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Thought Tsetycoon had a better summary of the “very rough rules” written somewhere. I can’t do copy-and-paste here. =P
General rule of thumb is characters on their own use kun’yomi, while characters in bunches use on’yomi, but yeah, there’s so many exceptions that it’s about as useful a rule as the old “I before E”. However, characters with attached okurigana – hiragana stapled onto the end of verbs and adjectives to indicate conjugations and tenses – always use kun’yomi, no exceptions.
Like Michael said, though, just learn words instead of readings.
No idea what HTC is, or how it’s set up, but on iDevices, the international keyboards can be installed in Settings -> General -> International. Perhaps there’s something similar on your phone.
Meaning can depend on context. But yeah, “were there two people?” “There was one person” is an accurate translation.
It could also be (say) “did you both go?” “No, I went alone.”
There are, incidentally, two general questions threads – the “I’ve found some Japanese I don’t understand” thread, and the “How do you say “…” in Japanese” thread. Both are stickied. =)
Dunno if you’re using “old” literally or colloquially, but I’ve got a nine-key kana keyboard on my iPhone. It’s in the international keyboard options somewhere.
Just using regular old romaji keyboard on the iPad – it’s got a bigger screen, after all.
Ooo. なくなる. I was given a worksheet in class for practicing the である form – one of verbs was 売れなくなったんです, which I just wound up staring at for ages going “Buh?” I don’t remember learning about this before, though I’ve managed to find it in the grammar dictionary after the event…
は is the topic marker – it indicates the topic of conversation.
が is the subject marker – it marks the subject of a sentence. Note here that “subject” is a grammatical term that means “this noun is the doer of the verb” (as opposed to the object, which is the doee). “Subject” and “topic” are not synonyms in this context – the topic of conversation is not always the subject of a sentence. (For some reason, though, in ～は～が constructions, が marks the object – still haven’t worked out why, but those aren’t the most difficult sentences to understand, so you’ll get the hang of it. I’m about to use one anyway.)
In your example, the topic is 私. We’re talking the entire time about your feelings for the car, and your actions regarding the car. You don’t need to keep using それ, because it’s fairly clear from the context that you’re still talking about the car (and you wouldn’t use それ anyway, unless it was either phisically closer to the listener, or you somehow don’t feel emotionally close to the car.) So:
私は車が好きです。本田のフィットです。私は5ドルで買いました。
Kinda feeling like this explanation is more confusing than most… Wonder if it’s just a bad example to explain it with?
I have, I admit, read the basic grammar dictionary from cover to cover – not in one sitting, in case you were wondering. =P I’ve gotten stalled somewhere in the middle of the intermediate dictionary, though…
As for your summary, that sounds fair. =)
If you can make sense of it, the grammar dictionary says:
ので is used when the speaker believes that the information he provides in S1 ので as a cause or reason for S2 is valid and is also evident and acceptable to the hearer. S1 から S2, however, does not involve that assumption. Therefore, ので cannot be used and から must be used in the following situations:
A) S1 expresses the speaker’s conjecture about something
B) S2 is a command, request, suggestion or invitation
C) S2 expresses the speaker’s volition or personal opinion
It gives a few examples for each of those situations, as well. (I was also taught that から can follow either です/ます form or plain form, while ので can only ever follow the plain form.)
ども (= humble), がた (= honorific) and ら (= casual). All of them people-noun suffixes. I don’t know of any pluralising suffixes for regular nouns, and I’m fairly sure there aren’t any.
ども, incidentally, is related to the 供 in 子供, which used to be plural, but is not any more. You’ll often hear it in anime as 二人とも (the two of you). ら regularly appears as おまえら.
“You’ve got software for learning Japanese, don’t you? Very interesting.”
Or possibly “there is software” – bit of context needed there. =)
Dunno if it’s the words or the grammar that’s confusing you, but to break it up a bit, 「日本語を学習する」 is a noun-modifying phrase (basically, a phrase that’s acting like an adjective) – in this sentence, the noun being modified is ソフトウェア – so it’s basically “study-of-Japanese software”.
興味深い is a word in the dictionary in its own right, but even if you don’t recognise it, you can still get its meaning by breaking it up into bits – 興味 (きょうみ) meaning “interest” plus 深い (ふかい) meaning “deep” equals 興味深い (きょうみぶかい) meaning “deep interest”.
It’s only used for people-nouns. As in 子供たち (children) or 私たち (us) or こういちたち (them – or more literally, “Koichi and the others”). According to my grammar dictionary, it can’t be used with 彼 (かれ), but that’s the only exception it gives.
“When you were in elementary school, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
Literally, “When you were in elementary school, when you became an adult what did you want to become?”, but that’s a little clunky. なりたかった is the past tense of なりたい which is the ～たい form of なる, to become. It is fairly tricky to spot conjugations of ～たい forms sometimes…
A quick Google search turned up this list of links:
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+91845
Can’t really speak for anything, because I’ve never used them myself (I brought a laptop and used the Ethernet cable, and my friend connected wirelessly via my laptop) but it’s a start.
… More than you’d expect them to? Is that not the entire point of mnemonics? =P
you obviously sound like you’re affiliated with jpod101…..
Actually, I thought his post sounded extremely reasonable…
Like I said, though, asking credit card information for the free trial is extremely common business practice on the internet. If nothing else, it helps to prevent people gaming the system.
