Japanese Language

Anonymous

12:08 AM

Oh, I hesitate to say which is right myself! I didn't ever learn this conjugation stuff properly. I just picked it up over time, and then went back and learned some of the rules for it later :-)

Anonymous

@ssb If you think you made a mistake, don't feel too bad about it. I think most of us take care not to post inaccurate comments and answers, but everyone makes mistakes :-)

Anonymous

That's the neat thing about posting stuff here--if you do make a mistake, hopefully someone will correct you and then you can learn!

ssb

This one I at least feel justified in

At least somewhat

Anonymous

I do feel bad when I make mistakes, though I try to tell myself it's okay

Anonymous

@ssb Hmm . . .

ssb

12:10 AM

Apparently this confusion about causative passive is endemic in Japanese educational materials

ameblo.jp/mekara-uroko/entry-10341599066.html

Just one example of confusion and frustration I've found

Anonymous

Ahh!

Anonymous

I think there are probably details to be added on the difference between -as-are- and -ase-rare-

Anonymous

But I can't remember what they are...

Anonymous

Ahh, I see your edit! I just upvoted :-)

Anonymous

Oh, I like this question:

Anonymous

12:20 AM

1

Q: が vs を in sentences of desire (-たい)

According to Genki, expressions of desire ( -たい sentences such as in the examples below) which use the particle を can also use the particle が interchangeably and besides stating that they give no further explanation. From what I could tell from searching around it seems that が appears to be a mor...

Anonymous

Couldn't you say that 行かす is a lexical causative?

Anonymous

So there's no need to derive a new causative like 行かせる (although you can)

ssb

at least an answer here suggests that's not the case: detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1312013353

No idea how much it can be trusted, though

That whole が・を thing is another thing that foreigners are taught in a certain emphatic way, yet I hear ~を好き all the time

now I'm afraid to write answers..

6690 vs. 1067 in が好き's favor on the corpus.. Not insignificant

Anonymous

Oh yeah, I did check those numbers once. They were similar at the time (well, probably the same, since I think you did one of the same queries I did)

Anonymous

But if you check を見たい and が見たい the numbers are a lot closer

Anonymous

12:34 AM

(I didn't check how the が-marked phrases were used in the results)

ssb

Oh wow yeah, the question was about verbs, not suki

if only I could search regular expressions

を見たい outnumbers が 2 to 1

But を見たかった and が見たかった are almost equal

Anonymous

@ssb Although を好き is a common (but minority) usage, I think many native speakers still don't use it

Anonymous

And it might be viewed as nonstandard

ssb

I'm almost 100% sure を好き is treated as incorrect

Anonymous

Well, I don't think everyone agrees on what's correct

Anonymous

12:38 AM

Descriptively speaking I think を好き is okay

ssb

At least in any standardized form

Or.. formalized

Yang Muye

@ssb I think 行かされる should be the standard form. I read a paper about the usage of させられる many years ago, which says that in many situations, the long form sounds awkward.

Anonymous

There are a number of uses of を that seem um, grammatically idiosyncratic? Like 〜〜をありがとう

ssb

@YangMuye Thank you for your input! In my edited answer I briefly mentioned that..

をありがとう makes sense to me if I continue treating it as a form of ありがつ ;)

Yang Muye

@snailboat It's actually more complex. Some -su verbs don't have -saseru forms and their -seru potential forms sound awkward, while some do not. 行かす should belong to the former group, while 沸かす belongs to the latter one.

Anonymous

12:43 AM

@ssb That reminds me of the slang まずった　⇒　まずかった, like there's a verb まずる

Anonymous

@YangMuye Do you happen to remember where you read that paper?

Anonymous

I'm curious, because I feel like there's a difference between the "long" and "short" form causatives that I'm not getting

ssb

After all my confusion I want to see it as well..

Anonymous

By the way, I think I'm going to start using my Moderator Powers to fix all the broken links people paste without asking

Anonymous

I just fixed this link:

Anonymous

12:47 AM

The following question gives some insight: http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/14984/use-of-が-vs-を-with-transitive‌-verb-受け入れる（＋もらえる） — Tim 12 mins ago

Yang Muye

I don't remember, but the paper was talking about how to use させられる with 感情表現.

Anonymous

Ahh, well, if you happen to come across any interesting papers on the subject, I and I'm sure others would love to see :-)

Yang Muye

Maybe you can find them. It examined many verbs such as 驚かされる, びっくりさせられる,etc.

