It strikes me as quite a typically Japanese way of expressing the situation. English throws the emphasis on what "people like that" are doing (i.e. being like that) whereas Japanese merely notes the fact that people like that exist. In practice both expressions come to the same thing, but the more "observation-oriented" and less "personal-action-oriented" form of expression seems to be of the same psychological type as the use of suki, wakaru etc., which Western "Japanese grammar" has such a struggle to understand. This is merely a subjective impression of mine rather than a "grammar point", I hasten to add!
It's early days for me learning Japanese, so I don't know the details of many of the particle uses beyond わ, が , に, の, を and now も. But I'm currently trying to disentangle と vs. や vs やなど. Also I've seen sentences multiple particles together like のわ which is not clear to me.
I should mention that the _particle_ pronounced わ is spelled は. It is one of the very, very few irregularities in kana spelling. In [name]のは, the は particle will be doing what it always does and the [name]の will probably mean "the one belonging to [name]". So it is likely to mean something like "speaking of [name]'s one (pencil or whatever), it is red" (very possibly "as opposed to mine which is blue"). Rather a lot to explain in a comment but I'll try to tackle it in a video later. The thing that might cause confusion is that when the "nominalizing の" would naturally take a "possessive の" we don't say の twice. Interestingly, we do something similar with the English equivalent of the possessive no particle, 's. Where it comes up against the pluralizing s we don't repeat it: so we say "the Smiths' cat" rather than "the Smiths's cat".
Thank you. I've made the わ・は mistake a few times, due to the phonetic typing input. I don't make that mistake when hand writing. I'll need to keep an eye out for that. An example I saw earlier today from the title of a youtube video ケイト先生のわけのわからない踊り translated as "Kate's strange dance" in the video. My weak attempt to translate it was "Regarding Kate Sensei the owner : (implicit she ga) A dance, does not know. I see I was being misled by the わ・は confusion. I have about 1 year before I travel to Japan again. So hopefully I'll be good enough by then to get by.
I found this example sentence on a Japanese grammar website: 彼がタバコを1日に40本も吸う。 This was translated to: He smokes as many as 40 cigarettes every day. The 'も' in this sentence confuses me: would you explain its function, please? In addition to other things (perhaps cigars), he also smokes 40 cigarettes a day? If so, why is there no "also" in the translation?
This means just what the translation says. The も gives the meaning of "as much as". Following a quantitative expression like 40本 the も adds the meaning that the speaker considers this to be a large number. This meaning of も develops from its inclusive-additive quality and I discuss it in more detail in this video ruclips.net/video/00nKUtmnzvI/видео.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Ah, I hadn't seen the other video before asking the question. Thank you for pointing that out. Because of your prompt reply and the quality of your video material, I'm considering becoming a patron.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I just have another question. What if I wanted to say "He *also* smokes 40 cigarettes a day" (as well as cigars)? Where would I put 'も' in this case?
も really has this amount-intensifying quality when put directly after a number/quantity expression. However if you say 彼がタバコも1日に40本を吸う you are saying "he also smokes 40 cigarettes a day, which would mean he smokes them in addition to something else, which depending on context might mean in addition to smoking cigars or in addition to drinking whiskey or in addition to anything else. You could keep both もs in but it might seem a bit awkward. If you wanted to be more explicit you might say シガーだけでまくタコを1日に40本も吸う which means "not just cigars, (he) also smokes 40 cigarettes a day". Here the も is performing both functions, quantity stress and also. Interestingly we can note here that だけでなく in itself plays both roles because it means literally not only (therefore also) but stresses the fact that having both is a lot - just as English "not only" tends to have both effects.
キュアドリー先生, I am guessing as usual I am thinking too hard about this, and there is actually no meaningful link between: で (contextual particle used with verbs), も (inclusive particle), and でも, the latter of which is described in Tae Kim's grammar guide (adverbs section) simply as a sentence ending particle meaning 'but' I ask also because in the video you mention possible future lessons dealing with things such as 何でも, or as I have often heard in anime, 何でもない (common contextual meaning: it's nothing), however Tae Kim seems to describe で and も as distinct particles, with no meaningful relationship, even though inside the introduction to particles with も, a negative form でも is used with は to distinguish a topic not to be included in a prior statement... Please forgive my lack of understanding.
