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| bio | website | kanjibox.net |
|---|---|---|
| location | Kyoto | |
| age | 92 | |
| visits | member for | 1 year, 11 months |
| seen | yesterday | |
| stats | profile views | 932 |
Many years of living in Japan, none with formal Japanese-language classroom studying, mean I have:
- horrible grammar
- decent conversational level
- pretty good Sprachgefühl...
Gauge my contributions accordingly.
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Jul 23 |
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How to know what Okurigana signify? (I didn't downvote but) as usual, your question is unanswerably vague and seems to look for a one-answer sum-up of an entire language structure and grammar. It is pretty hard to understand, let alone satisfyingly answer your question (as shown by current attempts). Furthermore, you seem to be making strong (and inaccurate) assumptions on what okurigana are and how they work. Perhaps a much better question would have been along the line of "what is the role of okurigana with numbers" (the answer having to do more with counters than okurigana anyway). |
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Jul 22 |
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Is there a difference between these words for “hero”? @dotnetN00b: I think you are confused about the meaning of the word 'romaji' (what you are thinking here is 'katakana'). |
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Jul 21 |
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“Mari” or “wari” ? Is this a consonant sound that changes with inflection? Hi Michael, this question could benefit from a little more context. What are the words in question? If possible, the full sentences, even... |
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Jul 16 |
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Can genki be pronounced as henki? @nkjt probably gave the answer... and should have done so as a real answer... Can you move your comment to an answer, please? |
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Jul 14 |
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Can ご無沙汰 be used in a sexual context? Interesting... Is it a case where using it in a conversation for its original meaning would elicit unintended giggles? |
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Jul 13 |
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How do I “understand” kaomoji? (Japanese smilies) Hello @Nensha. As you will have noticed, a large proportion of JLU users seem to consider your question is not appropriate for this forum. I will not close and leave it up to the community (although with 4 votes out of 5 necessary, it is likely your question will soon be closed). Among the many potential problems with your question is the fact that it is extremely vague, subjective and does not have any specific answer. If you correct these issues, you might have better luck asking it again. |
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Jul 11 |
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When Chinese personal names are written in Japanese in kanji is there always an obvious reading? @Pacerier: I think you are looking at this in the wrong direction. For names of places (unless you mean 'business', as covered by atlantiza above), you rarely pick a kanji and its pronunciation. These things evolve "on their own" over time and, as a result, you tend to get all sorts of exotic readings, yes. |
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Jul 11 |
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What is the etymology of the word プラスアルファ? I'm with @Matt: the 'mistakenly identified' theory sounds fairly dodgy to me (for a start, why would people mistake a commonly used romaji, for a not so commonly used greek letter??). On the other hand, 'α' is a pretty acceptable variable name for a small, unknown quantity (whereas 'x' would be a more generic unknown). |
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Jul 9 |
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When Chinese personal names are written in Japanese in kanji is there always an obvious reading? @Pacerier: as atlantiza said, it doesn't have much to do with grammar... But as for "can one assign any arbitrary reading to a kanji (in a name)", the answer is a clear and resounding yes. This is true for Japanese as well as foreigners. I believe it is explicitly stated in the naming rules that, as long as you are using kanji from the accepted set, you can assign any pronunciation you want. It is done by parents who want their child to have a quirky name (and endless headaches dealing with administration officials later on). |
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Jul 3 |
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Why are the words for prefecture so complicated? @sawa: sorry if I was unclear: I did not mean to imply that the suffix necessarily had legal implications (although according to fefe below, it might). In this case, I would say rather political than legal... As you point out yourself, it comes down to politics and communication strategy: I doubt you will find a strong logic behind it. |
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Jul 3 |
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What is the more common pronunciation for the romaji letter 'Z' in Japanese? Thanks for the very complete answer. If you don't mind, it would be perhaps good to summarise the relevant part (concerning 'Z'/'zetto'/'zee') at the beginning... |
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Jul 3 |
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What is the more common pronunciation for the romaji letter 'Z' in Japanese? Valid point. Damn, why didn't I think of saying 「ドラゴンボールゼットのゼット」... |
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Jul 2 |
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Why are the words for prefecture so complicated? If my memory is correct, Hashimoto suggested changing 大阪府 to 大阪都, around the same time he was pushing for the merge between city hall and prefectural office (becoming a sort of metropolitan office similar to Tokyo)... Wouldn't that at least provide some explanation for the 都 vs. other suffixes? |
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Jun 11 |
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Why would you use まいります for rain? (降ってまいります) Tiny formatting suggestion: maybe use 謙譲語１/ 謙譲語２ instead of 謙譲語I/謙譲語II, which are a little difficult to notice... |
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Jun 6 |
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Does バラの寝床 come directly from the English expression “bed of roses”? Murakami once famously stated that he wrote by first thinking up the text in English and translating it back to Japanese... |
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May 29 |
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Was 俺 ever gender-neutral? Small note: this is not Rikaichan's data, but WWWJDIC's (freely used by most Japanese translation software). |
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May 28 |
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What does ただいま actually mean? Almost certainly a duplicate of this one |
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May 28 |
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What does ワソマソ mean? @sawa: I meant to say that conductorless could have implied nobody aboard, but nevermind. I edited my answer to make it clearer. |
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May 28 |
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What does ワソマソ mean? @sawa: as I said: it definitely does have a person on board, that does tickets and gates. I honestly couldn't tell you if they are really driving it (I have a strong suspicion that it is mostly automated, but the person might have the possibility to take over if needed). |
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May 20 |
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Is まい as in あるまい really only used in literary texts or TV? @dotnetN00b: I entirely realise you qualified your remark with this warning and I did not mean my comment as a personal attack. But I do mean it when I say that "say as much as they can with as little words as possible" has very little basis in reality. The closest I can think of, might be the habit of eliding certain sentence components when they can be inferred. But that aside, Japanese is an incredibly verbose language, especially when it comes to some grammar for formal language. |
