日本語

Alright, I'll make it clear and I appreciate with you explaining things to me.

I tend to switch around use and for. I use "using it as a sentence" as something like serving as a function in/for a sentence; it's something that reminds me what it meant more.

But I also...didn't noticed I mixed it up. Thanks for pointing it out.

どこ やる を しよ へ? こまています. (Where do I put an e particle? I am confused.)

I have no idea if I formed that right. This is my first time forming a Japanese sentence and I kept using watashi wa as "I am". XD I'm new, so please be patient with me.

...Eh. Now I'm embarrassed. I should get proper sleep.

Interesting. At least that made me feel a bit better over myself being slow to pick up since it's a common confusion...

edited 4th Jun '14 11:54:42 AM by TheTomatoFairy

Hmm... I think by どこやる you're trying to write "where do". And やる does mean "to do something," but you don't use it in Japanese that way you would in English. どこやるを just looks like nonsense.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the rest, but the e particle goes after the place the someone or something is going. So when asking "where to" you write that part as どこへ.

You'll get the hang of it! But yeah, I wouldn't even have known what the first sentence was supposed to mean if you hadn't translated it. Though to be fair, I wouldn't know how to say that in Japanese myself. ”へ”を どこに おきますか？, maybe? (Split up for ease of understanding.)

To actually answer your question, you put the へ after the word indicating the place or direction. I used に instead in the above sentence because it's... more about a specific place than a direction, I guess. And を after the subject of the action, which in this case was the word へ.

If you're unsure, you can take the word from the sentence you're trying to formulate and make it a question.
"What do I put where?"
"The particle へ."

Ergo, the particle へ is the thing you're trying to place, so it's the subject of the verb ("put"), so the を goes after it.

PS: Also, it should be こまっています,　since the dictionary form of the verb is こまる. There are some verbs ending in る where you don't get the little っ before the て, but those are only some cases where the る follows an -e or -i syllable, never after an -a, -o or -u syllable.

edited 4th Jun '14 12:38:01 PM by Fawriel

The grammar nerd in me objects to your word choice. は doesn't indicate what is called the 'subject' in grammer, it marks the topic (or 'indirect subject'). You're right that it means "this sentence is about X", but that's sometimes different from the actual 'subject' of the sentence. Which is marked by が.

The example I can most easily remember is body parts. 私は腕が長いです。 My arms are long. The arms are the subject, but I am the topic, so it's inferred that they're my arms even though I don't say 私の. You probably wouldn't say this short little sentence because it feels unnecessary, but in a longer sentence with multiple clauses you might start with the topic and it stays the topic even when the subject changes. Or even in later sentences. Being able to naturally separate topic and subject is part of what makes Japanese feel so context-sensitive compared to English; sometimes a topic is only implied.

Of course, other times the topic is also the subject and が is dropped for redundancy. That's how they teach it early on because it's simpler.

edited 8th Jun '14 2:31:53 AM by Clarste

本当にスポーツが好きではない。ビデオゲームは優れている。

俺の日本語が まだ悪いだね。

ちょっと変なしゃべり方ですね。「悪い」が間違い言葉だと思う。「日本語で話すのは下手だね。」？

I guess there's some pleasure to be had at being able to at least understand the conversations I'm hearing here.

今日は俺の部屋が綺麗にした。やはり難しいでも頑張りました。

Would that be corrct then?

Damn, I understood at least some of those words. Progress!

Okay, this is a lot to ask for, but it doesn't cost anything to ask, so... I'm gonna be very late with my presentation for Japanese class, and I don't know any Japanese people well enough to dare ask, and all my classmates are busy with their own university business, so... is there anyone here with really good Japanese skills who would be willing to correct several pages (4-ish, 5-ish?) worth of Japanese within about a day? I'm not even done with the German draft yet and I don't know how long it'll take me to translate it to Japanese, but chances are it'll be around Tuesday evening at the earliest, and the presentation is on Thursday morning... And of course Wednesday will be spent creating the actual Power-Point presentation...

All I can give in return is eternal gratitude, and a drawing if you like! I draw good. People keep saying so at least. Wah.

I just started translating. This made me realize that I don't know Japanese. Thus, allow me to add to my previous post:

I will draw you so many pictures.

Hell.

I'll give you money.

Someone help me make my Japanese text not suck!

