最近、自分のスケジュールをよく見て、運動する時間がまったくないことに気づいた。体重が本当にやばくなっているので、仕方なく、運動の優先度を上げることにした。でも、今のスケジュールに入る余地もない。こうなったら、睡眠時間を削るしかないと、そういう結論にたどり着いて、朝６時に起きてジョギングを始めた。
６時起床は、２日連続で、まだ死んでいないから、とりあえず可能だということがわかった。しかし、早起きが苦手で有名な私は、いつまでこんなことを続けられるかは不明。昨晩は、８時に倒れて１１時まで寝たら、朝３時まで眠れなくなっちゃった。
う～、１日の時間を増やせないかな？火星では、１日には２４時間＋３９分があるらしい。火星植民地化はいつごろできるんだろう？あんまり期待しない方がいいか。
During my lessons, when the person doesn’t know how to phrase certain things in Japanese, I try to break it down for them. In the process, I’ve found that there are some very key elements and concepts that form the core of basic sentence construction. While obviously, you can’t be breaking down sentences while you’re conversing, I still think it’s a great training exercise to start getting your sentences into shape so that you can eventually skip the whole process and go straight to clean and nicely formed sentences.
Let’s look at some sentences that at first may appear complex but is really just an application of the same basic principles when broken down.
1. What kind of food do you think he likes to eat?
2. Can you tell me the name of the Greek restaurant you went to last week?
3. Exercising a lot is fine but taking adequate rest is also important.
While it is usually a gross oversimplification that causes more confusions and misconceptions, the idea that Japanese is “backwards” is true in the fact that the core/focus of your sentence always comes at the end and it’s always a verb (either an actual verb or a state-of-being).
So if you want to break a sentence down, the first thing you should ask is:
1. What kind of food do you think he likes to eat?
2. Can you tell me the name of the Greek restaurant you went to last week?
3. Exercising a lot is fine but resting properly is also important.
In sentence 2, “tell” means more than just saying something but rather to teach someone something new. This is 「教える」 in Japanese. In sentence 3, you have two main verbs because it is a simple compound sentence with “but” being the conjunction. So our sentences should look like this:
1. 思う？
2. 教える？
3. いいが、大切。
One major part of sentence structuring is using 「と」 as a quotation particle to attach a verb to whole sentences.
More details: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/quotation.html
This is especially useful for things that need to be phrased such as thoughts and things said or heard.
Let’s take a look at the first sentence in more depth.
1. What kind of food do you think he likes to eat?
In this sentence, the thought is phrased as a sentence so you can break out the quoted sentence as:
“What kind of food does he like”と思う？
So let’s break down the relative clause as a separate sentence. What’s the main verb?
What kind of food does he like?
We’ll need to add a declarative 「だ」 here for the 「と」 quotation particle since 「好き」 is a na-adjective so we have:
好きだと思う？
Now, we’ve finally gotten to the details of sentence. What likes is the question asking about? It’s “What kind of food” and it’s seeking to identify an unknown so it should use the 「が」 particle.
“What kind of food”が好きだと思う？
Now, we just have to convert the object in question (food = 食べ物) and the question word (what kind = どんな）.
どんな食べ物が好きだと思う？
Based on the context, you may or may not need to specify the topic. In most cases, you won’t but it’s easy enough to add.
彼は、どんな食べ物が好きだと思う？
Another major piece is the ability to attach a verb phrase directly to a noun, treating it just like an adjective. A textbook example would be a sentence such as, “The man wearing the yellow hat.”
More details: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/subclause.html#part1
We’re going to need this for the second sentence.
2. Can you tell me the name of the Greek restaurant you went to last week?
If you already know how to make requests (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/requests.html), you know all you have to do is add 「くれる」 or 「もらう」 to the te-form of the main verb)
教えてくれる？
The rest is simply specifying what you want to be told: the name of the Greek restaurant.
ギリシャレストランの名前を教えてくれる？
The tricky part is the “the Greek restaurant that you went to last week” part of the sentence. Essentially, you have a relative clause, which is its own verb phrase, directly modifying the Greek restaurant. So we can take it out and break down the main verb of that clause.
