While learning Japanese (self taught), I would go through the cycle of giving up, stopping for a month or two, realizing how much I miss learning it, and trying again. This was the first language I've tried to learn before and for some reason figuring out sentence structures is so fun to me, almost like it's a puzzle with more complex rules. But I'm still a very slow learner. This time I took around a year and a half before I wanted to try Japanese again because I was so frustrated. These videos have really opened my eyes to some of the things I didn't understand and it's given me new found confidence. I'm thinking of giving it another go!
Oh lord above. I remember my very early Japanese lessons, being told that 分かる is preceded by a が-marked noun (and I quote) "because it just does". This was at SOAS university in the UK, supposedly the best place in the country to learn Japanese. I recall being dismissed as disruptive for asking "yes, but why?"
This reminds me of Esperanto. In Esperanto, every adjective can become a verb. "La ĉielo estas blua" means "the sky is blue." "La ĉielo bluas" means the same thing, but where blue is the verb. If a sky can blue, then a book can certainly understandable.
the ultimate problem that all language learners face is trying to map their own language on to their target language. which is why people need to be visualising a sentence rather than translating it. when we see the word ‘星’ we should be thinking ‘☆’ in our heads, and not ‘star’
Yes, this is very true. That is another reason why I recommend easing into J-J definitions (not making some dramatic and masochistic "monolingual shift") from as early as possible: ua-cam.com/video/JVTpwo6tu0s/v-deo.html
Notes for myself The dictionary myth: all Japanese words have exact English equivalents (and vice versa). Pro: quick, easy definition. Con: completely confuses actual Japanese structure) The Japanese passivity problem (which could also be seen as the English hyperactivity problem) Although Japanese doesn't really have a passive voice, we could say that it has a "passive" nature... In Japanese there is a tendency to regard "being" as prior and primary to "doing", while in English it tends to be the other way around. It tends to be activist in nature. And there are a whole range of Japanese verbs which depict not actions as we understand them but states of being which are regarded grammatically as if they were in fact actions. (THE IMPORTANT...) So the thing to understand here is that in Japanese 7:58 verbs can and often do represent 8:02 what in English can only be expressed 8:05 as either states of being or passive actions. This happens with many verbs: ■wakaru ■Potential form of verbs (Screen) ■"Become" verbs How to recognize
8:32 this is actually really similar to korean where all adjectives are verbs and they always get translated into english as "to be-" for example 축축하다(chukcukhada) "to be wet" or 똑똑하다(ttokttokhada) "to be smart"
There are a number of interesting structural similarities between Korean and Japanese (particle usage is a notable one). It can't be firmly established that they are related but they do seem to have a lot of structure in common.
I think of 「できる」 as "to be of achievable outcome", which goes with the 「出来る」 kanji-version of the word. I always remember your 「できない」 analogy featured in a different video of an English-speaking child saying "I'm trying to do a drawing, but it just doesn't 'come out' right!".
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 No need to apologize! Look, your lectures really do help a bunch. Especially when you go behind the direct translation, which is what you always do, and find the true meaning. That's why I wish you could do some because with your explanation is far better (or simply more beneficial) than the ones we get from other channels. Everyone can say x = 1, but nearly none say why that's the fact. Once you know why, then finally does it make sense and make it way easy to learn/use. P.S. Can you make a vid about "どういう" and other "XXいう". They seem to have many meanings and I get confused. :( I think it has to do with context.
@@ViewtifulJosh388 Thank you so much. I will be doing more narrative analyses - these really are nothing but sentence analysis so they should help in that department. I have had a lot of requests for a video about どういう, という etc. I have mentioned it in a few scattered places, but I think I should bring the whole subject together in one dedicated video since it is obviously one that people are having difficulty with. It won't be for a few weeks but I'm putting it on my list.
My Brazilian brain can understand this really well. My language is super flexible and has many cases when you can say things both as becoming or doing. I'm not sure they're proper grammar, since the rules are really difficult but on a casual level it's alright.
@@safir2241 This would be pseudo other move - with the actor being also the receiver. The Japanese expressions are simple self-move. We have something a bit similar in expressions like "the tea cooled" - where cool means a change of state from heat to coolness. However unlike Japanese we have no verbs that don't involve a change of state. These Japanese ones can simply indicate that a state exists without implying any change.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly So something like “wetten” would be “to get wet”, which is a change of state? I’m sure i can get this stuff down with immersion, but thanks either way. UA-cam is an academia filled with amazing, selfless teachers like you. Especially for languages. 💜
@@safir2241 Yes. The thing to remember is that we actually _can't_ put this into exact English that is also "real" English. This doesn't mean it is particularly difficult. It's just that we can feel a bit nervous without the "hand rail" of English. It's ok. It all makes sense even though we can't translate it exactly.
