Before I start a level on the course I have a look over it first, and whilst I have not started level 14 yet, I am looking over some of the sentences that I will be learning, and I find myself wondering… What !!!
Ok, most of them start with Kono Hito, and to me this means The Person/These Persons, but they apparently mean This Person, so as you can see, a little confusion here, considering I have been taught Kore = This, Sore - That and Are = That one over there, and of course we have Kono = The/These, Sono = The/Those and Ano = Those over there…
Can anyone explain to me how and why the course does this, I got to admit it has and does confuse me.
Thank you.
Japanese doesn’t clearly distinguish plural and singular nouns, and doesn’t actually have the equivalent of the (or a/an). The author of the course has given you english equivalents of Japanese sentences and not direct translations. You have to be flexible about this stuff.
I could say: the person is sleeping, this person is sleeping, a person is sleeping and the context between these two is only slightly different. Sometimes one japanese sentence covers all these things and you will have to figure out which translation is most appropriate.
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I read this and thought to myself, are you replying to the right posting, and then I re-thought the situation, maybe you mis-read my post.
Not once have you mentioned Kore, Sore, Are, Kono, Sono or Ano, however you did mention something about sleeping, so just wondering, have you mis-read the post, or answered the wrong post.
Ideally you did not answer the question asked, which then leads to another question, why did you reply.
Simple really, init, I ask a question about one thing and you reply to something else.
Kono means “this”. Kore means 'this". The literal translation is actually the same. Same thing with Sono and Sore or Ano and Are.
The difference in short, is when talking about something without mentioning it, you go with Kore.
Example: Eat this = kore wo tabemasu.
And when you mention what you’re talking about, you go with Kono.
Example: Eat this apple = kono ringo wo tabemasu.
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なるほど
If I changed the Kore wo tabemono to, lets say, add an Apple, then Kore would change to Kono because there is now something mentioned. Kono wa ringo wo tabemono, but this could then mean, eat this apple, or eat the apple, or maybe eating the apple (or would eating then become te form)
I actually see what you are saying now, provided my example is correct, baring the eating the apple part, of course.
“Kono wa ringo…” is false. The object should come directly after Kono.
Also, tabemasu, not tabemono. Huge difference bacause one’s a verb and the other a noun. Which means you can’t use wo, because there’s no verb for there to be an object.
I was not thinking when I wrote that, it was just a quick reply, plus I was halfway through one of my reviews, so tabemono stuck in my head for some reason.
Kono wa ringo does not work, but kore wa ringo does, or does it, with tabemasu, not tabemono. Lol.
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