my grammar questions

[kman1]

I made the sentences below to get a feel of how different English tenses are expressed in Japanese. Please check what I've written for accuracy and please explain the ones I got wrong or didn't know.

1. I speak Spanish.
2. I used to play video games.
3. I ate a cookie 5 min. ago.
4. Last year he was ill.
5. When his parents built the house, he was ill.
6. At the beginning of this year he has been ill, now he is fine again.
7. He had broken a leg, therefore he couldn't come to school.
8. I’m reading a book now.
9. I was working while she was studying.
10. I was eating there (- let's say lunch) until I got to know that there were cockroaches in the kitchen. Then I left (immediately).

11. I had been lying there for 3 hrs. before I fell asleep.
12. You will have been eating for 10 min. when I finish.
13. He wants me to go home now.
14. I would buy more food but I’m full now.
15. You are baptized now. ‘passive’
16. You were baptized for 5 min. ‘passive’
17. The city was destroyed by the fire ‘passive’
18. I had been baptized 3 times by 2001.
19. I will have been baptized 6 times by 2002.
20. If he paid me more, I would stay. (2 possibilities for ‘if he paid me more’)*
21. We would have built the house, if we had had the money.*


In my Japanese translation, I only translated the verb portion of the sentences. that's the only part I'm concerned with. So remember when correcting what I wrote I only need the verbs NOT the whole sentence. (unless you feel translating the entire sentence would be better for everyone viewing the post)

1.　スベイン語を話せるん。
２．テレビゲームをしてた物だ。
３．五分前にクッキーを食べた。　
４．去年病気（びょうき）だった。
５．彼の親は（おや）家を建てた時自分が病気だた。（たてる）
６．このの年の初めに、病気だたが今好いです。
７．足を折りたから学校に来なかった。
８．今本を読みてる。
９．彼女勉強するながら私仕事してる。
１０。ゴキブリは台所へいるのを考え出して始めてそこで食べてた。そう後ですぐに出た。（出る　でる）
１１。寝た前に３時間あいだ横たわりてた。
１２．私が終わる時１０分あいだ食べてた物だ。
１３．彼が私は帰るのが求む。
１４．御腹がいっぱいじゃないならもっと食べ物を買っただ。
１５．洗礼を受けた。
１６．五分あいだ洗礼を受けた。
１７．都市が火によって壊された。
１８．２００１年までに三回洗礼を受けた。
１９．２００２年までに六回洗礼を受けるだろ。
２０．私ともっとお金を上げたならいるだろ。
２１．お金があたなら家を建っただろ。

[Adina]

I'm just starting Japanese, so I could be wrong... But for #1 and #8, why didn't you use the -masu form of the verbs? Also, "話せる" means "to be understanding" or "to be sensible" according to my dictionary. I think you mean "話す".

#1) スぺインごをはなします。（スぺイン語話します。）
#8)　いまはんをよみます。　（今本を読みます。）

[Karavinka]

1.　スベイン語が出来ます
２．ゲームなどをした事があります。
３．五分前にクッキーを食べた。　
４．（彼は）去年病気（びょうき）だった。
５．彼の親が家を建った時、彼自身は病気だった。
６．今年の年初に病気だったが、今は大丈夫です。
７．足を折りたから学校に来なかった。
８．今本を読んでいます。
９．彼女は勉強をしていて、私は仕事中でした。
１０。キッチンで食事をしていたら、ゴキブリがあったのを気付いてすぐそこから出ました。
１１。眠れる前に3時間も横たわっていました。（床に付けていました）
１２．私が終わると、君は10分も食べていた。
１３．彼は私が家へ戻っていて欲しい。
１４．食べ物をもっと買いたいが今は腹がいっぱいです。
１５．洗礼を受けた。
１６．先例を受けて五分だ。
１７．町は火に破壊された。
１８．２００１年から洗礼を三回受けた。
１９．２００２年になれは先例を六回受けるだろ。
２０．金さえ払えばここに残る。
２１．金さえあったら家を建ったものだ。

[kman1]

ありがと　

[kman1]

I just finished going through an entire Japanese language site online and a grammar book also. I have a ton of questions about them both. Hopefully we can work through them together. I'll just quote what is written/posted on the site or in the book and then post the question(s) I have about what is written.

Devoicing is making a vowel sound silent. This is common with i and u between and or after the plosive and fricative consonants ch, f, h, k, p, s, sh, t, and ts. O may also be devoiced when successive o sounds are in a word such as kokoro (heart), the second o being sometimes devoiced.

Can you list an example of each of the nine consonants with the two vowels mentioned here? Also, an example showing "o" being devoiced? I am going to record myself saying the examples that you list to show that I understand what is being taught above. I'm not sure if this is really necessary though. I just want to make sure I understand this since I'm learning Japanese online only.

Nasalization slightly happens with vowels adjacent to m or n but are heavily nasalized before the uvular nasal consonant N'

Can you list an three examples showing the three nasalizations posted above? I'm not sure if this is important.

- Is a "morae" basically a unit of sound?

[hashi]

Devoicing is making a vowel sound silent. This is common with i and u between and or after the plosive and fricative consonants ch, f, h, k, p, s, sh, t, and ts. O may also be devoiced when successive o sounds are in a word such as kokoro (heart), the second o being sometimes devoiced.

Can you list an example of each of the nine consonants with the two vowels mentioned here? Also, an example showing "o" being devoiced? I am going to record myself saying the examples that you list to show that I understand what is being taught above. I'm not sure if this is really necessary though. I just want to make sure I understand this since I'm learning Japanese online only.

I can give you examples of all shortened/devoiced words (as I hear them) as I can, but <o>. I will highlight the shortened/devoiced vowel in blue.

