I recently am starting studying again after forgetting Japanese 3, i came across this channel again which really helped me 4 years ago. i heard she passed away... RIP you were truly an eye opening teacher for studying japanese. you will be missed
So enlightening. Thank you. The world lost something beautiful when you passed from it, but there is such a thing as inherited will. We will carry forward your legacy of making Japanese make sense.
I haven't learned about this use of the "de" particle yet but this really blew my mind, thanks Cure Dolly for spending a lot of time coming up with the best possible explanation for us, I love your lesson so much
Ah, Cure Dolly, I have never seen or heard of a better Japanese teacher than you; you changed everything about my Japanese learning. After years of hearing people say things like, "Japanese is a devil of a language," you are the first person I've ever come in contact with who seemed to love Japanese even more than I do! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your work.
My son is also to start learning Japanese soon in school (I have been at it almost two years now...). I can't wait to share your treasure box of knowledge with him!
I've been at a Japanese school for 4 months and had no idea every day when the teacher asked me about na and I adjectives. you literally solved that in 8 minutes. Thank you so much.
Algorithm just recommend this video, click on t First seconds of this video: wtf is that 3D model speaking with AI voice, looks bad, almost skip it First minute: realize taht this is exaclty that type of approach and knowledge I need End of the video: so grateful Going to the comment section: learning that this teacher passed away... well, I discover you late sensei but just want to know, even in heaven you just lighted up a candle in that chaotic language ocean I have to master. I will be disciplined until I succeed to honour you. hope you are at peace wherever you are.
yooo this blows my mind thanks so much! boutta hit my teacher with some straight facts also, you're still responding to comments, even though this was posted two years ago! that's amazing. keep up the amazing work~
Thank you so much! I never really understand the idea of declaring threads "dead" after a certain time - at least not when they are about topics of perpetual interest. If these videos were relevant when I made them, they are relevant today. If they are not relevant today, then they were never relevant. I suppose the "necro" notion comes from the world of "news" where today's "most important thing in the world" is tomorrow's forgotten trivia. Of course if I get so busy I can't manage to answer all comments I will have to stop, but until then I treat all comments equally regardless of the age of the video. If the video is still valuable, comments on it are also valuable. If it isn't still valuable I should probably take it down!
I'm having lunch and randomly clicked on this video and got so much japanese grammar explained (and understood!) before I even finished a few bites of food.
I wish I could click the "like" button a thousand times. I have your book, and read it through quite a few months back, but I forgot about this lesson. THIS MAKES IT SO EASY!
mind blown…! Thank you. I wished I found your channel sooner, Japanese felt harder and harder starting from N4 onwards, but you broke it down so effectively. Rest in peace. Thank you for your lesson
Pure gold right here. Adjectives have been a black hole for me. I did have to look up what exactly "aka" is grammatically cuz it is still an adjective in English. I presume the Japanese think of it as "the red" ? Thank u for this short but informative video.
Wow! That makes so much more sense. Some of the info I had heard before but this really added so much more. I hadn't realize the で used with な adjectives was really a form of だ. It makes a lot more sense knowing that.
OMG!!! 本当にありがとうございます!! I hate when they tell you how to do, and when to do, but not Why we do! You're amazing and I love you. I was trying to figure out why and what the difference was between い and な today and I'm so glad I clicked on this video first. I don't like when language learning materials just expect you to memorize information. And although I understand that there are exceptions it still helps to have fundamental knowledge on what you're doing before you can properly use what you've learned. Give me the rules, some examples, and I can figure the rest out myself!! I'm subscribed. Keep up the good work!!
Thank you so much! As far as adjectives are concerned there are really no exceptions (except for いい which is slightly irregular, becoming よい in past, negative etc.)
Cure dolly - Sensei, You are truly the best teacher. I can't state it enough times but you are really a goddess of teaching japanese. Your videos taught me stuff in a month that textbooks/websites couldn't teach me in a year
At one point I felt like I was about to cry because of the catharsis of pent up confusion clearing into what felt like total clarity-like someone who was blind experiencing sight. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! As a matter of fact, when I _first_ started learning Japanese, I didn’t know *anything* at all (naturally) and I forget where it was exactly but I found the book Unlocking Japanese on the internet, and it sounded perfect. I ordered it and was shocked how small it was! I though I was in for a textbook or something, lol It was funny how much I could understand even with very little to know working knowledge at all (except probably XはYです that I’d learned like two days earlier) Although I did end up getting lost in the explanation of は vs が and put it down to come back to when I had learned a bit more, I was always, always grateful to the way it framed the entire learning process for me right from the beginning. Fast forward months and months and I had told myself that it was time to go back and reread it now. It’s been on my nightstand for a couple days as I type this! I can’t believe I just found the companion channel to it too! I’m soooo happy :-) I found this because I was just learning about verbs and adjectives, and I was wondering why な adjectives were so “weird” (but of course I knew it wasn’t _really_ weird, but just from my perspective-thanks to the book!) and was trying to find out more about the actual WHY. That’s when I stumbled on this video, and I couldn’t believe it when it said Cure Dolly! My interest was piqued. When you said い adjectives function basically as verbs and な adjectives function basically as nouns right at the start, it was huuuuuuuge lightbulb moment and I was immediately hooked. The video then proceeded to absolutely blow my mind, and if I didn’t know better I’d say my jaw literally dropped! I’m not sure though because I was so focused that I didn’t have the presence of mind to fully notice what was happening with my body at the time, ahaha You are a massive blessing! From practically day 1 you’ve laid the foundation to my approach to Japanese language learning (and just as importantly how NOT to approach it!!), and just when I decided I had reached a level of experience with the language that I should tackle the book again (for real this time), I find your UA-cam channel too! This is amazing! I can’t thank you enough for all the trouble you’ve saved me from your framing of the language and the clarity you’ve already given me-which at this point just scratches the surface of what you have to teach I really can’t thank you enough! God bless you, Cure Dolly! I have a special place in my heart for teaching, and your approach to it is both touching and inspiring. I do not say that lightly. Not only have you helped me so, so much, even when I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark, but I feel that if I ever become a teacher of any kind myself one day, I’ll be a much better one because of what you have taught me about the importance of spending a few minutes framing the entire learning process before you begin and seeing how elegantly it’s possible to let students see under the hood and explain why it works the way it does in such a simple way that both the newcomers and those with prior experience can both benefit from! I’ll never forget this. Needless to say, I instantly subscribed and hit the bell button! I don’t want to miss anything, lol. So now not only will I be reading the book but watching your entire back-catalogue of content! Thank you again, 先生 🙏！
Looking at it now I recall that I put it down when I got to chapter 7 (the one you said was the final puzzle piece to you which told you the time was right to publish the book) because that was where it got so far over my head that it was virtually pointless to keep reading at that stage, haha. It was far too early for me to see the whole picture in the way you were describing, like explaining the size and shape of the Earth to an ant-so far outside its ability to grasp that it wouldn’t be able to even make sense of the basics of what you’re talking about much less truly understand it, even if it could verbally communicate as well as any human! lol
Already in chapter two (after a _very_ short chapter one), I can’t stop laughing to myself about how much sense it makes! It’s sooooooo simple. Oh my goodness, it’s almost embarrassing that I didn’t fully grasp this the first time I read this, but of course the truth is I just needed more exposure to the language first (input)
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience in detail. It is precisely because I know this approach can revolutionize how people see and learn Japanese that I keep going with it. _Unlocking Japanese_ is a small book intended mainly for people who already know some conventional "Japanese grammar" - the aim is to correct the various confusions that the conventional approach sows in the mind. At that stage I was not thinking of explaining the language from scratch from an organic/structural point of view (a very big task). After making a lot of videos (all the green-chalkboard ones) which had a similar focus - and after lots of people had asked me "where do I go to learn from scratch?" and in all conscience I couldn't recommend any existing source - I decided to bite the bullet and start a complete from-scratch course. It is here: ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html I am planning to turn this into a book (or rather a series of books) and have started work in that. It won't really be a textbook (with exercises and strange stilted dialogs) so much as a complete explanation of the structure of the language, starting from the basic structure of a sentence (like the series). I also have in mind a supporting series with increasingly complex narratives (starting from _very_ simple) but that is probably some way off yet.
That’s amazing to hear! Thank you for the link. I will be checking that out for sure as well as sharing it with anyone who inquired about where to start learning Japanese. I also look forward to the book series. And, although you said it’s still a ways off, I very much look forward to the narratives of increasing complexity as a companion to it. That sounds like an invaluable resource! And as a bonus, I live in an area with tons and tons of Spanish speakers. Although I’ve never tried learning Spanish officially (I took French in school), I’ve absorbed a bit from living around it my whole life. “Me gusta...” has always alluded and intrigued me. Your example of using me gusta even helped my understanding of Spanish! ^.^ I plan on learning multiple languages, so not only have you helped my Japanese and my Spanish, but I am now a *firm* supporter of taking each language on its own terms! (The tricky part is just finding out what exactly that is when you know nothing about the language yet 😬. Thankfully, I have a lot of help from you and your colleagues for the language I want to learn the most and am the most serious about) And thank you for your reply! I read a comment of yours on here that you don’t understand the idea of a “dead thread” and I totally agree with you! There’s no reason why these types of discussions should have a very short time limit. Especially vexing is when it’s a forum that actually forcibly locks the comment section down! So frustrating. I appreciate your work and taking the time to respond. Thank you again!
You finally helped demystify the inscrutable and oddly godly-like fearsome arcana of the proper usage of Na after an Na adjective. I feel so.... Like I have overcome an insuperable enemy that jeered at my every effort, now I have bested it. Thank you! Definitely will subscribe. Ahh lastly, I must apologized... I was reluctant to learn from you simply from the stupid prejudice that only a Nihonjin can teach Nihongo.. But what I failed to realize is that a westner can often simplify more abstruse subjects because they understand exactly how i think and formulate a sentence syntactically from an english viewpoint. Thank you !
Very valuable information. Thank you again Cure-Dolly Sensei! I was very happy to get your book. It has great info in there and I'm happy to support you!
I figured this out just before visiting your website. I read someone's comment on the forming of Japanese adjectives. He said most adjectives were just verbs. And before I read his article, I actually somehow figured this out. In fact, it is NOT limited to Japanese adjectives, but adjectives in almost the entire East Asia. Perhaps this is the way the people in East Asia all share. Adjectives are nothing more than some descriptions of some states of being. But each state of being is a result of some actions of something. But all matters are created by actions. So, essentially all nouns, adjectives, verbs are basically verbs, i.e., the result of a sequence of actions. That's perhaps why you can STACK verbs together. One action leading to another action leading to another action and so on.
What? Mandarin Chinese is quite a substantial language in East Asia. Adjectives in Chinese are not in fact verbs. "Adjectives are nothing more than some descriptions of some states of being." Well, yes, because they are adjectives... i.e. aspects of substantives, which are beings... This is the classical definition of an adjective (in all the senses of that word). "essentially all nouns, adjectives, verbs are basically verbs, i.e., the result of a sequence of actions" Er, no. E.g. 味道很重，天氣很好，雨很大. 重, 好 and 大 are not verbs. No-one 好s the weather. An easier way to look at Chinese adjectives is that they do not bother with the redundant English copula "be" and all its forms. Nor should they: it's completely unnecessary.
