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A blog about Japan, dating, social skills, and travel. Aiming to provide well-balanced Japanese perspective.
There is no sound 🙂
Fixed now!
I think you might have uploaded this with no sound channel, Yuta :/.
Same here – no sound 😀
Seems fine now. Interesting, too!
Heh rosetta stone throws that "textbook" stuff out there all the time xD Too many examples to throw out there but like you said they are doing the translation from ENGLISH !! XD I do wonder if when you go to japan and speak that textbook stuff that people either get mad or look at you like you're a moron? :O
Well, people won't get mad. They will just think your Japanese is not very good (but they will tell you your Japanese is great haha).
It is interesting indeed. There are so many language differences that, once they are explained to me, I have no problem accepting. The lack of a useful "you" in Japanese though continues to confuse me from time to time.
Here's one I've wondered about before. Say you are standing in a group of people whom you don't know. At a party, for instance. You want to say something to a specific person in the group, how do you do that without "you" or their name? Now, yes, you look at the person you're trying to speak with, but surely you've experienced when someone says something and you're not sure if they were speaking to you or someone else? How would you specify…just point?
And one other, what about translating all of these hypotheticals people are using in the questions? "How would YOU say it in this situation?" "Say YOU'RE at a party with people YOU don't know," etc. Would you simply be using hito (人) the way you can use "one" in English? ("How would one do this thing?")
And thanks for the videos as always.
'YOU'RE at a party with people YOU don't know'
知らない人のパーティにいた。
Very simple.
While getting out of the mentality of saying "you" is somewhat hard, it is silly how people think there is no other ways to express things.
I have this book "minna no nihongo" that I used to learn japanese (level 1 and 2) and i think, and the lesson 2 was about "kore, sore, are" and there was a question like:
kore kaban wa anata no desuka? meaning "is this your wallet?" so.. i think that for beginings or at least that book used the "anata" just to make sure the student (in this case, me) understand better. But obviously in real life, like you said, it is unnatural the use of anata in that type of sentences.
Pd. Sorry for my grammar, english is not my first language
Well, Minna no Nihongo uses very unnatural Japanese, so…
On the topic of natural/unnatural Japanese, do you know of any resources that do use more natural Japanese?
The Genki Series is very good. Its published by the Uuniversity of Tokyo.
The suggestion, "kore, chigai masu ka?" makes me feel that Japanese are not very direct in terms of their expression. It seems that a successful conversation really requires a lot of contextual awareness instead of relying on direct words which they do have to express a certain meaning.
Great video Yuta-san! I like how you pointed out that there are more ways on how to say certain things and not just on HOW we say it in English. In my opinion, I think one of the main problems in textbooks that teach "anata" is that they are heavily based on English instead of Nihongo. When I was scanning for books, I instantly put down those that teach "anata" as something that is conveniently used in Nihongo. lol.
It feels like the Japanese language was constructed completely around taking other people's feelings into consideration.
Wow, I never knew it went this far. This is really interesting. I wonder, though, is there any situation/sentence where you say "you"? (maybe the you between quotes in this question?)
Also, could you link me to the "you" trilogy you were referring to in the mail, please?
Also: Thanks for these video's! They're interesting to watch!
Thank you for the videos!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww_y6b-YUdk
Although I hate these kind of videos usually, as well as sound being kinda bad, at 1:38 the girl actually says "kore, chigai masu?". Although I did believe you when you said it i say it is that way, actually seeing it in use makes for definite proof in my head that your example is how it is.
I guess there is a lot I still need to learn about Japanese sentences(especially normal conversations) including not including any form of 'you' in my sentences.(Even though I just practice in my head)
It's really weird for me that Japanese doesn't really use 'you' as both my mother-tongue(Dutch) and second language(English) seem to rely quite heavily on using 'you' in sentences.
Thank you Yuta for all the videos you put out! Really informative and love how you give advice on how actual conversations go instead of the text book stuff.
Interesting! Yeah, like I said, that's how real Japanese people speak 🙂
thank you yuta ! – i love languages too, it s cool to see that we find ourselves in the other person, i like the you expression – what kind of you meanings and how many do exist in the japanese culture? thanks a lot for your video! 🙂
It seems like the "you" pronoun is gonna be the largest impediment to learning the Japanese language. I'm curious, though, is it okay to use other pronouns in Japanese such as "he" or "she", or is that rude also?
It is OK but we don't use them either 😀
very useful! thanks, Yuta san!
I think you mean VPN and not VPS. They are two diffrenthings. VPN is the thing that makes a website or any other internet related thing think that you using it from another country.
Part of the reason I'm looking into Japanese as a second language, even though I already have a good start on German and Spanish, is because of the big differences from English. I'm not sure if it's the challenge or the fascination in a language that evolved so differently that catches my attention. Probably both.
I'm using a few sources for reference, but I haven't done anything I would consider really studying. Yuta's videos are my favorite. They keep my attention and keep me interested in the language.
Thank you so much for the video, I have never thought about how I would use those phrases in Japanese, especially the "Is this your wallet?" phrase ww.
I have known that Japanese people rarely use words for "I", "you", but do you happen to have any videos explain or ask people why they don't use them? That would be grateful. Thanks in advance