Went to last week.
So the whole clause becomes:
先週に行った
Now, all you have to do is directly modify the noun “Greek restaurant” with the whole clause, and you’re done!
先週に行ったギリシャレストランの名前を教えてくれる？
This leads to the final major piece, which is being able to treat verb phrases as nouns. This allows us to use adjectives and other useful parts of speech including other verbs with whole verb phrases. The basic textbook example being, “I like to do [X].”
3. Exercising a lot is fine but taking adequate rest is also important.
In the third sentence, we want to say exercising is good and resting is important. If we try to simply treat the verb “exercise” and “rest” as nouns, we run into some issues since you can’t attach particles directly to verbs (putting aside, special expressions such as 「するがいい」).
運動する「？」はいいが、休む「？」も大切。
Now, in the previous example, we already learned that we can directly modify a noun with any verb phrase. So, all we need to add in the missing piece to link the adjective is any generic noun: 「こと」 and 「もの」! In this case, since exercising and resting aren’t physical objects but an event, we’ll want to use 「こと」.
運動することはいいが、休むことも大切。
Another option which always works is… the nominalizer (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles3.html#part4), of course!
運動するのはいいが、休むのも大切。
We’re essentially done, we just have to sprinkle in the adverbs which can go almost anywhere as long as they go before the verb they apply to.
たくさん運動するのはいいが、ちゃんと休むのも大切。
Finally, let’s add a bit of motherly advice-sounding nuance to it and give it a more conversation style, since it sounds like the speaker is trying to admonish the listener.
たくさん運動するのはいいけど、ちゃんと休むのも大切よ。
If you don’t want to sound girly, you’ll want to add 「だ」 when using 「よ」 with nouns/na-adjectives.
たくさん運動するのはいいけど、ちゃんと休むのも大切だよ。
If applicable, politeness always goes last. All that remains is to take the last verb (or verbs in compound sentences) and conjugate to the proper polite form. I often mention that you will usually never know the politeness level of a sentence until you reach the end of the sentence. So you shouldn’t worry about it until you’re all done and finished with everything else.
１．彼は、どんな食べ物が好きだと思いますか？
２．先週に行ったギリシャレストランの名前を教えてくれますか？
３．たくさん運動するのはいいですけど、ちゃんと休むのも大切ですよ。
Now, one important assumption in breaking down sentences in this fashion is that you know the appropriate phrasing and vocabulary. But that’s just something you’ll have to learn by reading and increasing your vocabulary. If you find that you know all the parts but have trouble piecing them together to form sentences, these tactics may help you out.
Usually, I recommend trying not to think in English at all but for beginners, there’s really no choice since that’s the only language they’re familiar with. I hope the ability to break down and convert sentences, while slow and impractical for conversation, will at least serve as a nice stepping stone so that you can get used to thinking straight in Japanese.
Good luck!
Some sample sentences for the reader’s exercise:
1. He always says he’ll be on time but he’s always at least 10 minutes late!
2. Could you ask that man wearing the yellow coat to please not smoke?
3. Studying every day is boring but I think my grades will get better as a result.
新しい車を買う時、車に貼ってあるステッカーにその車のパーツが作製された場所がちゃんと書いている。車達を見て、Hondaは、日本の会社だけど、エンジンや色んなパーツがアメリカで作成されているとわかった。でも、私の車は違う。エンジン、トランスミッション、すべてのパーツが日本で作製された。私の車は、三重県鈴鹿市で生まれたらしい。おそらく、「本田研究工業鈴鹿製作所」でしょう。
アメリカでは、運転手が左側に座るから、日本版と逆だけど、それ以外、インテリアは全く一緒。特に、ラジオが同じだと思う。なのに、iPodを繋げて、日本の曲名やアーティスト名を見ようとしたら、「—–」って文字化けする。なんでや！あんた、日本からきたでしょう？！日本が好きでしょう？バックミラーにケロロとギロロが飾ってあるし。あんた、日本で生まれたんだから、日本語頑張って！
Trying to finish up some of my unfinished drafts again. God, this is the SECOND TIME stupid WP published my post without my permission! I hate this new interface!
