Thanks in advance:D

There is something I don't get with transitivity pairs and causative forms of certain verbs.

For example:

動く vs. 動かす vs. 動かせる

Here is how I understand the thing, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

The first, 動く, simply means that "something moves/moved". (intransitive "form")
Ex: 犬が動いた。The/A dog moved.

The second, 動かす, means that "the agent of action moves/moved something" (transitive "form")
Ex: 犬はボールを動かした。The/A dog moved the/a ball.

The last, 動かせる, means that "the agent of action moves/moved something using something" (causative form of the intransitive "form")
Ex: はなで犬はボールを動かせた。The/A dog (made) the ball move with its nose.

First, I don't know if I'm all wrong.

Second, I'm not sure the difference is that important between the causative form (動かせる) and the transitive "form" (動かす). My supposition with the "using something" difference is maybe totally wrong.

Third, I talked about the "causative form of the intransitive "form"", but what about the "causative form of the transitive "form"", which would be 動かさせる. I have no idea of what could be the purpose of this one...

So... Do you have a proper explanation that would unscramble all that?

動く vs. 動かす vs. 動かせる vs. 動かさせる

And I haven't talked of the passive or the passive-causative forms yet! But that is another question!

Thank you very much and I hope I'm not giving you guys headaches with that!

Etienne

Any explanation for this?

Thanks,
nipponman

1) Just how grammatically incorrect is it to add です/だ to the end of an -い adjective? I don't think です is incorrect in this usage though because it doesn't directly correspond with だ. I've seen sentences like 高いです and いいです but can you say 高いだ and いいだ.

2) Is it okay to just add question marker か directly to an -い adjective (i.e. 悪いか)?

3) can you add か to the end of -な adjectives without the copula?

4) can you add です/だ directly to the end of an adverb (i.e. 本当にだ)? 

5) Can you add だ directly to the end of verbs (i.e. 大きな魚、食べただ)

6) Can you ever add question marker か to the end of the copula だ? I've read that it can't because it's like declaring a statement and a question at the same time. But can it ever happen like in rough slang or something?

hope someone can help me out with this. For the negative of ～ている, do the rules for negative sentences apply, like adding negative は?

For the first sentence below, why is it that there is no は even though it is a negative sentence. The second sentence has got は

1. あのひとにずっとあっていません。
2. あのひとにはあいませんでした。

Thanks

What's the が all about?  I understand the のです, but why add が ?

I initially answered 限っている, but was told that 限られている is the right answer.

I didn't understand why... someone explained to me that cos 限る is a transitive verb, so when used after が, it becomes passive, but when I search up in dictionary, 限る is actually an intransitive verb. I don't understand why passive is used here anymore.

Please explain.

Thank you.

親戚が亡くなったとうそをついてまで、学校を休むなんて困ったもんだ。

台風の中を、傘をさしてまで、自転車で行く必要はない。

"Eat lunch"

I told them that is nothing wrong with grammar but that's not the way it is say in English.  These are Chinese or Japanese base grammar literally translated.

Original sentence - Have you eat lunch.
I think the correct sentence should be - Have you had your lunch.

What you guys and gals think?;)

• （１）ボブは魚が好きだ。- Bob likes fish.
  （２）ボブは魚が好きじゃない。- Bob does not like fish.
  （３）ボブは魚が好きだった。- Bob liked fish.
  （４）ボブは魚が好きじゃなかった。- Bob did not like fish.

None of the above use な.  Am I correct in thinking that's because there is no adjective and noun right beside each other, so な isn't needed?  That was the case with 友達は親切 (Friend is kind) VS 友達は親切な人 (Friend is kind person), both previous examples.  Anyways, along with that I have another difficulty:

• （１）魚が好きなタイプ。- Type that likes fish.
  （２）魚が好きじゃないタイプ。- Type that does not like fish.
  （３）魚が好きだったタイプ。- Type that liked fish.
  （４）魚が好きじゃなかったタイプ。- Type that did not like fish.

Why does only (1) have な in between the clause and noun?  How do (2) - (4) produce similar translations (except for tense/negative) but lack the な that one would need to describe the noun?  My only guess is that (1) is missing だ as a declarative and that somehow effects whether or not な is used...

As you can see, I'm very confused.  I would be very grateful for any help!  I searched the forums and didn't find this topic, so if it already exists I apologize.  Also, my 2nd question was already asked by another person on the Adjective page, but the answer didn't make sense to me.

You've read through Tae Kim's Guide. You can write the hiragana table from memory. You can write a few kanji and read a few more. Excellent! You're cruising at 30000 feet. Now what? Time to get into orbit, and once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.

This post in itself won't get you far, it can only ignite your boosters. What this post does is to propose a project to get you into orbit. This is not a "master Japanese in 21 days" (if you can do this in 21 days, you don't need it).

The contents of the project: read 庭 三郎 の 現代日本語文法概説.

