John Batusai wrote:

hello i would like to aks some help on can i speak fluently in japanese please help me any reaction s or reply in my meaasage i'd be thank full yours trully John Batusai of Philippines lav yah all

Uh, your message doesn't really make much sense in English. You want to learn Japanese? No problem, search for "Japanese lessons" on the web.

not to be mean and all, but if you are going to ask an english speaking forum to learn japanese (I assume that is what you want, right? ) then i think you may want to learn english first... or maybe it's a better idea to ask in a forum that speaks your native tongue?

in any case, what i'm trying to say is that in order to help you, we need to know exactly what you want, or another thing is, if we respond to you, would you understand the respond?

again, not being malicious, just something to think about...
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niko2x wrote:

not to be mean and all, but if you are going to ask an english speaking forum to learn japanese (I assume that is what you want, right? ) then i think you may want to learn english first... or maybe it's a better idea to ask in a forum that speaks your native tongue? in any case, what i'm trying to say is that in order to help you, we need to know exactly what you want, or another thing is, if we respond to you, would you understand the respond? again, not being malicious, just something to think about...

Yeah, niko is right.
We can't help you if you don't understand what we are trying to teach you. There must be some sites out there in your native language that you can get help from.
That, and asking someone to help you speak FLUENT Japanese (or any language, for that matter) is a big thing to ask. Speaking fluently takes years and years of practice, and isn't something that can be done without going to the country in which that language is spoken.
We have a thread for questions in Japanese, but if your goal is to speak fluently, I suggest you enroll in a class or somewhere else, because no one here has that much free time.
Speaking of which, I have a translation deadline in 5 hours, so I'm off!
I'm moving this thread as well.

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"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

This fool again?!

DAMMIT!

If he posts this crap again, just delete it, kokuou! All of his posts have been requests of the SAME thing. And I've already advised him that it's not cool to post the same old messages over and over again.
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I recently got a PM request to explain the causative, passive voice, and the causative PLUS passive voice grammar point, so I'm making this rather LONG reply public so everyone that's interested can benefit.

So, without further ado...

A �g�𓮎� (shieki doushi) is a causative verb.
They're called that way because of their nature; they MAKE somebody DO something.
The person being made to do the thing is ALWAYS marked with a 'ni', and the subject with an 'wa':

���͖�����񂾁B(Watashi ha kusuri wo nonda.) <-- regular form of NOMU.
"I took medicine."

�ނ͎��ɖ�����܂����B(Kare ha watashi ni kusuri wo nomaseta.)
"He made me take medicine." (Lit. "He made drink medicine to me.")

In case you don't know, a 'shieki doushi' is formed with ������ or ����.

Regular �� Causative
�H�ׂ�@���@�H�ׂ�����
�s���@���@�s������
������@���@�����点��
���ʁ@���@���Ȃ���

There's no real rule for when what verb becomes what (well, there kind of is, but there are a lot of exceptions), so you'll just have to memorize them on your own.


As for �󂯐g (ukemi), which literally means 'received body', these verbs are for when something is done to someone. In English, we use "to be + PAST PARTICIPLE," and it's called the passive voice.

���̃����S�͔ނɐH�ׂ�ꂽ�B(Sono ringo ha kare ni taberareta.)
"That apple was eaten by him."

���͒��Ɏh���ꂽ�B(Watashi ha mushi ni sasareta.)
"I was bitten by a bug."

�������͉J�ɍ~��ꂽ�B(Watashi tachi ha ame ni furareta.)
"We were rained on." (Lit. "We were fallen on by the rain.")

It can also be used to say that someone did something to you, and in this case we use "was PAST PARTICIPLE on by SOMEONE."

���͔ނɃ^�o�R���z��ꂽ�B(Watashi ha kare ni tabako wo suwareta.)
"He smoked (and I didn't like it)." (Lit. "I was smoked on by him.")

Here are some example verb changes:

Regular�@���@Passive
����@���@������
�G��@���@�G����
�΂��@���@�΂���
�����@���@�������


And finally, for �g���̎󂯐g (shieki no ukemi).
This is simply a mixture of the above two, and expressed in English somewhat like, "(he) was made to do SOMETHING by SOMEONE."
The person being made to do the action is marked by HA, the person making someone else do the action is marked by NI, and any objects are marked by WO.