Anonymous

I'm looking! :-)

Anonymous

I think sometimes linguistics has too many papers about fitting things into too-abstracted theoretical frameworks when describing the facts is a more interesting endeavor

ssb

12:49 AM

what sorts of frameworks?

Anonymous

Like Chomsky's Minimalist Program, and so forth.

Yang Muye

OK. I read those papers five years ago, when I was interested in Japanese. But I latter gave up learning for some other reasons. Last month, I collected many papers I read and import them into mendeley and I found I lost a lot of them.

ssb

by N Chomsky - ‎Cited by 16983

hubba hubba

Yang Muye

@snailboat I personally don't like Chomsky's idea.

Anonymous

@YangMuye I don't either. I like informal descriptive frameworks that tell you how language works and organize it as simply as possible

Anonymous

12:53 AM

I don't really care for generative grammar or Universal Grammar

Yang Muye

@snailboat "as simply as possible" is the problem. I hate "Universal".

@snailboat They tries to simplifies too much, and it's almost impossible for a learner to "generate" proper sentences.

Anonymous

@YangMuye Well, different people mean different things by "simple". Chomsky makes one aspect simple, and he makes everything else super-complicated as a result

Anonymous

When I say "as simple as possible", I mean something rather different :-)

Anonymous

As simple as possible . . . but no simpler!

Yang Muye

@snailboat while, simple approach is easier to apply in computer science.

@ssb I saw a question several days ago asking whether を and に should be used with causative forms. I had a complex answer but didn't post it.

The choice of が and を is very interesting, too. I have some ideas explaining が and を too, but there doesn't seem to be a simple way to correctly predict which one is more likely to be used.

ssb

1:01 AM

My ideas on が and を all come down to whether it feels like it's being used as a verb or an adjective

Hardly academic ;)

Anonymous

@ssb My intuitive idea is sillier than that.

Anonymous

> [ 映画を見 ] たい
> 映画が [ 見たい ]

Anonymous

Wait, is that the same thing you said?

Anonymous

Oh!

ssb

I think so!

Yang Muye

1:06 AM

@ssb I think the reason why が was chosen at first for 可能動詞 and 感情形容詞 is related how people perceive things. As for 感情形容詞, there are some external factors which makes you feel and do something. So the agent is actually passive and marked with には. As for 可能動詞, the explanation is different. Historically, 可能動詞 is used in negative forms only, so 見えない = it won't be seen = it can't be seen = you can't see it.

But when they become grammalized, people start to prefer the more intuitive way to speak. So 映画を見る→映画を見たい, ご飯を食べる→ご飯を食べられない

Anonymous

This is an interesting starting point: jk.mit.edu/abstracts/poster-nambu-hwang.pdf

ssb

見えない and 聞こえない are two that always made sense to me on a purely intuitive level

Yang Muye

@ssb Yes, my theory only explains why it can be like what it is, but doesn't explain when it should be. As a result, you still have to learn the usage word by word.

@ssb As for 見えない and 聞こえない, I have been puzzled by them for years.

Anonymous

@YangMuye Why do they puzzle you?

Anonymous

Or maybe I should say "in what way"

Yang Muye

1:14 AM

@snailboat when to use 見える when to use 見る

Anonymous

Ah!

ssb

I sometimes am not sure when I should use 見れる or 見える..

Yang Muye

Of course, I'm not talking about the potential and passive usage.

ssb

If only I could think of an example..

I've always thought of 見える and 聞こえる as lexically separate though, not lending themselves to confusion in the same ways that を・が～たい do

Anonymous

@ssb Well, they are lexically separate.

Yang Muye

1:18 AM

e.g. 窓を開けたら富士山が見えた, things come after たら must be something you experience rather than something you conduct, which makes 見る inappropriate here. Similarly, 病院へ行ったら、1時間も待たされた not 待った.

ssb

yes of course, I don't suggest that's my personal theory or something

Yang Muye

But the problem is, some verbs can be used after たら, such as 遭う, 見つける.

ssb

Ahh that connects back to my whole たら crisis a few weeks ago..

Yang Muye

You don't and often should not change them into 見つかる or 合わされる.

I can't find a rule to predict whether a verb can be used after たら and end up examining them one by one.

ssb

can you give an example with 合わされる？

Yang Muye

1:23 AM

By googling, I found 半死半生の目に合わされる. I think 遭う{あう} itself is already a little passive.

ssb

I don't consider 遭う to be something you can control

酷い目に遭う

Yang Muye

But the problem is, you see 会えない

見つけられない

despite the fact that they can be used after たら.

