A few days ago I came across this sentence, and it got me questioning its whole question and answer thing…
Maria san wa doushite sonna ni kanashin de iru no desuka - Why is Ms Maria so sad. I kept wondering why it was written this way, because in my opinion it should be maria san wa doushite sonna ni kanashin de imasu ka.
So, why is it written that way, and not the way I think it sounds and looks better.
I came across something else too whilst learning, Tsumetai desu is, is cold, yet I know is cold as Samui desu, and that Tsumetai is actually cold to the touch, I wonder why this is not written as such.
Also, why is Nichi pronounced Hi, when I have seen and heard it as Nichi and not Hi.
I am no expert at Japanese, not at all, it is all part of the learning process, asking questions, and wondering why you get from here to there. Can anyone help me with these questions, and possibly solutions as to how where and why. These are just a few questions, but ultimately the one bugging me the most.
Also, if this goes to the wrong place, I did try to send it to the right place, and if indeed I have failed, can someone tell me how I should send it to its correct place. Thank you.
Well here the “no” after “kanashindeiru” acts as a nominalizer for “kanashindeiru”. And for “no” to be used, the verb should be in its casual state, not in the polite “masu” state. That’s also why we added desu at the end, to keep the sentence polite.
Although to be frank, I also don’t see why we used this sentence structure. Though I’m not a native speaker, so I’m sure someone else can put in a better input than me.
Well they both simply mean “cold” in English. But in Japanese, on is used to describe physical matter, and the other is to describe the surroundings. Though I do agree that additional info should be added so we won’t accidentally choose the wrong answer when being tested.
Okay, so the kanji 日 is the number 1 used kanji in Japanese. Maybe because of that, that it has developed many readings. Here’s an example:
日本では、日曜日は休日です。
Now I know you’re not interested in kanji, but this is the only way I thought to get this across. The first word, nihon, 日 is read as “ni”. Nichiyoubi has 2 日, one read as “nichi”, and the other as “bi”. Then the last word before です is kyuujitsu, where 日 is read as “jitsu”.
They all mean “day” in this sentence, but each pronounced differently.
Oh yeah, and don’t be alarmed about the last part. I know I was, when I find out how many readings 生 has. They’re actually really easy to comprehend and read if you ever decided to get into kanji.
It is not so much not interested as in hard to different the kanji from one another. To me they all look the same, I am not sure if it is my brain or my Autism, but I am a slow learner anyway. Took me a while to remember 中 and 心 and the different but almost looks the same to me 少 In a different format they do look the same, here they do not.
I am not sure I will ever get the Nichi and Hi thing down, but it is not a dead cert.
Oh yeah, you made me laugh when you said…
The “We” part caught my attention though. Are you part of the Memrise team now, or some sort of volunteer helper, either way, it is good with me. You have never failed me yet, always explain things I can understand.
One question I got to ask, nominaliser, what is this. Also, yeah, it is confusing why this sentence was used.
Don’t know why I said “we”. Maybe because I also took this course long ago and now I also use this sentence when prompted in a review?
And nominalization means turning a word that is not a noun into a noun.