���́A���ꂳ��ɂ��Z�������N��������ꂽ�B(Watashi ha okaasan ni oniichan wo okosaserareta.)
"My mother made me wake my brother up." (Lit. "I was made by my mother to wake my brother up.")

�q���́A��ɖ�؂�H�ׂ�����ꂽ�B(Kodomo ha, haha ni yasai wo tabesaserareta.)
"The mother made the child eat his vegetables." (Lit. "The child was made to eat the vegetables by his mother.")

�F�����ɃR���T�[�g�ɍs������ꂽ�B(Tomodachi ni konsa-to ni ikaserareta.)
"My friend made me go to the concert." (Lit. "(I) was made to go to the concert by my friend.")

���‚��N�́A�肩�����ɕ|���f�����������ꂽ�B(Atsushi-kun ha, Rika-chan ni kowai eiga wo misaserareta.)
"Rika made Atsushi watch a scary movie." (Lit. "Atsushi was made to watch a scary movie by Rika.")

The ������ always comes before the ���� in these verbs, making a �������� construction.

Regular�@���@Causative+Passive
�Ăԁ@���@�Ă΂�����
�j���@���@�j��������
���ԁ@���@���΂�����

Note that this construction is RARELY used, and even Japanese speakers will find an easier way around it, if possible.

So there you have it folks!
From your resident geek

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Need a drink after all that reading.
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Thanks kokuou, I can always use a refresher on those forms

hmm.. i did take JP lessons for a while...
dug up my notes the other day.. a bit lost .. can't remember anything lol..
dont even think i wrote the notes..

I can catch conversations in JP though.. basic & genereal phrases.. so i'd say.. about 30% in a conversation ( which does'nt amount to a lot )

Maybe ill go for classes end this year again!

First of all, I want to say hi to all of you and I start reading this thread since I'm a dorama fans that wants to learn Japanese!

i'm very impressed by this thread, and the willingness of all of you to teach those of us who are ehmmm a bit japanese handicapped.

My question is kind of stupid, pls forgive my ignorance. I got myself a Kanji dictionary to help with my reading. Are there any circumstances where a phrase is actually consist of both kanji and hiragana or katakana together?? I am having a hard time looking things up. As you know, they do not seem to separate out words, and I can't even tell where the word begins or end... I try to recognize the dreadful prepositions, but that is kind of hard.. any suggestions?

I just started my lesson with a private tutor...

Thanks!!

Fayewolf

fayewolf wrote:

First of all, I want to say hi to all of you and I start reading this thread since I'm a dorama fans that wants to learn Japanese! i'm very impressed by this thread, and the willingness of all of you to teach those of us who are ehmmm a bit japanese handicapped.

Welcome to the forum!
The people here are really nice and are very helpful. Enjoy your stay!

fayewolf wrote:

My question is kind of stupid, pls forgive my ignorance. I got myself a Kanji dictionary to help with my reading. Are there any circumstances where a phrase is actually consist of both kanji and hiragana or katakana together??

Yes.

fayewolf wrote:

I am having a hard time looking things up. As you know, they do not seem to separate out words, and I can't even tell where the word begins or end... I try to recognize the dreadful prepositions, but that is kind of hard.. any suggestions?

What I did when I first started learning was to look for particles in sentences. -If I could actually determine whether it was a particle or not, I mean.
I am self taught, so I don't have a "structured" way of teaching or learning as others do.
Perhaps kokuou's words of advice maybe a bit more beneficial than my own.

Regardless, I have to say that it will take time to learn the language, as with any other.
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fayewolf wrote:

First of all, I want to say hi to all of you and I start reading this thread since I'm a dorama fans that wants to learn Japanese! i'm very impressed by this thread, and the willingness of all of you to teach those of us who are ehmmm a bit japanese handicapped. My question is kind of stupid, pls forgive my ignorance. I got myself a Kanji dictionary to help with my reading. Are there any circumstances where a phrase is actually consist of both kanji and hiragana or katakana together?? I am having a hard time looking things up. As you know, they do not seem to separate out words, and I can't even tell where the word begins or end... I try to recognize the dreadful prepositions, but that is kind of hard.. any suggestions? I just started my lesson with a private tutor... Thanks!! Fayewolf

-_- I was writing a small tutorial on figuring out Japanese sentences, but then IME crashed. I still want to write one, but maybe it's wiser to ask for an example sentence first. I have no idea what your level of japanese is, so maybe if you could propose a sentence I will explain how to analyze it.