That suggests that some verbs can used as nonvolitional verbs in certain situations (e.g. たら) but can't in other situations.

ssb

It's likely that I'm just not getting exactly what you're saying, but these all feel like they make sense to me

can 見つける really be considered volitional?

Yang Muye

Yes.

見つけようとしても、なかなか見つからない

ssb

Yeah I was just thinking about that and doubting myself as to whether it sounded natural..

Could it be related to the subject?

hmm, no..

So would saying 窓を開けたらペンが見つかった be considered totally unnatural?

it feels wrong to me but I don't trust my intuition anymore

google is showing me a lot of ～たら見つかる

Yang Muye

1:32 AM

It seems that the difference is most related to 現場発話, in which case 視点 (voice?) is very important and obligatory. e.g. 歩いていたら幽霊が見えた. When you latter convey the fact, you can just say 昨日歩いている時、幽霊を見た. In the latter case, 見た is of course non-volitional.

見つかる can be used for 見つけることができた, when you succeed in doing something.

I think 見つける is more neutral.

偶然見つけた,　発見したに近いって感じ

ssb

To my non-linguist brain it feels to me like verbs like 会う and 見つける simply have, built in to them, certain nuances that allow them to be used in a passive way

Anonymous

ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110004677644

Yang Muye

@ssb To my non-linguist brain, it seems that every verb has chance to be used in a non-volitional way... I just end up learning them one by one. A good dictionary would be more valuable than a theory like “Whatever is real is rational, and whatever is rational is real.” And I'm considering making one.

ssb

I was just thinking a bit about something like that, about if all volitional verbs can't somehow be made passive

is passive the right word to be using here?

Anonymous

And this paper follows up the one I just linked: ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/LINGUISTICS/staff/munakata_takashi/pdf/…

ssb

1:44 AM

anyway I was thinking of like キチンに行ったらチキンを食べた. Would there be any bizarre situation in which that would make sense, or would it necessarily have to change to 食べさせられた

Yang Muye

@snailboat my English is bad and I read Japanese papers when I started because they contains a lot of 難しい漢字's which are surprisingly easy for me than ひらがな. But I'm going to read some English ones to see different ideas form foreigners.

ssb

I'm glancing at these papers but the mountains of jargon are still daunting

Anonymous

Ah... But I don't think the authors of these papers count as "foreigners"

Yang Muye

@snailboat ....

Anonymous

@YangMuye I don't understand the dots

Yang Muye

1:46 AM

@ssb in fact, the meanings of verbs change. e.g. なる and 痩せる, it's pretty common to say なれる. 痩せられる.

@snailboat I meant to say ‘orz’.

@ssb I'm afraid even 食べさせられた is not likely to be used there. If the subject is not yourself, when it might make sense. But たら does work well with long-time verbs.

ssb

Right, like in my mind I was picturing walking through the door and suddenly getting a mouth stuffed full of chicken

I think I tend to understand concepts best by searching out those "exceptions that prove the rule"

even if they are ridiculous exceptions

Yang Muye

@ssb That sounds possible

Anonymous

@ssb Well, then you know what the boundaries are, which is a good thing

Anonymous

Until you have a good idea of what the boundaries are, sometimes things can seem kind of amorphous

Anonymous

Of course, everything seems amorphous to me since I'm not all that good at Japanese ;-)

Yang Muye

1:53 AM

You can post a question to see if native speakers will use that sentence in that case.

ssb

Usually when I'm told that I can't use something in some way my first instinct is to ask exactly what it sounds like if I do say it in that way

@YangMuye the chicken example might not be a good one, but.. who knows

Yang Muye

I think it' a good one. 漫画に見えそうな感じ

Anonymous

@ssb Hehe!

ssb

ドアを開けたら気づかないうちにチキンを食べてた・・

Anonymous

Of course, every native speaker accepts a different set of sentences.

Yang Muye

1:58 AM

e.g It very possible that someone is throwing things about, and you go into the room and hit by it.

Anonymous

When you get to the edges, where stuff is fuzzy and you're talking about stuff people don't say too often, you find more variance in what people accept or say

Anonymous

So sometimes when you ask about something weird you'll find speakers who go "Hmm, I guess that's okay" and others are like "Huh? Er, no"

Yang Muye

@snailboat Absolutely.

ssb

I've found that out through not a small amount of pestering native speakers

Often thanks to things I see on this site!