It seems every language has different ideas of what it means to be something. Spanish has ser vs estar, Chinese has 是，在，有，and of course nothing. (It seems anything and everything in Chinese can be omitted and implied.) Japanese also has a distinction between properties of the thing itself （implied、だ、です） versus where it exists （ある、いる）.
The verb 「ある」 can be used in some interesting ways to define existence in a way that’s not entirely obvious, hence this post.
If you define all the normal, common activities and occurrences that exist in the whole world, nay the whole universe, if you do something that doesn’t exist in this realm, it can mean that it’s grossly unfair.
A) 晩御飯は全部、あたし一人で作ったから、全部自分で食べちゃうよ。
– Because I made all the dinner by myself, I’m going to eat it all.B) それはないよ。
– That’s not fair. (That doesn’t exist.)A) じゃ、次はちょっと手伝ってみたらどうよ？！
– Then how about helping me next time?!
Here’s another example of using 「ない」 for what one expects to be an uncommon scenario.
A) 彼氏が今晩のデートで大事な話があるってよ。
– My boyfriend said he had something important to say on tonight’s date.B) そう？
– Is that so?A） もしかして、立派な婚約指輪を持ってプロポーズしたりして！
– Maybe he’ll bring a gorgeous engagement ring and propose.A) う～ん、それはないんじゃない？
– Umm, I don’t think that’s likely.
You can even erase things that happen in the past and treat it like it never happened. Water under the bridge and all that.
A） 昼ごはんをおごってくれたら、昨日最後のチョコを許可なく食べたのをなかったことにしてあげるよ。
– If you buy me lunch, I’ll forget that you ate the last chocolate yesterday without my permission.B) そのチョコは俺が買ったんだろうが！
– But I bought that chocolate!
Finally, my favorite ボケツッコミ combo.
A) 日本では、なぜかセーラー服やメード服など、制服がものすごくはやっていてね。街で散歩したら、制服を着ている女の子をよく見かけるわけよ。
– In Japan, for some reason uniforms like sailor uniforms and maid uniforms are really popular. If you walk around town, you’ll often see girls wearing uniforms.B) あるある。
– That happens, that happens.A) 最近、おばさんまで、普通にメード服着ているし。
– Even grandmas are wearing maid uniforms normally.B） あるある・・・ねーよ！
– That happens, that happens… no it doesn’t!
As you can see, as is often the case, humor translates horribly. I hope to cover the different aspects of ボケ and ツッコミ and its importance in understanding Japanese humor but that’s another post that will probably sit in my draft folder for another couple years. Feel free to share your own corny jokes in the comments.
Oops! This was published by accident before I was even halfway done!
If you’ve read my earlier posts, you’ll already know that I’m a major advocate of primary materials. This includes reading actual novels and other reading material that regular people read. I learned a whole bunch of stuff as a boy reading the Hardy Boys, Hercule Poirot, Chronicles of Narnia, and even (I’m ashamed to admit) Piers Anthony novels. Unfortunately, as an adult learning the a foreign language, a lot of the easier literature are geared for an audience of which you’re no longer a member of. While Agatha Christie is always good, I would hardly be able to stand the Hardy Boys now. And personally, reading children’s books in Japanese doesn’t really entertain me. Unfortunately, the adult books which are interesting are way too difficult to read for most people who are new to the language. So it’s nearly impossible to find reading materials with the right mix of difficulty and interest level. Don’t even get me started on the fake dialogues and boring readings in Japanese textbooks.
So I figured I’d try to write more stuff in Japanese to maybe fill in some of the gap. I can’t promise it’ll be interesting but I don’t think it’ll be any less interesting than the stuff in textbooks. I always feel some trepidation when I write in Japanese but I haven’t heard any crazy complaints and have received even some comments that it reads like a native wrote it. So I think it’s in pretty good shape. Even so, I can still use a lot more writing practice so it’s like killing two birds with one stone. Corrections are always welcome as always. Enjoy!