@@EdwardLindon Anything in Chinese can be created by just using VERBS. Chinese is a verb based language. You can create nouns, adjustives, and basically any part of speech from verbs. And many different parts of speech are interchangeable, meaning that the same word can be a noun, an adjustive, a verb, ... In Cantonese, the six tones allow you to pronounce the same word differently, depending on the part of speech that you use that word for. I am probably the only person on this planet who truly understands the very foundation of the tonal structure of Cantonese, including the the reason behind using tones in a language, how the tonal structure is related to the pentatonic scale in music, how the tonal structure affects the grammar of a spoken tonal language, .. . LOL
2:45 Is the 'ga' in the hana ga akai desu object or subject? Subject makes sense, but I heard that it was actually object used with suki so could you please explain that (with suki)?
が never, never, never at any time marks anything other than the subject. People who say "が can sometimes mark the object" are basing themselves on completely flawed and misleading models of Japanese. Please see this video for further explanation ua-cam.com/video/vk3aKqMQwhM/v-deo.html
This has helped me tremendously. I have just begun my foray into na and i adj. Glad I didn't have to learn a whole bunch of nonsense before understanding the roots of their usage.
Thank you so much for explaining. I always suspected the i-adjective to have da/desu on board, and now I know for sure. Your explanation makes total sense to me 👍👍👍
Thank you! It just amazes me that all the standard texts and schools teach adjectives without _telling_ people this. It's so fundamental that it seems crazy leaving people to try to guess it out for themselves. There are many other cases where they do the same - which is why I'm making all these videos!
Hi, I have a question regarding na-adjectives: Can every noun (or basically anything that can be coupled to a noun with copula) act as a na-adjective? For example, if I say: "Kanojo ga haha desu. (The woman is a mother.) Haha-na kanojo wa aruku. (Mother-is woman is cute.)" or "Otoko ga boku no tomodachi desu. (The man is my friend.) Ore no tomodachi na otoko wa neru. (Is-my-friend man sleeps.)" Would they be gramatically correct (even though probably quite uncommon and unnatural)? If not, why? P.S.: I know that "no" can be used here which would give a very similar meaning but I wonder whether it is doable in this way.
From what I found the chiisai i-adjective can also sometime be used as chiisana as if it's NA adjective and it seem to be acceptable as well, though I don't know why, for example: chiisana hana to kawaii hana. Correct me if I'm wrong?
Yes, this is acceptable as well. It's just a quirk of Japanese. The chiisa noun-form tends to sound a bit more quaint and child-like than the regular chiisai adjective-form.
^_^ I am studying in a school in Kyoto now but still, there are many things that you will never be told. It's up to us to catch them. I subscribed to the channel, I think this is really a good one.
There are things that it is hard for Japanese speakers to understand that foreigners need to know - that is true of any language of course. And because Western Japanese grammar doesn't address it properly either it makes it hard to find some things out. In the end you just pick them up from use - the way native speakers do, but that takes many years, so I think we can find a quicker way! Kyoto is beautiful isn't it? I only managed to get there twice - and once was when I missed getting off the Shinkansen at Nagoya so I had to go straight back without leaving the station! I'm quite jealous! Best advice: use Japanese all the time. Avoid English-speaking bubbles. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful time and your Japanese becomes perfect. But even if it isn't perfect, use it, use it, use it. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good! 頑張ってください。
Ohh thank you so much ^_- ♥~ I understand that, well just keep studying and practising :D Kyoto is really beautiful, everytime I go back to Italy I feel discontent.. See you in the next video CureDolly ~
I know just how you feel. Yes, please study and practice, but also remember that Japanese isn't just for studying and practicing. It's for living and loving೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨
Thank you so much for this! In your article you talk about 小さい and 大きい (plus some other more adjectives) being turned into na adjectives to make them look childish; is it the same with 新しい and 新たな?
No. あらた is not the same as 新しい - the た and ら are reversed - it is a different though related word and while it works as an adjectival noun it also exists independently as a noun in its own right.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 So basically they are two different words with a very similar meaning. 新しい is an i Adjective and 新た is just a noun, and as a noun it can be turned into a na Adjective, did I understand correctly?
Nobody has told you that "na is da" because it isn't. It's closer to being a specialized form of "no" that applies to nominal adjectives. So, "kirei na hana" can be literally glossed into English as "prett(iness)'s flower" or "flower of prett(iness)." That's not a good translation because that's not what Japanese people mean when they say that, but functionally, that's what's happening. The part about i-adjs being quasi-verbs and na-adjs being nouns is true, though.
Also -- and I can't stress this enough -- Japanese is what's called in linguistics a "verb-final language." That means that, with the exception of certain particles and conjunctions, the verb comes at the end of the clause, certainly not between a nominal adjective and the noun it's modifying.
Wow I’m learning Japanese and I thought I had to learn all the adjectives for Japanese and I did ask my self that too why not understand just casual form first and then learn formal otw as you learn. What I like about this video you didn’t confuse me and teach formal and Causal you literally taught the casual which I wanna speak casually in Japanese, I feel like if your speaking formals that’s for business thanks I am watching your playlist of videos now on Japanese hopefully you see this ありかとう
You need formal for a lot of situations, but "casual" isn't just casual. It is basic Japanese. You need to know that first before you start adding the decorations, because if you don't you end up thinking (like most learners) that the decorations are part of the structure of the language. And they aren't. And if you think they are you are really handicapping your understanding of how the language really works.
A bit confusing to say NA adjectives are nouns, if they were truly nouns, then you should be able to say something like; Taihen GA sukii desu. But you cant because taihen is not a thing you can like, you must add the word thing. For example; I like hard(difficult) things. Taihen NA koto GA sukii desu.
CureDolly, I have a resource that says that na actually works "somewhat like no", so "Kirei na hon" would be "Book of beauty." or "Book of prettyness." But here you said that it is like the copula da, I wonder what you think about this.
Yes they work similarly but that na is not _like_ the copula da - it _is_ the copula da in its connective form. So kirei na hon actually means kirei-da hon (is-pretty book). It is important to know this because you will encounter this da-as-na in a lot of casual sentence endings (obviously where another particle or something else follows it since it is the _connective_ form of da: ua-cam.com/video/oayY4kBHGlM/v-deo.html ). It is true that there are "no adjectives" and "na adjectives" (both really nouns) and that no and na work pretty much identically in practice (in these cases - not otherwise), but they are not in fact identical grammatically and it muddles one's understanding if one thinks they are. In some cases no and na can be used for the same "adjective". So 不思議 (fushigi - wonder, mysterious) is usually classed as a na-adjective but it can also take no, as in 不思議の国のアリス (Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu - Alice in Wonderland). Is there a difference? Yes, a small but significant one: * Fushigi na kuni =fushigi-da kuni = mysterious-is country = mysterious country. * Fushigi no kuni can be read as "country of mysteries/wonders" (fushigi na kuni can't), which gets us a little closer to "Wonderland", which is presumably why the translators chose it. These are subtle nuances, but they are based on the fact that while the connective-copula and the no-particle are used in the same way they are not grammatically doing the same thing. It doesn't matter too much here but it does matter for one's overall grasp of the language to know what that na really is. Incidentally, 不思議 fushigi is also used as a stand-alone noun as in 七不思議 nana fushigi - seven wonders. ADDENDUM: _The following note is perhaps more for grammar wonks so feel free to ignore it if it is confusing_ In Japanese a na-adjective is called a 形容動詞 keiyoudoushi and it _includes the na_ - so the the na-adjective is not kirei it is kireina. Why? Because when we add the copula to a noun we turn it into a predicate. So we are using kireina to predicate prettiness of the book. No does not form a predicate. The only things that can form predicates in Japanese are verbs, i-adjectives and the copula, cf the first lesson in my Organic Japanese series which teaches the three types of Japanese sentence: ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html "Adjectival no" assigns a noun to a particular class of entities indicated by another noun (thus in practice working adjectivally). This function, understood correctly, flows logically from the other functions of no. cf our lesson on the no particle: ua-cam.com/video/5IzL2Q5xgGQ/v-deo.html Consequently we may also note that where a choice of "adjectival" na or no is made, no pushes things toward the "noun"-end of the spectrum. This is also why no can be used to "adjectivize" words that are normally nouns while na is most often used in the case of adjectival nouns that are never, or rarely, used as stand-alone nouns, such as kirei.
Thank you very much for the comprehensive response, I think that's a very important topic to understand correctly. So you said that na makes a nouns a predicate, would it be correct then to say that "Kirei na hon" is "Book of prettyness" or "Book of beauty." in a translation to English?
There should be no "of" in rendering na. Na means "is" (in the copula sense): no means "of". so kirei na hon should be thought of as "IS-pretty book" (kirei-da hon). Densetsu NO senshi (legendary hero) can be thought of as "Hero OF legend", but where na is concerned we need to drop the "of" idea altogether. This may seem like a minor point but it will really help to keep things straight as you go along.
KawaJapa CureDolly I was also wondering about the no-no in the title: 不思議の国のアリス. I need a settling in period in which these new concepts will come together...
Super helpful videos as always! If we combine a na 'adjective' with an i adjective, my intuition would tell me to have the i adjective modify the na 'adjective' which would then modify the noun? Ie, 小さい有名な食事。Is that right? Or are there different rules when combing the two together?
There isn't a rule here other than that the noun has to come last. Two stacked adjectivals aren't necessarily modifying each other, they can be, as it were, lining up to modify the noun independently. The て-form has this stacking "and" effect. In general the adjective nearer to the noun carries more emphasis and can (but doesn't necessarily) imply a closer relation to the noun (specifying its type). So きれいで安いレストラン can tend to imply a "cheap-restaurant" that is pretty, while 安くてきれいなレストラン can tend to imply a "pretty-restaurant that is cheap" but this is quite subtle and rarely makes any great difference to what we are saying.
This makes sense to me, it's one area i needed an alternative view point - but i don't like every other sentence bashing [whether intended or otherwise] other learning methods - i am going to assume you really don't get why this isn't taught, and UA-cam comments aren't the place to say it, but can i suggest your video wasn't the place to continuously claim confusion either
There is reason for the so-called "bashing". Just about every prestigious source is disseminating misleading information on these subjects. Naturally most people reading the real explanations will think "the prestigious sources must also be correct of course so how do I marry this explanation with the other one?" This just leads to more confusion. Therefore it is incumbent on me to state plainly that they aren't reconcilable. One set of information is misleading and should never have been allowed out -however prestigious the source.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 oh ok i haven't come across any prestigious source that hasn't said learn from many places in as many ways as possible - if you have, and i'm guessing others have from the comments, then fair enough :) i'll just skip those bit and love the rest :D
@@finthegeek I agree that it is good to learn from multiple sources. Just be aware of the areas in which the conventional model (that they all use) is wrong or misleading. That's why I put up the red flags where necessary.
Is there a way to tell the difference between a 'na' adjective and an 'i' adjective before you apply these rules? If both end in 'i', how would one know whether to use it as an i adjective or apply na or da? That's the bit that's stumping me.
"Na adjectives" are actually nouns, so it's a good idea to remember that to begin with. Most don't end in い but a few do. It is also very, very very important to think in Japanese script not romaji. This eliminates most of the problem. They don't have to end in i. They have to end in い this eliminates all the ones that end in き or ち or anything in the い-row other than い itself - even though they all end in i in romaji. Then there are a few (count on fingers of one hand few for common ones) that actually do end in い - きれい, ゆいめい and きらい are the main ones. And guess what? If you know the kanji, only one of them really ends in い - because and adjective has to end in a loose い - it can't be part of a kanji. So 有名 is tthe way ゆうめiい is written in grown-up writing. _Anything written in all-kanji is a noun,_ So we know it is an adjectival noun (so-called na-adjective), not an adjective. If you don't know much kanji yet just remember that adjectives must end in い, not just i. If you don't know kana yet, for heaven's sake learn it. You are going nowhere without it.
