TextFugu » Topic: What is the difference between…?

What is the difference between…?

MisterM2402 [Michael] — Sun, 29 May 2011 20:42:47 +0000

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 :)

Reply To: Reply To: What is the difference between…?

Mon, 30 May 2011 01:42:05 +0000

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.

Reply To: What is the difference between…?

HypnoCrown — Mon, 30 May 2011 01:52:21 +0000

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

Reply To: What is the difference between…?

thisiskyle — Mon, 30 May 2011 06:09:14 +0000

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

Reply To: What is the difference between…?

HypnoCrown — Tue, 31 May 2011 01:11:38 +0000

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”

Reply To: What is the difference between…?

thisiskyle — Tue, 31 May 2011 03:29:42 +0000

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”