Japanese Language Questions? Ask Here.

Ummm... It's not Japanese, as far as I can tell.
My bf says that it's probably Mandarin (he's Taiwanese), but says that it doesn't really make sense.

Sorry,

‘‰¤š

sebmiller wrote:hi guys can anyone tell me what this image says:

Sebmiller, please don't double post the same message, it only creates clutter and unorganization in the forum.

wow..thanks for the explanation..it help me a lot

by the way, i want ask about "ai" and "koi". You said that it have a different connotaion..what does that mean?? What the right time to say "ai" or "koi"? if i want to say to a girl " I Love U", which one is more appropriate?

dmz_evolution wrote:wow..thanks for the explanation..it help me a lot

by the way, i want ask about "ai" and "koi". You said that it have a different connotaion..what does that mean?? What the right time to say "ai" or "koi"? if i want to say to a girl " I Love U", which one is more appropriate?

i would use ai eg. ai shiteiru to say i love you.

not too sure about koi. i hear it used more like koibito for girl/boyfriend or koi suru to mean that you've fallen for someone.

kenjilina wrote:

i would use ai eg. ai shiteiru to say i love you.

not too sure about koi. i hear it used more like koibito for girl/boyfriend or koi suru to mean that you've fallen for someone.

Kenjilina's got it on that one :victory:

You would never say "koi shiteiru" to someone to say that you love them.

It can, however, be used poetically, like in the following:

g—t‚Ì‹ž“s‚ɂ́AŽ„‚Í—ö‚µ‚Ü‚µ‚½B(Kouyou no kyouto ni ha, watashi ha koi shimashita.)
"I fell in love with the golden leaves of Kyoto's autumn."

Don't get me wrong, that's not to say that 'koi' is for inanimate and 'ai' is for animate objects.

It's very hard to describe the difference between 'ai' and 'koi'.

To me, 'ai' is a much deeper love for someone than 'koi'. Not to say that 'koi' is a term that can be used lightly, but it conjures up different feelings than 'ai'.

You can sometimes hear things like,

Å‹ßA—ö‚µ‚Ä‚È‚¢‚ȁ[B(saikin, koi shitenai na-.)
"I haven't found anyone I like lately..."
(rough translation)

Which brings me to a grammatical point about the two.

You ‰½‚© ‚𠈤‚·‚é (nanika WO ai suru), but you ‰½‚© ‚É —ö‚·‚é (nanika NI koi suru).

I know that doesn't help that much, but it's one of those things that you have to use and hear in context to understand.

‘‰¤š

well, thanks for the explanation.
i wonder what is this sentence mean:
"Kimi no Hitomi ni Koishiteru"

I try to translate it:
Kimi = you
hitomi = eyes
koishiteru = loving
does that mean : "loving your eyes" ?? please correct it...

dmz_evolution wrote:well, thanks for the explanation.
i wonder what is this sentence mean:
"Kimi no Hitomi ni Koishiteru"

I try to translate it:
Kimi = you
hitomi = eyes
koishiteru = loving
does that mean : "loving your eyes" ?? please correct it...

Well, that's one way of translating it, but as I have said above in a response before, sometimes '-te' + '-iru' doesn't get translated into '-ing'.
This is one of those times.

I would translate it like this:

"I've fallen in love with your eyes."

HTH,
‘‰¤š

kokuou wrote:

Well, that's one way of translating it, but as I have said above in a response before, sometimes '-te' + '-iru' doesn't get translated into '-ing'.
This is one of those times.

I would translate it like this:

"I've fallen in love with your eyes."

HTH,
‘‰¤š

great! i've learnt a new word, hitomi. thought it was a girl's name! :bonk:

now all those conversations make sense! :beatyou:

actually, hitomi is also a girl's name isn't it? this is going to confusing. :confused:

like the time when i bought a pen in this dept store in japan. the cashier asked if i wanted it in a fukuro meaning bag. i thought she meant an owl!! owl being fukurou.

can you imagine this owl carrying my pen in its beak?! :dielaughing:

kenjilina wrote:actually, hitomi is also a girl's name isn't it?

It is both!
I just checked Jim Breen's Enamdict .. there are like 186 ways to spell the name Hitomi.

loris wrote:

It is both!
I just checked Jim Breen's Enamdict .. there are like 186 ways to spell the name Hitomi.

That it is.
Just like we have Autumn for the season and for a girl's name.

But, don't worry; most people that name their child Hitomi will most likely use one of these combinations:

“µ
m”ü
‚ЂƂÝ
ˆê”ü
“ú“o”ü

Anything else would be something the parents have made up to look nice, or some combination that Japanese would probably have trouble reading themselves.

:victory:

‘‰¤š

kokuou wrote:But, don't worry; most people that name their child Hitomi will most likely use one of these combinations:

Ah that's good info. Dictionaries just don't tell you how common a word is (or name, in this case). Which is kind of a pity because that's really handy to know when learning a language. Without that info, you might use archaic or oddball words that people wouldn't normally use.

Does there exist any reference or dictionary that includes how common a word is? That would be cool.

Hmm, I could probably add that info to edict programmatically, but it might take a little while ... and it would be relative to whatever corpus I used as input.

