4
votes
2answers
218 views
What does 母を恋はずや mean?
What is the meaning of 母を恋はずや in the film title?
Edit: the meaning of "恋う" according to the dictionary is "romantic love" as in "koi suru". E.g. ...
2
votes
1answer
100 views
What's the difference between the constructs (adverb) なる[naru] and (adverb)する[suru]?
e.g. what makes 相手になる different from 相手にする. I know that 「～になる」 is to be/become something, and 「～をする」 is to do something, but what does each imply when used?
3
votes
2answers
358 views
興味が湧く vs 興味が沸く
Which kanji should we use for the phrase 興味がわく (to mean that something has caught our interest)?
Some quick googling shows that both 興味が湧く (~11m hits) and 興味が沸く (~9m hits) are widely used. Is one of ...
5
votes
1answer
92 views
Expressing a sequence of actions using 〜たとき?
I am aware that one can explain that to things happen at the same time using plain non past form + とき:
電車に乗るとき転びました。"I fell when I got on the train (I was going through the door when it happened)" ...
0
votes
1answer
259 views
Colour connotations in Japanese language?
In English cultures there is a thin line (that usually isn't crossed) between symbolism (usually used in visual arts) and lingual connotation which is usually used in creative writing, and colour is a ...
1
vote
1answer
87 views
What is the English equivalent of「ひとこと欄」?
I believe this a kind of word-game, but cannot find a reference to it...
0
votes
0answers
87 views
Is my translation program right to use 「ある」 instead of「いる」 here? [duplicate]
When I ask Google to translate "a person is at location" I get 「人は場所にある」. To me the use of 「ある」 seems wrong since we are talking about a person. Is it right to use 「ある」 or should 「いる」 be used ...
0
votes
1answer
114 views
The forward slash (English vs Japanese)
In English it's common to list multiple items as item/item/item, with the / representing or.
What about in Japanese? Do I keep the forward slash, or maybe 「・」 so it would be アイテム・アイテム・アイテム?
...
3
votes
3answers
363 views
How to say “you may not [verb] here”?
たとえば、おすしを食べてもいいですか？ is for "May I eat sushi?". However I know that ちょっと、食べなくてもいいです。Is not the right phrase because that means: "Well, you don't have to eat (that)." So what is the response for ...
5
votes
1answer
154 views
What does ドン引き mean?
While i was talking with my japanese friends, that word just came up they could't explain that. Can you tell me what does ドン引き mean?
5
votes
1answer
218 views
Difference between the many words for son and daughter
There are three words to refer to somebody else's daughter (According to my dictionary): 娘さん、お嬢さん、令嬢。
There are also three words to refer to somebody else's son: 息子さん、子息、坊ちゃん。
What are the ...
4
votes
1answer
160 views
Difference between ささぐ and ささげる
beginner Japanese language self-learner here. I hope my question isn't a bad question.
As title suggested, I would like to know about the difference between the two verbs which I understood have the ...
2
votes
1answer
144 views
How to say “to ride a bicycle”?
Is it 自転車に乗る or 自転車を走る? I know I've read the latter somewhere before. But I just came across the former today and didn't know if there was a difference.
5
votes
2answers
171 views
How can I say “counted in (specific unit)”?
Specifically, I am trying to say something like "a semester's length is counted in months" in order to imply how short it is as compared to, say, your whole life. When I tried to look this up in my ...
6
votes
2answers
113 views
Can んだった and んじゃなかった be used like the past version of んだ and んじゃない?
I know that んだった and んじゃなかった can be used to say "Should have done" and "Shouldn't have done". I am wondering, however, if they can be used as a past version of んだ
Take for example this conversation:
...
6
votes
1answer
108 views
Questions on the use of 動物 in reference to mankind/humans
I got this quote from a journal an online associate writes. I provided the translation. Some of the wording in Japanese struck me as strange, so I am wondering about whether in fact this quote is a ...
7
votes
1answer
209 views
Working with parentheses (English vs Japanese)
In English I could write, "Birds (various kinds)". In Japanese could I translate the version using parentheses as something like 鳥類（各種）, or should the language/parentheses be used differently?
I'm ...
2
votes
1answer
127 views
Verbs in application drop down lists
I am working on translating pick list items that appear in a piece of software from English to Japanese. There is a mix of verbs and nouns on the lists, ex: workplace, attack, wolf, assault, etc... ...