I think the best way to understand these verbs is just “x exists in the state of y,” like “that floor exists in a wet state” or something like that. You could almost think of them as adjectival verbs, even if they aren’t really adjectives in Japanese.
You could and it works, but the point is not to lose sight of the fact that they actually are verbs. They work structurally as verbs. If we are genuinely believing them to be (as opposed to just using the concept for a temporary convenience) adjectives of any sort we run into structural problems.
@@HyperLuigi37 That is what we would say in English. In Japanese it is saying it "does" this state. That is why we can't give an English translation that is at once real English and also saying exactly what the Japanese is saying.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly Is it really that specific? They’re both verbs with the object as the actor. I don’t really see the difference, to be honest.
@@HyperLuigi37 I suppose I am just saying that while we need some help in understanding it via English, we then need (when actually using Japanese) to let that fall away and just see it working as a verb (not a joined-verb with be - it is that when it is in the continuous present). In a way this is not different from the general principle that we shouldn't be routing Japanese through English once we have the information. The difference is that in these cases the structure suffers if we have English models in our minds.
Thanks as always for all you work,ほんとにお世話になります！ I have a question, last week i was trying to say something like lets do this but in negative, like a negative しましょう, and i found something on the internet about some まい ending but it also said it wasnt used much and stuff, and i wondered how it would be possible to say something like that naturally, if you could help me id appreciate it a looot!
Expressions like "let's not" can have various meanings and it isn't wise to assume that they will translate one-for-one into Japanese. Depending on why you're saying it you may want a different expression strategy on different occasions. You can in some cases do a negative しましょう. You might say もう議論はやめよう "let's not argue any more" although the Japanese is more like "lets stop further arguing" (which doesn't sound very natural in English). So rather than looking for "formulas" that render Japanese into English I would recommend this approach: learnjapaneseonline.info/2014/05/31/how-to-write-correct-natural-japanese/ Incidentally the まい negative ending tends to mean something closer to "its not as if..."
By the way (from the previous lessons), -ARU verbs are always "self-acting" verbs and -SU/-SERU/-MERU verbs are always work like usual english verbs, right?
The point really is that where there is a pair of verbs like 出す・出る or 混ぜる (mix) 混ざる (be mixed) the す one will always be the other-move and the ARU one will always be the self-move. This does not mean that _every_ す-verb is other-move and _every_ ARU verb is other-move even if they don't have a pair, though most of the time they are. The important thing is that this rule helps us to understand the many, many self-move/other-move pairs in Japanese.
Yes this is pretty much how it works. We don't need the "itself" part because wettinifflicate would be a self-move verb like "sweat". This is exactly what 濡れる (ぬれる) does
Interesting so it is most likely a state or a subconscious/sense of the verb than it is in a literal sense all the time or in a potential/passive way. That does make more sense as sometimes it is like conveying things indirectly here in the West like "the water began to flow like the river along the rhythm of music" or "my soul is burning" which is passive but also represents kind of what you are saying in the state of something or in an abstract sense than it always be in the state of doing.
I think it's just a different way of looking at states (as actions) that is really not found in English. English (and I think most European languages) just draw the lines between actions (verbs) and states of being in a different place from Japanese. So if we recognize that and see what the Japanese is doing it saves a lot of misunderstanding.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly that makes total sense. It is probably due to how European languages like to contrast and distinguish from real and fiction while in Japanese it might be more on the context to figure this out and the verbs are more about wholeness than European languages trying to differentiate to understand things.
I wonder how much of this was responsible for the "Engrish" I used to see in the 80's. I had a jacket with the slogan "Do Sporting!" below the collar. I could never tell if the intention was "be sporty" or "go perform a sport".
I suspect this was taking the word sporting, which exists in Japanese as スポーティング but of course, like all loan words is structurally a noun, and turning it into an anglicized "する verb" by adding "do". It isn't generally used as a する verb in Japanese but it would probably seem clever and amusing if done playfully in the right way. In English, of course it just looks puzzling. I played "Monkey Puncher" in English a long time ago - this was a very rough translation obviously by a Japanese native, full of Japlish. Even the title is Japlish (it means "Monkey Boxer" and is about a monkey who is a boxer). I have to say I really liked the translation though it would never get published these days. It wasn't good as a modern "professional translation" but it actually got a real flavor of the original Japanese with its strange English.