@@squeakelite7148 There are a few that do (and fewer but still a few that have an actual "loose" い even when written in kanji). Not many and one just has to know them.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 You make a good point about using romanji too much, though I wondered - do you use a Japanese keyboard or programme? Or just translate it on a site and cut and paste it here?
@@squeakelite7148 You can type Japanese on a romaji keyboard. Just go to the keyboard settings on your computer and set it up - it's very simple. I actually type directly in kana which I recommend but that takes a little more setting up. I made a video on that here: ua-cam.com/video/NlbSSejjM1k/v-deo.html
You were right, my textbook doesn't mentionany of this AT ALL!, and it begins by teaching the masu, desu forms first!, thanks a lot this really put things into perspective! :D
I think they nearly all do. Some explain parts of it properly, but I haven't seen one that actually explains the whole structure - and really an incomplete structure isn't much better than none of it. The whole point is that this grammar is not made up of random unconnected "bits": it is a logical, beautiful interlocking whole. I find it sad that no one seems to be teaching this.
I have ordered your book from your Amazon link. I'm in England and flying to Japan on the 26th of December for a new job. I have lived in Japan before in Tochigi as an English teacher, this time I'll be in the Saitama area and I do not want to rely on my cell phone apps to assist me with Japanese this time! I'm really enjoying your videos and love the logical way you present the information. Your book will be a Christmas present to myself that I'll save to read for the airport and flight to Narita. Merry Christmas to you and thank you for your help and good fortune with your videos etc for next year! :)
Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful time in Japan. How nice that you will get to enjoy お正月 there. I hope your Japanese journey goes well and please never hesitate to ask if I can help with anything. I am looking forward to another year of making videos and I have a new book out pretty soon (much bigger than Unlocking Japanese and this time on kanji - but that's all I can say just now!) Have a wonderful Christmas. Even though you'll be preoccupied with flying the next day I hope you have a a lot of fun and happiness. PS - by "Japanese journey" I meant language - but both journeys, physical and linguistic, of course!
sensei, how about the so-called 連体詞 ? do you have a lesson about it? i just don't understand how ちいさい can be ちいさな sometimes and i can't seem to find answers anywhere.
I don't see the problem here. In a limited number of cases the stem of an adjective is used as an adjectival noun. It can't be a real adjective if it doesn't end in い and it isn't a verb, so if it exists at all it has to work as a noun, and clearly it does exist. What more do we need to know?
So whereas i-adjectives hide the 'da' inside, with na-adjectives the 'da' *can be* hidden within 'desu'. Should 'desu' be though of as nothing more than a politeness that can in some cases subsume the necessary grammar?
だ and です are grammatically the same thing (です is the formal/polite version of だ). However in some cases (notably adjectives) です can be popped onto the end as a mere formality-marker with no grammatical function. This is why expressions like アイスクリームがおいしいです have the grammatically redundant です attached, but in plain speech do not have だ. Because the textbooks never explain the non-grammatical, pure-formality nature of this です people naturally become confused about what is going on.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Ah, this would have been Guess B :) Ive already said it only an hour ago, but thanks a lot for this! You're content provides so much more insight and your book (Unlocking Japanese?) really helped me get through the initial fog edit: I read through Unlocking Japanese again this week and was embarrassed to find that this exact question was addressed...apologies!
Dear sensei, Your explaination is great, the channel does help me a lot. I have a question about da/na. I 've read from the text book, when a na-adjective goes with kara then it should be connected to kara by "da", but when it goes with "node" then "na" is used instead of da. Is there any reason behind that ? Is there any rule for us to apply ? And what's more, i have heard that there are some grammatical cases both da/na should not in, like kamo shiremasen. Thank you very much.
Good question. first of all "na-adjective connected to kara by da" is the kind of textbook explanation that is misleading. The so-called "na-adjective" is _an adjectival noun including the copula_ - when the copula is da it completes a clause. When it is na it is joining the adjectival noun to something else. So da isn't there to connect to kara, but to complete the clause. Kara then works to tell us a new clause is coming which will be the result of the first clause (or sometimes that it happened after the first clause). Kara is a conjunction. That means that it connects one complete clause to another. You can only put kara and other conjunctions between two finished, complete clauses that could be sentences in themselves. No de is also a conjunction, but one little quirk of Japanese is that whenever da is followed by no it becomes na. This also happens in the casual sentence-ender na no and I made a video about that here ua-cam.com/video/oayY4kBHGlM/v-deo.html - it's a bit more advanced than this series so please just ignore it if it is confusing to you at this stage. So kara and no de are really equivalent (no de is more formal) but we do need to remember that little na-no rule. I think it is really a "what sounds best" rule, like "a" vs "an" in English. As for kamoshiremasen - that gets taught as a word meaning maybe, but it is actually a logical phrase made up of ka, mo, shire (potential stem of shiru, know) and nai (or masen) I explained that at the end of this video about mo ua-cam.com/video/00nKUtmnzvI/v-deo.html - again if it is above your current level just ignore it. But what we do need to know here is that kamoshiremasen starts with the question-particle ka. What that particle does when it isn't marking an actual question is that it turns the clause preceding it into a "question" to be considered. (so kamoshiremasen literally means "as for that question (the preceding clause) I can't go so far as to know". Now this non-sentence-ending ka always replaces the copula if there is one - or perhaps more accurately it acts like a kind of questioning-making-copula. You'll find this in other uses, whether the ka is on its own or in set phrases like ka-dou-ka (whether or not). I hope this is clear and please feel free to come back with more questions if it isn't.
Dear sensei, thank you very much for your great help. So, if "Ka" is used as an ending sentence word then it keeps the preceding copula, but when it is a non-sentence-ending then it will replace the preceding copula if there is one. Is that right ? And how about "Deshou" ? Deshou also drops the preceding Da ? Do we have a general rule for that kind of replacement ? You are the best Japanese teacher i have ever been taught. The way you explain Japanese grammar is logical to me, it makes Japanese become so beautiful to me. I can not wait to get your book. Thank you sensei.
Thank you so much for your kind words! Actually in plain speech when ka is used as a sentence ender, it does not usually have the copula as well (in fact I can't recall ever seeing da ka). With desu it does. We say desu-ka of course. But desu/masu is full of eccentricities that you don't find in the rest of Japanese which is why I think it is a very bad idea to start off with desu/masu form (video on that here ua-cam.com/video/mg6-BEodLXQ/v-deo.html ) Teaching desu/masu form as if it were basic Japanese gives all kinds of weird ideas that can take people years to unlearn - and many never do. The other way around - learning plain basic Japanese and then learning to attach the oddities of desu/masu at a later stage is a much, much better way of learning. Desu/masu isn't particularly difficult to add once you know the fundamental structure, but it is difficult and confusing to _de-construct_ when you believe that it _is_ the fundamental structure. That is why in my Organic Japanese course I teach plain Japanese, hardly referring to desu/masu at all in the early part of the course ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html Sorry for the slight digression. Deshou does not drop a preceding da, because it _is_ a form of the copula. It is the desu-version of darou, which is the volitional form of da.
Thank you very much sensei. These points are clear to me. I have bought and read through your book. There is a point in the book that i do not understand. I should not put it here because the video is about an other topic. However i do not know where to raise my question to you, so i will ask here, if you dont mind. The question 's about "The simple secret of SOU". I understand the points you have made, except one thing. In the book You explain that we can make a na-adjective by adding SOU to mase-stem of the verb. It is wonderful, because i remember that we can do a similar thing with KATA. But I also know that we can add a verb (full verb) with KOTO to make a noun (and as you have said it is a kind of Na adj). My question is what happens with KOTO ? Why "piano wo hiku koto ga dekiru" but not hiki koto like kata, or sou in the book ? Thank you very much sensei. And by the way, may i suggest that if possible please explain about Japanese vocabulary. There are some words such as hazukashi, and muzukashi. I wonder if there is any secret behind that, why they are so similar.
Koto (and also the so called nominalizing no ( ua-cam.com/video/Bq3GO63D9bw/v-deo.html ) when put after a verb or a verb-phrase have the function of turning the verb (or bundling the whole phrase) into the "nominalizing" word (koto or no) so if I say _umi de oyogu koto ga tanoshii_ and we analyze it in train-terms: (if you need to refresh your memory on the train model of Japanese sentences see the Organic Japanese series ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html ) The A-car of that train is koto and the engine is tanoshii. So the core sentence is koto ga tanoshii Umi de oyogu (swim in the sea) which could be a sentence in itself is now a white car and white engine which are telling us more about the black A car, koto. So you see that what is going on here is something different from just turning oyogu into a compound word (which we could do by saying oyogikata - way of swimming). I hope this clarifies the matter. On adjectives ending in shii - there are a lot of them, and obviously they are i-adjectives in structure and meaning. There is nothing different about the way they work from other i-adjectives. There is a strong tendency for adjectives ending in shii to be about "non-quantifiable" things and human reactions. As in your examples. Muzukashii is not a definite quality like red or heavy, but a human reaction. Sad, happy, beautiful, fun, etc all have shii adjectives. However this isn't an absolute rule, only a very strong tendency. But here is a very important note. The words are not (as you write) muzukashi or hazukashi but muzukashii and hazukahsii. We have been carrying out this discussion in romaji because you seem more comfortable with that, but you very seriously need to leave romaji behind as early as possible. Even if you are working in all-hiragana without knowing any kanji, (or even katakana) it is important to stop thinking of Japanese words in romaji terms. Because in all sorts of ways this will distort your understanding of the words and the structure of the language. This is a case in point. The adjectives in question _couldn't_ be むずかし and はずかし and you can see why the minute you see them in hiragana. All い-adjectives end in い. That is why we call them い-adjectives. But these "words" (they don't exist in Japanese) end in し so even if they did exist they couldn't be い-adjectives. To English ears and romaji eyes muzukashi and muzukashii might look and sound like pretty much the same thing. But that is precisely _why_ we have to stop thinking in romaji. Much of what happens in Japanese (including the all-important stem-system ( ua-cam.com/video/FhyrskGBKHE/v-deo.html ) depends on seeing Japanese sounds in kana-terms. Conversely many of the horribly confusing and illogical "explanations" in the standard textbooks stem from continuing to discuss Japanese as if it were reducible to romaji and were "really" a set of romaji sounds. So if you haven't learned hiragana yet that should be the very next item on your agenda. If you have, you should start thinking of and using words as hiragana entities, not romaji ones.
How do you use さ and み at the end of い adjectives and how do they differ? (重さ重み悲しさ悲しみ) ? I can't find any results when looking them up, I think they're both turning the adjectives into nouns but I can't really think of anything past that.