Your understanding is very good I think. Generally でもis taught as a separate word meaning "but", and I think this is a perfectly usable model that leads to no problems and is quite possibly the most efficient way to teach it. However... I do think でも actually comes about from a logical combination of で and も. Not the particle で but the で that is the te-form of だ/です. This combination yields a meaning something like "even if it is (the case that)". "Even" in English ultimately means something like "as much as" - as shown in "ten or even twenty" = "ten or as much as twenty"). も's "additive" function leads to exactly this meaning in expressions like 百も "as much as a hundred". "But" ultimately means something like "even if/though it is (the case that)" i.e. "as much as (it is the case that") if you think about it. Example: "she is pretty but dumb" = even though she is pretty she is dumb. 美しいでも頭が弱い = utsukushii de(=da+) mo(=as much as=even); atama ga yowai. Now someone is going to say "even if true, this analysis does nothing useful that just learning 'demo' as 'but' fails to do" - and broadly I would agree. However if one's mind works in that kind of way it can actually deepen our knowledge of how Japanese is constructed. I wouldn't want to force this information on people who don't find it useful, as for them it may just add unnecessary complication. However for people who do find it useful (such as yourself) I think it is well worth knowing. Note: The above explanation is a bit over-brief but I hope to explain the main points of this more systematically with examples in a later lesson because apart from the application to でも, which is interesting but not necessary, it does help to clarify many of the otherwise apparently random combination-uses of も.
キュアドリー先生, ありがとう ! I DO find that useful, and amazingly informative even if you think it overly brief :) I also feel somewhat relieved that I wasn't mistakenly seeking deeper meaning where there was none... That it is で as the te form of だ/です is highly intriguing - like adding a compound declarative (state of being?) to the inclusive も in a manner to produce something like 'and yet' ? I will wait till you get back from your happy excursion to 日本 rather than confusing myself with uninformed speculation - I appreciate how precious magic dust is to a doll in full immersion, please don't waste it on my post.
So, simply put は and も are both non-logical particles, marking an already mentioned/assumed known topic. は is exclusive, whilst も is inclusive (and often mistranslated as "and"). I think...
This is all correct. It's important to understand that "exclusive" versus "inclusive" means that は assumes that the comment on topic A is _different_ from the comment on topic B. も assumes that the comment on topic A is the _same_ as the comment on topic B. In the case of は, this assumes of course that there is a stated or implied former topic. With も there must be.
for the sentence: 「(∅が)ケーキは(∅を)食べた」, why is (∅が) at the beginning? Does 「ケーキは(∅が)(∅を)食べた」work too? And in addition, does this literally mean "As for cake, ∅ ate ∅" and the zero-pronouns are interpreted as 'i' and 'that' (the cake)? Thanks for the great vids! I just bought your textbook.
It really doesn't make any difference where you choose to put the ∅が and the ∅を in the sentence order, since order does not determine the logical function (case) of a noun as it does in English. However ∅が at the beginning represents the most usual kind of word-order and so is easier to understand. For more on word order and where it does and doesn't matter in Japanese please see this video: ruclips.net/video/T5PD1lORiwk/видео.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you so much for these lessons that break down the literal versus "natural" translations. It drives me nuts to realize that something was taught incorrectly. For example, one of my vocab books teaches that つごうがいい means "convenient". I assumed it was one big word. It was only after seeing つごうがわるい translated as "inconvenient", that it occurred to me that the が is actually the logical particle. I don't know what つごう means, but whatever it is, when it's good, when it's いい, then it's convenient, and when it's bad, when it's わるい, then it's inconvenient. I keep coming across situations like this, where I realize that the author has taken liberties with the translation, and it honestly doesn't help. Or rather, it would be helpful to get the "natural" translation only AFTER a proper explanation of the literal translation. Another example, 明日は暇です. The translation given was "I am not busy tomorrow". I was confused, because if I am NOT busy, then why doesn't the sentence end with ではありません? Apparently this 暇 means "not busy", but the way it was translated seems ambiguous. Wouldn't it be better to point out that a better translation than "not busy" is "free" or "available"? If I'm getting tripped up on these simple examples, how am I supposed to catch the literal meanings behind more complicated Japanese structures, if they aren't taught properly?
@@daemanuhr I absolutely agree. A lot of my later videos are on expressions like this and explaining how they really work and what they literally mean.
This is my favorite place on the entire internet.
it should be some japanese place tho
This helps me understand the は particle better. :) Thank you, Cure Dolly-先生. Rest in peace
I came across that 「そいう人もいる」phrase a month or two ago and was wondering about 「も」. It's very interesting the way Japanese phrases things.
It strikes me as quite a typically Japanese way of expressing the situation. English throws the emphasis on what "people like that" are doing (i.e. being like that) whereas Japanese merely notes the fact that people like that exist.
In practice both expressions come to the same thing, but the more "observation-oriented" and less "personal-action-oriented" form of expression seems to be of the same psychological type as the use of suki, wakaru etc., which Western "Japanese grammar" has such a struggle to understand.
