Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Nah, it’s Dutch. The Germans themselves didn’t turn up until a couple of centuries later. Amusingly, オランダ (= Holland) comes from Portuguese. As does イギリス (= Great Britain).
Don’t ask me how they know this. It’s all about etymology, and the timing of when words start appearing in texts.
Wait… a self-paced online course moved too fast for you? =P
Welcome, in any case. If you wanted to try climbing Mount Fuji, you certainly wouldn’t look much out-of-place. =)
That’s a very specific amount of time. Have you tested it?
… Sounds to me like a choked-off “Hee” in the recording.
Anyway, you’re never going to be able to get a perfect transliteration, so pick whatever you think fits best and go for it. Also, write it in katakana. So ホグ or ヘーグ or whatever you like. Doesn’t seem like there’s any famous people with the surname Høg, so Google and Wikipedia aren’t helping. (Though I did find one disturbing site where Danish students of Japanese were being taught to write their names in kanji. Ew.)
The number that exist in the dictionary, or the number that get used in a typical conversation?
I tried watching the Japanese news on TV here once, but fell asleep in the middle.
Of course, it didn’t really help that it was April 2011 at the time, so pretty much every news article was full of technical terms relating to nuclear power generation…
Yeah, it’s probably an orphan from back when he overhauled the way he organised all the kanji…
Welcome!
And what are you when you’re not at home? =P
Yes, but that’s a different matter to 大きくありません.
Grammar dictionary adds that ある can be used for animate objects if it’s something that’s very close to you, like a family member or close friend.
ない = casual negative of ある. It’s one of the weird exceptions, and used to throw me every time they hit us with a “quick! Write the negatives!” worksheet. =P
That said, you’re correct in saying the verb ある is usually used only for inanimate objects – but even though the negative ～なくありません or ～じゃありません forms are technically the same word, it’s not the same usage. They’re not verbs but adjectives, so anything goes.
Yeah, it’s supposed to do that. It knows your name because you’re logged in. But yeah, it freaked me out a little the first time it did that to me as well. =P
Concur with Kyle – I can see your sig, but it’s too big, and not very interesting.
Also, nice to see you’ve come up with some more interesting-seeming reading material this time around. =P
I tend to use a limited set of adjectives in Japanese because I just can’t plain think of any others on the run. =P
That said, I’m not really any fount of adjectives in English either… and I’m not sure if a great deal get used around me either, though I haven’t really been counting. Maybe I should pay attention to it. =)
The on’yomi of kanji comes from Chinese, which (ignoring tones) only has a fairly small number of different sounds (though I’m no expert, so I could be completely wrong). As well as こう and じょう, other readings I often encounter are しょう, ちょう, しん, けん and (to a slightly lesser extent) せい.
So how do you tell them apart? Easiest option: don’t learn them in a vacuum. Learn them as part of vocab. Since you know that, for example, 小学生 (しょうがくせい) means “elementary school student”, you’re not likely to confuse 小 with, say, 商 or 将.
Well, he’s not my direct boss any more, so he’s no longer in a position to chew on my pens – he was only an interim boss because we were lacking an office manager at the time. Also, I don’t chew my pens. That’s disgusting.
