Japanese Language Questions? Ask Here.

I thought it might be helpful for all Japenese beginners to let you know I finished the first Japanese lesson (starting from the beginning, so try not to miss it)

http://jdorama.com/viewtopic_4342.htm

Thanks Bedi!

:sweat: :nut: :sweat: I read through the half part of thread, looking for possible similar question, but running out of patient :beaten: ....... sorry, moderator(s)...

so out of curiousity, would pop up this :

Anyone care to explain about the word 'keitai' (cell phone)?

why is it soo different (from the sound of it) from 'denwa' ? what is (if there is any ) the possible "connection" (if you know what I mean) ?

haven't seen the Kanji for keitai though.

thanks in advance!

chaos wrote::sweat: :nut: :sweat: I read through the half part of thread, looking for possible similar question, but running out of patient :beaten: ....... sorry, moderator(s)...

so out of curiousity, would pop up this :

Anyone care to explain about the word 'keitai' (cell phone)?

why is it soo different (from the sound of it) from 'denwa' ? what is (if there is any ) the possible "connection" (if you know what I mean) ?

haven't seen the Kanji for keitai though.

thanks in advance!

Keitai is actually short for keitai denwa (Œg‘Ñ“d˜b), that is, portable (carryable) phone.

UWFShooter wrote:

Keitai is actually short for keitai denwa (Œg‘Ñ“d˜b), that is, portable (carryable) phone.

sou da ne....

:sweat:, thank you, UWFShooter.... that's very enlightening!

does that mean.... I can use 'keitai' to point portable computer , portable disk drives, other portable gadgets..... deshou ?

chaos wrote:

sou da ne....

:sweat:, thank you, UWFShooter.... that's very enlightening!

does that mean.... I can use 'keitai' to point portable computer , portable disk drives, other portable gadgets..... deshou ?

Use the complete terms for things other than phones.

can someone please translate these two sentences

demo, nihon de mitanjyanakute amerika ni kitehajimetemitandesu

kiitehajimete wakaru koto ga yoku arimasu kara ne

kazuichikun wrote:demo, nihon de mitanjyanakute amerika ni kitehajimetemitandesu

"But it wasn't that I'd seen (them/it) in Japan, I saw (them/it) first in Ameica."

kazuichikun wrote:kiitehajimete wakaru koto ga yoku arimasu kara ne

Hmm, a little trickier ...
"'Cuz there are lots of things you first understand after being asked (about them)."

oh...thanks...how would you say something like...."the thing i like doing the most is golfing"....right now we are doing noun modification and it is quite confusing..

i was wondering if someone could help me. i have an aunt visiting from japan and i'm making tempura tonight. anyone know the japanese for "orange roughy"? i tried looking on line at several sources, and nothing came up. also looked up the phrase in a couple english-japanese dictionaries, and they were worthless. thanks in advance!

Duneman wrote:i was wondering if someone could help me. i have an aunt visiting from japan and i'm making tempura tonight. anyone know the japanese for "orange roughy"? i tried looking on line at several sources, and nothing came up. also looked up the phrase in a couple english-japanese dictionaries, and they were worthless. thanks in advance!

Isn't that Red Snapper? I know that's probably not the Japanese term you're looking for. Just trying to help. :D

According to this site:

http://www7.taosnet.com/platinum/data/light/species/orangeroughy.html

"Orange Roughy," in Japanese language -- katakana, yes? -- is Orenjiraffi.

thanks! the red snapper is a bit different from the orange roughy. it's - um, stupid explanation alert here - redder - and the flesh is a bit softer than the orange roughy. they're both pretty good for tempura, but there wasn't any red snapper available so i went with the latter (which is more expensive). i guess my aunt just isn't acquainted with that fish. in japanese restaurants where i live (los angeles), they call red snapper "tai", but tai is actually sea bream iirc, which only adds to the confusion... :beaten:

again, thanks for your help! :D

how do youe use a "na" and "ii" adjective?

cass_dust wrote:be mine = –l‚̂ɂȂ낤
direct translation, simple and sweet. but i don't know if is grammatically correct..

this is from another thread.. i thought of posting it here for everyone to correct me if i am wrong. thanx! :)

I think there is future tense in Japanese, but is more translated to english as going to ~ (do something)

‚½‚Æ‚¦‚Î (for example)F
‰f‰æ‚ÉŒ©‚ɍs‚«‚Ü‚·
going to watch a movie
:sweat: hope i am right about it. hahaha.. i think even my english grammar also have a litte bit of problem.

cass_dust wrote:

this is from another thread.. i thought of posting it here for everyone to correct me if i am wrong. thanx! :)

–l‚̂ɂȂ낤B
Sounds like the person is an inanimate object. It's better if you say@–l‚Ì‚à‚Ì‚É‚È‚Á‚āB But it still sounds kind of pushy :D

You could say something like,
–l‚ƈꏏ‚É‚¢‚Ä‚­‚ê
(lit. be together with me)

or

–l‚Ì‚»‚΂ɂ¢‚Ä‚­‚ê
(lit. be by my side)

For what it's worth,

‘‰¤š

amethyst216 wrote:how do youe use a "na" and "ii" adjective?