This is merely a subjective impression of mine rather than a "grammar point", I hasten to add!
That's cleared up another particle that usually gets explained badly. I'll be happy when you've dealt with all the particles.
I am so happy to be able to help. Ganbarimasu!
By the way - did you have any particle in particular that you would like to see dealt with?
It's early days for me learning Japanese, so I don't know the details of many of the particle uses beyond わ, が , に, の, を and now も. But I'm currently trying to disentangle と vs. や vs やなど. Also I've seen sentences multiple particles together like のわ which is not clear to me.
I should mention that the _particle_ pronounced わ is spelled は. It is one of the very, very few irregularities in kana spelling. In [name]のは, the は particle will be doing what it always does and the [name]の will probably mean "the one belonging to [name]". So it is likely to mean something like "speaking of [name]'s one (pencil or whatever), it is red" (very possibly "as opposed to mine which is blue").
Rather a lot to explain in a comment but I'll try to tackle it in a video later. The thing that might cause confusion is that when the "nominalizing の" would naturally take a "possessive の" we don't say の twice.
Interestingly, we do something similar with the English equivalent of the possessive no particle, 's. Where it comes up against the pluralizing s we don't repeat it: so we say "the Smiths' cat" rather than "the Smiths's cat".
Thank you. I've made the わ・は mistake a few times, due to the phonetic typing input. I don't make that mistake when hand writing. I'll need to keep an eye out for that. An example I saw earlier today from the title of a youtube video ケイト先生のわけのわからない踊り translated as "Kate's strange dance" in the video. My weak attempt to translate it was "Regarding Kate Sensei the owner : (implicit she ga) A dance, does not know. I see I was being misled by the わ・は confusion. I have about 1 year before I travel to Japan again. So hopefully I'll be good enough by then to get by.
Thank you very much.
These textbooks really leave out like 4/5 of japanese good you're teaching it if i wouldn't've come across you idk where i'd be
Very good
先生は一番です。よろしくおねがいします。
本当にありがとうございます。こちらこそよろしくおねがいします。
Have doubts? Ask Dolly ;)
so how does "mo" function in words like nanimo, daremo, and nandemo? i am curious!
You'll find the video on that here: ruclips.net/video/00nKUtmnzvI/видео.html
I found this example sentence on a Japanese grammar website: 彼がタバコを1日に40本も吸う。
This was translated to: He smokes as many as 40 cigarettes every day.
The 'も' in this sentence confuses me: would you explain its function, please?
In addition to other things (perhaps cigars), he also smokes 40 cigarettes a day? If so, why is there no "also" in the translation?
This means just what the translation says. The も gives the meaning of "as much as". Following a quantitative expression like 40本 the も adds the meaning that the speaker considers this to be a large number. This meaning of も develops from its inclusive-additive quality and I discuss it in more detail in this video ruclips.net/video/00nKUtmnzvI/видео.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Ah, I hadn't seen the other video before asking the question. Thank you for pointing that out. Because of your prompt reply and the quality of your video material, I'm considering becoming a patron.
Thank you೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 I just have another question. What if I wanted to say "He *also* smokes 40 cigarettes a day" (as well as cigars)? Where would I put 'も' in this case?
も really has this amount-intensifying quality when put directly after a number/quantity expression. However if you say 彼がタバコも1日に40本を吸う you are saying "he also smokes 40 cigarettes a day, which would mean he smokes them in addition to something else, which depending on context might mean in addition to smoking cigars or in addition to drinking whiskey or in addition to anything else. You could keep both もs in but it might seem a bit awkward. If you wanted to be more explicit you might say シガーだけでまくタコを1日に40本も吸う which means "not just cigars, (he) also smokes 40 cigarettes a day". Here the も is performing both functions, quantity stress and also. Interestingly we can note here that だけでなく in itself plays both roles because it means literally not only (therefore also) but stresses the fact that having both is a lot - just as English "not only" tends to have both effects.
ありがとうございました
どういたしまして。
done
キュアドリー先生,
I am guessing as usual I am thinking too hard about this, and there is actually no meaningful link between:
で (contextual particle used with verbs),
も (inclusive particle),
and でも, the latter of which is described in Tae Kim's grammar guide (adverbs section) simply as a sentence ending particle meaning 'but'
I ask also because in the video you mention possible future lessons dealing with things such as 何でも, or as I have often heard in anime, 何でもない (common contextual meaning: it's nothing),
however Tae Kim seems to describe で and も as distinct particles, with no meaningful relationship,
even though inside the introduction to particles with も, a negative form でも is used with は to distinguish a topic not to be included in a prior statement...
