320, with 学ぶ you actually use the を particle. Same thing with ～～を勉強する.

Thanks for your question! .balloon.

Thanks for the help

This might be a noob question (or maybe it'll be coming in the verb lesson) but how do you know を is used with 学ぶ? Is there a pattern?

You use を with verbs Zire.

が and は are used for subject pointers. は indicates the topic of the conversation and が marks the subject of the sentence

tofu wrote:You use を with verbs Zire.

が and は are used for subject pointers. は indicates the topic of the conversation and が marks the subject of the sentence

Tofu, that's not exactly the case. Many verbs use が, such as 分かる、欲しいだ、居る、有る、要る - basically, verbs that express emotions, existence, necessity, etc. These are all special cases where が serves as the direct object marker, which is what を is, actually.

The reason why を is used is because anything you do/take/put effort into requires the direct object marker - for example, 車を運転する(to drive a car), 写真を撮る(to take a picture), 試験を受ける (to take a test), 情報を確認する (to confirm information)、and as I said, 学ぶ and 勉強する (to study).

I wasn't planning on including this in the verb lesson, but I think a lesson on particles is very much a possibility. .wow.

Yes Tenjou, if you can, please do a lesson on particles,

That is the main thing I am having a hard time fully understanding

sankyou for the suredu. .

I'm confused with particles too. I hope there's a lesson about particles too.

Thanks for telling us that, tenjou. I had doubts about when to use を and が, but I did not realize this at all when I was learning in school. (guess it was really basic course, so I prob haven't reach this stage yet).

So, since these are special cases for が, does that mean we have to memorize the verbs that goes with it?

chi, I rarely ever recommend "memorizing" as a strategy for learning a language. These special cases are different from say, the irregular verbs (来る、する、etc) which require you to really know them "by heart". Practice enough, and the が・を will come naturally.

I see. I will keep that in mind.

I know speak japanese too.count me in .smile.

Hey, do you think you could explain a bit on intransitive and transitive verbs?
I keep getting mixed up between them.
eg:
終る is the intransitive verb
and 終える is the transitive verb
How does the meaning change when using each verb?

Also, is there a pattern or an easy way of remembering/identifying intransitive/transitive forms of each verb.

Jibba wrote:Hey, do you think you could explain a bit on intransitive and transitive verbs?
I keep getting mixed up between them.
eg:
終る is the intransitive verb
and 終える is the transitive verb
How does the meaning change when using each verb?

Also, is there a pattern or an easy way of remembering/identifying intransitive/transitive forms of each verb.

Jibba, the basic rule is that Transitive verbs require an object, while Intransitive verbs do not. For example:

"The teacher began class" - > 先生が授業を始めた (in this case, class is the object, marked by the direct object marker を, and accompanied by the transitive verb 始める "to begin")

"Class began" - > 授業が始まった (in this case, class becomes the subject, marked by the subject marker が, and accompanied by the intransitive verb 始まる "to begin")

In the first sentence, the teacher is emphasized, since he/she took the action to start the class. However, in the second sentence, the teacher is not mentioned, and thus the fact that class has simply started is the subject (Notice the subject marker が has shifted from the teacher to class).

So, if you want to include the fact/information that the teacher started the class, or if you are trying to explain/emphasize that in a sentence, you would use a Transitive verb. If you do not need emphasis on the teacher, or if you just don't need to/want to mention the teacher, you can just use an Intransitive verb.

As for the pattern/way of remembering, a lot of the transitive/intransitive pairs have an え in the transitive that is replaced by a わ in the intransitive, such as the following pairs: 伝える・伝わる(Tsutaeru/Tsutawaru - to get across/convey)、終える・終わる(Oeru/Owaru - to end)、変える・変わる (Kaeru/Kawaru - to change)、and others. However, there are other pairs where this is not the case: 減らす・減る(Herasu/Heru - to decrease)、増やす・増える(Fuyasu/Fueru - to increase)、続ける・続く(Tsuzukeru/Tsuzuku - to continue), and so, the best and most reliable way to tell if a verb is Transitive or Intransitive is to look at the particle in front of it - if you see an を, it is Transitive; if you see a が, it is Intransitive.

Thanks for your question! .balloon.

Thanks so much for the comprehensive answer!
I understand it much better now.

I found a pretty useful site on the transitive/intransitive pairs, from the uni I may go to next year.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ti_list.html

It has a comprehensive list of the patterns and pairs.

Mini-question

What does "なう" mean? Google translate always just translates it as "nau", which isn't really a word in english. An example of it is in a recent tweet by Rina: "クッキングなう。" It sounds like "now", which could make sense in Rina's tweet, but it's written in hiragana so I dunno about guessing just based on sound and that doesn't seem like the right word order...

320x200 wrote:Mini-question

What does "なう" mean? Google translate always just translates it as "nau", which isn't really a word in english. An example of it is in a recent tweet by Rina: "クッキングなう。" It sounds like "now", which could make sense in Rina's tweet, but it's written in hiragana so I dunno about guessing just based on sound and that doesn't seem like the right word order...

