Moxie wrote:

Laminated Sky wrote: If I ever meet a Japanese person I'll say: "eigo ga hanasemasuka?" If you said that, the Japanese person probably won't know what you mean. "Eigo wo hanashimasuka" is correct - you have to conjugate the verb hanasu. Also 'wo' (pronounced as a long 'o' as in 'bone') is the correct particle to use in this instance, not 'ga'. aika wrote: @ Laminated Sky: You can also say "eigo ga wakarimasu ka?" ("Do you understand English?"). Same thing with the particle here - "Eigo wo wakarimasuka" is correct. However, most Japanese will actually ask you "Nihongo wo hanashimasuka?" (Do you speak Japanese?) You can say no, and ask them if they speak English. Very rarely will they ask about understanding the language. The verb to understand, wakaru, is used more to ask if you...understood things such as directions, or an assignment, not if you understand an actual language.

While I'm pretty secure in what I know in Japanese, I decided to give this a chance and I tracked down a Japanese friend of mine in Tokyo who spends his time learning English. He's been a great help in teaching me some more difficult Japanese grammar structures as his command of English is good enough that he can teach me in English. It's pretty insane.

Anyway, I threw these two cases at him and he came back with the following.

"Eigo ga wakarimasu ka?" is correct; the verb "wakaru" usually takes the particle "ga," not "wo." Japanese people would of course still be able to understand you if you use "wo," but it is "much less common," he says.

As for the first sentence, both "ga" AND "wo" are technically "correct," however, he agreed again that "ga" is going to be more common than "wo."

Finally, Laminated Sky DID conjugate the verb correctly. "Hanasemasu" is the potential form of "hanashimasu," meaning "can I speak" or "can you speak," etc.

DarkMaze wrote:

How fluent in Japanese are you, aika?

Isn't this a conversation better suited for PM's? 8D

I think I've mentioned it before, but I've been studying Japanese for... oh gosh, some five years now? I'm the Japanese professor's TA at my university. I know enough that I can watch Japanese TV dramas raw with no subtitles and can still understand what's going on. I can hold conversations (better online than in person, I've gotten fantastic at conversing in Japanese through MSN, lol), I can read manga raw, etc.

Why do you ask?

Moxie wrote:

aika wrote: the verb "wakaru" usually takes the particle "ga," not "wo." Ah, you're right, sorry, got on a 'wo' kick and that was it. Never heard 'hanasu' conjugated as 'hanase', but alrighty. *shrug* When I was there, I was asked "Nihongo wo hanashimasuka?" but maybe they conjugated it as so because I was a pretty blatent gaikokujin. Anyways, can't argue with what the Japanese themselves say. Or those that converse with 'em. Carry on, I'll keep quiet!

lol It's not just "hanase" 8D It's a verb form silly. 8D Either "hanaseru" (plain form) or "hanasemasu" (-masu form). All verbs have a "potential form." The one you'll likely know is the potential form of "suru," which is actually "dekiru." All the other verbs get conjuated, but suru is the only one that has an entirely different word as its "potential form."

Ex:
"oyogu/oyogimasu" (to swim) becomes "oyogeru/oyogemasu" (I can swim)
"tsukau/tsukaimasu" (to use) becomes "tsukaeru/tsukaemasu" (I can use)
etc etc.

Oh also you have to allow for differences in dialect. :/ There's like a billion dialects all around Japan, and in certain regions one particle or verb form is more common than another. :/ Yay for Japan making this just nice and easy for us poor gaijins to learn.

Dammit people no hijacking my teaching-Japanese thread!

Why, I'm glad you asked this question. It has to do with that dreaded stuff called kanji. Kanji are those super complicated characters Japan more or less stole from China and then forced to work with their own language. A huge amount of words in Japanese are written in kanji. Now, because kanji comes from China, the Japanese had the brilliant idea to give kanji two (or more) readings: the Chinese reading (called the "on" reading), and the Japanese reading (called the "kun" reading). When the kanji is alone, baring a few exceptions, the kanji is generally read with the Japanese reading.

Now, when you stick kanji together to make a word, a couple of different things can happen. The kanji will either magically be read with the Chinese reading, or a "modified" version of the Japanese reading. We're only concerned with the latter.

Here's an example. Let's say we want to say the word for "letter" (as in, "to write a letter"), in Japanese. This word is composed of two kanji: 手 ("te" hand), and 紙 ("kami" paper, one of the many meanings of the word "kami" in Japanese, besides "god" and "hair" :/). Now, if we stick these two together to create the word "letter," these kanji happen to keep their Japanese readings, and the word becomes "tegami." Now, do you know the difference between "ka" and "ga," when written in Japanese? The only difference is that "ga" is "ka" with an tenten; it's a modified hiragana. I did a lesson on those before, so you can scroll back through this thread and find it.

The idea is this: when kanji are crammed together and they keep their Japanese pronounciation, often the second kanji's first syllable becomes a modified hiragana. You can see this in Japanese city names or last names as well: "Yamaguchi" is a common surname in Japan. It's made up of two words "yama" (mountain) and "kuchi" (mouth). When modified, the "ku" becomes "gu." "Yamada" is another common last name in Japanese; it's made up of "yama" (mountain) and "ta" (rice field). "Da" is the modified version of "ta."

If there's something I didn't explain well, let me know. :/ I kinda rushed through this... I think the bulk of the idea should be here, though.

The Japanese "Word Association Game"? :/ Explain?

Ahh, Shiritori. Literally means "taking the butt."

Of course I know the game, but it certainly isn't a "word association game" like what we have here on the general discussion forum.