@UCkdmU8hGK4Fg3LghTVtKltQ On jisho it writes that both 重み and 重さ + 深み and 深さ are nominalizing the same thing while being common words without them having verb stem counterparts. I'm wondering if these have explainable different nuances. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding! m(_ _)m
@@whoopsieskk This is a little complex. With Chinese origin adjectives and adjectival nouns (all adjectival nouns are of Chinese origin) both forms of noun-nominalization exist. However the さ nominalization represents an "objective" quality and the み represents something more "subjective" - physically or emotionally "felt", such as weight 重み or thickness 厚み. These two are at the physical/objective end of the scale but still "experienced" subjective realities and the み puts them into their more "subjective" light and is also likely to be used when a more metaphorical sense is intended. However in Japanese origin words, like 「痛み」「悲しみ」「苦しみ」「すごみ」「楽しみ」「懐かしみ」「哀れみ」we will find that there is a corresponding む-ending godan verb (痛む、悲しむ etc.) and the み-noun is really the い-stem of the verb, rather than a version of the adjective (though it doesn't make much practical difference since it is a noun either way). Finally , while we can pretty much always use さ where it makes any sense to, in many cases we can't use み even if the word is "subjective" in nature - for example 綺麗さ but not 綺麗み. With Japanese origin words it depends if there is a corresponding む-ending godan verb, so for example even though 美しい is a very "subjective" word, one can't 美しむ so there is no 美しみ (this is fairly obvious because what would it mean to 美しむ anyway?) This is the sort of thing that upsets conventional list-learners, but there is no need to be troubled in organic learning. You don't need to output what you don't know (there are always other ways of expressing it). You will know when you input and when you input enough you get the "feel" for it. No rush about that (other than of course inputting as much as possible all the time).
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you so much. So I guess み usually comes with a feel for personal subjectivity/experience from the example sentences that I've seen on sites like Jisho etc and most importantly as you've said :-). I actually found a good example of 重い vs 重たい the other day from a site that made me think of さ and み nominalization subjectivity differences but maybe I'm way off the mark (（４） この猫は重い。８ｋｇもあるらしい。 （５） この猫は重たい。８ｋｇもある。 （６）△この猫は重たい。８ｋｇもあるらしい。 例文（４）は客観的事実を述べているだけで、話者が実際に猫を抱き上げたかどうかは問わず、８ｋｇもあるという事実から「重い」と判断しているだけです。 一方、例文（５）は話者自身が猫を抱き上げ、その重さを自ら実感した結果「重い」と判断しています。つまり「重たい」は実際に経験、実感したことに使いやすく、それが話者の感情を表すことに繋がっています。したがって例文（６）のように、「重たい」と話者の実感を伴わない伝聞の「らしい」が共存した文は不自然に感じられます。) I think I have a basic sense of understanding さ vs み from some example sentences but I'll definitely make sure to pay attention to nuances and get more of an actual feel for it than translating it. ありがとうございます！^^
The value of this explanation is superb but voice is barely audible bcause of low quality and modulation. Im not native ENG speaker so its double hard for me. Either way it really helped me a lot to understand diffrence betwen "i" and "na" adjectives.
It is a rather old video and I think the sound quality has improved on my more recent ones, but in any case there are full and accurate subtitles on every video if you turn them on. Try my main series and see if you can hear better (if not try the subtitles): ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
Again.. Thank you so much! I understand it now.. You help me a lot! I've tried Genki book but it's too boring for me to self study with textbook and you as the teacher helps me a lot so.. I appreciate this so much. More content and God bless..
I always wondered why the knowledge of japanese hasn't evolved in the realm of linguistics, you have the type of knowledge that should've been put up front in scholarly materials. With your knowledge of japanese I now question about how much languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and such are misunderstood because of this model of putting english grammar over everything.
Part of the trouble is that high-level academic papers on Japanese are written with all examples in romaji (so that general linguists can understand them). This obviously messes up conceptualization of things like the stem-system. Psychologically it also helps to cement the idea that Western concepts are Universals that can be used to explain everything else (rather than simply one system among others). I don't know a lot about other Asian languages but have certainly heard people who are knowledgeable about Korean say that very similar misconceptions are woven into the fabric of Western teaching of that language in much the way they are with Japanese.
な is basically an attributive version of だ, which is viceversa a predicative version of な, to put it simply. When you use な you're attributing a quality to an element of the sentence, while when you use だ you're predicating, id est you're stating that something is like that. even in a sentence like "this is a flower that is beautiful" you have two "is". Clearly this is a far-fetched example made just to make a point but I hope this was at least a bit helpful
☆Curedolly☆ thank you for your amazing content. I have seen “it is a famous school” translated as ゆうめいなごっこうです. If だ is the same as な then in this case is the です simply there to make it formal?
The sentence here is actually (if you've followed my other videos) ∅がゆうめいながっこうです "[it is] a famous school" so the です is there to complete the sentence by linking back to the unseen "it". (If you aren't familiar with this concept, start here ua-cam.com/video/P3n8n0u3LHA/v-deo.html&list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj ) To clarify further, two copulas (だs) are actually required in this sentence - one to link the "famous" to the "school" and one to link the "famous school" to "it". To put the sentence into Japanese-English "It a famous-is school is" the two is'es are the two copulas.
Thank you for your reply! And thanks to you I am familiar with the unseen it :) I think my confusion lies with the fact that if な= だ and if だ essentially means “is”, then in the sentence ∅がゆうめいながっこうです aren’t there two instances of “is”? In my mind the translation for this would be: (it) is famous school is?
I wonder if you read my last reply in email. I actually added an extra part afterward which I think answered your question in advance. To sum up - Japanese adjectives always need "is" whether they come before or after the noun. In English they only need it when they come after (flower is red, but red flower". In Japanese real adjectives have the "is" built into them (which is why they don't need だ and only have です as a formality marker). So はながあかい, あかいはな: flower is red, is-red flower. Adjectival nouns don't have the だ built into them so they need it every time はながきれい、きれいなはな: flower is pretty, is-pretty flower. So ∅がゆうめいながっこうです = it is a famous-is school. Two copulas needed, which is why there are two.
You are my hero!!!! Yes, you were completely right I did open the reply in an email. It’s finally clicked and I will now eagerly move onto your next video lesson [:
Seriously I started learning formal Japanese first and once I started getting into the informal I wished I learned informal first because I memorized all the verbs with imasu conjugation.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I've been using Japanese from zero and I've learned a lot but now I have to unlearn all the verbs to their dictionary form.
@@Rizztana Fortunately once you understand how verbs really work it isn't hard. Godan verbs: take off ます and turn the い-row kana that's left on the end into its う-row equivalent. Ichidan verbs: Just take off ます and add る (wherever the kana before ます _isn't_ from the い-row it _has_ to be ichidan).
It's not a verb meaning "to dislike". It's an adjectival noun meaning "dislikable (to me). It works just like 好きな (usually 好きだ) only the other way around. Only nouns can use the copula だ and that's exactly what な is.
No. That is an entirely different phenomenon with a somewhat different meaning. I explain how it works here: ua-cam.com/video/lYvIOi8Q3I8/v-deo.html - you can also use あかいのです/んです but that is not the same thing as あかいです. The video explains.
This is one of those few cases where we really do have to say "they just do". In these cases the stem of the adjective (minus its dynamic element, い) is used as if it were an adjectival noun. 大きい and 小さい are the commonest candidates for this, but it does occasionally happen in some other cases too. It feels a little more childish and story-book sometimes. It is strictly non-standard in modern Japanese, but feels friendly.
Literally my thoughts reading the first panels of One Piece with 「ここは 小さな 港村だ」 The explanation of "It feels a little more childish and story-book sometimes." makes sense since it is on the narrator box.
I recently am starting studying again after forgetting Japanese 3, i came across this channel again which really helped me 4 years ago. i heard she passed away... RIP you were truly an eye opening teacher for studying japanese. you will be missed
She what?
@@BATMAN10N passed away
So enlightening. Thank you. The world lost something beautiful when you passed from it, but there is such a thing as inherited will. We will carry forward your legacy of making Japanese make sense.
I haven't learned about this use of the "de" particle yet but this really blew my mind, thanks Cure Dolly for spending a lot of time coming up with the best possible explanation for us, I love your lesson so much
If you're learning japanese, you MUST watch this video. This one is so eye opening
Ah, Cure Dolly, I have never seen or heard of a better Japanese teacher than you; you changed everything about my Japanese learning. After years of hearing people say things like, "Japanese is a devil of a language," you are the first person I've ever come in contact with who seemed to love Japanese even more than I do! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your work.
R.I.p she was such a good teacher
Literally mind-blowing... I had to pick up the pieces on the floor. Thank you so much for this video!
I'm very happy that it helped. I really don't know why they never tell people these things!
My son is also to start learning Japanese soon in school (I have been at it almost two years now...). I can't wait to share your treasure box of knowledge with him!
That’s so sweet, lol. 🥺
@@MB-gl2bl A troll in Japanese? Yo-kai da yo!
I've been at a Japanese school for 4 months and had no idea every day when the teacher asked me about na and I adjectives. you literally solved that in 8 minutes. Thank you so much.
So happy to help.
I'm speechless.... I'm just learning japanese but adjectives were specially difficult for me, thank you for breaking it down so easily!!
Your videos are by far the most helpful I’ve ever seen for learning Japanese. Thank you so much for making them
Thank you so much for your kind appreciation.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49I just started learning a few weeks ago and this clarified so much. I can't believe this isn't the normal explanation.
@@AFPinerosGNot sure if you’re aware but just letting you know that Cure dolly has passed a while ago. She sadly wont see your response :/
@@user72939xke Yeha, I learned that after watching her last video... I didn't even know her but it is sad to see such a great teacher leave us.
Algorithm just recommend this video, click on t
First seconds of this video: wtf is that 3D model speaking with AI voice, looks bad, almost skip it
First minute: realize taht this is exaclty that type of approach and knowledge I need
End of the video: so grateful
Going to the comment section: learning that this teacher passed away...
well, I discover you late sensei but just want to know, even in heaven you just lighted up a candle in that chaotic language ocean I have to master. I will be disciplined until I succeed to honour you. hope you are at peace wherever you are.
This lesson on い and な adjectives is wonderful. ありがと ございます
yooo this blows my mind thanks so much! boutta hit my teacher with some straight facts
also, you're still responding to comments, even though this was posted two years ago! that's amazing. keep up the amazing work~
Thank you so much! I never really understand the idea of declaring threads "dead" after a certain time - at least not when they are about topics of perpetual interest. If these videos were relevant when I made them, they are relevant today. If they are not relevant today, then they were never relevant. I suppose the "necro" notion comes from the world of "news" where today's "most important thing in the world" is tomorrow's forgotten trivia.
Of course if I get so busy I can't manage to answer all comments I will have to stop, but until then I treat all comments equally regardless of the age of the video. If the video is still valuable, comments on it are also valuable. If it isn't still valuable I should probably take it down!
This channel is gold!!! OMG!! thank u so much for making these videos
And thank you for your kind comment! I'll go on trying hard.
I'm having lunch and randomly clicked on this video and got so much japanese grammar explained (and understood!) before I even finished a few bites of food.
I wish I could click the "like" button a thousand times. I have your book, and read it through quite a few months back, but I forgot about this lesson. THIS MAKES IT SO EASY!
So glad it helped. I think the video format can be useful for reinforcing the book lessons.
Unrelated but I love your profile picture! Loved kirby from the "something about" series!
mind blown…! Thank you. I wished I found your channel sooner, Japanese felt harder and harder starting from N4 onwards, but you broke it down so effectively.
Rest in peace. Thank you for your lesson
Pure gold right here. Adjectives have been a black hole for me. I did have to look up what exactly "aka" is grammatically cuz it is still an adjective in English. I presume the Japanese think of it as "the red" ?
Thank u for this short but informative video.