6
votes
1answer
139 views
Why do we use 子ども to refer to a singular child (and 子供たち for plural)?
I was just thinking about how the term 子どもたち seems redundant since ども and たち are both plural markers. Of course you can use just 子 to refer to a child, but how did 子供 (and thus 子供たち) come to be the ...
3
votes
1answer
193 views
What function did あり perform in classical Japanese 形容詞?
In classical Japanese, many uses of 形容詞{けいようし} had あり "embedded" in them, e.g.:
熱からず = 「熱し」の連用形＋「あり」の未然形{みぜんけい}＋「ず」
熱かりたり = 「熱し」の連用形＋「あり」の連用形{れんようけい}＋「たり」
熱かれ = 「熱し」の連用形＋「あり」の命令形{めいれいけい}
熱かる人 = ...
2
votes
3answers
221 views
Which personal pronouns and sentence ending particles would an old man use?
I'm somewhat informed on gendered speech in Japanese, however, I have also heard that age may play a part in which pronouns and sentence ending particles you use and can get away with. For instance, a ...
3
votes
4answers
294 views
Parsing a specific sentence from a book
I have this following sentence:
横線――ＨＰバーの名で呼ばれる青いそれは、俺の生命の残量を可視化したものだ。
There are a few questions I came up with about this sentence:
The first part of the sentence is: 横線―――ＨＰバーの名で呼ばれる青いそれ, ...
4
votes
1answer
161 views
Question on expressing a half-completed action — 動作が中途である状態
手紙を書きかけたんですが、まだ書いていません。
I got started on the letter, but I haven't finished writing it yet.
The ending かける indicates that an action has been started but has not been brought to a finish or ...
1
vote
1answer
423 views
How many kanji do Japanese people know? [closed]
I am curious how many kanji a normal Japanese person is able to read. Since the Joyo kanji are learned by middle school, I assume that as a person goes through high school and university many more ...
0
votes
2answers
209 views
How are し, ち, and じ pronounced differently than in English?
I know that sh, ch, and j are pronounced differently in Chinese than in English, but what about Japanese? I have read that し, ち, じ are pronounced slightly differently than they would be in English ...
0
votes
2answers
221 views
Why is this sentence grammatically incorrect?
On a separate question about Japanese pitch, one of the examples I left was:
'甘美（うまみ）の花は赤を見える' (Your flower looks red [talking to Umami]).
One of the commenters claimed that it was ...
2
votes
1answer
322 views
What qualities characterise girlish Japanese handwriting?
In English, handwriting is generally seen as girl is the mini. caps are almost as large as the maxi. caps, the edges are rounded out, and if the dots are replaced with little cirles reminiscent of the ...
4
votes
1answer
269 views
What are the pronunciation differences between speaking and singing Japanese? [closed]
I've noticed that some pronunciation is different in singing than in speaking. For example, I often hear を pronounced as /wo/ rather than /o/.
What other pronunciation differences are there?
2
votes
2answers
123 views
Two definitions of けれども
In this dictionary I checked, there are two definitions for けれども. I also checked in my Japanese to English printed dictionary and there was only one definition, but in my Japanese to Chinese printed ...
4
votes
2answers
431 views
Why do English sources for learning Japanese leave out pitch?
I always thought that besides Kanji, one of the most difficult things about Japanese was its immense amount of homophones. For example, 花 (はな), which means flower, and 鼻 (also はな) which means nose. In ...
2
votes
1answer
185 views
Is Japanese understandable without pitch? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How important is one’s pitch when speaking Japanese?
I know that the system to avoid confusion between homophones (regardless of if that was its original purpose) is ...
0
votes
2answers
414 views
Did the Japanese have a word for surrender before WWII?
I had always thought that the Japanese didn't have a word for surrender before WWII. It seemed to be plausible given their culture. However, I can't seem to find any solid evidence of this. Is it just ...
5
votes
2answers
191 views
What is a better translation for 「自分だけバカを見る」?
I have this phrase in my JLPT textbook, as one example of the use of バカ:
自分{じぶん}だけバカを見{み}る
The translation offered in the book is:
Waste time and money among others
The English is both ...
1
vote
1answer
262 views
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective?
What suffix would be added to the end of a verb to make as it is being done (I'm eating), or that it has been done (I have eaten, I've ate).
For example
私は食べる, or I eat, 食べる would be converted into ...