このブログをよく読んでいただいている方は、もうご存知だと思いますが、私は、外国語を勉強する時は、原文を読むことを強くお勧めしています。私自身も、「Hardy Boys」、「Hercule Poirot」、「Chronicles of Narnia」、 「Piers Anthony」など、色んな本を読んで非常にいい英語の勉強になりました。ただし、もう既に大人になってから外国語を勉強することになると、子供向けの作品は面白くなくなってしまいます。「Agatha Christie」の作品は大人向けなので、まだいいんですが、「Hardy Boys」は大人として読むのはちょっと辛いでしょう。それと同じように日本語で書かれている童話などは、個人的に興味ありません。しかし、大人向けの小説は、外国語を勉強している方には、たいてい難しすぎるのです。度々単語を調べないといけないのに、単語の漢字すら知らないし、熟語の読み方も当てなければいけない。単語ひとつだけを調べるのに何分かかってもおかしくないというのに、知らない単語だらけの文章を見ると、さすがに諦めたくなります。日本語学習者向けに適切な難易度で、かつ面白い読み物が少ないのが大きな問題だと思います。日本語学習者向けの読み物といえば、たいてい教科書に載っているわざとらしい会話やつまらない読み物ばかりです。
だから、その穴を少しだけ埋めるためにこのブログに日本語でもっと書こうと思います。面白さは保証できませんが、少なくても教科書に載っている物よりましかと思います。私ももっと書く練習をする必要があるので、一石二鳥です。訂正することろがあったら、ご遠慮なく教えてください。
As most of you know, Japanese has a separate way of speaking to show politeness. This way of speaking is called 「敬語」 as a whole and is split into two levels: 1) Polite – 丁寧語, and 2) Honorific/Humble – 尊敬語／謙譲語. However, I’ve never really seen a neat term to describe the non-polite way of speaking in English or Japanese. Some might think that the opposite of polite is rude but the level I’m looking for is between the two. Slang is a little different too. What I’m referring to is a neutral way of speaking with equals. I’ve usually just called it “casual” or “dictionary form”. However, 「普通の話し方」 is rather unwieldy and 「辞書形」 is a term for conjugation, not a politeness level. I’m not aware of any formal term in Japanese which is a pain when making Japanese lessons so I looked up 「丁寧語の反対」 in Google and found my exact question on Yahoo!知恵袋. Say what you want about Yahoo and it’s past blunders with Microsoft but Yahoo Answers is really cool and turns up useful answers all the time.
I’ve decided to use the term 「タメ口」 based on this rather confident answer.
普通に敬語の反対は「ため口」ですよね。
昔は「敬語」と「普通の言葉」だったのが、今は「敬語」と「タメ語」になっている。敬語とは上下関係を示すものではなく、相手との距離を示すものなのである。親しい関係かそうでないかを示すものである。
Any native speakers have any reservations with that term? Here’s a list of terms I tried to sort in order of politeness. Any additions, suggestions, or corrections appreciated.
尊敬語／謙譲語
丁寧語
タメ口
俗語
By the way, I hope to use a screen sharing app during my lessons to show how to do this type of research using Japanese and the internet on your own.
An interesting post I read recently about 「多い」 and 「少ない」 got me thinking (probably a bit too much). The post is also all in Japanese, so it’s good reading practice as well.
As Minako Okamoto points out, you can’t directly modify a noun with 「多い」 and 「少ない」 in the manner below.
東京に
多いレストランがある
I believe this is due to the idiosyncrasy of having adjectives that indicate multiple objects in a language that has no singular/plural distinction. (I have another post that explores this theme in depth that has been in my draft folder forever.) In addition, other words that indicates multiple objects such as 「少数」 and 「多数」 are almost always used as nouns despite the fact that they are descriptive and would normally be thought of as adjectives. (I have no idea whether they are officially classified as just nouns or as both nouns and na-adjectives.)
There are many ways to get around this problem of not being able to directly modify the noun with adjectives indicating amounts. For instance, you can make the adjective a predicate or use adverbs such as 「たくさん」 and 「少し」 instead as Minako demonstrates.
