's going on here? Notice that the first speaker ends her question with no. She is requesting a reason. The second speaker responds by giving the reason followed by no, shortened here to n.

Recall that if you follow a noun with no, which we will see some examples of later, you need to use a na, as if the noun (or phrase) were actually a big adjective describing the no. It's like everything before the no is one thought that spills all its emphasis into the no. Okay, now read the second speaker's answer again, this time substituting the English word "reason" or "meaning" for n. Kazoku-majiwari-ga-atta reason dakara.... That helped it become clearer to me when I first learned it. It also works really well for the word wake.

Let's look at another example sentence.

Ikitakunai n janai kedo, shukudai ga ippai aru n dakara.
It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that I have a lot of homework.

The movie called...

2005-12-17T17:21:00.000-05:00

Today’s grammar point comes directly from my Japanese Sensei:

Kong to iu eiga
The movie called Kong.

This comes from iu - to say, preceded by to, which lets you know that whatever is before it is being said. (or thought, as per to omou, or believed, as per to shinjiru, or felt, as per to kanjiru, etc. etc...)

Tatoeba (example):

Kinnou no ban, Kong to iu eiga wo mi ni itta.
Last night, I went to see the movie Kong.
(lit: Yesterday’s night, the movie called Kong I went to see)

The cool thing about to iu is that it can work with anything:

Wanda to iu sakana...
A fish called Wanda...

Jason to iu hito
A person called Jason

Shiroi mizu to iu jitsu
A techniqe called white water.

Etc, etc, etc...

It's like, like...

2005-12-15T20:53:00.000-05:00

Nanka is something that I've heard a lot in conversation and songs. The dictionary definition didn't really do it justice, but the below explanation certainly helped a lot.

Like, if there’s any equivalent to like, the word “like” in Japanese, it has to be like 「なんか」. 「なんか」 is a contraction of 「なにか」（何か）, which means “something". However, 「なんか」 can be used to mean something very similar to the English “like". Take a look at the example below:

ゲームなんか興味ないよ。- Not interested in something game.

First, you’ll notice the total lack of particles. You’ll see that a lot in casual speech. Another thing to notice here is that 「なんか」 essentially means “things like” in this example. This usage is distinct for 「なんか」 and you won’t see 「なにか」 used in the same way.

vb (base form masu) + dasu

2005-12-15T00:16:00.000-05:00

You’ll hear this a lot in songs:

vb (base masu form) + dasu

When I asked a Japanese friend of mine how this differed from vb (base masu form) + hajimeru she said, ‘+dasu has more energy.’ Followup reading on this has clarified the point pretty well for me. In short: when you use +dasu, you are basically saying that it started with vigor (or quickly).

Kono otoko no hito hashirihajimeta.
This man started to run.
Kono otoko no hito hashiridashita.
This man broke out into a sprint.

Using +dasu always implies a more energetic beginning. More sudden. More crushing. It’s the stuff of dramas and sappy love songs. (as well as hard rock, I guess)

A very popular phrase I hear a lot in in songs is:

kimochi wo afuredasu
my feelings burst fourth and overflowed (rough translation)

I’m sure you can guess why this is popular (esp in love songs).

Otoko no hito - man (if you leave off the no hito it dramatically alters the meaning into something confusing or offensive, so be careful)
Hashiru - to run (the physical activity. If you want to say ‘run away’ or ‘flee’ use nigeru)
Kimochi - feelings (The Kanji are literally: vapor + hold)
Afureru - to overflow (in normal conversation this applies mainly to toilets)

Tomorrow: It’s Like, Like...

Verb (base Masu form) + hajimeru

2005-12-14T00:47:00.000-05:00

Though this makes sense on paper, I often find myself stumbling over -hajimeru when speaking. Here's a brief summary.

Vb (base Masu form) + Hajimeru = To Begin to Do:

For Example: (Tatoeba)

Watashi wa gogo no ichi ji ni benkyou shi-hajimeru.
At 1PM I will begin to study.
Ikinari, minna no seito utai-hajimeta.
All of a sudden, all of the sudents began to sing.
Sensei ha kyokashou wo yomi-hajimemashita.
The teacher began to read the textbook.

Words used in examples:

Watashi - I/Me/Private Business.
Gogo - Afternoon
Benkyou (studies) + Suru = to study (to do studying)
Utau- to sing
Kyokashou - textbook
Sensei - Teacher
Yomu- to read

Tomorrow: vb masu + dasu (the energetic beginning)

Introduction to Japanese Grammer

2005-12-13T00:07:00.000-05:00

I'm loathe to reinvent the wheel, so today's grammar point (or grammar foundation) is being taken from maktos.jimmyseal.net

Introduction to Japanese Grammar:

Japanese sentences are very different from familiar languages like English and Spanish. Incidentally, Spanish is very similar to English grammar-wise. Japanese, on the other hand, uses short words called "particles" to mark a word's purpose in a Japanese sentence. More on particles later.

However, no worries! Japanese grammar isn't as difficult as most people think, and in many ways, it it more logical than most other languages and has few exceptions.

I will start by giving a literal translation to the example sentences that may look a little strange. In order to avoid this as much as possible, I will incorporate already taught concepts into translations, so they for the most part will not be 100% literal. In any case, a completely natural translation will always be provided.

Japanese Sentence Structure:

Here's a typical Japanese sentence:
Kore wa mizu desu.

This (topic marker) water is.

If you've seen Star Wars (and who hasn't), think back to the way Yoda spoke. Japanese would sound a lot like that if you translated it literally.

"Your father is."
"An abode of evil it is."
"In you must go."

Japanese is also a bit vague, or can seem that way. Japanese speakers tend to have a bit of an aversion to redundancy, and if they see the opportunity to leave something out of a sentence (say, a subject or a direct object), they will most likely take it. In fact, Japanese pronouns actually have roots in meanings that are unrelated to "I, you, he..." For example, two of their words for 'I' (there are many)literally mean "personal" and "slave." (Watashi = Personal/ Manservant = Boku) As a result, Japanese will usually avoid pronouns like the plague, and most often refer to other people by name, even when talking directly to that person. Back to redundancy: I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I'll take you by the hand and guide you as you look at this example:

Person A: Mise e iku ka.
Person B: Hai, iku.

Person A: Are you going to the store?
Person B: Yes, I am going there.
"mise e iku" literally translates, "to the store, [I] go"

mise - store
e - particle meaning "toward" or "to"
iku - to go
ka - particle signifying that the sentence is a question
hai - yes

Notice that there is no mention of 'you, I or there' because they aren't really needed. To a Japanese person, it is perfectly natural to say (literally), "Yes, I go."

I love Japanese Grammer...

2005-12-12T23:18:00.000-05:00

...which is a good thing because there's so much of it.

The fact is, it takes years to truly master Japanese grammer. I'm using this blog to keep me on task, one day and one grammer point at a time. If you feel like a salmon swimming upstream the tide of Japanese grammer, maybe my journey can help you too.