Woah that was so mindblowing I still gotta pick my pieces off the floor. Thank you so much for this lesson!
Wow! That makes so much more sense. Some of the info I had heard before but this really added so much more. I hadn't realize the で used with な adjectives was really a form of だ. It makes a lot more sense knowing that.
honestly this just brings me a smile
I will forever question why my textbook couldn't take a page to explain this. Thanks!
I just ordered your book - arriving in 2 days.
どうもありがとうございます೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨ がんばってください。
本当にすごい。どうもありがとうございました。レッスンをすごく役に立てる！🙇🏻♂️
OMG!!! 本当にありがとうございます!! I hate when they tell you how to do, and when to do, but not Why we do! You're amazing and I love you. I was trying to figure out why and what the difference was between い and な today and I'm so glad I clicked on this video first. I don't like when language learning materials just expect you to memorize information. And although I understand that there are exceptions it still helps to have fundamental knowledge on what you're doing before you can properly use what you've learned. Give me the rules, some examples, and I can figure the rest out myself!! I'm subscribed. Keep up the good work!!
Thank you so much! As far as adjectives are concerned there are really no exceptions (except for いい which is slightly irregular, becoming よい in past, negative etc.)
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 *takes note* Thank you please keep up the good work 😆👍
Cure dolly - Sensei, You are truly the best teacher. I can't state it enough times but you are really a goddess of teaching japanese. Your videos taught me stuff in a month that textbooks/websites couldn't teach me in a year
Thank you. I am so happy to help.
I really appreciate the tidbit about desu in -na and -i adjectives because it drove me crazy. Thanks! :)
At one point I felt like I was about to cry because of the catharsis of pent up confusion clearing into what felt like total clarity-like someone who was blind experiencing sight. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
As a matter of fact, when I _first_ started learning Japanese, I didn’t know *anything* at all (naturally) and I forget where it was exactly but I found the book Unlocking Japanese on the internet, and it sounded perfect. I ordered it and was shocked how small it was! I though I was in for a textbook or something, lol
It was funny how much I could understand even with very little to know working knowledge at all (except probably XはYです that I’d learned like two days earlier)
Although I did end up getting lost in the explanation of は vs が and put it down to come back to when I had learned a bit more, I was always, always grateful to the way it framed the entire learning process for me right from the beginning. Fast forward months and months and I had told myself that it was time to go back and reread it now. It’s been on my nightstand for a couple days as I type this! I can’t believe I just found the companion channel to it too! I’m soooo happy :-)
I found this because I was just learning about verbs and adjectives, and I was wondering why な adjectives were so “weird” (but of course I knew it wasn’t _really_ weird, but just from my perspective-thanks to the book!) and was trying to find out more about the actual WHY. That’s when I stumbled on this video, and I couldn’t believe it when it said Cure Dolly! My interest was piqued. When you said い adjectives function basically as verbs and な adjectives function basically as nouns right at the start, it was huuuuuuuge lightbulb moment and I was immediately hooked. The video then proceeded to absolutely blow my mind, and if I didn’t know better I’d say my jaw literally dropped! I’m not sure though because I was so focused that I didn’t have the presence of mind to fully notice what was happening with my body at the time, ahaha
You are a massive blessing! From practically day 1 you’ve laid the foundation to my approach to Japanese language learning (and just as importantly how NOT to approach it!!), and just when I decided I had reached a level of experience with the language that I should tackle the book again (for real this time), I find your UA-cam channel too! This is amazing! I can’t thank you enough for all the trouble you’ve saved me from your framing of the language and the clarity you’ve already given me-which at this point just scratches the surface of what you have to teach
I really can’t thank you enough! God bless you, Cure Dolly! I have a special place in my heart for teaching, and your approach to it is both touching and inspiring. I do not say that lightly. Not only have you helped me so, so much, even when I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark, but I feel that if I ever become a teacher of any kind myself one day, I’ll be a much better one because of what you have taught me about the importance of spending a few minutes framing the entire learning process before you begin and seeing how elegantly it’s possible to let students see under the hood and explain why it works the way it does in such a simple way that both the newcomers and those with prior experience can both benefit from! I’ll never forget this.
Needless to say, I instantly subscribed and hit the bell button! I don’t want to miss anything, lol. So now not only will I be reading the book but watching your entire back-catalogue of content! Thank you again, 先生 🙏！
Looking at it now I recall that I put it down when I got to chapter 7 (the one you said was the final puzzle piece to you which told you the time was right to publish the book) because that was where it got so far over my head that it was virtually pointless to keep reading at that stage, haha. It was far too early for me to see the whole picture in the way you were describing, like explaining the size and shape of the Earth to an ant-so far outside its ability to grasp that it wouldn’t be able to even make sense of the basics of what you’re talking about much less truly understand it, even if it could verbally communicate as well as any human! lol
Already in chapter two (after a _very_ short chapter one), I can’t stop laughing to myself about how much sense it makes! It’s sooooooo simple. Oh my goodness, it’s almost embarrassing that I didn’t fully grasp this the first time I read this, but of course the truth is I just needed more exposure to the language first (input)
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience in detail. It is precisely because I know this approach can revolutionize how people see and learn Japanese that I keep going with it. _Unlocking Japanese_ is a small book intended mainly for people who already know some conventional "Japanese grammar" - the aim is to correct the various confusions that the conventional approach sows in the mind. At that stage I was not thinking of explaining the language from scratch from an organic/structural point of view (a very big task).
After making a lot of videos (all the green-chalkboard ones) which had a similar focus - and after lots of people had asked me "where do I go to learn from scratch?" and in all conscience I couldn't recommend any existing source - I decided to bite the bullet and start a complete from-scratch course. It is here: ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
I am planning to turn this into a book (or rather a series of books) and have started work in that. It won't really be a textbook (with exercises and strange stilted dialogs) so much as a complete explanation of the structure of the language, starting from the basic structure of a sentence (like the series).
I also have in mind a supporting series with increasingly complex narratives (starting from _very_ simple) but that is probably some way off yet.
That’s amazing to hear! Thank you for the link. I will be checking that out for sure as well as sharing it with anyone who inquired about where to start learning Japanese. I also look forward to the book series. And, although you said it’s still a ways off, I very much look forward to the narratives of increasing complexity as a companion to it. That sounds like an invaluable resource!
And as a bonus, I live in an area with tons and tons of Spanish speakers. Although I’ve never tried learning Spanish officially (I took French in school), I’ve absorbed a bit from living around it my whole life. “Me gusta...” has always alluded and intrigued me. Your example of using me gusta even helped my understanding of Spanish! ^.^
I plan on learning multiple languages, so not only have you helped my Japanese and my Spanish, but I am now a *firm* supporter of taking each language on its own terms! (The tricky part is just finding out what exactly that is when you know nothing about the language yet 😬. Thankfully, I have a lot of help from you and your colleagues for the language I want to learn the most and am the most serious about)
And thank you for your reply! I read a comment of yours on here that you don’t understand the idea of a “dead thread” and I totally agree with you! There’s no reason why these types of discussions should have a very short time limit. Especially vexing is when it’s a forum that actually forcibly locks the comment section down! So frustrating. I appreciate your work and taking the time to respond. Thank you again!
You finally helped demystify the inscrutable and oddly godly-like fearsome arcana of the proper usage of Na after an Na adjective. I feel so.... Like I have overcome an insuperable enemy that jeered at my every effort, now I have bested it. Thank you! Definitely will subscribe. Ahh lastly, I must apologized... I was reluctant to learn from you simply from the stupid prejudice that only a Nihonjin can teach Nihongo.. But what I failed to realize is that a westner can often simplify more abstruse subjects because they understand exactly how i think and formulate a sentence syntactically from an english viewpoint. Thank you !
Very valuable information. Thank you again Cure-Dolly Sensei! I was very happy to get your book. It has great info in there and I'm happy to support you!
And thank you! I'm so happy to be able to help.
I figured this out just before visiting your website. I read someone's comment on the forming of Japanese adjectives. He said most adjectives were just verbs. And before I read his article, I actually somehow figured this out. In fact, it is NOT limited to Japanese adjectives, but adjectives in almost the entire East Asia. Perhaps this is the way the people in East Asia all share. Adjectives are nothing more than some descriptions of some states of being. But each state of being is a result of some actions of something. But all matters are created by actions. So, essentially all nouns, adjectives, verbs are basically verbs, i.e., the result of a sequence of actions. That's perhaps why you can STACK verbs together. One action leading to another action leading to another action and so on.
What?
Mandarin Chinese is quite a substantial language in East Asia. Adjectives in Chinese are not in fact verbs.
"Adjectives are nothing more than some descriptions of some states of being."
Well, yes, because they are adjectives... i.e. aspects of substantives, which are beings... This is the classical definition of an adjective (in all the senses of that word).
"essentially all nouns, adjectives, verbs are basically verbs, i.e., the result of a sequence of actions"
Er, no.
E.g. 味道很重，天氣很好，雨很大. 重, 好 and 大 are not verbs. No-one 好s the weather.
An easier way to look at Chinese adjectives is that they do not bother with the redundant English copula "be" and all its forms. Nor should they: it's completely unnecessary.
@@EdwardLindon Anything in Chinese can be created by just using VERBS. Chinese is a verb based language. You can create nouns, adjustives, and basically any part of speech from verbs. And many different parts of speech are interchangeable, meaning that the same word can be a noun, an adjustive, a verb, ... In Cantonese, the six tones allow you to pronounce the same word differently, depending on the part of speech that you use that word for. I am probably the only person on this planet who truly understands the very foundation of the tonal structure of Cantonese, including the the reason behind using tones in a language, how the tonal structure is related to the pentatonic scale in music, how the tonal structure affects the grammar of a spoken tonal language, .. . LOL
I really wish your videos would get more attention. Every lesson I've watched, I've managed to learn something new! ありがとう先生
Heh, I wish they would too. But the channel is growing slowly. People take time to get used to droids maybe.
2:45 Is the 'ga' in the hana ga akai desu object or subject? Subject makes sense, but I heard that it was actually object used with suki so could you please explain that (with suki)?
が never, never, never at any time marks anything other than the subject. People who say "が can sometimes mark the object" are basing themselves on completely flawed and misleading models of Japanese. Please see this video for further explanation ua-cam.com/video/vk3aKqMQwhM/v-deo.html
Thank you so much! 🥳🥳
Thank you so much for the breakdown! Now I understand. I have subscribed and I will watch more, I think it will help me a lot.
Thank you very much.
Very useful please keep continue to give this kind of tips thanks 😊😊
yes I'll keep going!
This has helped me tremendously. I have just begun my foray into na and i adj. Glad I didn't have to learn a whole bunch of nonsense before understanding the roots of their usage.
I'm happy to hear that you got this information early - it makes everything so much easier!
Thank you. You cleared up the one thing I was struggling with. I didn’t know how な and だ were the same.
I am very happy to hear that I was able to help.
Thank you so much for explaining. I always suspected the i-adjective to have da/desu on board, and now I know for sure. Your explanation makes total sense to me 👍👍👍
Thank you! It just amazes me that all the standard texts and schools teach adjectives without _telling_ people this. It's so fundamental that it seems crazy leaving people to try to guess it out for themselves. There are many other cases where they do the same - which is why I'm making all these videos!
Hi,
I have a question regarding na-adjectives:
Can every noun (or basically anything that can be coupled to a noun with copula) act as a na-adjective?
