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I'm a student of Linguistics specializing in Japanese. I've been studying Japanese on and off for a while now, and while I always keep improving, I'm not a native speaker or even fluent, so I tend to always view my intuitive judgments with a grain and salt (and so should you :)).

I usually tend to look at things from a linguistic point of view and not as a typical language student or enthusiast. This comes with the added benefit of seeing things in new and interesting ways, but this approach also has some disadvantages. In other words, please tell me if I use some obscure professional term, and if my explanations are a little bit complicated or long-winded, please bear with me. :)


Apr
20
awarded  Enlightened
Apr
20
awarded  Nice Answer
Apr
12
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Dec
30
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Sep
28
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Sep
25
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Sep
16
awarded  Enlightened
Sep
16
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Sep
4
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Aug
17
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Jul
13
awarded  Nice Answer
Jul
7
answered How do we tell whether two hiragana should fit in one mora or two?
Jul
7
answered Significance of ところ in set phrases ところで and ところが
Jul
7
comment How to translate “edge” into Japanese
@language hacker: There's a another very good reason no one has mentioned for why questions should be focused and readily answerable. Since this site is still in beta, it is tested for effectiveness, and one of the parameters (as you can see in the Area 51 page) is the percentage of unanswered questions. I think we all want this site to succeed, and the users here go out of their way to provide useful answers, but it is hard to answer an unfocused question, and this reflect badly on the site.
Jul
4
awarded  Nice Answer
Jul
4
awarded  Enlightened
Jul
4
awarded  Nice Answer
Jul
2
comment What are the meanings of ~とも [tomo] and ~かしら [kashira]?
@Dainel: There are still people saying "Thou" today. Archaisms still survive, but their use becomes more and more artificial. You can definitely hear ~とも in extremely formal speech or in historical dramas. But other than that - no. It may still be common in some dialects but as far as I know it's strictly archaic in everyday speech.
Jul
2
comment Is there a study available on the similarities between Japanese and Turkish grammars?
@Amanda: Could be, but that question would remain open until someone who happens to speak both Japanese and Turkish would get here. And than their personal impression is not too different than my professor's impression, I guess, unless they can provide some examples. This is probably what hippietrail was looking for, but I'm afraid it would have to wait for linguistics.stackexchange.com or at least until this site grows bigger and gets some Turkish speakers (and I'm sure it eventually will).
Jun
28
awarded  Nice Answer