I don't know if that's the same thing, but in my native language(portuguese), there are verbs like "molhar" that means to make something be wet, literally "do wet". The funny part is that as i'm learning japanese in english, i just realized it with this video haha
That's very interesting. I think that human languages have a relatively limited "bag of tricks" and while no language uses all of them various languages use each one of them. Interestingly a Korean said something very similar when I talked about コーヒーが好きだ really meaning "coffee is likeable (to me)" - she said that it is the same in Korean but she never realized it until I said it about Japanese.
PS - thinking again though - the way you explain the Portuguese sounds more similar to English where "wet" can also be a verb meaning "make something wet" (wet something) whereas 濡れる - meaning literally "do wet" has no exact English translation but is closest to "be wet" rather than wet something else.
That's what i most like about learning new languages, you can open a new way of thought you didn't had before, i just found your channel yesterday by the way, amazing content! I'm already subscribed :D
Thanks for the video! I I have a question (that is not related to the video, my apologies). What does くらい/ぐらい mean in this sentence?: 音楽教師なんだからピアノくらい弾けて当たり前じゃん ！(translated as "obviously a stupid music teacher is going to know how to play the piano!") I read that くらい／ぐらい means 'about, approximately' but I can't see how that would fit in this sentence. Please could you explain what it is doing both structurally and in regards to meaning, as I am confused about both. Thank you very much.
I should probably do a video on くらい at some time. As well as "about" it can also mean something like "to that extent", and a very minor - uh - extension of that meaning is "at least" (i.e. to that extent even if no more). So what this is saying is "Since she's a music teacher she will at least know how to play the piano". The slightly disparaging tone of "at least" might be what led to the unwarranted word "stupid", or the translator may have wrongly assumed that なんだから is something like なんか. It isn't. It means な (=だ) のだから in other words it is one of the のだ constructions I talk about in this video: ua-cam.com/video/lYvIOi8Q3I8/v-deo.html
Thank you Dolly! I encounter sentence with 分かる that doesn't make sense to me(it doesn't seem to "does understandable"). in the Suzumiya Haruhi anime: それも分かっておいてくださいね context is 朝比奈(あさひな)さんのほうが分かりやすいですよ ありがとう でも あたし自身には古泉君に含むところはありません それも分かっておいてくださいね How would you interpret 分かっておいてください sentence?
The second 分かる here is being used in a colloquial (strictly ungrammatical) sense. Obviously the first one is used normally (it is turned into an adjective with the helper やすい but it is still pointing at the one who does understandable). However the second one is actually using 分かる as something the understander does. This is done on a minority of occasions in "young people's Japanese" (若者言葉). It is generally conjectured that this is influenced by the universal teaching of English and the regarding of English as "cool" - so "Englishing" certain Japanese expressions becomes a kind of mild slang. So the sentence is saying literally (and slightly ungrammatically - at least in traditional terms) "Please put in place understanding this too" = something like please also make understanding this a part of the way you understand the overall situation.
Hi Dolly-sensei, maaking the most of this topic, passive, could you please help me with this sentences? Please. 彼女はその場を離れようとしなかった。母親に手を引かれるようにしても、何故かパイプ椅子から立ち上がろうとしなかった。 Being exactly, I can't understant the second sentence, passive +ようにする, it's like make an effort/try to being pulled...? Thank you in advice.
