The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread.

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

On jisho.org, there are 111 example sentences for 英国 and 199 for イギリス, so no, I don’t think they’re all that uncommon.

[JoelMember]

More fun stuff with country kanji:

英語 = English
米語 = American English
豪語 = boasting

How very apt. =P

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

Dumbledore keeps ending his sentences with「じゃろう」(the audio book guy puts on a pretty decent husky voice for him :D) – is this a dialectical version of 「だろう」or is it just an older men’s way of saying it?

Also, Professor McGonigal talks at such a lightning fast speed, it’s hurting my head to try and read along with her XD

(For now, I’m just trying to follow the text as the audio book plays, but once I’ve got a few more words under my belt, I’ll have a go at actually trying to make sense of it)

• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by  MisterM2402 [Michael].

[PencilMember]

Darn it, guys, stop telling me such interesting stuff! >.< (Anyone else noticed that they've slowly started geeking out over Japanese?)

Anyway, I suppose I should get to asking questions.

1. If 音楽 is the blanket term for all music, then what's 声楽? Jisho translates it as 'Vocal Music', but does that refer to any music with singing, or is it a specific type like acapella or some Japanese genre?

2. Do either the がく reading of　楽 or the せい reading of 声 mean anything different than their more common readings (comfort and voice, respectively)? Or are they just using different yomi?

3. 国語 usually refers to Japanese, but since it literally means ‘national language’, could it be used to refer to a country’s ‘official language’?

• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by  Pencil.

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

彼が元気になるよう願っています。
What is the function of よう here? I know it can be used to say: way, like, kind etc.. So my guess is that it is there to say something like “(I) wish he becomes-like healthy” though it is limited how much sense that makes in English. So yeah, my question is what the function is, so that maybe I can use it in the future myself, and make sure I use it in the right situations. :)
Thanks

To answer the questions of the post above
1: look up the English meaning of “vocal music”
2: sorry, learned it as 訓読みと音読み so I don’t know what you mean
3:　Means national language, but will most of the time refer to Japanese.

[JoelMember]

Pencil:
For 2, my kanji dictionary suggests for 楽 that がく = music; らく= pleasure, comfort, ease, relief; たのし・む = enjoy, took forward to; and たの・しい = fun, enjoyable, pleasant. However, like Mark, I only ever leant then as on’yomi and kun’yomi, so aside from the way different readings appear in different uses – for example, its use as a verb is clearly different from its use as a noun or adjective – I don’t know if it’s actually reading = meaning. For 声, the dictionary says せい、しょう、こえ、こわ- = voice. Soo… the reading doesn’t change matters much, there.

Mark:
The grammar dictionary suggests “the auxiliary verb よう is used to express the writer’s belief that something should happen” though some of the usage notes make me entirely unsure that this is what’s being used here…

[ElenkisMember]

It’s ように願っています with the に dropped and just means “I hope that…”.

ように meaning “in order to”, “so that” etc.

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

Haha reading Joel’s answer, I understand your question now lol xD. Good someone else were able to understand the question!

Thanks for the answer Joel and Elenkis. Nicely spotted Elenkis, I never considered there being a missing particle :) Thanks!

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

よう has many different functions, right? You can’t really think of it just as the definition “way, like, kind” because it’s kinda difficult to figure out what “way, like, kind” really means (you got that from the Core2000 card, didn’t you? :P).

[JoelMember]

Yeah, I think it’s about time we abolished abbreviations. Too confusing. Everyone’s gotta talk like a dictionary from now on. =P

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

@Mister
I know the sentence is from Core2k, but I can’t remember where I learned the definition. Maybe ti was from there as well, though it might as well have been through something else :/ Sadly it is true that よう can have many different functions, and the definition I gave far from covers it all, but I have yet to understand all of them because sometimes its uses are so damn abstract -_- I hope to maser it in the future :p

@Joel I agree!

[PencilMember]

本当にありがとう。You guys are always so patient and willing to help; I really do appreciate it. I’d like to ask for some more help dissecting basic grammar, but if you think I’m abusing this thread, let me know.

「彼は何事でも三日坊主だ。」=He can’t stick with anything for very long。
I’ve been puzzling over it for a while, and I’m still not sure I’m correctly understanding how the first half of this sentence works.

「彼は何事」
何事 means ‘something’ that takes place, usually paired with a verb so that ‘something happens’, ‘something exists’, ‘something is done’ etc. But there doesn’t seem to be a verb for it; the only verb in the sentence (だ)　applies to 彼, saying that he’s a 三日坊主(Three-Day Monk).

If there’s no verb 何事 to do, does this mean the word itself can imply a verb?
(So the sentence would mean “As for him, [he does] things, but he’s a quitter.”)

• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by  Pencil.

[JoelMember]

何事 also means “everything”. In everything, he is a three-day monk.

Also, feel free to keep abusing. =)

[FoxMember]

@ pencil

何事 by itself doesn’t mean “anything”. But 何事でも means “anything”.

彼は- As for him 何事でも – Anything 三日坊主だ – Can’t stick with for very long.

I’m not sure I can see any problem with needing a verb for that word though.

[TripMasterMunkyMember]

So looking at the Kanji page for 十. States that “Note that most vocab words, when all alone (with no other kanji attached to them) use the kun’yomi readings. Numbers are not like that. They use the on’yomi reading when left alone like this. Just remember that numbers are the exception to the rule.”

Yet the sentence used in the lessons 十は七じゃありません – The 七 uses the kunyomi reading while 十 uses onyomi. I thought number kanji by themselves always used the onyomi though? Is this just a weird exception for 7? Or am I missing something? Just noticed that and figured I’d try to dive a bit deeper in this. Thanks.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by  TripMasterMunky.
• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by  TripMasterMunky.
• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by  TripMasterMunky.

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