Anonymous

Oh, that reminds me!

Anonymous

2:01 AM

> Germany adopted a much weaker currency than would otherwise have been the case.

Anonymous

Someone asked what the subject of "than would otherwise have been the case" was.

Anonymous

And they asked if you could insert "it":

Anonymous

> Germany adopted a much weaker currency than it would otherwise have been the case.

Anonymous

So I said no, that's ungrammatical.

ssb

I think it's what

Anonymous

2:03 AM

I expected everyone to agree with me, too, because it seems so obviously wrong. But no! Some people said the version with "it" was fine.

Yang Muye

@ssb The structure is similar to 目覚めたら/気づいたら、病院のベットに寝かされていた. (寝ていた seems ok too)

ssb

"it" seems off to me too

Anonymous

I'm always surprised by what people say about English.

ssb

Do you agree that "what" is the best option there?

Anonymous

Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me. I was at a loss to explain the construction.

ssb

2:04 AM

Germany added a much weaker currency than what would otherwise have been the case.

hmm

Anonymous

The closest explanation I found was in Quirk et al. 1985, which said that than sometimes functions rather like a relative pronoun

Anonymous

> "You spent more money than was intended to be spent." The omission suggests that than is functioning like a relative pronoun. Compare: 'You spent the money that was intended.'"

ssb

honestly the original sentence feels weird to me to begin with

Anonymous

But did it seem weird when you first read it, or is it weird now that you're thinking about it?

Anonymous

I like this what idea

ssb

2:06 AM

Immediately when I read it I thought it would be a question about if saying "than would otherwise be the case" was grammatical in itself

not about what the subject would be

Anonymous

Oh, though, people say "than would have been the case" all the time

ssb

Yes

so now I'm trying to think of if I thought it was weird because there's something different about that particular sentence

or if I was just looking for a problem

Anonymous

Thanks for suggesting what, by the way.

Anonymous

I refrained from answering the question because I couldn't figure out a satisfactory way to analyze it

ssb

Sure. I can see why people might think "it" but since we're not told exactly what the other case would have been it's left as a question

I also think that when people use "would have otherwise been the case" it usually comes directly after a comparison, which is why it felt weird to me

I watered the grass yesterday, so today it is greener than would have otherwise been the case

would otherwise be the case

hm, that's another issue in itself

ssb

2:27 AM

Now why can't I find the javascript that controls unicoin generation..

Chocolate

2:38 AM

エイプリルフールになりましたか。今年も何かSEのイタズラがあるのでしょうか

Tim

@snailboat Thanks Snailboat. I often have problems making links but this one looked ok. I should have tested it.

ssb

@Chocolate didn't you get your Unicoins?

Anonymous

@Chocolate Ohh, I didn't see the Unicoin thingy yet

Anonymous

I bet it's a reference to unicorns, because they seem to be a Stack Overflow meme.

Anonymous

@Tim In the browser I use, it automatically URI escapes stuff in the URL bar when I copy it to the clipboard

Anonymous

2:40 AM

So if I just paste it into the URL bar, hit enter so it loads the page, and then highlight and copy again, it fixes the URL

Anonymous

Failing that, you can always paste an unencoded URL into a tool like this: meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder

ssb

this google maps pokemon thing is pretty cool

Anonymous

@ssb Oh, those two links earlier were about が／を with "stative predicates" (including 好きだ)

ssb

These site evaluation results are interesting to me. My answer on the origin of 火の車 was basically a direct translation of the gogen allguide site, yet it got 9 excellent votes

Anonymous

Well, it provides information to people who may not have been able to read the original in Japanese

Anonymous

2:53 AM

The question I answered was the most skipped in the self-eval. Three people skipped it. Tl;dr? :-)

ssb

Yes, just makes me wonder about different criteria for evaluating answers. Are the highest quality answers the ones that show the most thought and effort, or the ones that provide a full answer with virtually no effort?

Anonymous

Hmm...

ssb

I think effort deserves a little credit!

Anonymous

That's fair, though to be honest, I think it's more important whether the question was given a helpful answer

Anonymous

Can you see this? japanese.stackexchange.com/admin/review/…

ssb

2:57 AM

i cannot

Anonymous

Ah... It's a breakdown of how all the users reviewed, sorted by % of excellents

Anonymous

It ranges from 100% excellent to 0% excellent.

ssb

you can see who voted how?