In short, the answer to your question is, learn all the grammar. The more you know about grammar, the easier it becomes to recognize grammatical endings of verbs (so know that after that starts a new word). A general useful tip might be: if you see a bunch of Kanji stuck together, you can usually find it in the dictionary. If it's only 1 with some kana's behind it, it's probably a verb which you need to transform into it's original shape to be able to look it up. If it's only 1 kanji with a particle (or a few particles) behind it, the word is probably also findable in the dictionary.

The biggest problem is when you find sentences with long streaks of hiragana. Sometimes they just don't use kanji for words, because they are oldfashioned or complicated. Or whatever reason. In that case you'll have to know some grammar to be able to make out everything.
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I just randomly took this from Tokyo Broadcasting news. Though because this is news-text and the text style is a bit simple, I hope this can show you how to make order out of something that seems chaos.

Quote:

���N�T�����C���؂����}�������{�o�c�A�����c�����C���A�L���m���В��������y�m�v�����N�p���L�����Ȃ�܂����B

Quote:

Particles Names/Katakana Nouns found based on - "few kanji together" - 1 kanji + particle Verbs, or nouns made out of verbs.

As you see, when a noun is followed by another noun (as combination) it is hard to know where 1 stops and another continues. The trick is to try to extract the longest word possible. If you can't find it in the dict, try one kanji less. If you got it, then the next word starts after there...
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�@
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supermidget wrote:

I just randomly took this from Tokyo Broadcasting news. Though because this is news-text and the text style is a bit simple, I hope this can show you how to make order out of something that seems chaos. Quote: ���N�T�����C���؂����}�������{�o�c�A�����c�����C���A�L���m���В��������y�m�v�����N�p���L�����Ȃ�܂����B Quote: Particles Names/Katakana Nouns found based on - "few kanji together" - 1 kanji + particle Verbs, or nouns made out of verbs.

Wow, I thought that looked complicated, but then when I pushed quote and saw the number of COLOR tags... Now, THAT'S dedication
THANKS

Supermidget's right, though. It's hard to explain complicated ideas such as the above someone without knowing their level of Japanese (or any other target language for that matter).

For those of you who have a little more linguistic knowledge, what supermidget is referring to as "particles" are actually what we call case markers in the linguistic studies world.

For English speakers, this is a very difficult concept to grasp because there is very little case marking used in English. We rely on word position for interpreting the correct meaning.

Ex.

The dog bit the man.

Subject
Verb
Direct object

Now, if you change the word order, the meaning of the sentence changes:

The man bit the dog.


For speakers of German (and other case languages such as Russian, etc.), this concept is a little easier to grasp:

Der Hund biss den Mann.
("The dog bit the man.")

Even if you change the order of the sentence (reversing the subject and direct object), the meaning doesn't change:

Den Mann biss Der Hund.
("The dog bit the man.")

In German, the word "the" marks the case by changing to mean different things.

If you look up "man" and "dog" in the dictionary, you will find the following two words:

'der Mann' - "man"
'der Hund' - "dog"

In the above example, the masculine determiner "der" (like "le" in French as opposed to "la") is changed into the neuter determiner "den" (in German, not only do they have masculine and feminine, but they also have a neutral form of the word "the") when the noun that follows it is the direct object of the verb.

Now, what does this have to do with Japanese?

Well, in Japanese, they don't have masculine/feminine, but they do have case.
Now, the verb always comes last, but you can change the word order of the other elements and still achieve the same meaning:

���̌����A�j�̐l�����݂܂����B
("The dog bit the man.")

Subject marker
Direct object marker

Thus, you can change that order and still achieve the same meaning, just like in German:

�j�̐l���A���̌������݂܂����B
("The dog bit the man.")

There are two subject markers in Japanese (�� and ��), but that's for another lesson.

I know this got way off topic from the original poster's question, but I thought it may help some of you

������
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"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

This is super awesome!!!! I am goign to extract an example or two from my manga tonight and try to break it down myself and perhaps you guys can tell me what I am doing wrong?

I"m so exicted. Thank you!!