For example, if I say:
"Kanojo ga haha desu. (The woman is a mother.)
Haha-na kanojo wa aruku. (Mother-is woman is cute.)"
or
"Otoko ga boku no tomodachi desu. (The man is my friend.)
Ore no tomodachi na otoko wa neru. (Is-my-friend man sleeps.)"
Would they be gramatically correct (even though probably quite uncommon and unnatural)? If not, why?
P.S.: I know that "no" can be used here which would give a very similar meaning but I wonder whether it is doable in this way.
No, only some nouns are adjectival nouns. These will be labeled (criminally) "na-adj" or such in your dictionary.
From what I found the chiisai i-adjective can also sometime be used as chiisana as if it's NA adjective and it seem to be acceptable as well, though I don't know why, for example: chiisana hana to kawaii hana. Correct me if I'm wrong?
Yes, this is acceptable as well. It's just a quirk of Japanese. The chiisa noun-form tends to sound a bit more quaint and child-like than the regular chiisai adjective-form.
Wow, that s an amazing explanation, textbook don t get into that saying it s an advanced features, well, you did a great job explaning it in 8 min.
Thank you so much! We can do the same for Japanese as a whole! ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
I don't know whether I should focus on the japanese lesson or think to how cute the doll is.
Thank you, thank you! We have a special offer this week that lets you do both!
^_^
I am studying in a school in Kyoto now but still, there are many things that you will never be told.
It's up to us to catch them.
I subscribed to the channel, I think this is really a good one.
There are things that it is hard for Japanese speakers to understand that foreigners need to know - that is true of any language of course. And because Western Japanese grammar doesn't address it properly either it makes it hard to find some things out. In the end you just pick them up from use - the way native speakers do, but that takes many years, so I think we can find a quicker way!
Kyoto is beautiful isn't it? I only managed to get there twice - and once was when I missed getting off the Shinkansen at Nagoya so I had to go straight back without leaving the station! I'm quite jealous! Best advice: use Japanese all the time. Avoid English-speaking bubbles.
I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful time and your Japanese becomes perfect. But even if it isn't perfect, use it, use it, use it. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good!
頑張ってください。
Ohh thank you so much ^_- ♥~
I understand that, well just keep studying and practising :D
Kyoto is really beautiful, everytime I go back to Italy I feel discontent..
See you in the next video CureDolly ~
I know just how you feel. Yes, please study and practice, but also remember that Japanese isn't just for studying and practicing. It's for living and loving೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨
Great content! Keep up the good work!
Arigatou gozaimasu!
This unlocked it for me, thank you so much.
I am happy to hear that.
Happy Day today because I stumble across this marvelous series of lessons. Thank you Sensei.
Thank you so much. I hope they help you a lot. If you have any problems or questions, please feel free to ask.
Great content and your judgement on pace, level, and amount of information is spot on. Amazing. Thanks so much for sharing your hard won insights.
And thank you so much for your kind appreciation. I'll go on trying hard.
I think I understand why this isnt in beginners books...;) But a really good explanation.
I don't understand why. It just fills people's minds with a spaghetti of random facts that they can't make any sense of.
ああ！すごい！今分かりました！ 先生、ありがとうございます！
どういたしまして。お役に立てて嬉しいです。
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 すみません、日本語は下手です。先々月から今まで日本語は練習しました。先生の声はイギリス人のアクセントのようだ。イギリス人ですか？
@@Hatohime 私は人間ではなくて、アンドロイドなのです。
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 なるほど！ 面白い~ ( 僕の頭は悪かった)
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 今アンドロイドの声はいいです。２ｘspeedで聞きました。動画で声は人間ではない！気付きませんでした
Mindblown 🤯
Thank you 先生
I am glad to help.
Thank you so much for this!
In your article you talk about 小さい and 大きい (plus some other more adjectives) being turned into na adjectives to make them look childish; is it the same with 新しい and 新たな?
No. あらた is not the same as 新しい - the た and ら are reversed - it is a different though related word and while it works as an adjectival noun it also exists independently as a noun in its own right.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 So basically they are two different words with a very similar meaning. 新しい is an i Adjective and 新た is just a noun, and as a noun it can be turned into a na Adjective, did I understand correctly?
@@Adridle Yes, that is correct. Obviously they are close relations, but they are different words.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you so much!
Nobody has told you that "na is da" because it isn't. It's closer to being a specialized form of "no" that applies to nominal adjectives. So, "kirei na hana" can be literally glossed into English as "prett(iness)'s flower" or "flower of prett(iness)." That's not a good translation because that's not what Japanese people mean when they say that, but functionally, that's what's happening.
The part about i-adjs being quasi-verbs and na-adjs being nouns is true, though.
Also -- and I can't stress this enough -- Japanese is what's called in linguistics a "verb-final language." That means that, with the exception of certain particles and conjunctions, the verb comes at the end of the clause, certainly not between a nominal adjective and the noun it's modifying.
Thanks for the lesson!!
Wow I’m learning Japanese and I thought I had to learn all the adjectives for Japanese and I did ask my self that too why not understand just casual form first and then learn formal otw as you learn. What I like about this video you didn’t confuse me and teach formal and Causal you literally taught the casual which I wanna speak casually in Japanese, I feel like if your speaking formals that’s for business thanks I am watching your playlist of videos now on Japanese hopefully you see this ありかとう
You need formal for a lot of situations, but "casual" isn't just casual. It is basic Japanese. You need to know that first before you start adding the decorations, because if you don't you end up thinking (like most learners) that the decorations are part of the structure of the language. And they aren't. And if you think they are you are really handicapping your understanding of how the language really works.
THANK YOU I OWE YOU ONE!
This is amazing...but can you please give examples where more than two adjectives are used...thankyou very much
You stack them in just the same way (though it can start sounding excessive with more than three).
Wow mind blowing thank you kawa sensie💓
A bit confusing to say NA adjectives are nouns, if they were truly nouns, then you should be able to say something like;
Taihen GA sukii desu. But you cant because taihen is not a thing you can like, you must add the word thing.
For example;
I like hard(difficult) things.
Taihen NA koto GA sukii desu.
Cure dolly uses similar inflection and word choice as Alan Watts.
バレちゃった。
なんちゃって_へ__(‾◡◝ )>
CureDolly, I have a resource that says that na actually works "somewhat like no", so "Kirei na hon" would be "Book of beauty." or "Book of prettyness." But here you said that it is like the copula da, I wonder what you think about this.
Yes they work similarly but that na is not _like_ the copula da - it _is_ the copula da in its connective form. So kirei na hon actually means kirei-da hon (is-pretty book). It is important to know this because you will encounter this da-as-na in a lot of casual sentence endings (obviously where another particle or something else follows it since it is the _connective_ form of da: ua-cam.com/video/oayY4kBHGlM/v-deo.html ).
It is true that there are "no adjectives" and "na adjectives" (both really nouns) and that no and na work pretty much identically in practice (in these cases - not otherwise), but they are not in fact identical grammatically and it muddles one's understanding if one thinks they are.
In some cases no and na can be used for the same "adjective". So 不思議 (fushigi - wonder, mysterious) is usually classed as a na-adjective but it can also take no, as in 不思議の国のアリス (Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu - Alice in Wonderland). Is there a difference? Yes, a small but significant one:
* Fushigi na kuni =fushigi-da kuni = mysterious-is country = mysterious country.
* Fushigi no kuni can be read as "country of mysteries/wonders" (fushigi na kuni can't), which gets us a little closer to "Wonderland", which is presumably why the translators chose it.
These are subtle nuances, but they are based on the fact that while the connective-copula and the no-particle are used in the same way they are not grammatically doing the same thing. It doesn't matter too much here but it does matter for one's overall grasp of the language to know what that na really is.
Incidentally, 不思議 fushigi is also used as a stand-alone noun as in 七不思議 nana fushigi - seven wonders.
ADDENDUM: _The following note is perhaps more for grammar wonks so feel free to ignore it if it is confusing_
In Japanese a na-adjective is called a 形容動詞 keiyoudoushi and it _includes the na_ - so the the na-adjective is not kirei it is kireina. Why? Because when we add the copula to a noun we turn it into a predicate. So we are using kireina to predicate prettiness of the book. No does not form a predicate. The only things that can form predicates in Japanese are verbs, i-adjectives and the copula, cf the first lesson in my Organic Japanese series which teaches the three types of Japanese sentence:
ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
"Adjectival no" assigns a noun to a particular class of entities indicated by another noun (thus in practice working adjectivally). This function, understood correctly, flows logically from the other functions of no. cf our lesson on the no particle:
ua-cam.com/video/5IzL2Q5xgGQ/v-deo.html
Consequently we may also note that where a choice of "adjectival" na or no is made, no pushes things toward the "noun"-end of the spectrum. This is also why no can be used to "adjectivize" words that are normally nouns while na is most often used in the case of adjectival nouns that are never, or rarely, used as stand-alone nouns, such as kirei.
Thank you very much for the comprehensive response, I think that's a very important topic to understand correctly. So you said that na makes a nouns a predicate, would it be correct then to say that "Kirei na hon" is "Book of prettyness" or "Book of beauty." in a translation to English?
There should be no "of" in rendering na. Na means "is" (in the copula sense): no means "of". so kirei na hon should be thought of as "IS-pretty book" (kirei-da hon). Densetsu NO senshi (legendary hero) can be thought of as "Hero OF legend", but where na is concerned we need to drop the "of" idea altogether. This may seem like a minor point but it will really help to keep things straight as you go along.
Thank you, that's a great insight into the language.
KawaJapa CureDolly I was also wondering about the no-no in the title:
不思議の国のアリス. I need a settling in period in which these new concepts will come together...
6:26 Mind = Blown
Super helpful videos as always!
If we combine a na 'adjective' with an i adjective,
my intuition would tell me to have the i adjective modify the na 'adjective' which would then modify the noun?
Ie, 小さい有名な食事。Is that right? Or are there different rules when combing the two together?
There isn't a rule here other than that the noun has to come last. Two stacked adjectivals aren't necessarily modifying each other, they can be, as it were, lining up to modify the noun independently. The て-form has this stacking "and" effect. In general the adjective nearer to the noun carries more emphasis and can (but doesn't necessarily) imply a closer relation to the noun (specifying its type). So きれいで安いレストラン can tend to imply a "cheap-restaurant" that is pretty, while 安くてきれいなレストラン can tend to imply a "pretty-restaurant that is cheap" but this is quite subtle and rarely makes any great difference to what we are saying.
This makes sense to me, it's one area i needed an alternative view point - but i don't like every other sentence bashing [whether intended or otherwise] other learning methods - i am going to assume you really don't get why this isn't taught, and UA-cam comments aren't the place to say it, but can i suggest your video wasn't the place to continuously claim confusion either
There is reason for the so-called "bashing". Just about every prestigious source is disseminating misleading information on these subjects. Naturally most people reading the real explanations will think "the prestigious sources must also be correct of course so how do I marry this explanation with the other one?" This just leads to more confusion. Therefore it is incumbent on me to state plainly that they aren't reconcilable. One set of information is misleading and should never have been allowed out -however prestigious the source.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 oh ok i haven't come across any prestigious source that hasn't said learn from many places in as many ways as possible - if you have, and i'm guessing others have from the comments, then fair enough :) i'll just skip those bit and love the rest :D
@@finthegeek I agree that it is good to learn from multiple sources. Just be aware of the areas in which the conventional model (that they all use) is wrong or misleading. That's why I put up the red flags where necessary.
this will help alot the conjugations about some verbs wont confuse for now xD.