First of all _there is no passive_ in Japanese. Not ever. I explain this here ua-cam.com/video/cvV6d-RETs8/v-deo.html - it is misunderstanding the receptive helper verb as a "passive conjugation" that causes the trouble. The textbooks really do a demolition job on people's understanding of the Japanese receptive. So let's look at your sentences: First is "She didn't try to go away from that place". Then it says "Even though she received the action of her mother trying to pull her hand, for some reason she didn't try to stand up from the pipe chair". What is happening in the mother clause? You will understand better after you watch my video on the Japanese receptive helper verb (miscalled the "passive conjugation"). It is ∅が母親に手を引かれるようにしても. The が-marked actor of this clause is ∅, meaning the girl. The verb she did is れる receive. This is the head-verb of the sentence because it is the last (the last verb is always the engine). The secondary verb is 引く (in its あ-stem-form because it has the helper verb れる attached). This is performed by the mother who is marked by に. The performer of the secondary actor in a receptive clause is always marked by に for reasons explained in the video. The only thing that complicates it a little is that ようとする is added to show that it was an attempted pulling, not a successful pulling, that she received. That is why she stayed in the chair. ようとする is from an English perspective in an unusual place, because we can't split the れる helper from the あ-stemmed verb depicting the action being received. It indicates that the whole thing was a willed attempt (that the surrounding context makes clear was not successful). We know that the willer was not the receiver because in receptive clauses the willed actor is the one doing the received action, not the one receiving it. It isn't at all difficult so long as we know what the receptive helper verb is and how it works. If we think it is a "conjugation" we are up the proverbial gum tree without a paddle.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I have watched your video "receptive helper..." like you said, and with that and your answer everything have sense. Basically "girl's hand is getting to pull". And "to pull" is done by her mother, cuz it's the secondary verb and the mother is the secondary actor, main actor the girl is doing the main action to receive. And finally ようにする is linked to 引く, the secondary action, for that is the mother try, and ようにする should be in the middle of 引く and れる (引かようにするれる), but of course, we can't separate 引か from れる, so it's placed at the end. Probably I should have watched that video before asking, but actually I'm pretty new in your channel, I just discovered few days ago. I must say you thanks, you had helped me defeating my nemesis, even japanese natives couldn't help me. xD Also, your channel is wonderful, you are, because you are the one that does these videos. I love your explanations of who everything have a logical sense. I just can say thank you.
@@Knight-CyberiaAnd thank you so much for your kind appreciation. Don't worry - Japanese structure is quite a big subject, but fortunately it is very regular and logical - much more than most languages - so if you follow my main structure course I think you will find it becomes much easier. ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 you deserve that appreciation and more. Always I learn something new in grammar I don't burn it in my mind, I usually leave a white space in case it has a bad explanation or something, until I find a logical sense, like your video of れる, and then is when I burn it. My plan is to watch all your videos, because I'm sure that all of them are interesting and usefull, just like this one, or the れる one, but really thank you for that playlist; actually I was a little bit lost, I didn't know from where I should start. xD
@@Knight-Cyberia I'm happy to help! The playlist I gave you is the place I recommend starting. You can also look at my Channel Page for an overview of the channel: ua-cam.com/channels/kdmU8hGK4Fg3LghTVtKltQ.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Yes, and there's many of them, too. After all: i.imgur.com/wHU1p9I.jpg It is, one might say, quite ... わんダホー 。。。さむ。。。(but I regret nothing)
Can you please help me? Sorry for being annoying, but I really have no idea how to translate this. I have finally found a sentence I cannot understand anything, even translating word by word, unfortunately. :-( 4人の若者は 光の戦士として 自らに 与えられた 使命の大きさと 待ち受ける はらんの運命に めまいさえ おぼえるのであった。 > What と is doing there? Quotating, linking, highlighting the meaning of the expression behind it? > Is this a A is B sentence? > "あった" ending is marking the past of itself or of some other word? > What this whole sentence is saying overall (FOR GOD's SAKE! ~~sorry, I'm really struggling with it)?
While learning Japanese (self taught), I would go through the cycle of giving up, stopping for a month or two, realizing how much I miss learning it, and trying again. This was the first language I've tried to learn before and for some reason figuring out sentence structures is so fun to me, almost like it's a puzzle with more complex rules. But I'm still a very slow learner. This time I took around a year and a half before I wanted to try Japanese again because I was so frustrated. These videos have really opened my eyes to some of the things I didn't understand and it's given me new found confidence. I'm thinking of giving it another go!
me too man this comment inspire me more to grind and lock in have a blessed day
Oh lord above. I remember my very early Japanese lessons, being told that 分かる is preceded by a が-marked noun (and I quote) "because it just does". This was at SOAS university in the UK, supposedly the best place in the country to learn Japanese. I recall being dismissed as disruptive for asking "yes, but why?"
あの"先生"が分からなかった！
Heh, well I suppose it is disruptive to ask questions the teacher can't answerʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
When the student asks intelligent questions of course if the teacher is rather arrogant they will be upset.
bruh you bongs pay like a hundred grand tuition per semester for this kind of education?
90% of people answer like that, except curedolly
Holy shit I'm addicted to these videos.
RIP sensei, thank you so much for this channel
This reminds me of Esperanto. In Esperanto, every adjective can become a verb. "La ĉielo estas blua" means "the sky is blue." "La ĉielo bluas" means the same thing, but where blue is the verb.
