Japanese Language

2:03 AM

I would guess Chinese as well.

jkerian

3:53 AM

It seems like the sort of thing you could map out... "This is the phonemic (?) space for Japanese, this orange region is where Mandarin speakers have trouble, that blue area is tricky for English speakers"

4:47 AM

naruto's answer somewhat surprises me. While I agree 大きい and 大きな are interchangeable in most cases, they really feel different to me in terms of subjectivity/register.

virmaior

8:55 AM

@jkerian yeah, I think so. There aren't really truly generic problems which is part of my reason for asking where specifically he's facing difficulty

9:09 AM

@DariusJahandarie 家族とか友達としゃべるときには「大きい車」「大きいケーキ」「小さいケーキ」

「大きな声出さないでよ！」ってドラマでありそうだけど

実際はどうかな。「大きい声・・・」

関西だからかな

「おっきいこえださんといてえさ」っていう

12:14 PM

@DariusJahandarie in fact, I don't find his Japanese as readable as English...

ameblo.jp/nirenoya/entry-10308962450.html

really?

@snailboat Thank you, I updated it. Is this word used other than Japanese language?

One of my high school teacher was always saying ばやい

when you misspell in IME: dic.nicovideo.jp/a/…

komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/1118/629184.htm

A: What's the difference between 大きいケーキ and 大きなケーキ?

12:49 PM

大きな声出さないでよ！
大きい声出さないでよ！

なんか違う気がする

I can't explain why...

@Choko 東京では普通に言います

5

Here is an extensive article about this topic. 「大きい声」と「大きな声」 Very short summary: 大きい and 大きな are interchangeable in most cases. On average, 大きな is 8 times more frequently used than 大きい which directly modifies the following noun. 大きい sometimes means "elder/older". 大きな doesn't. 一番大きい兄さん (th...

やっぱり人によって違うのかな…

@cypher oh, thank you for the translation!

on meta

1:04 PM

no worries :)

I was a bit unsure about parts of my translation, particularly towards the end

I'll have to remember there's somebody/people actually doing the action with the を...させようとするなら pattern

@broccoliforest 関西弁やしな～・・

おっきい、ちっさい、が多いな～

あと、「でかい」とか「ちっこい」とかさ

@broccoliforest あの人のチャットってどうなったん

ところであの人って日本人なん？

ほんまに？？

@Choko それっきりです

Mr. broccoli, ah, I see. First of all, I didn't like that chat system. Sorry I did not know about that. Second of all, this is too difficult, as you see in the research I put before you, it is waaaaaaaaaaaaay tiresome to read all the stuff there. Being put on hold is nice. Thank you. — Kentaro Tomono 11 hours ago

それさ・・・

this is too difficult, as you see in the research I put before you, it is waaaaaaaaaaaaay tiresome to read all the stuff there.

@Choko だんだんわからなくなってきました（笑）

ってところが、何を指してるのかわかりませんでした

その、this is too difficult の this

と、all the stuff there のさすものが。

1:17 PM

うーん

I'm afraid I don' think so. For example, 部屋の中（なか）, 屋内（ない）both denotes inside. Basically both denotes "inside" Source : jpf.go.jp/j/japanese/survey/globe/09/… — Kentaro Tomono 2 days ago

これの論文のことだったんですかね

僕の回答の話をしてると思ってたんですが

@Choko 「おっきな」「ちっちゃな」はよく見ます

あ～なるほど～

小さな ~= small
小さい ~= relatively small
(?)

さ～どうかな～わからんｗｗ

「音楽　を　聞いた　あとで、大きい　ケーキ　を　たべました。」って、生徒が書いたからって、

小説家によって傾向が全然違うのは衝撃的でした

まあ、別に間違いとはいわんけど

1:28 PM

そうですね

「大きな」のほうが、美しいよね

教科書の文章とか、書き言葉なら、「大きな」のほうが綺麗

確かに「小さい胸」じゃ教科書に載らないですよねｗ

2

「小さな胸」ならかわいいけどｗｗ

「小さい胸」はやらしいなｗｗ

イナタい？

zokugo-dict.com/02i/inatai.htm

初耳

1:53 PM

初耳ですね

Noir

4:15 PM

@Choko あの、ここの「やらしい」が言っているのは、胸の方ですか、それとも「小さい胸」という言い方を使う人の方ですか。

4:55 PM

@Noir ふつうは、この言葉の意味が「やらしい」と感じるということです

0

Q: Kanji and the IME

When I input hiragana ちょう　into the IME I get over 50 different kanji. I understand why. What I want to know is this. Is there a way to thumb through the list and QUICKLY find the kanji I am looking for (Looking for radicals?) or is this just something you have to get used to?

Is this post off-topic? I can't judge.

on one hand, it seems to be a question about tools, on the other, seems to be a "how to write Japanese" kind of topic

Asian languages have non-trivial input methods, you know...