東京にレストランが多い。
東京にレストランがたくさんある。
While this works fine for elementary Japanese, more complicated sentences might call for a direct noun modification. This is especially the case when the main focus of the sentence is something else and the fact that it’s numerous or few in number is extraneous information. In order to do this, all you have to do is modify as a noun using 「の」 instead of the traditional adjective-noun modification. For i-adjectives, you have to convert it to an adverb first by replacing 「い」 with 「く」.
東京では、多くのレストランが完全禁煙の制度を実施し始めている。
(I completely made this example up so I have no idea if this is true and I would guess probably not.)
Oddly enough, I have never seen the opposite 「少なくの」. I guess every language has its quirks. You can however, use 「少数の」 instead.
80対20の法則によると、少数のバグが大多数の問題の原因となる。
Some people might look down on what I called “elementary” earlier but in languages, simpler is always better. So in most cases and especially in conversational Japanese, you should just stick to the simpler method of using words like 「たくさん」 and 「少し」 without mucking around with what is more of a formal written style using 「多くの」, etc.
I should also note that there is a big difference between a direct noun modification and a subordinate clause modification as the two examples below show.
１） 東京に
多いレストランがある。
２） レストランが多い東京が好きだ。
Unlike the first sentence where 「多い」 is directly modifying 「レストラン」, the second sentence is perfectly fine because 「多い」 is the predicate in the clause 「レストランが多い」 and is not directly modifying the noun 「東京」 by itself.
So in most cases, if you stick to the basics, there should be no problem at all. In fact, I have personally never noticed this peculiar problem until I consciously thought about it. In conclusion, remember that “brevity is the soul of wit”!
Can anybody think of any other adjectives that have similar issues?
「それどころじゃない」 is one of those strange phrases whose meaning isn’t obvious by the words themselves. I guess those things are called idioms, a word that looks suspiciously similar to “idiot” as in “only an idiot wouldn’t know what it meant”. Well excuse me but we’re not all native speakers, you know.
In any case, I thought of this expression when I contemplated updating my blog. My life is rather hectic right now so updating my blog is the least of my concerns. So here I am, in the ultimate of ironies, updating my blog to talk about a phrase that perfectly expresses how I can’t update my blog.
You: 最近、ブログを更新してないね。
Me: それどころじゃないんだよ！
However, I will post all your submissions for September’s Blog Matsuri sometime near the end of this week. There’s still time to write and submit something to me! Just email me at taekim.japanese AT gmail.com
This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost 3 years so I decided it’s high time to get it out the door finally.
「逆に」（ぎゃくに） is one of those expressions that is used all the time. Even if you decide to stop reading the rest of this post because you hate me for being so cool, you’re probably going to pick it up somewhere along your studies.
「逆」 by itself means, the “reverse” or “opposite”, and is a pretty useful word by itself as you can imagine. It is used as a noun as shown in the following (admittedly cheesy) dialogue.
田中） 明日、レポートをちゃんと提出するんだな？
みき） あっ、はい！
田中） あんまり仕事をサボるんじゃないよ。
みき） はい！わかりました！
Aさん) 田中さんは、なんでいつもみきちゃんに厳しいのかな？みきちゃんのことが気に入らないとか？
Bさん) その逆だと思います。Loose translation:
Tanaka) Going to submit your report tomorrow, right?
Miki) Um, yes!
Tanaka) Don’t slack off too much.
Miki) Yes! Understood!
A-san) I wonder why Tanaka-san is always hard on Miki-chan? Maybe he doesn’t like her or something?
B-san) I think it’s that exact opposite.
While that’s all fine and dandy, you wouldn’t think adding 「に」 and making it an adverb would be a very useful construction. I mean, how often do you say “oppositely” in English? But in Japanese slang, it doesn’t have to mean what it actually means!
みき) このレポートのせいで、今晩のデートはだめになっちゃったよ。
Aさん) 逆にいいんじゃない？彼氏と別れたいって言ってたでしょ？
みき） それはそうなんだけど、残業よりましよ。Loose translation:
Miki) Thanks to this report, my date tonight is ruined.
A-san) Isn’t it oppositely good? You were saying you wanted to break up with your boyfriend, right?
Miki) That is true but it’s better than doing overtime.