ちち
ようふく
ひく
こくご
not sure about パ行
～ます
～ました
not sure about タ行 either
つね

This phenomena is how words like ほっかいどう came about. Reading the Kanji, it should be ほくかいどう, but the devoiced く assimilates with the following か, so is usually spelled っか instead.

Nasalization slightly happens with vowels adjacent to m or n but are heavily nasalized before the uvular nasal consonant N'

Can you list an three examples showing the three nasalizations posted above? I'm not sure if this is important.

- Is a "morae" basically a unit of sound?

I've never heard this to be honest.

[IMABI]

O is indeed devoiced in words where there are successive o sounds. For example, the second o in kokoro. Nasalization: ん.

計算　けいさん
The a in さ, depending on the speaker and region of course, is nasalized.
Let's say: ma. Slightly, but compared to the uvular consonant n', not that much. It has to happen because of what sound m is, and n' for that matter. It is not necessarily an important aspect as you suggest, simply due to variation amongst speakers.

A mora* is a unit of sound, but syllable is more or so the amount of audible sounds. For example

kantan, syllabically, is two syllables. Some Japanese dialects such in Kagoshima are like this.
kantan, moraically, is four morae. Standard Japanese is like this.

*Morae is plural. I know that I may have at times mixed up mora and morae. For the most expedient information about nasalization in Japanese, please visit the wikipedia page for Japanese phonology.

Note: I added a few examples for devoicing to Lesson 1 for you. I also added more notes to the section on nasalization. Also, before our debacle, I was about to ask you if you would want to help create the final lesson of Advanced IMABI (Lesson 130) with me. I was wondering, and still am, if it could be set up as a question-answer cession with all the questions you apparently have. Alas, I have been quite depressed with what has gone on and have yet to even finish 129. My time is almost up as I begin school shortly. Then, my site will go cold in terms of new information.

[kman1]

I've never heard this to be honest.

Ok, I'll just ignore it then.

Here are some more inquiries:

人名用漢字 - Around 1,000 characters set aside for names.

1. So, I just have to memorize this list of 1000+ characters in order to be able to know how to read (pronounce) names in Japanese ?

For Katakana, basic sounds are doubled with ヽ and diacritical sounds are doubled with ヾ, and for Hiragana, basic sounds are doubled with ゝ and diacritical sounds are doubled with ゞ.

2. What is a diacritical sound and what is a basic sound?

At times, ei is pronounced as "e-i" instead of as "ee" such as in Emperor Meiji 明治天皇.

3. How do I know how to pronounce ‘ei’? Sometimes it is ‘ee’ and sometimes it is ‘ei’ according to the above.

漢字仮名交じり When writing in Kana, generally accepted rules are used to decide whether to use either Katakana or Hiragana. However, the writer may still choose which writing system they wish to write in. Roomaji, although not native, may be used in some expressions.

4. Any ideas what these rules are?

Kana are categorized by either the Iroha (a poem using every basic Kana once) or the Gojuuonzu (a simple listing based off of the ordering of syllables in Sanskrit). As only the Gojuuonzu may be expanded to fit diacretical (Dakuon) and palatalized (You'on) sounds, we are going to learn Kana with it rather than with the Iroha.

5. Is this important to know? If so, why? If not, then I’ll skip it.

[hashi]

人名用漢字 - Around 1,000 characters set aside for names.

1. So, I just have to memorize this list of 1000+ characters in order to be able to know how to read (pronounce) names in Japanese ?

I would not stress about this. Japanese names are often totally different from normal readings of characters, and most Japanese people can't always read each others' names.

For Katakana, basic sounds are doubled with ヽ and diacritical sounds are doubled with ヾ, and for Hiragana, basic sounds are doubled with ゝ and diacritical sounds are doubled with ゞ.

2. What is a diacritical sound and what is a basic sound?

Diacritical is anything with 濁点（　゛　） - called dakuten or simply tenten - or 半濁点（　゜　） - called handakuten or simply maru - added to it, and basic is without this. The repeat (or doubling) mark is not very often used from what I've seen in my time, mostly because it's usually used with vertical scripts. It is good to know this anyway, in case it does someday come up.

At times, ei is pronounced as "e-i" instead of as "ee" such as in Emperor Meiji 明治天皇.

3. How do I know how to pronounce ‘ei’? Sometimes it is ‘ee’ and sometimes it is ‘ei’ according to the above.

Either or really. If you're speaking slowly, 'ei' would be better, but both are equally understood as there are next to no words spelled with a long え (besides ええ - good). It is good to know that this occurs anyway.

漢字仮名交じり When writing in Kana, generally accepted rules are used to decide whether to use either Katakana or Hiragana. However, the writer may still choose which writing system they wish to write in. Roomaji, although not native, may be used in some expressions.

4. Any ideas what these rules are?

This is not entirely correct, a writer may not really choose. Japanese words and grammatical functions are always written in Hiragana. The only time Katakana is used, is a sort of emphasis (similar to our capital letters) and is most commonly seen in advertising. Katakana is generally used for words of foreign origins. For example:
パン (bread) - from Portuguese 'pan'
アルバイト ([part-time] job) - from German 'arbeit'

Kana are categorized by either the Iroha (a poem using every basic Kana once) or the Gojuuonzu (a simple listing based off of the ordering of syllables in Sanskrit). As only the Gojuuonzu may be expanded to fit diacretical (Dakuon) and palatalized (You'on) sounds, we are going to learn Kana with it rather than with the Iroha.

5. Is this important to know? If so, why? If not, then I’ll skip it.

No, not even remotely.

[md0]

Well, iroha is good to know. It's still used for numbering at some places, like the manual of that Japanese electronics I bought. And it's handy when you are deciphering secret codes in detective manga.