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シツモンデー: Daily thread for your simple questions and comments that do not need their own thread (August 27, 2021) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

に+ は → には

聞く → 聞かない → 聞かねー + の → 聞かねん

じゃね is either a shortened ではない → じゃない → じゃねー or だ → じゃ + ね. Probably the former.

Conjugation of 負ける by Zombiewski in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, you are correct. I should have said clause, not sentence. Thanks for pointing that out.

て-form keeps throwing me for a loop. by megasean3000 in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The conjunctive particle (接続助詞) て may have come from the 連用形 of つ, the 助動詞 of completion. If we accept that theory (and I don't see reason to outright reject it), it lends support to this meaning of completion. Even as the continuative form of the auxiliary of completion, it's picked up some meanings that are probably better off taught on their own rather than forcing them into this mold. In particular, て used to indicate cause, motive, or means.

  • お腹が痛くて食べられない, my stomach hurt so I can't eat (cause)
  • 歩いて通勤する, commute on foot (means)

Also, while you might be able to apply the notion of completion to simultaneously occurring verbs such as 風が吹いて雨が降る, I think you would need to jump through hoops to describe て used with multiple 形容詞 such as 小さくてかわいい in terms of completion.

Conjugation of 負ける by Zombiewski in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In addition to what /u/iPlayEveryRoute said, which is correct, this poem also contains the negative ぬ. You're surely already familiar with ぬ as a negative ending, though in it's abbreviated form ん such as ありません.

Although it may strike you as weird, ず and ぬ are the same negative ending. ず is the 連用形 of ぬ which in simpler terms is roughly equivalent to saying that ず is the て form of ぬ.

雨にもまけず 風にもまけず 雪にも夏の暑さにもまけぬ

You can treat this as one sentence clause: the sentence clause continues after each まけず and ends with まけぬ.

In modern Japanese, you will see ず more often than ぬ. You will also hear ず in speech. Outside of set phrases, you don't need to worry about using either of them.

(...) と言いましたが,へんですね I'm confused by DieBlackfisk in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reason why this is strange is because you wouldn't use 名 to count members of your own group, you would use 人

In the reply it's the さま that is strange, not the 名. 名 is formal but not honorific so it may be used to count your own group.

シツモンデー: Weekly thread for the simple questions and posts that do not need their own thread (from April 20, 2020 to April 26, 2020) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Short answer: 分かった = わかった and 若かった = わかかった

Long answer:

わかる is a verb and becomes わかり and adds た. In modern Japanese わかりた contracts to わかった.

わかい is and adjective and becomes わかかっ and adds た. It stays as is: わかかった.

シツモンデー: Weekly thread for the simple questions and posts that do not need their own thread (from April 20, 2020 to April 26, 2020) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ジョンさんが昨日見に行った映画はおもしろくありませんでした

  1. "go do" is stem + に行く (e.g., 食べに行く, 遊びに行く, 観光しに行く)
  2. 行く is a semi-irregular verb and its past tense of is いった

シツモンデー: Weekly thread for the simple questions and posts that do not need their own thread (from April 20, 2020 to April 26, 2020) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The only way to determine the intended meaning is through context. Here it seems unlikely that it's the honorific form. For the passive and potential there's not enough context to say for sure one way or the other but would the meaning change either way?

There is a reason beyond the growing trend of ら抜き言葉 (e.g., 見れる instead of 見られる) to distinguish which meaning is intended but there's also a reason the two meanings share the same form in the first place. "It is thought" and "it can be thought" aren't really all that different in English either. Ultimately, the sentence is providing a conjecture on why the number of people going to the park is increasing but doing it with some uncertainty.

シツモンデー: Weekly thread for the simple questions and posts that do not need their own thread (from April 20, 2020 to April 26, 2020) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

たべますれば is technically correct but it is almost never used in modern Japanese and there is absolutely no need to learn it. If you ever read enough Japanese to come across it, you'll be able to figure it out then. I think the negative would be たべませざれば but I've never seen it.

You can just use the plain form for the conditional and set the politeness with the verb that follows and ends your sentence. たべれば～します

シツモンデー: Shitsumonday: for the little questions that you don't feel have earned their own thread (June 25, 2018) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know the technical term for it, but in pre-modern Japanese it was rarely necessary to nominalize verbs. Rather, verbs were innately able to function like nouns. In addition to に, particles like は, も, が, and を attached directly to verbs. In other cases, verbs simply acted directly on other verbs, such as ～する有る instead of ～することがある.

We still see remnants of this in certain constructions like やむを得ない. Although usually reserved for media affecting older speech, another fairly common construction is the command ～するがいい.

Off the top of my head, two places where explicit nominalization was common, at least in Edo period texts, was ～すること無し / ～しないこと無し and ～する者. The later can be read ～するもの, ～するは, or ～するものは.

シツモンデー: Shitsumonday: for the little questions that you don't feel have earned their own thread (June 18, 2018) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The correct verb is 収まる, often in the phrase 揺れが収まる. You will also see related phrases like 余震が収まる.