If a sky can blue, then a book can certainly understandable.
This seems a useful stepping-stone concept.
these deserve MORE VIEWS
Thank you. I keep trying!
The world deserves more views of this
the ultimate problem that all language learners face is trying to map their own language on to their target language. which is why people need to be visualising a sentence rather than translating it. when we see the word ‘星’ we should be thinking ‘☆’ in our heads, and not ‘star’
Yes, this is very true. That is another reason why I recommend easing into J-J definitions (not making some dramatic and masochistic "monolingual shift") from as early as possible: ua-cam.com/video/JVTpwo6tu0s/v-deo.html
Notes for myself
The dictionary myth: all Japanese words have exact English equivalents (and vice versa). Pro: quick, easy definition. Con: completely confuses actual Japanese structure)
The Japanese passivity problem (which could also be seen as the English hyperactivity problem)
Although Japanese doesn't really have a passive voice, we could say that it has a "passive" nature... In Japanese there is a tendency to regard "being" as prior and primary to "doing", while in English it tends to be the other way around. It tends to be activist in nature. And there are a whole range of Japanese verbs which depict not actions as we understand them but states of being which are regarded grammatically as if they were in fact actions.
(THE IMPORTANT...)
So the thing to understand here is that in Japanese
7:58
verbs can and often do represent
8:02
what in English can only be expressed
8:05
as either states of being or passive actions.
This happens with many verbs:
■wakaru
■Potential form of verbs
(Screen)
■"Become" verbs
How to recognize
8:32 this is actually really similar to korean where all adjectives are verbs and they always get translated into english as "to be-" for example 축축하다(chukcukhada) "to be wet" or 똑똑하다(ttokttokhada) "to be smart"
There are a number of interesting structural similarities between Korean and Japanese (particle usage is a notable one). It can't be firmly established that they are related but they do seem to have a lot of structure in common.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Japanese is much easier when ur learning korean 👍
@@supechube_k I suspect it would be because they have structural similarities.
I think of 「できる」 as "to be of achievable outcome", which goes with the 「出来る」 kanji-version of the word.
I always remember your 「できない」 analogy featured in a different video of an English-speaking child saying "I'm trying to do a drawing, but it just doesn't 'come out' right!".
Yes, this is definitely how the word works and how 出来る comes to mean what it does.
I really wish you could do more example sentences in your videos more often. Still helps though, so ty.
Sorry - I'll try to work a few more in.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 No need to apologize! Look, your lectures really do help a bunch. Especially when you go behind the direct translation, which is what you always do, and find the true meaning. That's why I wish you could do some because with your explanation is far better (or simply more beneficial) than the ones we get from other channels. Everyone can say x = 1, but nearly none say why that's the fact. Once you know why, then finally does it make sense and make it way easy to learn/use. P.S. Can you make a vid about "どういう" and other "XXいう". They seem to have many meanings and I get confused. :( I think it has to do with context.
@@ViewtifulJosh388 Thank you so much. I will be doing more narrative analyses - these really are nothing but sentence analysis so they should help in that department. I have had a lot of requests for a video about どういう, という etc. I have mentioned it in a few scattered places, but I think I should bring the whole subject together in one dedicated video since it is obviously one that people are having difficulty with. It won't be for a few weeks but I'm putting it on my list.
My Brazilian brain can understand this really well. My language is super flexible and has many cases when you can say things both as becoming or doing. I'm not sure they're proper grammar, since the rules are really difficult but on a casual level it's alright.
I noticed that too, mas eu eu venho falando inglês a tanto tempo que as vezes esqueço de usar a minha mente brasileira para entender o Japonês.
The book exists understandably. The vase exists chippedly. :-)
well there we have the problem of adding an unnecessary adverb that isn't even there in the japanese sentence
@@supechube_k existing is not an adverb
be understandable = a is be sentence
exist in an understandable state = a does b sentence
makes more sense imo
@@toonyandfriends1915 no, they're saying "understandably" and "chippedly" is the adverb
You mean something like “Wettied” & “cloudied” for wet & cloudy?
Yes, except they are verbs and not in the past tense. That is why it is so hard to get them into English without radically changing the structure.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly
“I wettied myself”,
Something like that?
@@safir2241 This would be pseudo other move - with the actor being also the receiver. The Japanese expressions are simple self-move. We have something a bit similar in expressions like "the tea cooled" - where cool means a change of state from heat to coolness. However unlike Japanese we have no verbs that don't involve a change of state. These Japanese ones can simply indicate that a state exists without implying any change.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly
So something like “wetten” would be “to get wet”, which is a change of state? I’m sure i can get this stuff down with immersion, but thanks either way.