Some teenage jargon compiled by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
From Story on MDN

Quote:

New words are formed by shortening existing words, reversing their syllables or adding "ru" to nouns, thereby creating the infinitive forms of new verbs, such as in "biniru." Which sounds like the word for "vinyl," but actually means to go to a "konbini" (convenience store). Using the same construction, "famiru" means to go to a family restaurant. "Yoshiru" means to eat at a Yoshino-ya chain restaurant. "Apiru" is to appeal to someone, "okeru" means to go to sing karaoke, and "operu" is to undergo cosmetic surgery (from "operation"). Then you have "rabiru" which means to be trapped and unable to take any action. ("Rabi" is short for "labyrinth," a maze.) Strangest of all, perhaps, is "giboru" --- to undergo a paranormal experience. It is taken from the name Aiko Gibo, a psychic who used to appear regularly on television. An-pan -- not a roll filled with sweet bean jam, but an am-pm convenience store outlet. (Whose main rival is called "bun-bun," taken from SeBUN-ereBUN -- get it? Seven-Eleven.) Chihuahua -- to borrow money from consumer finance company Aiful, whose TV commercials feature "Qu-chan," a cute miniature dog. Daa -- short for "darling" Getoru -- to obtain something. Combining "get" and "toru" (to take). Haafu -- from the English "half." Means to stay out half the night, until 3 a.m. Ikato -- a nerdy person who's out of it. Shortened from "ikanimo Todai-sei" ("he or she is really like a University of Tokyo student). Isojin -- name of a well known brand of throat gargle, but in this case means a person (jin) who is exceptionally busy (isogashii). Karako -- a color copy Keiban -- a cell phone number. Shortened from "keitai bango." M4 -- not a magnitude 4 earthquake, but an appointment to meet someone at 4 pm at McDonalds. Maha-go! -- a command to get lost, beat it, scram. Composed from "maha" (mach, the speed of sound) and "go." Marumera -- Marlboro Menthol Lights Oniden -- Literally, "demon-electricity." To telephone a person persistently. Pee-pee (pronounced peh-peh) -- to lie, or a liar. Peki-peki -- short for "kanpeki," perfect. Rochuu --- short for "rojo de chuu," to kiss on a public street. Takakura Ken --- refers to a clumsy person. (The name of a famous macho actor.) Wakame -- normally a sea vegetable, but in this case refers to straight, black hair. Probably because eating wakame is believed to promote healthy hair. Yababa --- combined from "yabai obasan," an older woman capable of making trouble. Yakui --- a hood, someone resembling a yakuza. Yarahata --- a girl who reaches the age of 20 still a virgin. The word is made by combining "yaranai" (not to do it) and "hatachi" (age 20). Yuusu --- a high school student. From the English "youth." Zenbei ga naita --- literally, "the entire United States wept." Means nothing important.

I think my favorite is the M4.

I just read that article before lunch. Oh the youth nowadays.. If you didn't know the jargon, you'd totally get confused.

tabana wrote:

Some teenage jargon compiled by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. From Story on MDN Quote: Haafu -- from the English "half." Means to stay out half the night, until 3 a.m. I think my favorite is the M4.

Nice list! I should re-read it a few times probably if you'd try to be cool and use those words in front of your japanese friends they won't know what you mean. Or are they really used? I have had trouble using "prescribed" hip words before ^^

Btw, I've often heard the word �n�[�t (haafu) used to describe a person who has mixed Japanese and foreign blood, like being half Japanese.
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�@
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supermidget wrote:

... Btw, I've often heard the word �n�[�t (haafu) used to describe a person who has mixed Japanese and foreign blood, like being half Japanese.

I've heard the same thing.
The only one I knew was Daa for darling. I think I've heard it in the drama Oyaji, used by a Kogal when she talked about her boyfriend.

I'd love to get my hands on the Tokyo Police book. Hours of fun guaranteed!

i must congratulate the cast and crew members in producting waterboys 2 serial. i must admit that i have not yet seen waterboys movie but am sure it is very very good. i happen to catch the serial being aired in malaysia now and got hooked from the first episode without knowing the first movie waterboys. i have to admit that i have to follow the translation below english or malay but fall in love with the entire story line and especially Shiori Yazawa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the ever not giving up character and leader Eikichi Mizushima i just saw the episode 11 and am kinda sad have to say good bye the next episode but hope the production team would find something on the next seasons. i'm looking forward Satomi Ishihara and Hayato Ichihara and the ever smiling Akiyoshi Nakao to bring it to live again!!!!!!!!!

Satomi U ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Best Wishes from ur fan in malaysia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Take Care and GOod lucK in ALL ur UndErtakings!!!!!!!!!
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