Finally!

こんにちは！

With only two weeks left in Ball State's Spring semester, I am looking forward to some down-time that will allow me to go back and strengthen what I have learned in the past year. I am already amazed at how much I have learned over these two semesters! What seemed like an unsurmountable task of simply learning hiragana has become second nature--although, my tongue is still rebelling against the language; as with Mandarin, I'll eventually adapt.

But I want to share one more lesson before the semester ends.

As a linguist, one of my favorite areas is syntax--which is basically the investigation of grammatical structures. My personal favorite structure is the relative clause (a.k.a. the adjective clause). In English, we use relativizers (like "who", "whom", "whose", "that" and "which") to help further describe or define a noun in a sentence.

Ex: The girl who is dancing....
      The book that I read....
      A man whose bald head is blinding me....

I have done a bit of research in relative clauses because the concepts used can be expressed in a number of ways.

Ex. The girl who is dancing....= The girl dancing.... = The dancing girl....=The young female dancer

To move away from English, I have studied relative clauses in other languages, particulary Mandarin. From my colleagues and research, I have learned that Korean and Chinese both use a prepostional relative clause/adjective structure.  So, now, I have learned that Japanese does too. Here's the basic structure with some examples:

[short form*]  [noun]

ピアノをひいている人      piano-o hiiteeru hito                the person who is playing piano....
美味しい魚　　　　　      oishii sakana**                        the fish that is delicious...
                                                                                               the fish that was delicious...





* Note that the short form is sometimes in the "ている" form to distinguish the action or state as being current.

** Note: "The delicious fish" and "The fish that is delicious" are translated the same! (For now...from my amatuer perspective. Could this be a "general"/"specific" issue--like English articles the, a, an?

Please forgive my haste and poor limited example...でも、昼ご飯を食べるのがいります！

じゃあ、また！

Informality

こんにちは！

Recently, in Japanese class, we have been learning about "short forms", which are used in informal conversation and some embedded structures. Let's sit back, kick our feet up, relax, and take a look at the basic grammar of these types of utterances.


1) です noun indentification.
EX. I am a teacher.  sensei desu.       先生です。
In the case of nouns that are followed by です, these forms are used:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	先生だ。	先生じゃない。
Past	先生だった。	せんせいじゃなかった。

2) い-adjectives
EX. It is fun.     tanoshii desu.         楽しいです。
In the case of basic い-adjectives sentences, these forms are used:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	楽しい。	楽しくない。
Past	楽しかった。	楽しくなかった。

3) な-adjectives
EX. It is convenient.   benri desu.     便利です。
In the case of basic な-adjectives sentences, these forms are used:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	便利だ。	便利じゃない。
Past	便利だった。	便利じゃなかった。

4) る-verbs
EX. Tomorrow, it begins.    ashita, hajimemasu.     明日、始めます。
In the case of sentences using る-verbs, these forms are used:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	明日、始める。	明日、始めない。
Past	昨日、始めた。	昨日、始めなかった。

5) う-verbs
EX.  I drink tea.    ocha-o nomimas.    お茶を飲みます。
In the case of sentences using う-verbs, these forms are used:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	お茶を飲む。	お茶を飲まない。
Past	お茶を飲んだ	お茶を飲まなかった。

Practice these forms with a close friend.

While I have not explained the pattern, see if you can notice what changes are occuring. Pattern recognition is key to language learning. On my next post, I will explain the rules more explicitly.

Until then...

さよなら！