You may be wondering why you should read a book on Japanese grammar (especially in Japanese!) when you've already read Tae Kim's Guide. The answer is simple: it is because you have already read Tae Kim's Guide. Having read his (most excellent) guide, you have a good understanding of how Japanese works (there are some parts missing, but they're not important for understanding Japanese (though they do help)). This means that when reading saburoo's guide, you already understand much of what he presents, and so you can use this to check your understanding of his book. Also, saburoo goes into quite some detail in not just understanding Japanese, but in producing Japanese. Much of the extra detail comes from the book being aimed at teachers rather than students.

This project is hard work. Very hard work. However, you should find it to be worth your time and effort. I did. It took me a year to read the book. It might take you longer depending on your circumstances.

Here is a guide on how to read the book:

1. NEVER TRANSLATE A SENTENCE!!厳禁！！ This one is not a tip, but an absolute requirement. Translation defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. It may seem harsh, but you will be glad of it.

2. Do try to do it on your own. However, if you get truly stuck, don't be afraid to ask for help, though if you can, rather than help, ask for confirmation of your efforts.

3. Use rikaichan. You will need it for the kanji. Do not hold back from using it. If you need to look up the same word several times in the one paragraph, so be it: look it up. I found that after about 5 times, the word began to stick ("ah, I know this, 何だっけ？") and then after about 10 times, I didn't need to look it up. In the beginning, I was using rikaichan for almost every word in a sentence. In the end, I was skipping paragraphs without using rikaichan at all.

4. Use a 国語辞典. This is to get the subtle details that just aren't in rikaichan.

5. Translation of words and possibly phrases in your head is probably unavoidable. Don't worry about it too much. However, NEVER WRITE ANY ENGLISH. 厳禁！！[\*]

6. In connection to the previous tip: though I said not to worry about it too much, do make an effort to associate the Japanese with the image produced by your mental translation. If things are too complicated to hold everything in your head, draw pictures! If you can draw boxes and arrows, that's good enough. Write the Japanese words/phrases in appropriate places in the picture.

7. 口に出せ！ Say the Japanese out loud. However, just sub-vocalizing is enough. Hold the meaning of the sentence in your head and say the sentence.

8. For complex sentences, write the sentence out on paper, breaking it up into phrases (essentially, noun+particle blocks, with verbs/adjectives on their own, etc). Draw connections between the phrases. Experiment until you get something that makes sense for the context. Once you understand the sentence, write it out several times while holding the meaning in your head and sub-vocalizing the text. How many times? Enough so you can write it from memory two or three times, and then stop: no need to actually memorize the sentence. (this is absolutely fantastic for your kanji )

9. When it's a tricky word that's holding up your understanding of the sentence, re-write the sentence substituting the word's definition (from the 国語辞典) in place of the word. You might need to use a couple of layers of this (tricky words in the definition).

10. Don't worry about taking notes unless you really want to. This pass is for building your grammatical understanding of Japanese (文法を身に付ける).

11. Push yourself, but not too hard. Don't worry about how long it's taking. If you're progressing through the book, then you're doing well. The feeling of satisfaction when you get to the end is amazing .

And some extra bits and pieces to make the transition into orbit a little smoother:

1. Do not study kanji. This is a waste of your time. Instead, study how kanji are made (component analysis). Two good books for this are "Remembering the Kanji" and "Kanji ABC" (I prefer the latter). With this, you will become able to write, first try, any kanji you see. Remembering complex kanji will go from memorizing  many strokes (up to 32) remembering a few components (often 2-3, sometimes 4, rarely 5 or more).

2. Never translate. You waste your time worrying about how to put the Japanese into English (or whatever your native language is) rather than focusing on the meaning of the Japanese. Translation also gets in the way of learning to think in Japanese.

3. Watch a lot of Japanese anime/movies/drama. However, don't use subtitles (and certainly don't use dubs: might as well stick to The Simpsons). This will give you a good feel for the flow of sound in Japanese. Excellent for the 「口に出せ！」 parts in the preceding list.

4. Listen to Japanese songs.

5. Buy an electronic dictionary. Being tied to the internet for your Japanese study is not very convenient (not necessary for this project, but great for when you get into reading novels or manga)

6. Read novels and manga (yes, "and"). Personal recommendations: novels: 精霊の守人(and others in the series, 上橋菜穂子), R.O.D. (series, 倉田英之); manga: Bleach (久保帯人), 結界師(田辺イエロウ).

7. Write stuff in Japanese.

8. Find a Japanese friend. lang-8 might be a good place to start. Particularly good for the previous tip.

9. I really can't stress this enough: DON'T TRANSLATE. 訳は禁物だ！

10. Most important: have fun with Japanese

Of course, completing the project doesn't mean you have mastered Japanese. Though you will certainly have gained very good grammar (understanding) skills, and even significantly advanced your production skills, there's just no end to vocabulary.