Japanese Language

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2:11 AM

@Chocolate hello, I saw you edited my answer. First, thank you! Second, I have a question (please answer only when you’re free to do so), you edited 「僕が書けないよ」into 「僕は書けないよ」, I use が by the following logic “from a given number of people who studies German, I cannot write a book, but there might be people who can” so I used が as pointing myself from that “list”

Does it make any sense? I feel like I need to revisit は and が more often, whenever I try to use が, I feel like I use it incorrectly

3 hours later…

Feeds

5:23 AM

Q: how do i chat with someone in the chat rooms?

how do i chat with someone in the chat rooms?

discussion

2 hours later…

Kuma

7:13 AM

hey guys

InsaneCat

facebook.com/otherperspectives1/photos/pcb.1874357479255374/… @Kuma

Kuma

lol

hey @InsaneCat

what happened to Yokai ?

InsaneCat

ha ha he is going to sleep

Kuma

I see

well its sleepy time in Japan

=_=

its 4.16pm in tokio

right now

InsaneCat

aahhh

were r u?

Kuma

7:17 AM

still busy worklife

over there

im in germany

9.17am

InsaneCat

yeah i knw man

but in office? or at home

Kuma

office

tomorrow too

all day in office

8hours left

InsaneCat

aahhh

Kuma

hows work ?

InsaneCat

from morning nothing to do finished some other stuffs

Kuma

7:19 AM

InsaneCat

after 10 minutes bread time will start

Kuma

waiting for advisor to teach me new stuff..

InsaneCat

aahh :D

Kuma

yeah lots of new things

InsaneCat

too early cat huh

Kuma

7:20 AM

yeah but i can come from 6am to 8pm

just have to do 8h

doesnt matter when

so rather come early you know

InsaneCat

hmmmm okies

Kuma

flex-hours

InsaneCat

flexible timing

hmm

Kuma

yes

you can do 6am-2pm

InsaneCat

that is good thing

Good

Kuma

7:22 AM

or 12pm-8pm

InsaneCat

hmmm

got it man

Kuma

or 8am-4pm

like me today

\o/

InsaneCat

hmmm

Kuma

maybe 5pm

we ll see

InsaneCat

12am to 7am :D

Kuma

7:23 AM

lol

InsaneCat

ha ha ha

Kuma

you cant its closed between 20pm and 6am

InsaneCat

Night shift..sleepy cat

Kuma

InsaneCat

aahhh :P

Kuma

7:24 AM

lol ring is protecting you from fish-slap

lucky

InsaneCat

hahah :P

yeah

seen

bread time hansu talk later ok

Kuma

yeah ok but its Kuma ;>

InsaneCat

ok ok

hmmmm

Kuma

whatever

have good lunch

1 hour later…

Kuma

8:29 AM

talked to other advisor now@InsaneCat

first one is busy all day

asked other advisor to teach me now

InsaneCat

9:01 AM

hahah

Kuma

yeah

so far im reviewing their whole software code

since i can access eclipse

and its written in java

InsaneCat

lol

Kuma

once a dev always a dev

;)

InsaneCat

Good Kuma

all in one cat

sry panda

Kuma

yeah alrounder bear you know

InsaneCat

9:05 AM

yoooooooo

bear

Kuma

roars

so how is your japanese doing ?

are you on discord right now ?

hey @l'électeur

非常識な猫 @InsaneCat

thats your name in Japanese

Hijōshikina neko

2 hours later…

Kuma

11:22 AM

ok advisor told me new stuff for 2hours straight now@InsaneCat

heads about to explode

taking break now...

1 hour later…

InsaneCat

12:30 PM

hell ha ha

2 hrs

i wanna to see your face man

Kuma

12:56 PM

haha

exhausted face man

but took a walk outside

now im fine

@InsaneCat

Kuma

1:23 PM

sleepy huh

dont mind our discussion guys.

some roomowner can delete it if it bothers you

Anonymous

1:40 PM

Maybe you could focus on on-topic chat a bit more while you're in this room.

Chocolate

@FelipeOliveira 「僕は書けない」（or 僕には書けない）ですね。。

なんでや・・・

"I cannot, but there might be someone who can" -- で、

対比の「は」 contrastive は

なのかな・・？

「あなたは日本語がわかりますか？」
「いえ、僕**は**日本語がわかりません。」

って言うときと同じ感じ。たぶん。

あれ？チャットって太字効かんかったっけ

あ

できた・・

おかしいな・・

「私は知っている。」「私が知っている。」?

でも

「私は知らない。」(not 「私が知らない。」）

ですよね・・

「ドイツ語で本が書ける？」-- 「いや、僕（に）は書けない。」

@FelipeOliveira I think you use は here because 僕 is not a new information..

For example, if you were asked 「ドイツ語で本が書けるのは誰？」 or 「ドイツ語で本が書ける人はいませんか？」, then you'd reply 「僕が書けます。」

In your example, the question is "Can you write a book in German?" 「ドイツ語で本が書ける？」(with あなたは not mentioned but implied), so..

I think 僕は is old/known information, so the は is topic/thematic

... or contrastive. Like... "I can't (but someone else can...)"

Sorry I can't explain well, but anyway it's often more natural to use は in a negative or interrogative sentence

Felipe Oliveira

2:22 PM

@Chocolate なるほど！You helped me a lot with those examples, thank you so much. I had the misconception that は would Always be about a new topic, therefore if something was already mentioned I should avoid は

It's also a bit of getting used to it and perceiving when to use は and が in set situations, I guess. But having this negative/interrogative general rule, will help me a lot, thanks again!!

Feeds

3:01 PM

Q: How do you use BCCWJ properly?

The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (link) is a useful resource but I realized recently that I was not using it correctly. The searches I did on it seemed to produce different results to other users, so I knew I was doing something wrong. I was wondering if someone could provide ...