I get it now..thanks
now i remember that japanese usually skip the subject in conversation..
From your translation "i have fallen in love with your eyes"..the subject "I" is not mentioned in the japanese...
So i want to ask more, how do we know the subject?? is it "I", "You"??
Like in my previous question, "Doushite naite iru no" you translate it to "why are you crying?". Why not "why am I crying?"
Is it depends on the context?

By the way, this is the full verse of the song:
"doushite naite iru no
doushite mayotte ru no
doushite tachidomaru no
nee oshiete
itsu kara otona ni naru
itsu made kodomo de ii no
doko kara hashitte kite
nee doko made hashiru no"

dmz_evolution wrote:I get it now..thanks
now i remember that japanese usually skip the subject in conversation..
From your translation "i have fallen in love with your eyes"..the subject "I" is not mentioned in the japanese...
So i want to ask more, how do we know the subject?? is it "I", "You"??
Like in my previous question, "Doushite naite iru no" you translate it to "why are you crying?". Why not "why am I crying?"
Is it depends on the context?

i guess it's assumed that the speaker is talking to someone hence the translation 'why are you crying?' technically, i suppose the speaker could be talking to themselves.

dmz_evolution wrote:I get it now..thanks
now i remember that japanese usually skip the subject in conversation..
From your translation "i have fallen in love with your eyes"..the subject "I" is not mentioned in the japanese...
So i want to ask more, how do we know the subject?? is it "I", "You"??
Like in my previous question, "Doushite naite iru no" you translate it to "why are you crying?". Why not "why am I crying?"
Is it depends on the context?

By the way, this is the full verse of the song:
"doushite naite iru no
doushite mayotte ru no
doushite tachidomaru no
nee oshiete
itsu kara otona ni naru
itsu made kodomo de ii no
doko kara hashitte kite
nee doko made hashiru no"

Subjects is a harder one to learn in Japanese.
This song could very well be the singer asking him/herself questions, but because it is more common to ask someone else a question (usually, you would know why you were crying if it was you), hoping to get an answer.
The forth line "nee oshiete" (Please, tell me) also signifies that this is asking someone else a question.

That said, how could you get the reader to understand that "I" was the subject? You would simply insert a "watashi" or a "boku" or some other first person pronoun once somewhere. If you said, "Watashi ha doushite naiteiru, doushite konna ni samishii no?", or something of the sort, then the first subject will be understood throughout the next few lines.

Anyway, it's back to translation world for me :victory:

‘‰¤š

Oh i see..so when the first object was mentioned in the first line, it is not necessary to said it again right? Assuming that the reader already understand the first subject.

Thanks for the explanation

Hi evrybody... I need some quick help... I am writing a thank you letter to my homestay family, cause Im leaving them tonight after 2 weeks of homestay... I want to use official and very polite style, but I am not so sure of the words since i dont use it often... so my questions:

what is the

-humble form of 'miru' (to see)
-humble form of 'taberu'
-humble form of 'iu' and 'shaberu'/'hanasu'
- to be sure... humble form of iru (to be) (oru??-> is the '-te' form of oru otte?)
-humble form of 'mite iku'


thats it. Hope you can help me, I want to give the letter and present in an hour or 2, so ill be waiting for your assistance. Thanks!

PS: this is quite high level japanese, so if you think by humble of Miru, i mean 'mimasu', thats not what i mean.

i'm sorryfor wasting costly disk space at jdorama.com, cause I used google in the meanwhile to find my answers... i dont know if i did it correctly (probably not) but i think they can understand my letter..

thanks

supermidget wrote:
what is the

-humble form of 'miru' (to see)
-humble form of 'taberu'
-humble form of 'iu' and 'shaberu'/'hanasu'
- to be sure... humble form of iru (to be) (oru??-> is the '-te' form of oru otte?)
-humble form of 'mite iku'

Hey supermidget :victory:

I know you opened a new thread, but it looks like you found the answers you were looking for, so I merged the thread.

For other users, here are some answers, just in case anyone was wondering.
For anyone that doesn't know, the humble form of a verb is used when you are talking to someone "higher" than you and you are talking about your own actions. This is called Œª÷Œê(sonkei go). When you are talking about someone else's actions or giving commands, you use ‘¸ŒhŒê(sonkei go).

Anyway, here are the answers to supermidget's ?'s:

Œ©‚é(miru) = ”qŒ©‚·‚é(haiken suru)
H‚ׂé(taberu) = ‚¢‚½‚¾‚­(itadaku) (tip: this is where saying 'itadakimasu' before meals comes from :victory: )
Œ¾‚¤/‚µ‚á‚ׂé/˜b‚·(iu/shaberu/hanasu) = ‚¨‚Á‚µ‚á‚é(ossharu)
‚¢‚é(iru) = ‚¨‚é(oru)

As for 'mite iku', there is no set Œª÷Œê for it. I'm not too sure where you want to use it, because it's not a very common verb combination...

Anyway, hope that helps!

‘‰¤š

This is basic Japanese but I am still stuck nonetheless..

I am slightly confused about when to use "~tai" e.g. tabetai, and when to use "hoshii"... e.g. hon ga hoshii.
Is it safe to say that I use the former to denote the wish to do an action and the latter to denote the wish for an inanimate object?

Also, I don't really understand the "shimasu verb" e.g benkyo shimasu. When do I use it? How is it different from say, tabemasu, ikimasu etc....

THANKS!