That's good.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 hello there sensei! i decided to watch all your japanease from scratch vids hopefully it covers all i need.
It is very useful.Keep it up.
Thank you! I will keep going!
mind blowing! thank you!
Is there a way to tell the difference between a 'na' adjective and an 'i' adjective before you apply these rules? If both end in 'i', how would one know whether to use it as an i adjective or apply na or da? That's the bit that's stumping me.
"Na adjectives" are actually nouns, so it's a good idea to remember that to begin with. Most don't end in い but a few do. It is also very, very very important to think in Japanese script not romaji. This eliminates most of the problem. They don't have to end in i. They have to end in い this eliminates all the ones that end in き or ち or anything in the い-row other than い itself - even though they all end in i in romaji. Then there are a few (count on fingers of one hand few for common ones) that actually do end in い - きれい, ゆいめい and きらい are the main ones. And guess what? If you know the kanji, only one of them really ends in い - because and adjective has to end in a loose い - it can't be part of a kanji. So 有名 is tthe way ゆうめiい is written in grown-up writing. _Anything written in all-kanji is a noun,_ So we know it is an adjectival noun (so-called na-adjective), not an adjective. If you don't know much kanji yet just remember that adjectives must end in い, not just i. If you don't know kana yet, for heaven's sake learn it. You are going nowhere without it.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I have learned kana, but both examples you gave ended in い so I didn't know how to tell them apart.
@@squeakelite7148 There are a few that do (and fewer but still a few that have an actual "loose" い even when written in kanji). Not many and one just has to know them.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 You make a good point about using romanji too much, though I wondered - do you use a Japanese keyboard or programme? Or just translate it on a site and cut and paste it here?
@@squeakelite7148 You can type Japanese on a romaji keyboard. Just go to the keyboard settings on your computer and set it up - it's very simple. I actually type directly in kana which I recommend but that takes a little more setting up. I made a video on that here: ua-cam.com/video/NlbSSejjM1k/v-deo.html
i kind of wish the audio was a bit clearer i do like the visuals
This lesson is so awesome and helpful, thank you so so much!
Thank _you_ so much!
You were right, my textbook doesn't mentionany of this AT ALL!, and it begins by teaching the masu, desu forms first!, thanks a lot this really put things into perspective! :D
You're so right! I think there's a popular Japanese study book that despite the great reviews on Amazon, it makes these mistakes too.
I think they nearly all do. Some explain parts of it properly, but I haven't seen one that actually explains the whole structure - and really an incomplete structure isn't much better than none of it. The whole point is that this grammar is not made up of random unconnected "bits": it is a logical, beautiful interlocking whole. I find it sad that no one seems to be teaching this.
I have ordered your book from your Amazon link. I'm in England and flying to Japan on the 26th of December for a new job. I have lived in Japan before in Tochigi as an English teacher, this time I'll be in the Saitama area and I do not want to rely on my cell phone apps to assist me with Japanese this time! I'm really enjoying your videos and love the logical way you present the information. Your book will be a Christmas present to myself that I'll save to read for the airport and flight to Narita. Merry Christmas to you and thank you for your help and good fortune with your videos etc for next year! :)
Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful time in Japan. How nice that you will get to enjoy お正月 there. I hope your Japanese journey goes well and please never hesitate to ask if I can help with anything. I am looking forward to another year of making videos and I have a new book out pretty soon (much bigger than Unlocking Japanese and this time on kanji - but that's all I can say just now!) Have a wonderful Christmas. Even though you'll be preoccupied with flying the next day I hope you have a a lot of fun and happiness.
PS - by "Japanese journey" I meant language - but both journeys, physical and linguistic, of course!
This is amazing thank you for sharing. これはめっちゃすごい
And now I know すごい already has da in it!
Thank you - I'm happy it helped!
Why have I never seen your videos!! Thankss
Thank you! I'm rather little-known at the moment, but I think I have an important message, so I hope I will gain traction over time!
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Totally! You definitely deserve more attention. Your videos are very useful and interesting!
@@anxishit1331 Thank you! I'll keep going!
sensei, how about the so-called 連体詞 ? do you have a lesson about it? i just don't understand how ちいさい can be ちいさな sometimes and i can't seem to find answers anywhere.
I don't see the problem here. In a limited number of cases the stem of an adjective is used as an adjectival noun. It can't be a real adjective if it doesn't end in い and it isn't a verb, so if it exists at all it has to work as a noun, and clearly it does exist. What more do we need to know?
So whereas i-adjectives hide the 'da' inside, with na-adjectives the 'da' *can be* hidden within 'desu'. Should 'desu' be though of as nothing more than a politeness that can in some cases subsume the necessary grammar?
だ and です are grammatically the same thing (です is the formal/polite version of だ). However in some cases (notably adjectives) です can be popped onto the end as a mere formality-marker with no grammatical function. This is why expressions like アイスクリームがおいしいです have the grammatically redundant です attached, but in plain speech do not have だ.
Because the textbooks never explain the non-grammatical, pure-formality nature of this です people naturally become confused about what is going on.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Ah, this would have been Guess B :) Ive already said it only an hour ago, but thanks a lot for this! You're content provides so much more insight and your book (Unlocking Japanese?) really helped me get through the initial fog
edit: I read through Unlocking Japanese again this week and was embarrassed to find that this exact question was addressed...apologies!
Dear sensei, Your explaination is great, the channel does help me a lot. I have a question about da/na. I 've read from the text book, when a na-adjective goes with kara then it should be connected to kara by "da", but when it goes with "node" then "na" is used instead of da. Is there any reason behind that ? Is there any rule for us to apply ? And what's more, i have heard that there are some grammatical cases both da/na should not in, like kamo shiremasen. Thank you very much.
Good question. first of all "na-adjective connected to kara by da" is the kind of textbook explanation that is misleading. The so-called "na-adjective" is _an adjectival noun including the copula_ - when the copula is da it completes a clause. When it is na it is joining the adjectival noun to something else.
So da isn't there to connect to kara, but to complete the clause. Kara then works to tell us a new clause is coming which will be the result of the first clause (or sometimes that it happened after the first clause).
Kara is a conjunction. That means that it connects one complete clause to another. You can only put kara and other conjunctions between two finished, complete clauses that could be sentences in themselves. No de is also a conjunction, but one little quirk of Japanese is that whenever da is followed by no it becomes na. This also happens in the casual sentence-ender na no and I made a video about that here ua-cam.com/video/oayY4kBHGlM/v-deo.html - it's a bit more advanced than this series so please just ignore it if it is confusing to you at this stage.
So kara and no de are really equivalent (no de is more formal) but we do need to remember that little na-no rule. I think it is really a "what sounds best" rule, like "a" vs "an" in English.
As for kamoshiremasen - that gets taught as a word meaning maybe, but it is actually a logical phrase made up of ka, mo, shire (potential stem of shiru, know) and nai (or masen) I explained that at the end of this video about mo ua-cam.com/video/00nKUtmnzvI/v-deo.html - again if it is above your current level just ignore it.
But what we do need to know here is that kamoshiremasen starts with the question-particle ka. What that particle does when it isn't marking an actual question is that it turns the clause preceding it into a "question" to be considered. (so kamoshiremasen literally means "as for that question (the preceding clause) I can't go so far as to know".
Now this non-sentence-ending ka always replaces the copula if there is one - or perhaps more accurately it acts like a kind of questioning-making-copula. You'll find this in other uses, whether the ka is on its own or in set phrases like ka-dou-ka (whether or not).
I hope this is clear and please feel free to come back with more questions if it isn't.
Dear sensei, thank you very much for your great help. So, if "Ka" is used as an ending sentence word then it keeps the preceding copula, but when it is a non-sentence-ending then it will replace the preceding copula if there is one. Is that right ? And how about "Deshou" ? Deshou also drops the preceding Da ? Do we have a general rule for that kind of replacement ? You are the best Japanese teacher i have ever been taught. The way you explain Japanese grammar is logical to me, it makes Japanese become so beautiful to me. I can not wait to get your book. Thank you sensei.
Thank you so much for your kind words! Actually in plain speech when ka is used as a sentence ender, it does not usually have the copula as well (in fact I can't recall ever seeing da ka).
With desu it does. We say desu-ka of course. But desu/masu is full of eccentricities that you don't find in the rest of Japanese which is why I think it is a very bad idea to start off with desu/masu form (video on that here ua-cam.com/video/mg6-BEodLXQ/v-deo.html )
Teaching desu/masu form as if it were basic Japanese gives all kinds of weird ideas that can take people years to unlearn - and many never do.
The other way around - learning plain basic Japanese and then learning to attach the oddities of desu/masu at a later stage is a much, much better way of learning. Desu/masu isn't particularly difficult to add once you know the fundamental structure, but it is difficult and confusing to _de-construct_ when you believe that it _is_ the fundamental structure.
That is why in my Organic Japanese course I teach plain Japanese, hardly referring to desu/masu at all in the early part of the course ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html
Sorry for the slight digression.
Deshou does not drop a preceding da, because it _is_ a form of the copula. It is the desu-version of darou, which is the volitional form of da.
Thank you very much sensei. These points are clear to me. I have bought and read through your book. There is a point in the book that i do not understand. I should not put it here because the video is about an other topic. However i do not know where to raise my question to you, so i will ask here, if you dont mind. The question 's about "The simple secret of SOU". I understand the points you have made, except one thing. In the book You explain that we can make a na-adjective by adding SOU to mase-stem of the verb. It is wonderful, because i remember that we can do a similar thing with KATA. But I also know that we can add a verb (full verb) with KOTO to make a noun (and as you have said it is a kind of Na adj). My question is what happens with KOTO ? Why "piano wo hiku koto ga dekiru" but not hiki koto like kata, or sou in the book ? Thank you very much sensei. And by the way, may i suggest that if possible please explain about Japanese vocabulary. There are some words such as hazukashi, and muzukashi. I wonder if there is any secret behind that, why they are so similar.
Koto (and also the so called nominalizing no ( ua-cam.com/video/Bq3GO63D9bw/v-deo.html ) when put after a verb or a verb-phrase have the function of turning the verb (or bundling the whole phrase) into the "nominalizing" word (koto or no) so if I say _umi de oyogu koto ga tanoshii_ and we analyze it in train-terms:
(if you need to refresh your memory on the train model of Japanese sentences see the Organic Japanese series ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html )
The A-car of that train is koto and the engine is tanoshii.
So the core sentence is koto ga tanoshii
Umi de oyogu (swim in the sea) which could be a sentence in itself is now a white car and white engine which are telling us more about the black A car, koto.
So you see that what is going on here is something different from just turning oyogu into a compound word (which we could do by saying oyogikata - way of swimming).
I hope this clarifies the matter.
On adjectives ending in shii - there are a lot of them, and obviously they are i-adjectives in structure and meaning. There is nothing different about the way they work from other i-adjectives. There is a strong tendency for adjectives ending in shii to be about "non-quantifiable" things and human reactions. As in your examples. Muzukashii is not a definite quality like red or heavy, but a human reaction. Sad, happy, beautiful, fun, etc all have shii adjectives. However this isn't an absolute rule, only a very strong tendency.
But here is a very important note. The words are not (as you write) muzukashi or hazukashi but muzukashii and hazukahsii. We have been carrying out this discussion in romaji because you seem more comfortable with that, but you very seriously need to leave romaji behind as early as possible.
