Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Blogs | Writers | Paid | My Orble | Login

Dr Spin - June 2007

Yes! No!

June 29th 2007 01:17
There are a number of ways to express Yes and No in Japanese.

The most obvious two terms are Hai - Yes.

No - Iie.

These are the two best fitting all occasions most used textbook examples of 'yes and no.' However, as in English with yes, yeah, nup, nope etc, there is more than one way to say the same thing.

Another way to say yes is to express 'it is so.' This comes in the common set phrase 'Sou desu'.

'Nn,' With an upper infliction is also a relaxed way to say yes.

Confusingly enough ie is a term also used to express 'yes'.

There are also a number of ways to say 'no.'


One more polite way to disagree is to say 'Chigau' or 'Chigaimasu'. These both mean 'Different.' If somebody makes a factual mistake (not a difference of opinion) you can use it to say, 'no, it's different.'

Sou Jyanai is similar to sou, but the jyanai makes it negative, to say 'it is not so'.
45
Vote
   


No matter what your level of Japanese Knowledge you've probably come across the 'san' sama' 'chan' or 'kun' terms from Japanese.

In Japan, to be polite you address others (never yourself) by an honorable suffix. Let's look at Dr Spin's best friend's son, Ben.

To be polite you most generally refer to an individual as their name followed by 'San'.
"Konnichi wa Ben san"

As Ben is a young man he can be also referred to by a special suffix which is only appropriate for young men - Kun. His friends may call him Ben Kun.
"Konnichi wa Ben Kun"

Chan is not appropriate for Boys. Chan is a softer less respectful version of San, used mostly for young girls (between themselves) and to express affection. However, if can be used by family members (Ben's brother Tom may call him Ben Chan) and to make fun of somebody (In this context, "Ben Chan" is best translated as "Little Benny".

"Konnichi wa Ben Chan!"
"Waaa!"

You have to be extra polite when speaking to somebody of a higher status than you. Japanese society is all about status. So istead of any of the above option, you use the extra polite Sama suffix with someone of higher status. For example, if Ben addressed his boss Mr Tanaka he'd say.
Konnichi wa Tanaka Sama.

45
Vote
   


Desu

June 24th 2007 01:25
Desu is a difficult phrase to translate in Japanese, as there is really no English equivalent. The closest that it can be compared to is a final piece of punctuation such as a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.

Desu is placed at the end of a sentence, where the sentence does not end with a verb.

An example would be if we were discussing a big dog - "Cono inu wa ooki" means this dog is big.

To make this a correct sentence we would end it with desu:

cono inu wa ooki desu.

There are a number of variations to the term. The most important is adding ka to the end to make desuka. This turns a statement into a question.

cono inu wa ooki desu ka.

Was/is the dog big?

The other common adaptation of desu is desuyo, which is effectively an exclamation mark.

cono inu wa ooki desuyo.

Gosh that's a big dog!

Desu can also be changed to deshita. This puts the context into past tense.

cono inu wa ooki deshita.

That dog was big. You can also aff ka to the end (but not yo) to make "Was the dog big?"

We'll discuss desu more when we look at plain form.
48
Vote
   


Japanese Greetings.

June 22nd 2007 05:00
Last time we saw Dr Spin he was using a couple of greetings to try and sweet talk a はらじゅく (Harajuku) girl. To do so he used several greetings.

Today we're going to cover Japanese greetings in greater depth


[ Click here to read more ]
48
Vote
   


First Japanese test

June 10th 2007 14:21
すし

ちょんちょん

[ Click here to read more ]
48
Vote
   


Dr Spin has just arrived in Japan. He has decided to attempt to seduce a はらじゅく (Harajuku) girl, despite his limited Japanese.

If you cannot remember all the Hiragana, have a look here; {ひらがな}

[ Click here to read more ]
57
Vote
   


Trickier Katakana Words

June 1st 2007 21:46
Well, it seems by now you must have the hang of katakana. You've been exposed to a fair number of very common words, in English and Japanese, and I suggest you use them frequently!

However! Katakana is, after all, meant only to approximate the phonemes of a loan word from a foreign language. As such, sometimes some guesswork is involved to figure out what, exactly, a katakana word is trying to say


[ Click here to read more ]
50
Vote
   


More Posts
1 Posts
1 Posts
1 Posts
66 Posts dating from June 2007
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
Moderated by Brenton
Copyright © 2012 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]