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It’s “hitori”. The sh-like sound is just an artefact of the microphone used to record.
に is the most used, but you can also use と. Because 会う is an intransitive verb, it has no direct object, and so を is never used.
Relax, It’s just a joke.
Yah, I got it. =P It was just the first random example that happened to pop into my head.
Yah, the ~た方がいいです is the same grammar, but different usage. Examples.
眠そうで、早く帰った方がいいです – You look tired, you should go home early.
毎日勉強した方がいいです – You should study every day.
タバコを吸わない方がいいです – You shouldn’t smoke cigarettes.
The る at the end is not a “real” one like the rest of the group 1 verbs.
Yeah, this is one of those places where I think Koichi misses the boat completely. By going “all い sounds are group one and all え sounds are group two” he completely confuses matters, because then he has to go back and say “wait, except for a whole bunch of verbs that end with い but are group two verbs”. You’re always going to have exceptions regardless of how you introduce the groups, but he’s made it sound like the “exceptions” ought to be group one verbs, but they’re not. They’re group two. And I don’t think I described that very well.
おきる is a group two verb. As is 見る.
(And frankly, I find the names themselves confusing, because there’s nothing to connect “group two” with “this verb ends with a る” – I had to actually look them up to remember which is which. I learnt it as う-verbs and る-verbs, from the ending sounds of the dictionary forms. The official names are “godan” for group one (since there’s five ways to form the て-form) and “ichidan” for group two (since there’s one only way to form the て-form).)
Not sure why we’re hinting here, because in English, you do play football. It’s not the same in Japanese, though – the verb 遊ぶ basically just refers to generally playing and having fun, like playtime. “To enjoy oneself” is an alternte translation. You don’t フットボールを遊ぶ or ゲームを遊ぶ – in such cases, the verb is just する.
- 昨日はフットボールで遊びました。<– I enjoyed myself, by means of football
-昨日はフットボールをして遊びました。<– I played football, and enjoyed myself
As for your second question, I concur with Chris’ answer.昨日、何をしました = “what did you do yesterday?” with an implied か on the end. It’s kinda non-sensical without the implied か.
昨日したこと = “the things I did yesterday” as a noun-phrase. As in, you can stick a は on the end, and then say something about it, like 昨日したことはたのしかった.
If you’re really stuck, and Google Translate is getting you nowhere, feel free to post stuff here – we’ve got a “The “I found some Japanese I don’t understand” thread” thread for just such an occurrence. =)
So, as part of my class work this session, we need to deliver a speech in front of the class. In the lead up to it, we also need to write a bunch of drafts, then other students comment on them. I wrote the following line in my draft, but it just confused everyone, including the teacher, so I’m wondering if I’m just being too clever for my own good. The line is:
私には「ニューサウスウェールズ大学の日本語のプログラムはとてもいいです」とたいてい言うことです。
What it’s meant to say is “It’s often said to me ‘UNSW’s Japanese program is very good’.” What should I be writing? Or should I just dump the whole sentence and try something else altogether? =)
Another example is the “nail” radical and the “street” kanji, that one’s had me confused a couple times.
Yeah, the 丁 radical is one of those radicals that tends to lend its reading to kanji (ちょう) rather than its meaning. The actual kanji is a counter for pages in a book. Don’t get bogged down too much in the meaning of it.
Thank you for your insight Joel :)
No problem. =)
Oh well, thank you for everyone’s help! I agree that Koichi’s mnemonics are a bit off. Things don’t always go together as they should, and I’m someone who likes to see the big picture. I need to see where things fit, where they came from, and how I use them now, so I think I will use a separate resource for kanji and such. Any recommendations?
I’m not really saying you ought to dump Koichi completely – just pick and choose what works and what doesn’t. I haven’t been using and specific kanji-learning resources myself, aside from my class textbook and an iPhone flashcard app – mostly just been coming up with my own mnemonics based on what the kanji look like, and what the radicals actually mean (because they’ve all got official names and meanings, except for the ones Koichi invented to make his mnemonics simpler).
For example, my mnemonic for 橋 (bridge) is that it’s got a tree – because bridges are made of fallen (or felled) trees – then it’s got a big guy with a rakish hat carrying a box over a box girder (which is a type of bridge, incidentally). That helps me, but the same goes for my mnemonics as go for Koichi’s – if it doesn’t help you, just ignore me. =)
I think he meant what’s the difference between the literary radical and the writing radical…
One problem with giving the radicals different names is that I’m afraid I’m not entirely sure of what this question means. Fairly sure the answer is “there’s no difference” – my point being, basically, that it has nothing to do with dolls.
But with Kanji like 工, the meaning is Industry/Construction and so is the Radical which makes it easy to remember.
Which reminds me, there’s a lot of radicals that are the same as katakana characters. Some mention of that could make memorisation easier, especially if he moves the katakana to earlier in the syllabus. Once you’ve memorised katakana, it’s easy to go “the radical ヨ is just a katakana ‘yo’” instead of “well, I guess it kinda looks like Wolverine’s claws… maybe?”.
Well, that and I’ve also been a bit slack at keeping up with TextFugu lately. =P
Basically, the 文 radical and the 文 kanji are one and the same. Memorising them using different mnemonics is, in my opinion, a bit weird. It’d be a different matter if kanji with the 文 radical tended to have doll-related meanings, but they’re almost invariably literacy-related, or at least can be construed as such. He’s also ignored the etymology behind a few other radicals by giving them completely different names – for example, the four dots at the bottom of 黒, which Koichi calls “fish tail”, are actually the fire kanji 火 in bottom-radical form.
But yeah, don’t listen to me too much – if it works for you, stick with it. =)
That’s the literary radical.
… Has Koichi been inventing things wholesale again? Frankly, if Koichi’s mnemonics are confusing you, your best bet is to dump it and come up with your own. I’ve actually noticed a number of places where I’ve learnt a radical differently to how he’s teaching it, so I just ignore his version.
Writing as in 書く? That’s a brush radical plus a sun radical. But I’m reasonably sure we’re talking about characters where the whole character is the radical, like 糸 or 巨. I was, in any case. =)
I’m confused, though – what radical has a different meaning to its kanji version? I can’t think of any off the top of my head…
…は正しいです
何かを正す
=P