...I'm not sure if I can help much, but yeah I'll try to since lessons were over particles, until someone better suited comes up.

I'll see if I could ask for help with my Japanese teacher as well. I'm wishing you luck.

No, nevermind. I'm just a huge idiot and I have a lot on my plate to be able to help efficiently.

edited 16th Jun '14 10:44:11 AM by TheTomatoFairy

Writing Japanese isn't exactly my specialty, but I'd be willing to take a look at it. See if anything looks really weird to me.

I'm not exactly fluent, but I could help if you really need it.

I was actually really hoping for your help in particular, Hime-sama, since not only do you seem pretty proficient, but if I remember correctly, you're also German, so you could even compare it with my German draft to better understand what I was trying to say... Of course, I'll gladly accept any help from anyone else I can get, too. And I stand by what I said about giving drawings or money in return, too. Here's a link (contains NSFW-ish stuff!) to some of what I've drawn recently and not-so-recently. Though the cashier just gave me a 10€ bill too many by accident, so maybe that's the fate you should choose.

But yeah, for today, I'll just have to rest and mentally prepare for just working on the translation all day tomorrow. It should be done around this time of day...

Oh no, I'm not German. I'm don't know where you got that idea since I don't recall ever talking about Germany or German on here. So I can't really help you there.

I could still try an help with the Japanese part if you need it and could send it or put it somewhere I can see it or something. I don't need anything in return or anything.

That's mysterious, then. Sorry, I must've confused you with someone else from this forum... That happens sometimes with the way my brain saves information on people.

I'll still totally draw you something just out of thankfulness, though! It wouldn't feel right otherwise.

I think when it's done, I'll make an open Google Document.

edited 16th Jun '14 12:47:48 PM by Fawriel

1306 うん。日本語が下手と述べた。俺は まだ初心者だよ。

Oh yeah, uh. In case any of you were wondering. I forgot my USB stick with the file on a library computer and it was gone the next day. So... I'll have to rewrite most of it. Hopefully that won't take too long. If I can get it done quickly enough, I might be able to have it corrected by one of our lecturer's, which would be nice. Otherwise, mata onegai shimasu.

Thanks for the correction Midna.

I've noticed some okurigana in that sentence and at most after a bunch of reading through stuff, Hiragana is more often used over particles than over actual words itself...and in children's books with minimal Kanji. >_>

I was wrong focusing over reading with Hiragana and Katakana when I could have focused more over Kanji vocabulary and the grammar instead.

-sighs- Oh well. Live and learn as they say. Or Kanji radicals and your onyomi and kunyomi.

edited 20th Jun '14 12:04:08 PM by TheTomatoFairy

Hi, I have a question. See, I'm writing up a trope page for Vaporwave, a genre of music that utilizes Gratuitous Japanese characters for reasons that are kinda complicated and you probably don't care to know.

Long story short, in keeping with the theme, I wanna know how you'd write "Notable Vaporwave artists" in Kanji, and where, if anywhere, the word "NOTABLE" in all caps would fit.

For the image caption, I also would like to know how you'd write "Yeah, it's kinda like that."

著名なヴェイパーウェイヴアーティスト

"NOTABLE" would replace the 著名な, so I guess what you're looking for is "NOTABLEヴェイパーウェイヴアーティスト".

For the caption, something like "うん、ちょっとようなものだ。"

edited 26th Jun '14 6:11:36 PM by Midna

Cool, thanks.

I am starting to get the impression that the amount of vocabulary and grammar I have to learn is at least doubled by the politeness dance I have to do in every social situation. Or at least, this is the first language where I've noticed it to this extent.

Yeah, that's always tricky. Impolite language used in a casual context denotes familiarity and respect, but in a formal context it's rude and usually represents disdain and/or contempt. So using 俺 as your pronoun is okay for casual situations, such as around friends, but you wouldn't use it around your boss. There's a news story somewhere of a man who murdered another for using the wrong politeness level while speaking to him (not sure whether or not his rudeness was on purpose).

edited 19th Jul '14 1:19:50 PM by Midna

Folks, will it be hard to study Japanese beyond what you've studied? For my case, I studied Elementary Level1-2 Japanese with 3 starting. Since tuition fees at the local foundation is going up and the commute is getting harder since the Philippines doesn't have good traffic, only way I thought of continuing is to study via internet. Any further thoughts?