Anonymous

So clearly users have different criteria!

Anonymous

Yes, you should be able to too, but maybe not through that particular tool

Anonymous

2:58 AM

japanese.stackexchange.com/review/site-eval/history

ssb

oh wow!

Tim

@YangMuye (Hope I am not jumping to a discussion that is over but) my understanding of ~たら is that, as you say, what comes after it is something you experience, it cannot be volitional: The main cases in kanzenmaster N3 were: "If X had occurred then Y should have been the outcome" (hypothical), "When I did X, I found that (preexisting state)", "While doing X, (by chance) Y happend", "As a result of X, Y happend."

Anonymous

@Tim I think you should feel free to jump into a discussion if you have something to add, even if it seems to be over for the time being. That's the nice thing about chat--it lets you link replies to earlier messages like you've done, so it doesn't cause any confusion :-)

Tim

@snailboat Thanks. I'll try to that going forward.

ssb

To me a satisfactory answer provides a clear answer to the question, but an excellent one goes the extra mile and creates a uniquely thoughtful and informative answer

Anonymous

3:02 AM

@ssb Did your causative-passive answer get a downvote earlier, or just now?

Anonymous

I wonder if anyone has more to add

ssb

earlier

before my edit

Anonymous

Ahh

Anonymous

I see

ssb

you can probably pinpoint the exact moment the downvote occurred if you try

Anonymous

3:03 AM

Well, yes, I can :-)

Anonymous

But I was lazy and asked.

ssb

ahh as a moderator do you get to see who downvotes and stuff too?

i mean only from context provided in the question but hey

Anonymous

No, I think anyone can see it on your reputation page. 2014-03-31 22:42:08Z

ssb

gosh, goes to show how little I explore some site features

Anonymous

The comment in question was at 2014-03-31 22:50:56Z

Tim

3:08 AM

@snailboat I just checked - you can see your own down-votes on your rep page but not others (or is that what you meant?)

Anonymous

@Tim Oh, really? Maybe it is a moderatorly thing, then. Oops!

Anonymous

Wow, when you check the users page, you can see that Tokyo Nagoya is accumulating reputation way faster than everyone else: japanese.stackexchange.com/users

Tim

3:42 AM

@snailboat Yes, you can see total up/down votes for any user but not what they have voted for (which seems consistent with democratic principles).

ssb

If only we could get more natives to be more active..

Anonymous

@Tim I can't see what individual people have voted for, either.

Anonymous

But I can see on a user's reputation page when their reputation has gone down.

Anonymous

I do have access to a tool that will let me see if one user is repeatedly voting up or down on another particular user

Anonymous

But I can't, for example, go and look at a user's individual votes.

ssb

3:45 AM

how did you access those site evaluation votes? i can't find the link to it

ah, found it!

a little buried

actually i can't find the site evaluation one.. only close votes and the like

Anonymous

4:02 AM

Ah, I typed in the URL myself.

Anonymous

Just change the part where it says close-vote or whatever to site-eval

Anonymous

The URL is exposed during the site eval itself, so you would have been able to find it then for sure.

ssb

naruhodo

Anonymous

Everything I learned to write only in kana in Japanese schools, members here want to write in kanji -- できる、フケ、こんにちは、こんばんは, etc. — Tokyo Nagoya 6 hours ago

Anonymous

I'm interested in that. Clearly a lot of people do write 出来る in kanji.

ssb

4:07 AM

できる is the only one I'd disagree with there

Anonymous

The rule in the NHK漢字表記辞典 seemed more nuanced.

Anonymous

Yeah, I agree with the others.

ssb

what's the NHK rule?

Anonymous

It says to write it 出来る, as in ビルが出来る, 用事が出来る. However, it says （「・・・することができる」「できるだけ」などは、なるべくかな書き）

Anonymous

Pardon, my S key is on the fritz, I'm afraid!

Anonymous

4:09 AM

So if you see a stray うる where する is expected, blame my S key ;-)

ssb

interesting

seems like it's preserving that kind of 出て来る kind of sense of it

Anonymous

So earlier when TN posted about 〜することができる and asked why everyone was writing it in kanji, I looked it up and saw that rule. I hadn't realized there was a distinction to be made

Anonymous

However, his second comment (quoted above) seems to disagree with the NHK rule

ssb

the "only" kana part?