UA-cam is an academia filled with amazing, selfless teachers like you. Especially for languages. 💜
@@safir2241 Yes. The thing to remember is that we actually _can't_ put this into exact English that is also "real" English. This doesn't mean it is particularly difficult. It's just that we can feel a bit nervous without the "hand rail" of English. It's ok. It all makes sense even though we can't translate it exactly.
本当にありがとう。このビデオはとても有益ですよ。
こちらこそありがとうございます。喜んでくれて私も嬉しいです。
I think the best way to understand these verbs is just “x exists in the state of y,” like “that floor exists in a wet state” or something like that. You could almost think of them as adjectival verbs, even if they aren’t really adjectives in Japanese.
You could and it works, but the point is not to lose sight of the fact that they actually are verbs. They work structurally as verbs. If we are genuinely believing them to be (as opposed to just using the concept for a temporary convenience) adjectives of any sort we run into structural problems.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly Right, treating these verbs as the word to exist with a modifier. The object exists (in this state).
@@HyperLuigi37 That is what we would say in English. In Japanese it is saying it "does" this state. That is why we can't give an English translation that is at once real English and also saying exactly what the Japanese is saying.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly Is it really that specific? They’re both verbs with the object as the actor. I don’t really see the difference, to be honest.
@@HyperLuigi37 I suppose I am just saying that while we need some help in understanding it via English, we then need (when actually using Japanese) to let that fall away and just see it working as a verb (not a joined-verb with be - it is that when it is in the continuous present).
In a way this is not different from the general principle that we shouldn't be routing Japanese through English once we have the information. The difference is that in these cases the structure suffers if we have English models in our minds.
Thanks as always for all you work,ほんとにお世話になります！
I have a question, last week i was trying to say something like lets do this but in negative, like a negative しましょう, and i found something on the internet about some まい ending but it also said it wasnt used much and stuff, and i wondered how it would be possible to say something like that naturally, if you could help me id appreciate it a looot!
Expressions like "let's not" can have various meanings and it isn't wise to assume that they will translate one-for-one into Japanese. Depending on why you're saying it you may want a different expression strategy on different occasions. You can in some cases do a negative しましょう. You might say もう議論はやめよう "let's not argue any more" although the Japanese is more like "lets stop further arguing" (which doesn't sound very natural in English). So rather than looking for "formulas" that render Japanese into English I would recommend this approach: learnjapaneseonline.info/2014/05/31/how-to-write-correct-natural-japanese/
Incidentally the まい negative ending tends to mean something closer to "its not as if..."
By the way (from the previous lessons), -ARU verbs are always "self-acting" verbs and -SU/-SERU/-MERU verbs are always work like usual english verbs, right?
The point really is that where there is a pair of verbs like 出す・出る or 混ぜる (mix) 混ざる (be mixed) the す one will always be the other-move and the ARU one will always be the self-move. This does not mean that _every_ す-verb is other-move and _every_ ARU verb is other-move even if they don't have a pair, though most of the time they are. The important thing is that this rule helps us to understand the many, many self-move/other-move pairs in Japanese.
The comment to absorb this information is so important
The bottle began to wetinefflicate itself with condensation after it was removed from the refrigerator 🥴🤷♂️🤔... Just trying it on.
Yes this is pretty much how it works. We don't need the "itself" part because wettinifflicate would be a self-move verb like "sweat". This is exactly what 濡れる (ぬれる) does
Interesting so it is most likely a state or a subconscious/sense of the verb than it is in a literal sense all the time or in a potential/passive way. That does make more sense as sometimes it is like conveying things indirectly here in the West like "the water began to flow like the river along the rhythm of music" or "my soul is burning" which is passive but also represents kind of what you are saying in the state of something or in an abstract sense than it always be in the state of doing.
I think it's just a different way of looking at states (as actions) that is really not found in English. English (and I think most European languages) just draw the lines between actions (verbs) and states of being in a different place from Japanese. So if we recognize that and see what the Japanese is doing it saves a lot of misunderstanding.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly that makes total sense. It is probably due to how European languages like to contrast and distinguish from real and fiction while in Japanese it might be more on the context to figure this out and the verbs are more about wholeness than European languages trying to differentiate to understand things.
