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Post by Bokusenou on Feb 5, 2014 23:15:14 GMT
Jembru Ah,thanks! I think I'll start adding it back into my speech again. XD
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Post by Underlig on Feb 9, 2014 15:00:45 GMT
Ohh, that about わ was awesome! Thanks! I have been kind of confused for a while but now I know About conflicting information: the only thing you can do is really to look at how [word/expression] is used and ask a lot of people about it...
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Post by Jembru on Feb 9, 2014 19:25:20 GMT
That's what I try to do. It's not always easy though. This year, I'm making more of an effort to see my Japanese friends on a weekly basis. I've found I'm noticing more and more of how they use the language, when there's days and not weeks, between meetings. I also try to use as many ambiguous expressions as I can when I use lang-8. Unfortunately, not everyone colour codes their corrections so you know if they're suggesting an alternative or a true correction. I didn't realise for a while, so had been assuming thngs were wrong, when really, the person was just giving me a fancier expression. It's exhausting!
I'm less shy about asking my friends these days though, so when I get really stuck, I resort to the power of text message to clear things up. There's just not enough hours n the day to ask everything I'd need to. Lol.
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Post by Jembru on Mar 21, 2014 1:35:52 GMT
Before I post my newest 'common mistakes', I have a bit of a plea to make. While I definitely appreciate that some people find it hard to take correction, I'm personally a huge fan. I used to let it shake my confidence, but then as time went on, I came to realise how quickly I learn to avoid mistakes if I've had it corrected compared to just trying to remember the right way from a textbook. This is one reason why I use lang-8, but I find that in order to benefit from lang-8 correction, I need to make notes and test myself later or I forget. In contrast, if I've been speaking and someone has said, 'hey Jem, you can't actually say it like that..' those things stick much better and I find I consciously avoid the mistake in future. Unfortunately, convincing people to correct me isn't easy. So I'm asking you all now, if I write something in Japanese and it looks wrong, please pop over to this thread and mention it (rather than de-railing a conversation elsewhere). While I'm avoiding singling individuals out in case it makes them uncomfortable, I'm quite happy for anyone to say, 'this is a correction for Jembru...' I won't be embarrassed or hurt, I promise!
So lets get on with it then.. I'm actually not that good at noticing mistakes, so you'll have to forgive the long pauses between posts. I'll try to keep this as active as I can and I really hope others will add things here when they come across them. As ever, keep in mind I'm only learning myself, so if you think I might be wrong in my understanding of what is correct, please challenge me so we can explore these things further.
1) 多分、彼女は忙しいかも maybe she's busy
This is one of the many cases where something is grammatically incorrect but you'll sometimes notice Japanese speakers making the same mistake.
多分(tabun) is not used with かもしれない(kamo shirenai).. Our instinct is to pair them up, because they are both used in conjecture, however, かもしれない expresses a stronger degree of uncertainty, more like 'might', while 多分 means 'probably', so while you're not 100%, you guess the event in question most likely will happen. Using these together is like saying. 'Maybe she's probably busy', in English. Not pretty is it? Yet even in English, we hear people say things like that all the time.
It's harder to avoid such things while speaking, but definitely while writing, try to take care to end your sentence in だろう(darou)/でしょう(deshou), と思う(to omou) or かな(kana)/かしら(kashira), if your sentence contains '多分'.
2) インタネットで買いました本 a book I bought online
I've noticed that sometimes learners will attempt to modify nouns with the masu form. The masu form generally only appears at the end of a sentence. There are a small number of conjunctions that join 2 clauses to make a single sentence, which permit the masu form to precede them, (eg が, けれども), and there are some grammatical structures that require something after masu (eg.~ませんでした, ~ますように). Otherwise, the plain form always appears within a sentence, with the final verb taking masu.
Therefore saying things like '読みました漫画 (yomimashita manga) or '食べました寿司 (tabemashita sushi)' is incorrect.
My suspicion is that the reason this mistake appeared recently, was that it was used with 'もの' and the user was familiar with spoken Japanese. In addition to meaning 'thing, item, article', mono is also a sentence ending particle in spoken Japanese similar to, but a little stronger than 'の'. This 'mono', does sometimes appear after the masu form, which could be why 'kaimashita mono' doesn't instantly sound incorrect even to seasoned learners.
3) 私は普通に七時に起きる I usually get up at 7
This mistake... this darned stubborn mistake. If you haven't made it, you either don't yet know the word '普通', or you're a liar!
lol, I'm just kidding. I'm sure plenty of people manage to go through their Japanese speaking life without making this mistake, but it is very, very common. I've even heard some proficient J-vloggers on Youtube make this mistake.