7
votes
1answer
232 views
Pronunciation of しゃししゅしぇしょ
Now I understand that although all the morae mentioned in the title are written in Hepburn as "sha shi shu she sho", they are actually palatalized and sound quite different (the little や makes it ...
5
votes
1answer
121 views
kanji 有る, usage in the negative be verb
I am curious about a bit of academic pedantry of trivial importance.
If I wanted to put kanji in 日本人ではありません, would I use 有りません? This looks weird to me because 有 has some connotations of possession as ...
1
vote
0answers
240 views
Help with name for boy (British and Japanese) [closed]
My wife will give birth to our son soon and I am trying to come up with a name for him.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a name which can be written and pronounced in both English and Japanese? I ...
5
votes
1answer
84 views
Truncated adjective まっすぐ
I have a sentence in a book that goes like 甘い匂いのするまっきいろな花です。It is a kids book, so everything is in kana. I'm having trouble figuring out the bolded part. It talks about a dandelion in the context, so ...
1
vote
1answer
226 views
Particle を between nouns
So there I am again, asking a question from the book "Sword Art Online 1".
This time it's about the sentence: またの名を≪ソードアート・オンライン≫。
What is the meaning of を in this case?
3
votes
1answer
104 views
火を噴く vs 火を吐く
What's the difference between 火を噴いて{ふ} and 火を吐いて{は} ?
Both seems to mean fire-spitting, like a fire-breathing dragon, but is there any difference in their nuances?
2
votes
1answer
168 views
Limitations of に for emphasis?
I remember having learning that に can be used for a simple emphasis of the word before it, like so:
私はケーキを食べた - I ate cake
私にはケーキを食べた - I ate cake (the others may or may not have, but I did)
...
9
votes
1answer
355 views
Where does です come from?
I've heard various things about this construction from many different people, a few examples of which are:
It's a verb meaning "to be".
It's a contraction of something like でございます (de gozaimasu) or ...
4
votes
2answers
260 views
Meaning of sentence -てまでする
I have this sentence from JLPT book which I don't understand:
いくら仕事だといっても、体をこわしてまですることないんじゃありませんか?
I get that the sentence is about destroying your health/body when you work too much and when this ...
2
votes
2answers
102 views
そのようにする + Recognizing a compound
そのようにしてこの巨城は、二年の長きにわたってゆっくりと攻略されてきた。
The first thing I had kind of a problem with, is そのようにして...
I just have no idea how to translate it.
Also, as for 巨城, 巨 doesn't have a prefix form, nor there is ...
9
votes
1answer
321 views
What do repeated ８s mean in internet slang?
I was watching a live video stream the other day. To my surprise, other viewers kept flooding the chat with the number eight! My screen kept filling up with messages like these:
...
2
votes
1answer
154 views
Is punning with homophonic kanji common?
I recently discovered that the mascot for テレビ[塔]{とう} is テレビ[父]{とう}さん.
Answering whether this was a deliberate pun is probably impossible, but I'd like to know, in general, is it common to replace one ...
5
votes
1answer
200 views
Does the 助動詞「ます」 still have a 連体形 in modern Japanese?
Does the 助動詞「ます」 have a 連体形? According to 大辞林, it's ます, and I see the old forms ます／まする on 学研全訳古語辞典. However, in the comments on this question, Darius Jahandarie wrote the following:
@snailplane ...
4
votes
1answer
202 views
When should the polite form of 〜たり be used?
I've noticed that I don't see 〜ましたり used very often, but it does seem to be an accepted form. I believe this form can be broken down like this: 動詞{どうし}の連用形{れんようけい}＋「ます」の連用形{れんようけい}＋「たり」
My ...
1
vote
1answer
108 views
A question about the usage of ため and spacing
上下のフロアを繋ぐ階段は各層にひとつのみ、その全てが怪物のうろつく危険な迷宮区画に存在するため発見も踏破も困難だが、一度誰かが突破して上層の都市に辿り着けばそこと下層の各都市の≪転移門≫が連結されるため誰もが自由に移動できるようになる。
There were 2 things I didn't get in this sentence (or maybe a paragraph...?):
...
0
votes
0answers
115 views
Where can i learn Kanji Free and Easy [closed]
Another one of those Where Questions?
I know what your thinking but i am actually serious about this.
I really would like to learn Kanji.
But I've already looked over a lot of sites but the only ...