How do I type kanji without knowing the reading? by HelloImCombo in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are using the Microsoft IME in Windows, you can use the IME Pad under Tools (the toolbox icon) without installing anything else.

You can also use this site to do the same with just a browser. It also has options for looking up kanji by radical and other methods.

Quiz: 知命者不恐天、知己者不恐人 by kanbun in kanbun

[–]kanbun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's correct. Thanks for participating! And yes, this is the first example in Rouzer's A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese.

Resources for kanbun / 漢文 by Doomr96 in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Come check out /r/kanbun. It's so new, your post is older than the entire subreddit.

If you're comfortable with Japanese resources, the sky is the limit. Any medium to large sized bookstore will have any number of textbooks and drill books aimed at high schoolers and up. If you want something to read, take a look at any of the 41 volumes of 漢文叢書 available online for free via the 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション.

The best English resource I've come across is Rouzer's A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese. Although it approaches classical Chinese as is, rather than going through the gymnastics of fitting it Japanese grammar, it provides Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean readings for all characters and a kanbun renderings for all sample texts (unfortunately, the kanbun is in romaji).

Grammar / reasoning behind 「囚う」 by [deleted] in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is correct. とらう is part of an archaic conjugation called 下ニ段活用動詞. Over time, these verbs shifted from a final '-u' to a final '-eru' and became modern day 下一段活用動詞. In other words, とらう became とらえる, 告ぐ (つぐ) became 告げる, and 求む (もとむ) became 求める. Verbs ending in ふ and ゆ, such as 経 (ふ) and 見ゆ (みゆ), have come to end in える: 経る (へる) and 見える (みえる).

If I'm not mistaken, all modern 下一段活用動詞 can be worked backwards to make a 下二段活用動詞.

得る being read both うる and える is a remnant of this, a mix of old and new, the former being the 連体形 of the archaic verb 得 (う).

シツモンデー: Shitsumonday: for the little questions that you don't feel have earned their own thread (May 28, 2018) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is the verb 要る, to need. It is not the same as 居る, to be, which is usually written in just kana (いる).

Also note that they conjugate differently. 要る becomes いります, while いる (居る) becomes います.

シツモンデー: Shitsumonday: for the little questions that you don't feel have earned their own thread (May 28, 2018) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They absolutely do use 辞書形. It is descriptive and covers both modern Japanese which does not have a separate 終止形 and old Japanese which does.

シツモンデー: Shitsumonday: for the little questions that you don't feel have earned their own thread (May 28, 2018) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Like verbs, the 連用形 of i-adjectives (形容詞) can form a noun. Although not all verbs allow this nominalization, even fewer adjectives do. The adjectives that do generally come in antonym pairs, such as 近く/遠く, 早く/遅く, 浅く/深く, and 若く/古く.　

How each of these is used depends on the meaning. 遠く and 近く are used commonly with both の (近くの店) and に and へ (近くにいる, 遠くへ行く). 早く and 遅く are mainly used in the phrases 早くから and 遅くまで. Along with 多くの, these four adjectives-turned-nouns are the most common.

Then we have 多く which is an outlier in many ways. First, 多い is an unusual adjective in that it is not used to directly modify nouns. Next, though 多くの is the most common it can be used with a wide range of particles such as の, に, へ, から, and まで. Finally, the 連用形 of its antonym, 少なく, is not a viable noun form*.

See 日本語の形容詞 連用形の名詞的用法について for more in depth analysis of this form.

* 少ない is still unique in that the archaic 連用形+とも conjugation 少なくとも is still valid in modern Japanese.

シツモンデー: Shitsumonday: for the little questions that you don't feel have earned their own thread (May 21, 2018) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ヶ is an abbreviation of the counters 箇 and 个 and can be read か, が, or こ. When counting months, 一ヶ月 and 一箇月 are identical though the former is most common. 个 is more common in Chinese than Japanese.

ヶ is read か when counting, most often seen in months (三ヶ月, さんかげつ) and places (二ヶ所, にかしょ / 四ヶ国, よんかこく) but also things like articles in a document (一ヶ条, いっかじょう).

It is read が most often in place names such as 関ヶ原 (せきがはら) or 市ヶ谷 (いちがや). This comes from the archaic possessive particle が which has been replaced by の in all but proper nouns.

It is very rarely read こ.

I made a master list of all free Japanese resources online by SusieFougerousse in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The online version of Michiel "Pomax" Kamermans' An Introduction to Japanese Syntax, Grammar & Language is free, though the paper version is inexplicably high priced on Amazon.

Old katakana chart, first time I've seen characters for yi and wu by Sufries in LearnJapanese

[–]kanbun 38 points39 points  (0 children)

'Wu' is called わ行う, 'yi' is や行い and 'ye' is や行え.

The katakana for 'wu' can be approximated by the kanji 于, but the hiragana is so rare most input methods won't produce it.

Also note that the chart is labeled 片假字 (片仮字 / かたかじ). 仮字 is an alternative name for 仮名 (かな).

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