普通に(futsuu ni) means 'in the usual manner' while 普通(futsuu)on its own just means 'usually'. Both of these expressions appear frequently in daily conversation, and for some reason, futsuu ni just rolls off the tongue more smoothly. It doesn't help that you do hear examples of '普通に' that, at least to my ears, seem not to have the 'in the usual manner' nuance. I'm aware that there are some expressions that take 'ni' in written and formal Japanese, but drop it in conversational style, so it is possible that this is okay in written form, but I've definitely been corrected for saying '普通に' when talking about a habitual action (both on lang-8 and when explaining face-to-face to a Japanese guy who'd recently arrived in England, that pubs don't usually have a drinks menu, but rather list their drinks on boards behind or above the bar). So I think it is worth keeping this distinction in mind.
As most of my Japanese conversation practice happens in pubs, here are some fitting example sentences to illustrate the difference...
私は普通、まっすぐ歩けなくなるまで飲み続ける watashi wa futsuu massugu arukenakunaru made nomitsuzukeru I usually keep drinking until I can't walk in a straight line. (not a true sentence of course, I love a drink, but I always stick to my limit!)
私は飲みすぎて普通に歩けなくなっちゃった watashi wa nomisugitte futsuu ni arukenakunacchatta.. I drank so much that I couldn't walk properly.
I think a possible cause of this is accessing the free lessons of Japanese pod 101. I LOVE this site and have probably spent well over £100 on repeat subscriptions. I have no regrets and no plans to cancel my subscription any time soon (Jpod, if you're reading this, please send your sponsorship fees to jembru@slimycrawler.com), but I think when it comes to this mistake, it has a lot to answer for. Their intermediate series started off doing something where they'd say, 'break it down' then 'say it normally' when giving the vocabulary. For 'say it normally', they would say 'futsuu ni...'. This only lasted a few lessons into the 85 lesson series, but as it appears in the free lessons at the beginning, I think it's possible that some of us picked up 'futsuu ni' as a habit from there.
Hope this was helpful!
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Post by chocopie on May 27, 2014 18:24:38 GMT
I remember I used to mix up 言った and 言ってた, plus I don't remember it ever being explained in any textbooks so I'll put it here in case it's useful to someone else When reporting speech, if you're quoting something said by someone who is currently in conversation with you, you use 「〇〇と言った。」 If you're quoting something said by someone not currently in the conversation, you use 「〇〇と言っていた。」 or you can shorten this to 「〇〇って」. This way, even when someone's name is not used, you can still distinguish between who said what. For example A&B are having a conversation. C is not present. A:Dさんのパーティーに行くと言ったよね? You said you're going to D's party right? B:そう。 Yeah. A:Cさんは? What about C? B:行かないと言ってた。(or 行かないって。) She said she's not going.
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Post by Jembru on May 29, 2014 0:07:57 GMT
Thanks for that Chocopie! I had never even considered the distinction, but it's one of those things that seems so natural once it's pointed out. I wonder if I've been using it myself? I always thought of と言ってた or って言ってた as I more often use it, as '...was saying' which I guess makes sense in reported speech, but in English, we can say 'as I was saying..' referring to the same conversation. or 'so-and-so said', so I wonder if I've ever made that mistake? Probably ^^. I'll definitely try to be more careful in future though!
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Post by MidoriAbby on Jun 10, 2014 20:20:00 GMT
chocopieAh, I get that wrong all the time and I didn't even know it! Very good information, thanks ^-^
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Post by Jembru on Jul 3, 2014 20:09:32 GMT
I'm not sure if this would count as a common mistake, but Chocopie noticed a mistake I made in a recent post and I thought others might find it helpful.
In my post about PBG latest minecraft series, I'd written;
誰か最新PBGによっての実況プレーを見た人ある?
However, ni yotte requires a passive verb, like English 'was made by', so leaving out the verb as I did doesn't work. Chocopie therefore suggested this alternative re-write: PBGによって作られた最新の実況プレーを見た人いる?
I noticed another mistake too.. I never put in a link to the series! I'm off to fix both of these right now..
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Post by chocopie on Jul 16, 2014 10:04:03 GMT
I know we talked about わ on here before, and today there was an article on Naver まもめ about how stereotypical female speech is dying out matome.naver.jp/odai/2140411610007373001It's still common among older generations but a survey suggests females in their 20s hardly use it at all. Possibly because it's seen as おばさんっぽい. It seems males in their 20s would still like it to be used though...