As you can see from my crappy translation, 「逆に」 doesn’t have to be the direct opposite of anything in particular, really. It can be used to describe a result that might run counter to what you would normally expect. It can also be used to turn the tables around on someone (much like the title of this post).
彼女に振られたと聞いて、慰めようとしたら、逆に怒られちゃったよ。
I heard he got dumped by his girlfriend and when I tried to cheer him up, he oppositely got mad at me.
In fact, one very popular slang is 逆ギレ, which is when someone who is in the wrong turns around and gets angry at the person who confronted him or her.
Aさん） 遅いよ。もう３０分も待ってたよ。
Bさん） 電車が止まってたから、しょうがないだろう！！
Aさん) ・・・（逆ギレかよ）
The 「日本語俗語辞書」, which I talked about in my last post has additional similar slang such as 逆ナン and 逆セクハラ but I’ll let you figure those out for yourselves. I’ve done enough damage already, I think.
This is a question I hear often and one that I had myself at one point.
What is the difference between the potential form and 「～ことができる」？
As you know, the potential form is a relative straight-forward verb conjugation indicating that one is able to do that verb. The only strange exception is 「する」 which becomes 「できる」, a completely different verb to indicate “one is able to do”.
The situation gets a little bit murkier when you normalize a verb with a generic event 「こと」 and use 「できる」 instead of just using the potential form. Ultimately, it seems like there’s two methods of expressing the potential. (Don’t complain, Chinese has… oh I don’t even know how many, there’s too many to count.)
The natural question for any learner of Japanese would be, “What’s the difference and when do I use one instead of the other?” Indeed, an excellent question! What’s even more confusing is when the original verb is 「する」 therefore becoming 「することができる」. Hey, isn’t that redundant??
The first and easy answer is, the 「～ことができる」 version is longer. Ha ha, aren’t you glad I’m here to clear everything up for you? Seriously though, the fact that you have another particle in there allows a lot more flexibility. Nobody says you have to use 「が」, that’s just a sentence pattern simplification.
Saburooさん, author of the 現代日本語文法概説, has some very excellent examples.
読むことしかできない – Can only read it.
読めしかしない – ????
Besides the obvious grammatical differences, what the original question is really asking is whether there’s any differences in meaning and usage. I would say the differences in nuance is so subtle, it’s debatable whether discussing them would even help learners of Japanese. The short answer is they are pretty much interchangeable and you can stop reading here.
For the rest of you who like to torture yourselves like me, let’s think about it for a second. 「～ことができる」 uses a generic event 「こと」 and a generic verb 「できる」 to say that the event is able to be done. Doesn’t it sound a bit… generic? In fact, I think using 「～ことができる」 makes it sound more like a general statement about feasibility.
電車で行けますか？ – Can you go by train?
電車で行くことができますか？ – Is it possible to go by train?
You can take this idea further to talk about general rules and policies.
タバコを吸うことはできますか？ – Is smoking allowed (for anybody)?
タバコを吸ってもいいですか？- Is it ok to smoke? (I want to smoke.)
タバコは、吸えますか？ – Able to smoke? (Are you asking if I can smoke? Otherwise, why are you asking me if you can smoke?)
In a similar vein, you can see examples of when you might want to use 「することができる」. It can sound a bit more formal since it addresses a larger audience than you personally. In fact, companies might decide to substitute even more former-sounding words such as 「可能」 in the place of 「できる」. You can’t do this with the regular potential form.
インターネットで登録することができます。- It is possible to register on the internet.
インターネットで登録することが可能です。- It is possible to register on the internet.
インターネットで登録できます。- You can register on the internet.
This is an example where not worrying about every little detail and just getting a lot of input might be the better approach. However, I think it is worth the time to examine what words are being used and what they mean by themselves (in this case 「こと」 and 「できる」).
I hope this short explanation can at least give you a general idea of the slight difference between the potential form and 「～ことができる」. As I mentioned, they are very similar and often interchangeable. My final suggestion is to keep things as simple as possible. For instance, don’t say 「することができる」 if you can help it. Why make things more complex than they need to be?
