When I first came across this “Watashi ni koohii wo kurenakereba ikemasen” meaning (you) must give me coffee, it confused me. So off to google for help and examples on what it means and why it is written the way it is. The reason it confuses me is, I have learned “I must” as Watashi wa nakute wa ikemasen, and then we have the Watashi ni at the beginning of the sentence. But I thought “Me” in Japanese is Watashi no. Granted it is a moving word, so I could understand the Watashi ni part, but how do you get “Me” from Watashi ni.
Would the sentence such as this “must give the coffee to me” be better written as Watashi no koohii wo agenakute ha ikemasen… Or would this not make sense at all.
What does kurenakereba actually mean anyway, I am guessing the kurena is from kureru, meaning to give, but what is kereba, and how does it work, what I have found on google is all contradiction so I am non the wiser.
Time to learn particles. The ni, no, ha, wo, de, to, etc you see at end of words are particles. They indicate the function of the word much like prepositions do in English. Watashi is “I”, watashi ha is “About me”, watashi ga is “I am the one that”, watashi to is “(together) with me”, watashi no is “my”, watashi ni is “to or for me”, etc. Particles are very powerful and with Japanese it better to think of them paired with the words they follow. The same particle can also appear to have different function when paired with things like interrogative words or location words or time words or verbs.
If you want, this grammar course series I created based on Tae Kim’s grammar guide goes over all of this.
Totally new here, but I decided to check this thread out and show my brother as he is trying to learn Japanese.
Your comment was really helpful! Thanks!
This is rather interesting, I shall write this down with the rest of my notes to memorise later on.
However the post was created for Kurenakereba, mainly the Keraba part. I am presuming Kurena is still Kureru, to give, it is Kereba that is the trick here.
I already know what the Ikemasen is, it is an expression of Must not.
Thank you for the lesson on Particles, it is an added bonus. Nice, two stones with on bird 
In Japanese, to say you have to do something is combine a negative with a negative. There are a few ways but in this case: kureru (give) to kurenai (not give) to kerenakereba (if not give then). After that turn iku (to go) to ikeru (able to go) to ikenai (not able to go). It could also be dame (not good) or shinai (not do).
Nice reply, but still a little lost as to what Kereba is and means. Or is it one of them words that has no meaning until it is added to another. In which case, with Kureru (give) added to Kereba (???) it makes “if not give then”, I am failing to understand this. Is kereba, “if not then”, if it is, it is making it even harder for me to understand this, if at all.
Best if you read up on conditionals then on “have to / must” right after it.
Note that these are like 16 lessons into Japanese grammar so if you don’t know the stuff that happens earlier, research those as well.
Kanji. It seems you like throwing these sites at me with Kanji. Is it a hint. Lol.
To be perfectly honest, I do not want to learn Kanji. But I do want to learn every thing else I can in Hirogana and Katakana. First.
I will eventually get round to Kanji. Maybe. I know I can get by without Kanji, but I also know it is useful. Learning Japanese is a Hobby/Past time at the moment, to use what I am learning will require winning the Lottery, because there are no Japanese people where I live, and if they are around here, then they are tourist.
I live in Robin Hood Country, as in the next town from the real Robin Hood country/place, so it really is only tourist that come by (Japanese), and that is not a regular thing.
So, as much as I am learning Japanese, there is not much use for it. Mainly though, I want to watch Anime in the Native language and understand it.
But, if I am lucky enough to win the Lottery, then I would most definitely go to Japan, and learn Japanese properly and full on.
In the mean time, I will try my best to learn and understand what is here. And, sadly, it will mean more questions, because the best way to learn is to ask. You never get an answer, unless you ask a question.
And, that is some thing I am good at.
Kanji is a reality. There are ways around it, but pretty much if it’s a quality site or resource teaching Japanese then it’s going to use Kanji. If it offends you, there’s plenty of sites and plug-ins that give you the pronunciation of words so the kanji are not stopping you.
That said, kanji are also the easiest part about Japanese outside of hiragana and katakana. The language itself is much, much more complicated than these structured pictographs that offer meanings to multiple languages (Chinese and Japanese specifically). It makes listening easier because many anime and dramas have Japanese subtitles that use kanji (yeah, you can convert those to hiragana/romaji early on though).