Even if you are working in all-hiragana without knowing any kanji, (or even katakana) it is important to stop thinking of Japanese words in romaji terms. Because in all sorts of ways this will distort your understanding of the words and the structure of the language.
This is a case in point. The adjectives in question _couldn't_ be むずかし and はずかし and you can see why the minute you see them in hiragana. All い-adjectives end in い. That is why we call them い-adjectives. But these "words" (they don't exist in Japanese) end in し so even if they did exist they couldn't be い-adjectives.
To English ears and romaji eyes muzukashi and muzukashii might look and sound like pretty much the same thing. But that is precisely _why_ we have to stop thinking in romaji. Much of what happens in Japanese (including the all-important stem-system ( ua-cam.com/video/FhyrskGBKHE/v-deo.html ) depends on seeing Japanese sounds in kana-terms.
Conversely many of the horribly confusing and illogical "explanations" in the standard textbooks stem from continuing to discuss Japanese as if it were reducible to romaji and were "really" a set of romaji sounds.
So if you haven't learned hiragana yet that should be the very next item on your agenda. If you have, you should start thinking of and using words as hiragana entities, not romaji ones.
How do you use さ and み at the end of い adjectives and how do they differ? (重さ重み悲しさ悲しみ) ? I can't find any results when looking them up, I think they're both turning the adjectives into nouns but I can't really think of anything past that.
@UCkdmU8hGK4Fg3LghTVtKltQ On jisho it writes that both 重み and 重さ + 深み and 深さ are nominalizing the same thing while being common words without them having verb stem counterparts. I'm wondering if these have explainable different nuances. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding! m(_ _)m
@@whoopsieskk This is a little complex. With Chinese origin adjectives and adjectival nouns (all adjectival nouns are of Chinese origin) both forms of noun-nominalization exist. However the さ nominalization represents an "objective" quality and the み represents something more "subjective" - physically or emotionally "felt", such as weight 重み or thickness 厚み. These two are at the physical/objective end of the scale but still "experienced" subjective realities and the み puts them into their more "subjective" light and is also likely to be used when a more metaphorical sense is intended.
However in Japanese origin words, like 「痛み」「悲しみ」「苦しみ」「すごみ」「楽しみ」「懐かしみ」「哀れみ」we will find that there is a corresponding む-ending godan verb (痛む、悲しむ etc.) and the み-noun is really the い-stem of the verb, rather than a version of the adjective (though it doesn't make much practical difference since it is a noun either way).
Finally , while we can pretty much always use さ where it makes any sense to, in many cases we can't use み even if the word is "subjective" in nature - for example 綺麗さ but not 綺麗み. With Japanese origin words it depends if there is a corresponding む-ending godan verb, so for example even though 美しい is a very "subjective" word, one can't 美しむ so there is no 美しみ (this is fairly obvious because what would it mean to 美しむ anyway?)
This is the sort of thing that upsets conventional list-learners, but there is no need to be troubled in organic learning. You don't need to output what you don't know (there are always other ways of expressing it). You will know when you input and when you input enough you get the "feel" for it. No rush about that (other than of course inputting as much as possible all the time).
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you so much. So I guess み usually comes with a feel for personal subjectivity/experience from the example sentences that I've seen on sites like Jisho etc and most importantly as you've said :-). I actually found a good example of 重い vs 重たい the other day from a site that made me think of さ and み nominalization subjectivity differences but maybe I'm way off the mark
(（４） この猫は重い。８ｋｇもあるらしい。
（５） この猫は重たい。８ｋｇもある。
（６）△この猫は重たい。８ｋｇもあるらしい。
例文（４）は客観的事実を述べているだけで、話者が実際に猫を抱き上げたかどうかは問わず、８ｋｇもあるという事実から「重い」と判断しているだけです。
一方、例文（５）は話者自身が猫を抱き上げ、その重さを自ら実感した結果「重い」と判断しています。つまり「重たい」は実際に経験、実感したことに使いやすく、それが話者の感情を表すことに繋がっています。したがって例文（６）のように、「重たい」と話者の実感を伴わない伝聞の「らしい」が共存した文は不自然に感じられます。)
I think I have a basic sense of understanding さ vs み from some example sentences but I'll definitely make sure to pay attention to nuances and get more of an actual feel for it than translating it. ありがとうございます！^^
Love this. Thank you so much.
5:75 "ku" means "is", how did she comes to this ? earlier she said that the i means "is".
The value of this explanation is superb but voice is barely audible bcause of low quality and modulation. Im not native ENG speaker so its double hard for me. Either way it really helped me a lot to understand diffrence betwen "i" and "na" adjectives.
It is a rather old video and I think the sound quality has improved on my more recent ones, but in any case there are full and accurate subtitles on every video if you turn them on. Try my main series and see if you can hear better (if not try the subtitles): ua-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
Again.. Thank you so much! I understand it now.. You help me a lot! I've tried Genki book but it's too boring for me to self study with textbook and you as the teacher helps me a lot so.. I appreciate this so much. More content and God bless..
God bless you too, and I'll keep it coming!
This is very helpful! thanks
Thank you!
Great content, super helpful. But the voice seems to be a bit distracting , was it intentional? Clearer voice would make this video just perfect
It's just my voice. I have tried to find better microphones so I think it is somewhat clearer in later videos. I really try hard to make it so.
I always wondered why the knowledge of japanese hasn't evolved in the realm of linguistics, you have the type of knowledge that should've been put up front in scholarly materials.
With your knowledge of japanese I now question about how much languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and such are misunderstood because of this model of putting english grammar over everything.
Part of the trouble is that high-level academic papers on Japanese are written with all examples in romaji (so that general linguists can understand them). This obviously messes up conceptualization of things like the stem-system. Psychologically it also helps to cement the idea that Western concepts are Universals that can be used to explain everything else (rather than simply one system among others). I don't know a lot about other Asian languages but have certainly heard people who are knowledgeable about Korean say that very similar misconceptions are woven into the fabric of Western teaching of that language in much the way they are with Japanese.
thanks
wow.....incredible
What if the sentence is formal. Does きれいな花です make sense? Because if な = だ this would mean there is だ and です in one sentence.
な is basically an attributive version of だ, which is viceversa a predicative version of な, to put it simply. When you use な you're attributing a quality to an element of the sentence, while when you use だ you're predicating, id est you're stating that something is like that. even in a sentence like "this is a flower that is beautiful" you have two "is". Clearly this is a far-fetched example made just to make a point but I hope this was at least a bit helpful
Thank you Cure Dolly Sensei~ Your videos are easy to understand and very engaging. I look forward to the content you put up! ^O^
Thank you so much. Next video up on Saturday (late Friday in Japan) so please subscribe!
this account kinda freaks me out but the explanations are good
thanks
Thank you so much. Happy to know that I am succeeding in both my main aims.
Kirei *da te* yuumeii da is shortened as Kirei *de* yuumeii da?
No. The て-form of the copula is で, not だて. だて is a completely different word (a noun meaning elegance or dandyism).
cute + smart. Arigatou Cure sensei !
☆Curedolly☆ thank you for your amazing content. I have seen “it is a famous school” translated as ゆうめいなごっこうです. If だ is the same as な then in this case is the です simply there to make it formal?
The sentence here is actually (if you've followed my other videos) ∅がゆうめいながっこうです "[it is] a famous school" so the です is there to complete the sentence by linking back to the unseen "it". (If you aren't familiar with this concept, start here ua-cam.com/video/P3n8n0u3LHA/v-deo.html&list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj )
To clarify further, two copulas (だs) are actually required in this sentence - one to link the "famous" to the "school" and one to link the "famous school" to "it". To put the sentence into Japanese-English "It a famous-is school is" the two is'es are the two copulas.
Thank you for your reply! And thanks to you I am familiar with the unseen it :) I think my confusion lies with the fact that if な= だ and if だ essentially means “is”, then in the sentence ∅がゆうめいながっこうです aren’t there two instances of “is”? In my mind the translation for this would be: (it) is famous school is?
I wonder if you read my last reply in email. I actually added an extra part afterward which I think answered your question in advance. To sum up - Japanese adjectives always need "is" whether they come before or after the noun. In English they only need it when they come after (flower is red, but red flower". In Japanese real adjectives have the "is" built into them (which is why they don't need だ and only have です as a formality marker). So はながあかい, あかいはな: flower is red, is-red flower. Adjectival nouns don't have the だ built into them so they need it every time はながきれい、きれいなはな: flower is pretty, is-pretty flower. So
∅がゆうめいながっこうです
= it is a famous-is school.
Two copulas needed, which is why there are two.
You are my hero!!!! Yes, you were completely right I did open the reply in an email. It’s finally clicked and I will now eagerly move onto your next video lesson [:
Thank you so much! I'm very happy that I was able to help.
Seriously I started learning formal Japanese first and once I started getting into the informal I wished I learned informal first because I memorized all the verbs with imasu conjugation.
I know. It is so bad of the textbooks to do that. Then you have to reverse-engineer every verb to work out how it really works.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I've been using Japanese from zero and I've learned a lot but now I have to unlearn all the verbs to their dictionary form.
@@Rizztana Fortunately once you understand how verbs really work it isn't hard. Godan verbs: take off ます and turn the い-row kana that's left on the end into its う-row equivalent. Ichidan verbs: Just take off ます and add る (wherever the kana before ます _isn't_ from the い-row it _has_ to be ichidan).
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 are you native Japanese?
If you use きれいで有名だ as an adjective before a noun, would it become きれいで有名な？
Aloha...how do you know if a "na" is present in the adjective..I only read romanji
You learn hiragana immediately. Only using romaji is a dead end.
So is “ 犬がきれいでかわいい。” a proper sentence when mixing “な” and “い” adjectives ? Same question with “犬がゆうめいでちいさい”
すごい！
Yes, the で (which is the て-form of な/だ of course) links the first description to any following description.
I’m still confused how is kirai (na);to dislike a kind of noun?
It's not a verb meaning "to dislike". It's an adjectival noun meaning "dislikable (to me). It works just like 好きな (usually 好きだ) only the other way around. Only nouns can use the copula だ and that's exactly what な is.
I couldn't take the video seriously in the beginning (Cuz of the intro and the voice)
But damn, I learned a lot.
The intro and the voice weed out the gloinkers. Congratulations on staying the course.
"Hana ga akai nda."
or
"Hana ga akai no da."
You can have the "da" in "i" adjectives.
No. That is an entirely different phenomenon with a somewhat different meaning. I explain how it works here: ua-cam.com/video/lYvIOi8Q3I8/v-deo.html - you can also use あかいのです/んです but that is not the same thing as あかいです. The video explains.
Mind? Blown.
Jaw? Dropped.
Breath? Taken.
Wig? Snatched.
But I do have a ques as to how 小さい/小さな and 大きい/大きな are both い as well as なadjs?
This is one of those few cases where we really do have to say "they just do". In these cases the stem of the adjective (minus its dynamic element, い) is used as if it were an adjectival noun. 大きい and 小さい are the commonest candidates for this, but it does occasionally happen in some other cases too. It feels a little more childish and story-book sometimes. It is strictly non-standard in modern Japanese, but feels friendly.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 分かりました。ありがとうございます~
Literally my thoughts reading the first panels of One Piece with 「ここは 小さな 港村だ」
The explanation of "It feels a little more childish and story-book sometimes." makes sense since it is on the narrator box.