Japanese Language - 2014-09-09

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Anonymous

12:09 AM

@3to5businessdays Negative questions in Japanese expect an affirmative answer (which is not to say that you're supposed to respond with はい, just some sort of affirmation :-)

Anonymous

> "As a general rule, it seems that an affirmatively phrased question is susceptible of a negative answer by a 50-50 probability but that a negatively phrased question anticipates an affirmatively phrased answer by significantly more than a 50-50 probability." (Nakada 1980 Aspects of interrogative structure: A case study from English and Japanese p.126, quoted in Hinds 1986 Japanese: Descriptive Grammar p.18)

2:24 AM

よけようきだらぁ

2 hours later…

Darius Jahandarie

4:03 AM

@snailboat I can't comment on the meta thread due to being unable to login to meta in incognito mode for some reason, but I wanted to say that "JP" is a far more common abbreviation for anything related to Japan than "JA". Only computer programmers know about "JA".

4:28 AM

hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo

Darius Jahandarie

Hi

can you help me check if I got these sentences right?

please

^^

it's just basic stuff... I just need double checking ^^

Darius Jahandarie

That's totally a fine thing to ask about in this chat. In fact I don't think there are really any rules about what can be said in this chat.

No guarantees that I'll be able to help though. :)

Watashi wa Usukidoll desu (I am Usukidoll).

Takashi san wa gakusei desu (Takashi is a student.)

Iwai san wa sensei desu (Ms. Iwai is a teacher.)

Watashi wa nihonjin ja nai desu (I am not Japanese.)

Darius Jahandarie

The translations look fine to me. As a side note, romanized sentences usually do not start with capital letters, and there is usually a hyphen placed before "san".

4:36 AM

ah k

but some parts of my worksheet have capital letters

Akiko san wa amerikajin ja nai desu (Akiko is not American.)

Tanaka san wa gakusei ja nail desu (Mr. Tanaka is not a student.)

Yamada san wa gakusei desu ka (Is Yamada san a student?)

Yamada san wa Tokyo shusshin desu ka (Is Yamada san from Tokyo?)

[go]shusshin wa dochira desu ka (Where is your hometown?)

gakkoo wa doko desu ka (Where do you go to school?)

Darius Jahandarie

"nail" -> "nai", and there are also some odd romanization choices, like がっこう being romanized as "gakkoo", which is a different romanization style from everything else (e.g., がくせい is romanized as "gakusei" not "gakusee").

So I guess whoever is writing the romaji is just being sloppy if it isn't you. :)

Also, that last one is "Where is your school?" not "Where do you go to school?".

I.e., the reply would be a location, not the name of a school.

oh that nail was a typo gomen

oh so what would Where do you go to school be? Gakkoo wa doko ikimasu ka? But we haven't learned it

? I am writing gakusei.... that's student right?

Yamada-san wa gakusei desu ka?

Darius Jahandarie

I was complaining about the romanization, not the word choice.

oh

how is that sloppy>

?

like shumi wa nan desu ka (What is your hobby?)

Darius Jahandarie

4:51 AM

And I in fact prefer the romanization "gakusei". I was just saying you should be consistent, because がっこう would be romanized as "gakkou" not "gakkoo" like you did in a later sentence.

Kafeteria wa doko desu ka (Where is the cafeteria?)

damn oops

WAIT! that wasn't me who put that

that was the worksheet

there are fill in the blanks and school on my sheet is gakkoo for some reason

Darius Jahandarie

Maybe he's using a different romanization style then. It's a valid style, just not the one you're using.

well I am in conversational japanese

hence nan desu ka instead of nani desu ka

Darius Jahandarie

That has nothing to do with romanization style.

senkoo wa nan desu ka What is your major

onamae wa nan desu ka What is your name

Darius Jahandarie

4:53 AM

senkoo <-> senkou are the two different styles.

It has to do with how you write down long vowels.

Do you see the difference?

Imai-san no senkoo wa nan desu ka What is Imai's major

haven't learned that either....until next class session I think for the long vowel

Watashi no kuruma wa Honda CRV desu (My car is a Honda CRV)

Nihongo no kurasu wa tanoshii desu (Japanese Class is fun)

Darius Jahandarie

senkou is more faithful to the written Japanese, せんこう.

Anyways, to stop being a pedant about romaji, I would say "Where do you go to school?" as どこの学校に通っているんですか？, but that sounds like something beyond what you're doing.

I'm not sure what you've learned and what you haven't.

I know XD but my sensei said I can use romanji or hiragana

pedant?

Darius Jahandarie

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedant

(Is English your first language?)

of course English is my first language

native speaker

Darius Jahandarie

4:56 AM

Oh. I didn't think that was an uncommon word.

Related to "pedantic".

samui desu - It's cold
atsui desu - It's hot
kireina desu - It's beautiful

I have never heard of that word

Darius Jahandarie

"kireina desu" is incorrect. It is "kirei desu".

that's not what it says on my packet though

Darius Jahandarie

It could be a typo of "kirei nan desu" also.

could be

I think I got all of them right except the Where do you go to school?

I haven't learned what was posted earlier and it's not in my packet anywhere

in fact some words on the exercise sheets aren't in the supplemental materials

I just found out that shaiigaku or whatever that was ...was sociology

Darius Jahandarie

5:03 AM

What you wrote for the sentence is probably what your teacher is looking for.

Sociology is shakaigaku.

(shakai is society.)

ah soo desu ne

Darius Jahandarie

nihongo to eigo wo mazete kaku no ha fuyukai desu. romaji wo tsukau no mo sonna kanji ga shimasu. shoshinsha kara shikataganai to wakatteru kedo, soredemo ochitsukanai desu.

kojinteki na iken desu kedo.

5:27 AM

eh

Anonymous

5:43 AM

@DariusJahandarie Are you using HTTPS for some reason? Stack Exchange still doesn't support HTTPS properly

Anonymous

And part of that "doesn't support HTTPS properly" has to do with the meta site

Darius Jahandarie

Oh yeah, there's that too.

Anonymous

You should fix whatever the problem is so you can participate in meta :-)

Anonymous

@usukidoll Just so you know, "romanji" is an error. There's no "n". (Also, although people commonly write "romaji", in Japanese the first vowel is long, which is important to know.)

oh ._.

wakarimasu

it's been a while

Anonymous

5:57 AM

@DariusJahandarie It's okay, people can capitalize the first letter of a romanized sentence. (But I wouldn't worry about it too much either way :-)

Anonymous

Most people don't use romanization enough for it to really matter, and people who do care about that sort of thing can come up with rules that make sense to them :-)

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