Also, thanks to the internet, you don’t need to move to Japan to use Japanese (or kanji). That also includes learning properly. Hell, most of studying the first time took place in Africa.
What you need is consistent daily time and dedication to review/study during that time. Learning the language is solved and there’s no need to break that by putting false demands on yourself with regard to the written language. Again, Kanji is easy. It’s how Japanese use kanji in their language that’s somewhat hard and even that pales in the other quirks about grammar and colloquial phrases.
Good skills to your regardless.
it’ not opossible to do japanese without kanji
in the beginning uou can skip kanji and concentrate on learning vocabulary using romaji, which gives you material to lesrn grammar
but the problem with kana is, that it is as if you would only learned half ghe alphabet
there are courses, like Speed Kanji, with which you can learn what a kanji means, without having to be able to write them
Kanji does not offend me, it is the numbers that I find intimidating. Two and a half Thousand. What I have been told should take a week to learn took me a month, and I am still at 95% with my Katakana. Hirogana took me longer to learn, although, for some reason I would rate myself at 98% with Hirogana.
It is my goal to learn Japanese with Katakana and Hirogana before I turn to Kanji. I want to learn as much as I can and be as best as I can with it, before turning to Kanji.
Easy, or not, it is a choice, and for me, it is ease or learning. Well, that is how I see it. Katakana and Hirogana does not intimidate me, so I do find it easier to learn and work with, and I have to be comfortable in my surroundings to work/learn effectively. Kanji makes me feel uncomfortable, it is as simple as that.
Thank you vey much for all the help you have given, and good news, I have finally gotten the hang of Kurenakereba Ikemasen, Took me a week to finally get it. I do not fully understand it, but I do get it now. I did realise why it confused me so much, it was the difference between Nakutehaikemasen and Kurenakereba Ikemasen, and I realised it was Must Vs Must give. To me they are the same thing, but different, and that is why it confused me.
I will be starting the next Module soon, with any luck, I will not be making another thread for help, again.
Again, thank you. To all and everyone, my learning experience has been enhanced by the much needed help. Cheers
One thing you might find would help would be to do a different japanese course. Apologies if I’m wrong, but I think you’re maybe learning from
or something with similar content?
I did that course too, and the problem is that memrise used essentially the same sentences for lots of different languages (certainly it’s almost the same as the italian and french ones, which I did). The grammar for japanese is quite different, so you kind of need to learn it in a different order from a european language. I suggest mostly working on vocab for now, and if you can find one of the introductory grammar courses that doesn’t use kanji, maybe
then that would help too.
Alternatively, you could try some of the versions of the Tae Kim courses - for example the one by @nukemarine, that do use Kanji but don’t use all that many different Kanji.
Good luck!
10/day and you’re done within a year
It is indeed the same course, but it would be silly to stop now. Out of the 19 modules/levels I am on 18. Sure there has been lots of confusion, lots of postings upon here, but the way I see it, if you do not understand some thing, ask, you do not get an answer if you do not ask the question. And whilst some questions have not been answered, the ones that have, have just been great. There are a lot of great people on here, just ask a question and some one will help.
It is not just the learning experience, it is the forum experience too.
I will look in to this new course you showed, ideally I should make a new post asking for the best beginner courses for me to use and learn from, but this one looks ideal. If I remember rightly, there are 5 levels for Japanese, JLPT N5 is the easiest. I think I would be happy to get to 3, if at all possible.
Thanks.
10 of what… Considering how many course there are, always a good idea to say what. I have done 2 courses so far and I am coming to the end of the Third course and I have been doing this since 10 May this year, and that is over 700 words. Granted, some are repeats, because I have stuck to the beginners courses.
And, lets not forget different learning curves too. Took me a week to memorise and almost 100% Kurenakereba and Agemasu, and remembering Kuretano is the past tense of Kurena. Yeah, I was stuck on that one for a while. Not to mention it is supposed to take a week to do Katakana, which took me a month, and I am still not 100% on that. Some parts are easier than others.