I wonder how much of this was responsible for the "Engrish" I used to see in the 80's. I had a jacket with the slogan "Do Sporting!" below the collar. I could never tell if the intention was "be sporty" or "go perform a sport".
I suspect this was taking the word sporting, which exists in Japanese as スポーティング but of course, like all loan words is structurally a noun, and turning it into an anglicized "する verb" by adding "do". It isn't generally used as a する verb in Japanese but it would probably seem clever and amusing if done playfully in the right way. In English, of course it just looks puzzling.
I played "Monkey Puncher" in English a long time ago - this was a very rough translation obviously by a Japanese native, full of Japlish. Even the title is Japlish (it means "Monkey Boxer" and is about a monkey who is a boxer). I have to say I really liked the translation though it would never get published these days. It wasn't good as a modern "professional translation" but it actually got a real flavor of the original Japanese with its strange English.
When you wore it, you were sporting it, like a good sport! :D
@@ProvocativeSloth How sporty!
I don't know if that's the same thing, but in my native language(portuguese), there are verbs like "molhar" that means to make something be wet, literally "do wet". The funny part is that as i'm learning japanese in english, i just realized it with this video haha
That's very interesting. I think that human languages have a relatively limited "bag of tricks" and while no language uses all of them various languages use each one of them. Interestingly a Korean said something very similar when I talked about コーヒーが好きだ really meaning "coffee is likeable (to me)" - she said that it is the same in Korean but she never realized it until I said it about Japanese.
PS - thinking again though - the way you explain the Portuguese sounds more similar to English where "wet" can also be a verb meaning "make something wet" (wet something) whereas 濡れる - meaning literally "do wet" has no exact English translation but is closest to "be wet" rather than wet something else.
That's what i most like about learning new languages, you can open a new way of thought you didn't had before, i just found your channel yesterday by the way, amazing content! I'm already subscribed :D
@@11josb Thank you so much! I hope you continue to enjoy the videos.
Thanks for the video! I I have a question (that is not related to the video, my apologies). What does くらい/ぐらい mean in this sentence?: 音楽教師なんだからピアノくらい弾けて当たり前じゃん ！(translated as "obviously a stupid music teacher is going to know how to play the piano!") I read that くらい／ぐらい means 'about, approximately' but I can't see how that would fit in this sentence. Please could you explain what it is doing both structurally and in regards to meaning, as I am confused about both. Thank you very much.
I should probably do a video on くらい at some time. As well as "about" it can also mean something like "to that extent", and a very minor - uh - extension of that meaning is "at least" (i.e. to that extent even if no more). So what this is saying is "Since she's a music teacher she will at least know how to play the piano". The slightly disparaging tone of "at least" might be what led to the unwarranted word "stupid", or the translator may have wrongly assumed that なんだから is something like なんか. It isn't. It means な (=だ) のだから in other words it is one of the のだ constructions I talk about in this video: ua-cam.com/video/lYvIOi8Q3I8/v-deo.html
Thank you Dolly! I encounter sentence with 分かる that doesn't make sense to me(it doesn't seem to "does understandable"). in the Suzumiya Haruhi anime: それも分かっておいてくださいね
context is
朝比奈(あさひな)さんのほうが分かりやすいですよ
ありがとう
でも あたし自身には古泉君に含むところはありません
それも分かっておいてくださいね
How would you interpret 分かっておいてください sentence?
The second 分かる here is being used in a colloquial (strictly ungrammatical) sense. Obviously the first one is used normally (it is turned into an adjective with the helper やすい but it is still pointing at the one who does understandable). However the second one is actually using 分かる as something the understander does. This is done on a minority of occasions in "young people's Japanese" (若者言葉). It is generally conjectured that this is influenced by the universal teaching of English and the regarding of English as "cool" - so "Englishing" certain Japanese expressions becomes a kind of mild slang. So the sentence is saying literally (and slightly ungrammatically - at least in traditional terms) "Please put in place understanding this too" = something like please also make understanding this a part of the way you understand the overall situation.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 thank you, I was worried that I missed something. Good to know!
Hi Dolly-sensei, maaking the most of this topic, passive, could you please help me with this sentences? Please.
彼女はその場を離れようとしなかった。母親に手を引かれるようにしても、何故かパイプ椅子から立ち上がろうとしなかった。
Being exactly, I can't understant the second sentence, passive +ようにする, it's like make an effort/try to being pulled...?
Thank you in advice.
