In the last lesson of course “Learn Basic Japanese” there are two sentences that describe something that happened some time ago. However, one of them uses kan, indicating a period of time, while the other sentence does not. I am confused!
First sentence:
わたしは にかげつまえに アメリカに いきました - I went to America two months ago
Second sentence:
わたしは ろくしゅうかん まえに にほんに きました - I came to Japan six weeks ago
In my understanding both sentences do NOT describe a period of time. So why does the second sentence have kan included, but the first does not?
Something else that i don’t get is the “に” after まえ -> まえに. Why does it have to be there? Even the voice that reads the first sentence in the course does not say the に.
I’d appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this for me!
You’re correct in that the 間（かん） in the second sentence isn’t there to denote a period of time. While it can mean a period of time, 週間（しゅうかん）is just the way “week” or “weeks” is often written in Japanese. Just 週（しゅう）is possible as well in a lot of cases, but 週間（しゅうかん）is very often used, especially when it comes to an amount of weeks. The same thing goes for 時間（じかん）which is the Japanese word for hour and time in general 今は朝ご飯を食べる時間です （いまは あさごはんをたべるじかんです）means “now is the time to eat breakfast” and doesn’t have to do with a period in time, as it’s actually more of a fixed point in time in this case.
In short: usually when you are talking about any number of weeks 間（かん）is used. This is similar to how when you’re talking about a number of months you often don’t just use 月(げつ）but use one of the many ways to write かげつ instead (ヶ月・か月・ヵ月・カ月）.
Thank you Milan for the in-depth answer. That really clears it up!
I have another question though, and since it concerns the same sentences, i will add it in the next line (it’s actually already in my first post, but i think it’s hard to spot). I’d be really glad if someone could answer it
Something else that i don’t get is the “に” after まえ -> まえに. Why does it have to be there? Even the voice that reads the first sentence in the course does not pronounce the に at all. When i look up まえ (前) in the dictionary, it means “ago, before”. Wouldn’t that be enough already? Why add a に? Does it convey a special meaning?
Have you ever heard of the term “particles” within the context of Japanese grammar? Because に is basically a very common particle with a ton of uses. Some of its uses have to do with the direction in which you are headed (家に行く: いえに いく: to go to the house) or where someone is situated (オランダに住んでいます: オランダに すんでいます: I live in The Netherlands) (ペンは店にあります: ペンは みせに あります: the pen is in the shop).
に has a lot of different functions and one of them is to signify a fixed point in time, in the cases of your example sentences “two months ago” and “six weeks ago”. Do know though that you don’t use に for all time expressions. 今日(きょう) which means “today”, for instance never uses に as far as I know.
に isn’t even 100% necessary in your example sentences. Especially in casual/informal Japanese the particle is often dropped in cases like this.
So yeah, basically it’s just used to denote the fact that it’s about a point in time. If you want to know more about when (not) to use it, I could dig up my textbook from last year and look up some of the specifics for you.
Try not to get too overwhelmed by に and other particles, they might seem intimidating and strange at first since you’re not used to them but they will start feeling kind of logical pretty soon.
But yeah, as you said it doesn’t really add too much meaning in this case because you can hardly be confused about the fact that 週間前 takes place in the past and is a point in time.
Edit: just to be clear, the first couple of sentences are not meant to be patronizing, but because I genuinely do not know whether you have learned about particles yet. I just realised that they could be interpreted as patronizing.
I know に as a particle of direction. But i didn’t know that you can also use it for fixed points of time, too.
Until now i never encountered it in conjunction with まえ, especially in many anime i only hear まえ, but never まえに. Or at least i never noticed!
When i use google translate to translate “10 years ago”, it says 10年前 (10ねんまえ) - even confirmed by the translation community to be correct.
Using google, i only found usage examples of まえに and that it means before or ago, but the composition of the word was unfortunately never explained.
Thankfully and luckily, your provide a great explanation again! Thank you!
PS: Don’t worry about the patronizing, i didn’t feel offended.