Hmm...
Not really a rule that you can use, you kind of just have to remember which is which.

For example:

Ã‚©‚È•—Œi@-@shizuka na fuukei
Eng: A quiet scene

—D‚µ‚¢l‚ɏo‰ï‚Á‚½B@-@yasashii hito ni deatta
Eng: I met a nice (gentle) person.

If you are asking about a grammatical rule on how to use them, they usually come before the noun that they are modifying.
If you are using multiple adjectives, ii adjectives change to Stem+‚­‚Ä and na adjectives are replace na with ‚Å.

Eg:

‘å‚«‚­‚ÄãY—í‚ȃ_ƒCƒ„ƒ‚ƒ“ƒhB -@ookikute kirei na daiyamondo
Eng: A big, beautiful diamond.

Hope that helpsII

‘‰¤š

rabiz wrote:

Basically they are 3 different writing systems in the language
Kanji are the chinese characters like in all the artists names

hiragana are sort of cursive scripts derived from kanji
like ‚  comes from ˆÀ, don't you think they look ait alike...

katakana is like the straight line scripts derived from hiragana.
like ƒZ comes from ‚¹. katakana is usually used for foreign words converted into japanese phonetics (like ƒR[ƒq@kohi actuallys stands for coffee)

all 3 are used daily in japanese so it's like 3 different sets of alphabet.
but the library of kanji is really huge just like chinese

Acutally, katakana came before hiragana.
Katakana was introduced as grammatical markers because Japanese were having a hard time expressing themselves in just kanji.
katakana = •Ð‰¼–¼
•Ð has a meaning like "side" or "part," so it's kinda like they took part of the kanji sections.

‚ق火

ˆÉ@¨@ƒC@@@@@‰Á@¨@ƒJ@@@@@]@¨@ƒG

hiragana came not long after, but it was regarded as a "women's script", and was not used by everyone for some time.

rabiz was right, though, in saying that hiragana also came from kanji.
i‚ @¨@ˆÀj
If anyone's interested, do a search on a japanese search engine for
–œ—tW@•@‚Ђ炪‚È

Have fun!

‘‰¤š

cass_dust wrote:I think there is future tense in Japanese, but is more translated to english as going to ~ (do something)

‚½‚Æ‚¦‚Î (for example)F
‰f‰æ‚ÉŒ©‚ɍs‚«‚Ü‚·
going to watch a movie
:sweat: hope i am right about it. hahaha.. i think even my english grammar also have a litte bit of problem.

That's more like you are literally "going" (somewhere) to watch a movie, not necessarily future tense. You could be "going" right now (presently), or later tonight (future). With what you used, it's sorta like, you are doing something for the purpose of something else.

There doesn't seem to be a flat rule for future tense as far as I have been taught, so if you mean to say you're gonna do something next week, you can just say next week and use non-past tense for your verb. I was always told past tense was past and non-past tense was present OR future. :sweat:

Sorry, I don't have my JPN IME on XP fixed yet, so I have to do lame romaji:

Watashi wa Roppongi Hills he eiga wo mi ni ikimasu.
(I'm going to Roppongi Hills to see a movie).

I could be off particle-wise and that's a long sentence....oops. Damn, it's been too long since I've used Japanese :sweat: Sorry if I'm off a bit....

kokuou wrote:


Acutally, katakana came before hiragana.
Katakana was introduced as grammatical markers because Japanese were having a hard time expressing themselves in just kanji.
katakana = •Ð‰¼–¼
•Ð has a meaning like "side" or "part," so it's kinda like they took part of the kanji sections.

‚ق火

ˆÉ@¨@ƒC@@@@@‰Á@¨@ƒJ@@@@@]@¨@ƒG

hiragana came not long after, but it was regarded as a "women's script", and was not used by everyone for some time.

rabiz was right, though, in saying that hiragana also came from kanji.
i‚ @¨@ˆÀj
If anyone's interested, do a search on a japanese search engine for
–œ—tW@•@‚Ђ炪‚È

Have fun!

‘‰¤š

i was under the impression that there are special characters in the –œ—tW that are different from hiragana... or are they just prototypes?

also, how do you get that š in your post? i wanna use it, but i dont wanna have to find a post by you everytime ;)