First of all _there is no passive_ in Japanese. Not ever. I explain this here ua-cam.com/video/cvV6d-RETs8/v-deo.html - it is misunderstanding the receptive helper verb as a "passive conjugation" that causes the trouble. The textbooks really do a demolition job on people's understanding of the Japanese receptive. So let's look at your sentences:
First is "She didn't try to go away from that place". Then it says "Even though she received the action of her mother trying to pull her hand, for some reason she didn't try to stand up from the pipe chair".
What is happening in the mother clause? You will understand better after you watch my video on the Japanese receptive helper verb (miscalled the "passive conjugation").
It is ∅が母親に手を引かれるようにしても. The が-marked actor of this clause is ∅, meaning the girl.
The verb she did is れる receive. This is the head-verb of the sentence because it is the last (the last verb is always the engine).
The secondary verb is 引く (in its あ-stem-form because it has the helper verb れる attached).
This is performed by the mother who is marked by に. The performer of the secondary actor in a receptive clause is always marked by に for reasons explained in the video.
The only thing that complicates it a little is that ようとする is added to show that it was an attempted pulling, not a successful pulling, that she received. That is why she stayed in the chair.
ようとする is from an English perspective in an unusual place, because we can't split the れる helper from the あ-stemmed verb depicting the action being received.
It indicates that the whole thing was a willed attempt (that the surrounding context makes clear was not successful). We know that the willer was not the receiver because in receptive clauses the willed actor is the one doing the received action, not the one receiving it.
It isn't at all difficult so long as we know what the receptive helper verb is and how it works.
If we think it is a "conjugation" we are up the proverbial gum tree without a paddle.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I have watched your video "receptive helper..." like you said, and with that and your answer everything have sense. Basically "girl's hand is getting to pull". And "to pull" is done by her mother, cuz it's the secondary verb and the mother is the secondary actor, main actor the girl is doing the main action to receive. And finally ようにする is linked to 引く, the secondary action, for that is the mother try, and ようにする should be in the middle of 引く and れる (引かようにするれる), but of course, we can't separate 引か from れる, so it's placed at the end.
Probably I should have watched that video before asking, but actually I'm pretty new in your channel, I just discovered few days ago.
I must say you thanks, you had helped me defeating my nemesis, even japanese natives couldn't help me. xD
Also, your channel is wonderful, you are, because you are the one that does these videos. I love your explanations of who everything have a logical sense. I just can say thank you.
@@Knight-CyberiaAnd thank you so much for your kind appreciation. Don't worry - Japanese structure is quite a big subject, but fortunately it is very regular and logical - much more than most languages - so if you follow my main structure course I think you will find it becomes much easier.
ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 you deserve that appreciation and more. Always I learn something new in grammar I don't burn it in my mind, I usually leave a white space in case it has a bad explanation or something, until I find a logical sense, like your video of れる, and then is when I burn it.
My plan is to watch all your videos, because I'm sure that all of them are interesting and usefull, just like this one, or the れる one, but really thank you for that playlist; actually I was a little bit lost, I didn't know from where I should start. xD
@@Knight-Cyberia I'm happy to help! The playlist I gave you is the place I recommend starting. You can also look at my Channel Page for an overview of the channel: ua-cam.com/channels/kdmU8hGK4Fg3LghTVtKltQ.html
Is there someone like you who can show me the inherent structure of English?
I am afraid I don't know. It seems rare to teach languages this way.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 A true pity
@@LordOfEnnui It is.
Reminds me of how dogs speak on the internet.
Doing me a fright here, skeleton-san. Only, not the same. :P
Dogs speak on the internet? Ah _that_ explains the comment sections on certain videos (not mine I hasten to add).
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Yes, and there's many of them, too.
After all:
i.imgur.com/wHU1p9I.jpg
It is, one might say, quite ... わんダホー
。。。さむ。。。(but I regret nothing)
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 you don't want people to think you get dogs on your channel.
@@ostracostio64 Only shiba inu.
Can you please help me? Sorry for being annoying, but I really have no idea how to translate this.
I have finally found a sentence I cannot understand anything, even translating word by word, unfortunately. :-(
4人の若者は
光の戦士として 自らに
与えられた 使命の大きさと
待ち受ける はらんの運命に
めまいさえ おぼえるのであった。
> What と is doing there? Quotating, linking, highlighting the meaning of the expression behind it?
> Is this a A is B sentence?
> "あった" ending is marking the past of itself or of some other word?
> What this whole sentence is saying overall (FOR GOD's SAKE! ~~sorry, I'm really struggling with it)?