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No, “yo” was correct. It’s just somehow you managed to write a small yo.
Compare:
さよなら
さょならThat said, さよなら is a fairly final farewell, or at least a long-term farewell – you’d only really use it if you weren’t expecting to be back for a while. じゃね or またね would be more typical to use here. =)
Welcome!
But, um… え?
That said, it’s true that the は in こんにちは sounds like a わ, though – there’s a reason for that, which you’ll learn before too long. =)
The magic of historical linguistics. My guess: because they appear in Japanese texts long before English ever arrived in Japan.
That, and “ham” and “beer” originally came to English from Dutch anyway. “Alcohol” is Latin.
ビール = “bier”
Congrats. Also, welcome. =)
Welcome!
Ever heard of Paris Syndrome? It’s an extremely acute form of culture shock that Japanese people seem particularly susceptible to – they arrive in Paris and discover it’s not the paragon of fine arts and culture that they thought it was, and suffer an almost psychotic breakdown. It’s… not really funny, but I did think the juxtaposition was kind of amusing. =)
Google Translate tends to struggle with phrases like that. It’s not, unfortunately, a Dutch word – そうだね = casual form of そうですね = as you noticed, “is that so?” You don’t have to go too far to find actual Dutch words in Japanese, though they’re pretty much all written in katakana, and are mostly nouns rather than conversational interjections. For example, コップ (meaning a drinking glass) comes from the Dutch kop. ドイツ (meaning Germany) comes from duits. コーヒー, even though it sounds like coffee, comes from the Dutch koffie. Actually, there’s a fair few words that sound like they came from English, but we’re actually brought by the Dutch – ハム, アルコール, ビール et cetera.
Aside from loan words, linguists reckon that spoken Japanese is completely dissimilar to any other language, even to the languages in the region.
Still, it’s always amused me that some Japanese words sound like Australian slang, and happen to have compatible meanings too – for example 立派 (りっぱ = splendid = ripper) and 突破 (とっぱ = breaking through = topper). =P
Elenkis: Yeah, I do know all that – it just drives me completely nuts…
Michael: Well, the point is kinda that I waste my time HERE, not there, so even if I could paste links, it wasn’t my first thought. =P But… mouse-over vocab? Of course, it could just be that I don’t have a mouse, but to me the vocab lists are just plain there.
As for 聴って, it’s not in my dictionary at all. Just 聴く -> 聴いて
Sure, I could have linked to another page. That’s the lazy option, though. Also, stupid buggy text field in these forums means I can’t paste. Plus, that explanation is significantly longer.
In any case, I’m aware this one is double negative. Casual speech tends to drop the second negative, though. It’s also not the worst of the bunch, though it does try very hard. Since you’re so good at this, though, explain why ～んじゃないかと思う means a positive (though fairly uncertain) “I think so”. Spent a lesson today saying that (and related phrases) to classmates, and now I can barely tell if I’m agreeing with things or not. =P
Also, things tend to turn negative when they start getting formal – 食べなさい -> 食べてください -> 食べてくださいませんか
It’s one of the more confusing bits of Japanese grammar. Negative potential form plus ならない or いけない means “should” or “ought” in the sense that there’s some sort of social obligation to fulfill. Possibly even as strong as “must”. いけない implies more obligation than ならない.
食べなければならない = you should eat it
薬を飲まなければいけない = you should take (i.e. drink) your medicine
しなければなりません = you should do it
You’ll also see it as ～なくては(ならない/いけない).
来なくてはならない = you should come.
In casual speech, ～なければ becomes ～なきゃ and ～なくては becomes ～なくちゃ, and ならない can become なんない. Or remain unchanged. Or be replaced by だめ. Or be omitted altogether. Which is to say, しなくちゃだめ and しなくちゃ both can have the same meaning.
Yeah, the fact that so many negative forms don’t actually have a negative meaning in Japanese bugs me to no end.
In any case, ～なきゃ and related forms is something I’ve regularly heard in anime, and it’s nice to know what it actually means…
tl;dr version: it means “should”
At least, that’s the total of the list on the Kanji page. No idea if the Anki deck includes all of them. Or is limited to just them.
Welcome!
I so want to play Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright, to the extent that I’m willing to buy a 3DS just for that. Unfortunately, 3DSes are region-locked, so getting the Japanese version for practice is going to be out of the question for me (though I do wonder what the regions are).
I am pondering buying the Japanese 二の国 for the regular DS, which isn’t region-locked. Wonder if any copies are still for sale…
It was only an eyeball, but looking at this page: http://www.textfugu.com/kanji/
1 stroke: 1
2 strokes: 13
3 strokes: 20
4 strokes: 53
5 strokes: 79
6 strokes: 81
7 strokes: 79
8 strokes: 62 (and an ellipsis)
9 strokes: 25
… And now that I’ve written all that, I’m not sure the kanji numbers are stroke counts – 話, which has 13 strokes, is in 8-2, while 私 with seven strokes is in 9. Anyway, the grand total is 413 – not bad for an eyeballed approximation. It all adds up.
As for learning by radicals, I’ll grant the benefit is not immediately apparent when the radical forms most of the kanji. However, when you start hitting complex ones like 億 or 曜, being able to break it into components is incredibly helpful.
Welcome! What did you graduate in? =)
子に痴話！
Welcome! So, uh. Lesson number one: be careful when using an IME, because the first suggested kanji is often not the one you want to use. What you just wrote was “sweet nothings to a child”. =P こんにちは is usually written in hiragana anyway.
Which leads us to lesson two: it’s spelt こんにちは. If you’re using romaji-based entry, you’ve gotta be careful when ん appears next to a な-line or あ-line character – if you type “konnichi” you’re going to get こんいち. You gotta write “kon’nichi” or “konnnichi” (yes, that’s three Ns). Think what you wrote was “konichi” anyway. And it’s は rather than わ, though you’ll learn why in a bit.
But yeah, enjoy your stay. =)
Common names tend to have a standard transliteration. For example, Joel is always transliterated as ジョエル, even though in English I pronounce it to rhyme with “mole”. Khiana, on the other hand, is not exactly a common name, so you’ve got some leeway. キーアナ seems fair.
Harris is a common enough surname, though, and ハリス is the usual transliteration. =)
You’d be expected to introduce yourself as first name last name. They understand that particular custom well enough in Japan.