Anonymous

Yeah.

Anonymous

4:13 AM

I suppose the MEXT has some prescriptive rules for orthography that differ a little from actual practice...?

Anonymous

I wonder where you would go to find those rules

Anonymous

I have the 常用漢字表 at least

ssb

It's possible he was only thinking of the potential できる

looking in the BCCJW I'm seeing plenty of 出来る in the potential form

Anonymous

Ah, so maybe I should interpret it as contextually constrained to the example in the other post? So maybe his comment agrees with the NHK rule? I suppose I could ask :-)

Anonymous

I know I've seen a lot of 出来る over the years. Definitely far more than I could think to count

ssb

4:17 AM

Clearly there are plenty of situations where 出来る is used, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in assuming he's referring to those places where it usually itsn't used

Anonymous

But I wasn't paying attention to when it was used

Anonymous

So I never realized if there was a distinction

ssb

Well we have at least one example of a rule suggesting a pattern

Again, though, looking at the corpus, most of these break the NHK rule

Anonymous

I don't mind following the rule, myself--I try to get out of the habit of over-kanji-ing, which I think a lot of learners do, unless I'm texting my study buddy or such

Anonymous

Sometimes when you're typing to a fellow student, it's fun to use extra kanji just to quiz each other ;-)

ssb

4:21 AM

as a general rule I don't use kanji for できる unless it gets automatically converted by my IME

at which point I just let fate guide me

Anonymous

Well, your IME is probably smarter than mine.

Anonymous

I see 旱魃 and 干ばつ are in roughly equal proportion in BCCWJ

ssb

oh, interesting

I hadn't seen the first

Anonymous

I like that compound because the phonetics are transparent: 旱魃　→　干伐

Anonymous

So it's easy to read, even if you might forget how to write it

ssb

4:23 AM

About time for some new vocabulary! haven't added anything to my list in a while

Anonymous

Woo hoo! Is that going to bump your total kanji stats by a couple points? :-)

ssb

absolutely

Anonymous

They're fun kanji, too.

ssb

The seen cards in this deck contain:
2767 total unique kanji.

I feel like this number is too low..

only one way to fix that!

Anonymous

@ssb Go on an 異体字／旧字体 binge? :-)

ssb

4:25 AM

i'm still trying to get through my massive wave of 難読語 that I added

Anonymous

Hah

ssb

although many of those just use joyo kanji with strange readings

I'm continuing to add a lot of fish and plants and other animals as well, those are always fun

Anonymous

Yeah, it's funny.

ssb

I like to see what sort of components combine to form a particular animal's image

Anonymous

Both 熟字訓読み and 表外読み are tricky--you think you know how to read a kanji, and most of the time you do . . .

Anonymous

4:27 AM

It's funny what can make me feel like a beginner. I remember when I learned 無理強い

Anonymous

I just assumed it was むりつよい or something and didn't bother looking it up at first

ssb

that one wasn't a surprise to me because i had learned 強いて言えば beforehand!

Anonymous

Yeah, that was around the time I learned 強いる!

Anonymous

And then there's 強張る

ssb

ohh I don't have that one

海鼠腸

Interesting! If I type this one, it shows up in the tabbable prediction box, but if I try to space convert it, it won't work

Anonymous

4:32 AM

I don't know that word

ssb

I've never eaten it

but..

I don't think I want to

Anonymous

There are many things I don't think I want to eat, that among them.

ssb

See I often think that, and then things get placed in front of me without warning

eat first, ask questions later

ahh here's another tricky reading: 行灯

apparently it's also あんどう though, which is slightly less tricky than あんどん

Anonymous

> 語形は、当初、唐宋音に由来するアンドンであったが、トン(灯)がアン(行)ほど使われない音だったためか、近世期、アンドウ・アンドの形が優勢になった。明治以降は、再‌びアンドンが一般的となる。

ssb

a storied history

Anonymous

4:46 AM

Sayeth 精選日国 via my EX-WORD

ssb

what other words use 行 as アン, i wonder

Anonymous

Umm, 行脚!

ssb

oh, nice

Do you remember like a year ago there was a link posted to a kanji converter?

It would take normal Japanese input and turn it into various styles

I really want to find that again

I found one but it's not the same as what was here before

Tim

5:15 AM

@snailboat oops, I just corrected the kanji (今日はー＞こんにちは etc) in the title of that question, may be I shouldn't have done? Actually I nearly did it yesterday because it just looked so odd using kanji for those words.