Please forgive my lack of understanding.
Your understanding is very good I think. Generally でもis taught as a separate word meaning "but", and I think this is a perfectly usable model that leads to no problems and is quite possibly the most efficient way to teach it. However...
I do think でも actually comes about from a logical combination of で and も. Not the particle で but the で that is the te-form of だ/です. This combination yields a meaning something like "even if it is (the case that)". "Even" in English ultimately means something like "as much as" - as shown in "ten or even twenty" = "ten or as much as twenty"). も's "additive" function leads to exactly this meaning in expressions like 百も "as much as a hundred".
"But" ultimately means something like "even if/though it is (the case that)" i.e. "as much as (it is the case that") if you think about it.
Example: "she is pretty but dumb" = even though she is pretty she is dumb. 美しいでも頭が弱い = utsukushii de(=da+) mo(=as much as=even); atama ga yowai.
Now someone is going to say "even if true, this analysis does nothing useful that just learning 'demo' as 'but' fails to do" - and broadly I would agree. However if one's mind works in that kind of way it can actually deepen our knowledge of how Japanese is constructed.
I wouldn't want to force this information on people who don't find it useful, as for them it may just add unnecessary complication. However for people who do find it useful (such as yourself) I think it is well worth knowing.
Note: The above explanation is a bit over-brief but I hope to explain the main points of this more systematically with examples in a later lesson because apart from the application to でも, which is interesting but not necessary, it does help to clarify many of the otherwise apparently random combination-uses of も.
キュアドリー先生, ありがとう !
I DO find that useful, and amazingly informative even if you think it overly brief :)
I also feel somewhat relieved that I wasn't mistakenly seeking deeper meaning where there was none...
That it is で as the te form of だ/です is highly intriguing - like adding a compound declarative (state of being?) to the inclusive も in a manner to produce something like 'and yet' ? I will wait till you get back from your happy excursion to 日本 rather than confusing myself with uninformed speculation - I appreciate how precious magic dust is to a doll in full immersion, please don't waste it on my post.
🥰
So, simply put は and も are both non-logical particles, marking an already mentioned/assumed known topic. は is exclusive, whilst も is inclusive (and often mistranslated as "and"). I think...
This is all correct. It's important to understand that "exclusive" versus "inclusive" means that は assumes that the comment on topic A is _different_ from the comment on topic B. も assumes that the comment on topic A is the _same_ as the comment on topic B.
In the case of は, this assumes of course that there is a stated or implied former topic. With も there must be.
for the sentence: 「(∅が)ケーキは(∅を)食べた」, why is (∅が) at the beginning?
Does 「ケーキは(∅が)(∅を)食べた」work too?
And in addition, does this literally mean "As for cake, ∅ ate ∅" and the zero-pronouns are interpreted as 'i' and 'that' (the cake)?
Thanks for the great vids! I just bought your textbook.
It really doesn't make any difference where you choose to put the ∅が and the ∅を in the sentence order, since order does not determine the logical function (case) of a noun as it does in English. However ∅が at the beginning represents the most usual kind of word-order and so is easier to understand. For more on word order and where it does and doesn't matter in Japanese please see this video: ruclips.net/video/T5PD1lORiwk/видео.html
It would help a lot if they were just literally translating things instead of making it a full translation...
But that would involve knowing what the language is really doing, and most teachers are teaching what they were taught.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you so much for these lessons that break down the literal versus "natural" translations. It drives me nuts to realize that something was taught incorrectly. For example, one of my vocab books teaches that つごうがいい means "convenient". I assumed it was one big word. It was only after seeing つごうがわるい translated as "inconvenient", that it occurred to me that the が is actually the logical particle. I don't know what つごう means, but whatever it is, when it's good, when it's いい, then it's convenient, and when it's bad, when it's わるい, then it's inconvenient. I keep coming across situations like this, where I realize that the author has taken liberties with the translation, and it honestly doesn't help. Or rather, it would be helpful to get the "natural" translation only AFTER a proper explanation of the literal translation. Another example, 明日は暇です. The translation given was "I am not busy tomorrow". I was confused, because if I am NOT busy, then why doesn't the sentence end with ではありません? Apparently this 暇 means "not busy", but the way it was translated seems ambiguous. Wouldn't it be better to point out that a better translation than "not busy" is "free" or "available"? If I'm getting tripped up on these simple examples, how am I supposed to catch the literal meanings behind more complicated Japanese structures, if they aren't taught properly?
@@daemanuhr I absolutely agree. A lot of my later videos are on expressions like this and explaining how they really work and what they literally mean.