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Post by Jembru on Jul 16, 2014 19:49:25 GMT
I know we talked about わ on here before, and today there was an article on Naver まもめ about how stereotypical female speech is dying out matome.naver.jp/odai/2140411610007373001It's still common among older generations but a survey suggests females in their 20s hardly use it at all. Possibly because it's seen as おばさんっぽい. It seems males in their 20s would still like it to be used though.. That explains a lot actually. It's been driving me nuts because I'm being told to avoid わ and かしら by native speakers and then I hear it all the time in movies and anime, by young characters as often as older. It was starting to be a bit like nails on a blackboard whenever I heard it because I couldn't understand why these girls could get away with it while I was being told it's not used anymore. If guys prefer it, then I guess any character who is supposed to be an object of sexual desire in movies, will speak like this entirely for the benefit of the male audience who aren't so interested in the depth of her character development so much as the extent of her physical development. やっぱり、男なんて変わってるわ~! ^^
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Post by Jembru on Dec 6, 2014 19:35:42 GMT
I'm waking this old thread because I wanted to say that I'm still open for correction. It suddenly hit me that the post I recently made about not really caring about accuracy and just wanting to enjoy Japanese from now on might be confusing. The weird thing about it is that seemingly my Japanese has improved since I stopped trying so hard (I'm studying maybe twice a week these days, although trying to use the language daily). I'm not second-guessing so much and just using Japanese as it comes to my mind. I'm still making mistakes, probably more than ever even, but I'm taking bigger risks with the language, so getting much more out of just using the language than I was before. I still need that feedback though, or my Japanese ability will just remain the same, so please don't be shy to help me out like before. Oh but if I have edited anything I've written around a week after I posted it, I've probably had it on lang-8 so there might not be many mistakes in it anymore. I'm bored of writing specifically for lang-8, and it tends to be the one planned activity I repeatedly fail to complete. So I've started just copying and pasting things I've written here or on facebook. I even started a second account so I can post just single sentences or short chat replies that are nonsense on their own, without being embarrassed that my friends will think I'm weird. lol I know we talked about わ on here before, and today there was an article on Naver まもめ about how stereotypical female speech is dying out matome.naver.jp/odai/2140411610007373001It's still common among older generations but a survey suggests females in their 20s hardly use it at all. Possibly because it's seen as おばさんっぽい. It seems males in their 20s would still like it to be used though... One of my Japanese friends uses 'wa' and 'kashira', even in writing. She's in her 20's. I'd ask her why but I don't want to embarrass her, or seem cheeky. I guess it's personal preference too.
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Post by Jembru on Mar 3, 2016 20:26:04 GMT
Does anyone else keep writing 違 with a horizontal stroke at the top, so that the first 4 strokes are 五? I KNOW this is incorrect bit it just keeps rolling off the pen this way. It drives me mad. It's one of the characters I learnt to write back in 2014 when I was preparing to start keeping all my notes in Japanese, and I'd been writing that extra stroke since then. It was only when I came across it again when working through RTK last year, that I realised my mistake. I've known for months now. Yet I still keep writing it wrong at least 40% of the time. It's an insignificant issue really; the Japanese can't all write all jouyou kanji anyway, but it's still kind of annoying when I KNOW it's wrong and I'm still making the mistake despite writing this word almost every time I study! And yes.. I realise the irony of getting 違 wrong! >.<
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Post by Bokusenou on May 4, 2016 23:38:23 GMT
I just remembered a mistake I made during my beginner days. In the US, "pants" only refers to that piece of clothing you wear over your legs. In Japanese, パンツ means what I would call "underpants" or "panties". I think the Japanese word originally comes from British English, but I could be wrong. Anyways, I never called pants パンツ again after making that mistake, and practiced the word ズボン until it was burned into my memory...
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Post by Jembru on May 5, 2016 0:46:10 GMT
Yeah, in many parts of England, particularly in the South, pants means underwear. However up here in the North East, we also use pants for trousers.
I bet that was an embarrassing mistake at the time. Haha.
You might get away with it these days actually. At least with a younger teacher. The trend seems to be shifting! Of course, I'm only basing this on a few fashion magazines I have so it may only apply to the fashion industry; you know, the way that they keep adopting English words because it sounds fancier. But in the magazines at least, they sometimes use パンツ for trousers. And of course, the パン from G-パン comes from パンツ too!
Japanese changes so fast. I guess all languages do but Japanese just seems to be adopting more and more new words all the time.
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Post by Bokusenou on May 9, 2016 6:11:58 GMT
Oh, really? That's interesting! It's amazing how much even the same language can change from place to place.
LOL,that's good about パンツ! I'll stick with ズポン to be safe, but it's always nice when Japan adopts more words from English, although keeping up with all the new words in Japanese is tough sometimes...
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