Anonymous

5:26 PM

@broccoliforest It's definitely off-topic by the community's standards

Anonymous

Although I think that topicality is somewhat arbitrary …

Anonymous

That sort of thing was decided before I signed up for Japanese.SE

Anonymous

But we're inconsistent in how we handle posts like these.

Anonymous

Some users think we should have them on our meta site.

Anonymous

Other users think that it doesn't make sense to move off-topic posts to meta.

Anonymous

5:28 PM

But we've got other posts like that one

Anonymous

I'll just put it on meta for now...

Anonymous

0

Q: Kanji and the IME

When I input hiragana ちょう　into the IME I get over 50 different kanji. I understand why. What I want to know is this. Is there a way to thumb through the list and QUICKLY find the kanji I am looking for (Looking for radicals?) or is this just something you have to get used to?

discussion kanji

5:52 PM

thank you, now I understand

6:09 PM

btw, one thing before I forget again, ～論 usually stands for subcategory in a discipline or one's major, in academic contexts.
音韻論 phonology, 統語論 syntax, 意味論 semantics etc.

anyway, that post was half-unorganized, and where I thought could be difficult to understand was almost perfectly translated, so don't worry :) good job!

Xeo

7:33 PM

Hm. I just wondered about the etymology of the plain negative form and thought about (for example) 「言うはない」　＝＞　「言わない」, or 「死ぬはない」　＝＞　「死なない」, basically like contracting the last syllabile with the は. Prolly complete nonsense, though.

Anonymous

7:46 PM

@Xeo Well, there was the older form 言わぬ　<　言はぬ

Anonymous

Speaking of that sort of contraction, though

Anonymous

Some people contract 良くはない　→　良かない

Anonymous

And that sort of thing

Anonymous

But I think that your proposed contraction is probably not the etymology of 言わない

Anonymous

8:04 PM

But it probably does come from the free adjective 無い

I don't know about that

I'd say it came from なふ

In the 安土桃山時代 there was a 助動詞〜ない that did not inflect

Anonymous

Yeah, there are some alternate theories

And by 江戸時代, the 形容詞「ない」 also existed (no longer なき), and I think they combined at that point

Anonymous

In any case, it's not a settled question

Anonymous

Frellesvig gives a few theories, and a couple ways it could have come from 無い, one of which is a contraction of 連用形＋は＋無い as in 読みはない　→　読まない

Anonymous

8:18 PM

Another is by analogy to ぬ

Anonymous

So at least one possible etymology is similar to @Xeo's (though not exactly the same :-)

9:06 PM

I don't know whether my theory here actually has any weight to it, but... I've thought of the ...i versions of those adjectives to largely be a statement of fact, and that you could just about put "and that's the way it is" after it without changing the meaning much in many cases

But with the ...na versions of those adjectives, it sounds more "punchy" to me...whether that makes things more subjective/sound more cute/less direct etc or not might depend on context and the adjective

Maybe the actual sound could emphasize how large/small something is as well?

I found this about the relation between vowels and size, my theory was that the "na" might put emphasis on how small things are because of the way the "n" in "na" versions inserts a "divider", reducing the length of the combined final vowels (as in "chiisana/chiisai"), though I'm not sure that's in agreement with that book...

Anonymous

Oh, the sound symbolism idea is interesting! :-)

Anonymous

@cypher This part reminds me of the "more objective" versus "more subjective" idea of the difference I once read

Anonymous

rintaun talks about the potential sound symbolism of the consonant [n] as well: japanese.stackexchange.com/a/9610/1478

Anonymous

In Japanese, you can see the sound symbolism of vowel height in onomatopoeia

Oh, I hadn't seen this answer.

Anonymous

9:24 PM

I agree on learning by Japanese terms, and I still think it's a shame that even university students rarely even cover/mention the base tenses (未然形、連用形、連体形、終止形、已然形、命令形) - but along exactly the same lines, learning what is the way it is because of a simply a sound change, or deeper meaning is essential to true understanding. One of my textbooks covers the phrase "いわんばかり" without explaining that it is a sound changed form of 言はむばかり - it even seemed to link it to a "negative" form. This made me very sad. — Kafka Fuura Nov 28 '12 at 0:58

Anonymous

Ignoring the "tenses" thing, the いわんばかり part is interesting. As far as I'm aware, both theories are still possible as origins

10:05 PM

http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/21620/%E3%82%84%E3%82%8A%E7%9B%B4%E3%81%97%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84%E3%81%A7%E3%81%97%E3%82%87%E3%81%86%E3%81%8B
but, http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11007/how-wrong-is-my-constructed-poem was my first post on the site

your question might have been strictly speaking off-topic according to guidelines here, but...it had only a few short passages and they were quite interesting to analyse and dissect, IMHO

that question is just "please check [big wall of text]", which might be fine for lang-8 or something, but it's also the case that the longer something gets the more likely translations are subject to opinions etc which can't be objectively justified, which I don't fits with SE sites