Japanese Language

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Anonymous

04:10

Hehe, I got a funny comment on my 〜がる etymology question: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9791/…

Anonymous

They said all the etymologies I quoted were hard to believe (possibly my fault for not linking to sources?)

Anonymous

Then they said ほしがる comes from the verb ほします, just like はしだす (well, it's what they said...)

Anonymous

They sound more confused about Japanese than even me :/

Anonymous

04:56

I added sources, since I felt like it was partially my fault for not providing them in the first place.

Anonymous

05:12

Yay, TsuyoshiIto left a comment clearing things up

Anonymous

Hopefully now my question won't cause any more confusion.

Anonymous

06:04

@Chocolate Oh, interesting! Thank you

Anonymous

11:16

@Flaw What's the difference between "word choice" and "differences"?

Flaw

oh no, we're about to enter a self-referential loop

their difference is in the choice of words =D

Anonymous

I feel like 姿 versus 形 is pretty basic, but I don't have it down yet.

Flaw

11:28

Maybe 形 is more physical than 姿

Anonymous

But then how do you explain the definition of ひずむ, which is 形がゆがむ?

Anonymous

As in 歪みペダル "distortion pedal" (for guitar)

Anonymous

Sure, the wave being saturated is in some sense physical, but...

Anonymous

Hmm

Anonymous

Maybe that is the difference, though, I don't know.

Anonymous

11:34

Hehe. It would probably have been easy to understand had I not learned it wrong in the first place.

Anonymous

Ahh, some days I feel so bad at Japanese.

Anonymous

I need to work on the basics for a while :-)

Flaw

12:01

@snailplane there is this other question:

Q: How figurative can 姿 be?

I've always thought of 姿 as a physical form or shape, but I came across this passage from my book: 彼らの話から浮かびあがってきたのは、・・・・・{この人}の姿だった。 (I took just took out some descriptions of the woman they're talking about that aren't really relevant [that I can tell, anyway].) I imagine that I've got t...