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Japanese Lesson 43: Prepositions part 2
VOCABULARY
For: You: よう： 用
About: Nitsuite: について
Without: Ga nai: がない
Without: Ga arimasen: がありません
With: To: と
To: Ni: に
Like: Suki: すき： 好き
As: <sub>Nakara: </sub>なから ("as" as in "while" or "at the same time") ((Verb Conjugation))
GRAMMAR
So... we actually dealt with "ni" a lot in the last lesson as well.
Ni is the particle signifying place. It can best be translated to "to" or "at" :) So that's easy. One word for both things.
To use the particle "ni" put it after the person place or thing you are at or going to.
EG: I go to her. → Watashi wa kanojo NI ikimasu.
I am at the station → Watashi wa eki NI imasu.
But, as I said before, "Ni" is a particle signifying place in general. So this also works for words that don't HAVE "at" or "to" in them, but still signify place.
EG: The cat comes here → neko wa koko NI kimasu.
Today we also get to introduce a new meaning for the particle 「と」(to) You should remember this as meaning "and". Now it takes on the meaning "with"
The particle 「と」(to) goes after the second person in a "with" sentence.
EX: I go with her → Watashi wa kanojo TO ikimasu.
SENTENCES
He goes to school
Kare wa gakkou ni ikimasu.
かれ は がっこう に いきます。
彼は学校に行きます。
Questions about me.
Watashi ni tsuite no shitsumon.
わたし に ついて の しつもん。
私についての質問。
They play with the cat.
Karera wa neko to asobimasu.
かれら は ねこ と あそびます。
彼らは猫と遊びます。
The Cheese is for lunch.
Chi-zu wa chuushoku you desu.
チーズ は ちゅうしょく よう です。
チーズは昼食用です。
Children like milk
Kodomo wa gyuunyuu ga suki desu.
こども は ぎゅうにゅう が すき です。
子供は牛乳が好きです。
NOTE: Besides the fact you can use "miruku" 「ミルク」 in place of "gyuunyuu"... we're going to talk about using "suki". When you use the word "suki" you want to ALWAYS precede it with the particle "ga" 「が」 as opposed to "o" 「を」. "Ga" is used for intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs are verbs that aren't directly done by a person. Something that isn't necessarily controlled so to speak. In this case think of it like this. You can't control what you like or dislike... so we wouldn't use the particle "o" like we would for any other action we personally do. ... if that makes sense.
You play with the fish.
Anata wa sakana to asobimasu.
あなた は さかな と あそびます。
あなたは魚と遊びます。
We eat as we walk.
Watashitachi wa aruki nagara tabemasu.
わたしたち は あるき ながら たべます。
私たちは歩きながら食べます。
(lit: We walk as we eat)
NOTE: Nagara is a verb conjugation! Conjugate the base of your verb like normal, but instead of adding masu/masen/mashita/masendeshita add "nagara" to signify at the same time you do one action, you do another action. In this case it looks like the last verb in the English sentence gets flipped to be the first verb in the Japanese sentence!
We are without water.
Watashitachi wa mizu ga nai
わたしたち は みず が ない
私達は水がない。
:) well that was an easy one to end with.
Duo accepts the above sentence but recommends NIWA instead of just WA. Unfortunately I don't understand the nuance of "niwa" soooo I didn't use it.
Otherwise. That's it for this lesson. If you have any questions feel free to ask! If I'm going too fast or something needs explained further please let me know! I do drop by now and then even when I'm not posting lessons.
14 Comments
FINALLY!
I finished the Memrise course for your guide! You can find it here:
WOWZA! :D That's AWESOME! I've never used Memrise before. This looks cool. Thank you so much!!
I know this is an old post, but is there a difference between using 間 (like in Compound Sentences) and the ながら verb conjugation? I.e., is there a difference between saying 「私達は私達が歩く間食べます」 and 「私達は歩きながら食べます」?
They'll get to it when they work through the obstacles they have to face. I've seen it done before... but when I was using smart.fm (now iKnow... and no longer free...) they had the same course in romaji, hiragana, and katakana... given duolingo's set up... they have to decide how they're going to tackle teaching hiragana katakana and kanji.
But like I said, I've seen it done before. It's doable. They'll get there when they get there. In the meantime I'm just translating the English for Japanese speaker's tree and throwing is as much grammar advice as I can. :) (the grammar's becoming more natural to me... so sometimes I have to force myself not to say "It's this way because it just is.")
... we should probably just consider this a race between how quickly I can get around to posting lessons, and how long it takes for Duolingo to make a Japanese for English Speakers tree.
If Duolingo wins, you guys will have an actual JFE tree to do.
And if I win there will be lessons for the WHOLE TREE posted in the discussion board I guess. XD
The particle for doing two activities simultaneously is "nagara," not "nakara."