This is something that I ran into about a year ago, and it gave me the same feeling you're describing now. .sweat.

The answer is, like you said, it is literally taken from the English "now", and means exactly the same thing. It's a recent trend that came up about 2 years ago (a lot of my friends in Japan started using it after I left, so it became popular after 2008, I believe), and I have no idea why it became popular.

Thank you very much for the answer :)

しつもんがありますせんせい！
I have a question, teacher!

It's about the proper use of particles. Let's say I want to translate this sentence to Japanese:

I will go to Boracay on May by plane.

I am confused as to what particle to use for "to" and "on" since they can be both translated to に, and へ can also mean "to". I'm only sure about "by" (で).　Please enlighten me Teacher Tenjou! I am so confused with multiple particles in a sentence. ありがとうございます！ .hail.

@LieAnn: I'm not tenjou-sensei, but I think I know the answer to this, and I'll do my best explaining!

On the previous page I explained to chiy102 about the particles for verbs that indicate an action to go somewhere (iku, kaeru), and that they need the に or へ particle accompanying it. So, yeah; basically, if you use an action verb like iku, you need the に or へ particle with it (in this case, they're the same thing).

As for the "on May" part...hm, that's not really the right word to use; it should be something more like "in May." For that, since you're talking about a specific time, you use the に particle. And just for clarification, the に particle used with time should only be used for specific times like 9 o'clock or in January, and not for general times like today or tomorrow.

So, in Japanese, the sentence would be:

5月に、私は飛行機でボラカイに行くつもりです。
Gogatsu ni, watashi wa hikouki de Boracay ni iku tsumori desu.

In May, I'm planning to go to Boracay by plane.

Hope that explained things!

LieAnn, Jade answered your question perfectly. That is exactly right. Thanks Jade!
.hail.

Thank you Jade-sensei and Tenjou-sensei! Hehe. That's clear enough for me.

EDIT:

I'm so sorry for bothering you, but I really have a lot of questions! .please.
I found my notes yesterday where I wrote all the things that I don't understand about the Japanese grammar, and there's eight of them! .wtf. But I won't post all of it at once, so for starters, I'll ask about verbs!

First question:
It's about the combination of verbs. According to lessons, a verb should be in い form to be able to combine it to another verb. For example:

あう >>>　あい + New Verb
Basic Form >>> Change う to　い then add the new verb

Now my question is, what should be the form of the new verb? And can you please give some examples of combined verbs 'cause I honestly can't think of any. ありがとうございます！

Second question:
It's about the "while (verb)" thing. Again, according to lessons I found on the net:

わらう >>>　わらい +　ながら >>> わらいながら means "while laughing"
Basic Form >>> Change う to　い + ながら

My question is about the pattern of the sentence, for example I want to translate this sentence:

She is dancing while laughing.

Which verb comes first?

So that's it for now. I'm so sorry for the trouble but I really don't get those lessons. Thank you very much! Maraming salamat!

Sorry to interrupt, but I have a very simple question here (I think). So just hope to obtain some clarification.

９時に仕事が始まる。

９時に仕事は始まる。

May I ask which one is correct and if both are correct, what are the differences?

Thank you. .hail.

Tenjou~! Oh thank goodness your here~

Teach me, sensei~O_O

I know a little Japanese but what I want to focus on is reading Kanji and writing sentences in Japanese~ Since, I'm currently memorizing Katakana and Hiragana, can you teach me how to read and write in Japanese~?


Or whatever is the basics in learning how to speak too~ so yeah~

Help me, Tenjou-sensei~

chiy102 wrote:Sorry to interrupt, but I have a very simple question here (I think). So just hope to obtain some clarification.

９時に仕事が始まる。

９時に仕事は始まる。

May I ask which one is correct and if both are correct, what are the differences?

Thank you. .hail.

I'll try to answer this one.

I think that the two sentences are essentially correct, the main difference is in the usage.

The use of Ga and Wa basically boils down to passive and active voice. Ga is active while Wa is passive. I could be reversing the two here, I'm not sure, but in essence, ９時に仕事が始まる。reads as "Work started at 9" while "９時に仕事は始まる." reads as "My work starts at 9."

So it just depends what you want to focus on, the work or the time.

And @MamiTatsuki:

There is no real easy way to learn Japanese other than by practicing it. There are stuff on the internet that might help, but I personally suggest a formal tuition or buying a reference book. Key is practice really, the more you use it, the more you'll understand it.

Thank you for the answer~~Paladinoras!!

So, が is not a particle that has to accompany 始まる, it is similar to the topic particle は, but something along the line of being more specific than は (read it somewhere online). Am I right?

I was confused when I learnt that が accompanies the two existence verbs, namely ある and いる. So when I saw the sentence above, I thought it is also used with 始まる.

The example I saw: 部屋に猫がいます。