1. Are you getting them backwards? 助かる = intransitive. 助ける = transitive.

2. Pretty sure either is equally common in any situation, with stronger preference towards kana-only. That said, the original form of the verb, 下さる, is more usually in kanji. I’m no expert in sonkeigo, though…

3. ～なさい = ます-form imperative. Means “Do this!” スープを食べなさい = Eat the soup! Not sure why you’re being so forceful, though. =P

I don’t mind helping – I mean, it’s pretty much the only study I’ve done all summer. =P I just like to know I’m actually helping, and not just confusing matters further. =)

正しい = adjective – something is correct

正す = verb – to correct something; as in, it was wrong, and now I’m correcting it. ます form, incidentally, is 正します.

The adjective is the correct word to use in this statement – you’re describing the correctness of the fact.

But yeah, that was kinda straight from the dictionary. =P

*Gives Mark a pat*

On が – Tokyo accent adds a slight nasal sound when a が-line character comes in the middle of a word. Something like “nga”. It’s annoying to those of us who are just trying to learn the language, but people aren’t going to run screaming if you don’t do it. They’ll still understand you.

On えい – it represents a long-E sound most of the time, but there are words where it’s pronounced as written; E-I. For example 丁寧 (ていねい) = “teinei”, not “teenee”.

On silent characters – characters are never silent, but you can often find う-sounds and し being crushed to near-silence or truncated, for example です spoken as “des” or the すけ male name ending as “ske” or おかし (candy) spoken as “okash”.

お下がりください = very formal request form of 下がる, so さ・がる is the reading to use here.

Typical rule of thumb when picking readings is on’yomi when the character’s part of a kanji compound, and kun’yomi when it’s standing on its own, or with okurigana attachments. Other than the exceptions, of course. =)

Okurigana is hiragana tacked onto the end of verbs and adjectives which are used for conjugated endings – or example, the がる in 下がる. They are very helpful for determining readings – the only reading that 下 has when followed by がる is さ. It’s not a flawless method, but it’s pretty reliable more often than not. One exception is 入る, which can be read as both はいる and いる. Kanji followed by okurigana always uses the kun’yomi without fail – it’s the exception to the “every rule has exceptions” rule. =P (In before “but, Xする”: する is a verb in its own right, not okurigana.)

Fun side note: ください is also another use of 下 – it’s usually written in kana, but when kanji is used, it’s 下さい. =D

ギター =P

I got a bit distracted from updating. I had to close the window as a part of measures taken to head off a script attack against my e-mail account, and I never got around to opening it again…

を marks the direct object, which is the thing having the verb done to it. In this case, it’s the ten thousand yen that’s being lent, so that’s the direct object.

Indirect objects typically only occur for verbs like give, receive, send, borrow, lend, et cetera – I can’t honestly think of any dissimilar examples aside from causative verbs (which Koichi might add to TextFugu someday) but maybe there are some and I’m just not calling them to mind. In all of these cases, the indirect object is the person who is not the doer of the verbs (since the doer is the subject). I can’t really think of a better way to phrase that, but basically the indirect object is the recipient in giving verbs, and the giver in receiving verbs.

Examples:

I gave money to Fred – I is the subject, Fred is the indirect object, and money is the direct object.

I received money from Fred – exactly the same: I is the subject, Fred the indirect object and money the direct object.

Fred gave money to me – in this case, Fred is the subject, me/I is the indirect object, and money is still the direct object.

Note that in both of the second and third sentences, the money is going from Fred to me – which one of us is the subject depends on which verb is being used. It’s the same for Japanese.

English actually has the subjective and objective cases for words, because some differ depending on where they come in the sentence – who/whom, I/me, him/he, et cetera – but in the real world, people think about it so rarely that few people know which is which – the general confusion over who/whom is the perfect example. In Japanese there’s no cases, just particles – が for the subject, を for the direct object, and に for the indirect object.

Edit: I guess the tl;dr version is: you can kind of think of it as another application of に meaning direction – I gave money to Fred, I received money from Fred.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by  Joel.

1. Particles are post-positions, not pre-positions – it’s not に+一万円 but おとうさん+に. に marks the indirect object of the verb – in this case, the verb is 貸す, to lend, meaning the indirect object is the recipient of the lending. “I lent my father ten thousand yen.” In any sentence, the verb is the most important word – if particles aren’t making sense, look at the verb.

2. よかった. Past tense of いい meaning “good” – when いい conjugates, it reverts to its older form よい.

3. I’m pretty sure the ～て form of verbs and adjectives is explained somewhere. Basically it’s a way of writing “and” for verbs and adjectives, among other things. こういちさんは日本に行って、たくさん写真を撮りました – Koichi went to Japan and took lots of photos. このステーキは安くて、おいしいです – this steak is cheap and delicious. The conjugation of verbs into the ～て form is the same as the ～た form, which is something else that I’m pretty sure is there. It’s also often used for attaching auxiliary verbs.

The ～てください form is one such auxiliary verb, and one you’ll see a lot. It’s a way of making a polite request. For example, ここで吸わないでください – please don’t smoke here.

On a side note, do you want to try replying to some of your threads to show you understand, so it doesn’t seem like we’re tossing all these helpful posts into the void? I have to admit, I’m starting to feel a little like I’m being taken for granted…