Home Forums The Japanese Language What is the difference between…?

This topic contains 5 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by  thisiskyle 12 years, 11 months ago.

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  • #11626

    A useful thread carried over from the forum of yore.
    There are a lot of instances when learning Japanese where you might come across more than one word or phrase that translate to pretty much the same thing. Sometimes it helps for someone else to explain the nuances each hold, when to use each. Pose your questions here and hopefully you’ll get answers :) (If you don’t then shoot an email over to Koichi and see if he can maybe shed some light on it)

    I’ll start us off:
    What is the difference between します/する[to do] and やります/やる[to do]? I believe that やる is more casual than する but can they both be used in the same way? Could you say 勉強やる(べんきょうやる)instead of 勉強する(べんきょうする)? Does it work like that?

    Danke :)

    #11633

    Anonymous

    I believe する is specifically for doing a verb. Where as やる is just do. It’s complicated but you get a sense for it after a while. And no you can’t put やる on the end of nouns.

    Also やる means To F*ck so that’s fun.

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 11 months ago by  .
    #11637

    HypnoCrown
    Member

    oh i thought やる was just a more casual form of する.
    voncrumb’s info comes in handy too
    ok so whats the difference between ~

    かみのけ and かみ …for hair
    おんなのか and おんな (のひと) …for girl/woman

    #11639

    thisiskyle
    Member

    かみのけ refers specifically to the hair on your head.
    かみ is any hair anywhere.

    おんなのこ (I think this is what you meant) means woman child
    おんなのひと means woman person

    the first is more like “girl” in English in that it applies more to children but can be used for young women (20 somethings) as well

    #11683

    HypnoCrown
    Member

    thanks yo
    ~~~~~~~~~~
    for the word ‘because’, whats the difference between using…
    “ので/から”
    and…
    ”なぜなら”

    for the word ‘and’, whats the difference between using…
    “そして”
    and…
    “それから”

    #11685

    thisiskyle
    Member

    A lot of the issues you bring up result from not having a sense of what the individual pieces of “phrases” (I don’t know what else to call them) mean.

    から, for me, gives a sense of “from”. It gives the feeling that whatever comes before it is the origin. So the から in things like
    アメリカ から きました and
    にほんじん です から すし が すき です
    give the same feeling even though they would translate to different words in English.
    If you look at それから, it’s actually made of two parts, それ and から which mean (something like) “that” and “from”. So together you get the feeling of “from that” or “from there”.

    I think そして is more like “thus” and may have originally come from (this is guesswork) そう and the te form of する. Which kind of feels like “that” “done” and feels more like “thus” to me than “and”. It seems like saying with that done, the next part follows naturally.

    I think directions are a good example of the difference between the two.
    Go down this street to the second light, from there (それから) make a left and as a result (そして) it’ll be on the right.

    なぜなら is made from なぜ “why” and なら, a type of conditional. Together, for me at least they give the feeling of “If you ask why…”

    ので seems like “by the means of” whatever came before. The の nominalizes the previous phrase and the で is like “by” or “with” like in
    くるま で いきます

    So maybe, “By means of his idiocy I am annoyed” is the feeling that ので gives.

    If your asking about under which conditions which is used I think, like in English, you can say what you want using different patterns. I think the only one that really has a specific rule is そして which should only be used when the second part follows naturally from the first. Like “Drop a ball and it will fall”

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