Anonymous

I think correcting it was fine.

Tim

My apple dictionary (here プログレシブ英和・和英中辞典）give 出来るwhen it is used by itself and also for できるだけ which I did not expect. I am not sure about when 出来る is used by itself (seems kanji are ok) but in "expressions", the same principle as that recently discussion on the use of ください applies (ie kana is correct).

@snailboat Good thanks. I think so too but don't want to get into corrections to corrections which confuse people.

Chocolate

5:31 AM

@snailboat 私も「ください」は「下さい」って、書くことがあります

ユニコーン・・・？

@Tim そのプログレッシブは、最新版ですか？

ssb

in my Japanese classes in university I was taught to write 下さい

Chocolate

おお！

最新版progressive の英和は、第五版ですかね

編集者が変わったんですよ。で、この、

amazon.co.jp/…

新しい編集者が、内容を大きく変えてもいいかって言ったんで

第四版までのと比べて、めっちゃ内容が変わっちゃって

すっかり評判が悪くなってしまいました

今まで、四版までは、とても人気があって、良かったのに。

Anonymous

My 電子辞書 has three 和英辞典... Kenkyusha, Genius, and O-Lex

Anonymous

I've always liked the Kenkyusha one :-)

Anonymous

I never had a good 英和辞典 until I got the 電子辞書. But I don't know which of the ones on here are best

Anonymous

5:39 AM

I haven't used 英和辞典 enough

Chocolate

ジーニアス英和も、人気があります。

Anonymous

For 英和, it has four dictionaries

Chocolate

（英語学習者に、ですが。）

まあ、４つも

Anonymous

リーダーズ英和辞典／リーダーズ・プラス、研究社新英和大辞典、ジーニアス英和大辞典、ランダムハウス英和大辞典

Anonymous

Oh, five! And オーレックス英和大辞典

Anonymous

5:40 AM

I didn't know it had so many!

Anonymous

I spend a lot more time trying to understand Japanese than speak or write Japanese, so I usually use the 国語辞典 or the 和英辞典

Chocolate

リーダーズは語彙数が多いんですね。ランダムハウスも大辞典だし、おおきいですね

オーレックスっていうのは、初めて聞きました。

Anonymous

I've used them a little bit and they all seem neat, but I don't really know which I should use

Anonymous

It lets you search the example sentences so sometimes I do that :-)

Anonymous

Oh, there was one other dictionary which seemed different from all the others

Anonymous

5:44 AM

英和活用大辞典 "The Kenkyusha Dictionary of English Collocations"

Chocolate

@snailboat そう、それって、私らが、OxfordとかLongmanの英英辞典を使いなさいって言われるのと似てます

Anonymous

So far 明鏡 is still my favorite 国語辞典 :-)

Anonymous

I think having the bilingual dictionaries is great, though, because they always seem to have a lot more example sentences.

Chocolate

リーダーズの英和辞典が、語数が多いので、和英でもそういうのがあればいいなと思って「リーダーズの和英辞典は無いんですか？」って聞いたら、「Readersってどうい‌う意味や？あほ。」って言われたことがあります

「あ、そうか・・・じゃ、『Writers和英辞典』、とかになるのかな」と思いました

ssb

►

Chocolate

5:49 AM

@ssb おお～

エイプリルフール

au.kddi.com/pr/sumahowotsukuru

Anonymous

@Chocolate You know, it seems like both 英和 and 和英 dictionaries are all oriented toward speakers of Japanese. There aren't many dictionaries designed to teach English speakers how to speak or write Japanese...

Anonymous

I guess because more Japanese speakers learn English than English speakers learn Japanese

Chocolate

@snailboat そうそう、日本人の英語学習者向けです

Anonymous

I know of a couple dictionaries designed for learners but they're smaller

Anonymous

amazon.com/…

Anonymous

5:54 AM

This is the best one I found. It doesn't have many words, but it explains how to use them in English with examples

Chocolate

ほ～「講談社USA」だって

え、結構高い

Anonymous

The first English-Japanese dictionary I bought was 研究社新英和中辞典, but I couldn't use it back then because I couldn't read the kanji, and it was more about explaining English words than telling you how to express things in Japanese

Anonymous

@Chocolate Oh, I think it was cheaper when I got it

Chocolate

@snailboat New Collegiate っていうやつかな

いや、今はもうそんなのないな

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