"I do not go to the office."
Translation:かいしゃに行きません。
38 Comments
In this case, に should be used. へ used as a particle is closer to the meaning of "~in the direction of" or "toward."
Without more context, that could be the meaning. While へ seems to be more limited as a particle (indicating movement direction, as you said), に seems to be more flexible for making a time, place, or location (but not direction, as in North, South, etc).
Personally, I use へ whenever appropriate, over に because I'll likely also be referencing a place or time, and using a particle repeatedly sounds weird
If it makes it easier to remember, think of に as "at" because it looks like a house, and へ as "towards" because it looks like an arrow pointing somewhere.
Duo just threw this sentence my way without teaching me a single word of it first. Can someone please break it down for me?
かいしゃ is company or office, に and へ (pronounced like え here) are particles that designated movement and direction. Either can be used in this sample sentence as there is no context to go by. Other comments here describe their differences. 行く is the verb "to go" and needs to be conjugated to the negative. Thus 行く becomes 行きません. Slap it all together and you get かいしゃにいきません。In your defense, not much is explained in these lessons.
I'm a Japanese speaker. 会社(かいしゃ) means company, not office. For office we say usually just say オフィス or 事務室(じむしつ).
I see this has become of some concern. Well, in my studies I found へ (he) to be used only when someone truly moves. If one remains stationery the particle is void and replaced by に (ni). For example: "I do not go to school at eight o'clock"= "八(hachi)時(ji)に学校(gakkou)へ行きません(ikimasen)"? While it appears validated, the correct form is actually "八時に学校に行きます". This is a simplified statement, but for colloquial terms, think of へ when one is truly going somewhere, and for negatives に。
The particke へ here means "to". It is uses wheenever you are going ti a place. So "かいしゃ へ 行きます" translates as "I am going to the company".
Is there an option to state that you do not know kanji? I can get it right with hirigana and katakana
That would be a neat feature if you wanted to take the learning process slower/then deactivate it when you're ready for kanji.
Personally I found it a bit rushed when it jumped from Hiragana to Katakana to then Kanji.
If the feature was available, I probably would have used it.
That being said... I did come here to learn as much as I can and if duolingo translator thinks introducing kanji at this stage is for the best then let me at it!! ☺
It helps to go back to previous lessons where they introduce Kanji and do them over from the beginning multiple times. I did that with Hiragana and it helped a lot!
Also it might help you learn the kanji by writing them down. Keep in mind traditionally they each have a very particular stroke order so if you're really devoted to learning Japanese the right way... Then you can learn the stroke order for each Kanji as you learn it's equivalent pronunciation in Hiragana. (Example: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-stroke-order/ )
That would be mad awesome practice!!
Best of luck & definitely message the developers with your idea. Who knows, they might implement something like that.~ (Dev email: android@duolingo.com )
Cheers!
"は" is a particle, it can be used in the positive form as much as in the negative form, it is used to mark the topic you are talking about. "に" is also a particle and is used to mark time, location, etc, that you are talking about. Particles always come after the word they talk about, in this case 「会社に行きません」(かいしゃにいきません) the particle 「に」comes after 「かいしゃ」so the "ni" is talking about the "office" and office is not a time but a location so that "ni" means location 「いきます」 means "to go", the suffix "せん" negativates the word so 「いきません] means "not go". かいしゃ-に-いきません (office to not go) the subject is omitted on japanese but we may guess he is talking about himself soooo it's "I-office-to-not go" in plain english is "I do not go to the office". Sorry if it's confusing.
会社（かいしゃ）（kaisha）（office）に（ni）(to the ※japanese particle) 行きません（いきません）（ikimasen）（do not go）
I think the he or mvement particle is not appropriate here, because the office is topic. For the Japanese sentence structure reads like: concerning the office, (I) do not go.
Can jimusho be used instead here? Wouldn't it be a better translation as kaisha actually means company?
I just sent a report, but if the sentence is using the past negative form, then the ending should be ませんでした, not ません (present negative). A simple fix would be to change the English sentence to "I am not going to the office."
It isn't using the past tense, because then it would be "I did not go..."
Your suggested correction also would use a different conjugation entirely (neither the answer here or your suggested one), because it's a progressive action - something you are still in the process of doing.
Without context, に or へ can be correct, probably universally so and for the level of grammar intended for the students of this site.
so can someone tell me why: かいしやに行きません is not accepted? it marks the や as wrong?
That is true for denoting beginnings of sentences/ proper nouns; Japanese doesn't have/use these like English.
In hiragana「平仮名」small「や、ゆ、よ」are dipthong modifiers for the sound before it.
き - ki; きや - ki•ya; きゃ - kya
ぴゃ - pya; ぴゅ - pyu; ぴょ - pyo
There are also small「つ」that create a glottal stop for consonant sounds like
「きっぷ」 - kip•pu
「なっとう」 - nat•tō
「がっこう」 - gak•kō
In katakana「片仮名」any 'vowel,' as well as ｢ャ、ュ、ョ」, can be used as modifiers (later lessons)
テ - te; テぃ - ti; テぃナ - Tina
ソフア - so•fu•a; ソファ - Sofa
ジヨン - Ji•yo•n; ジョン - John
So while there are no upper and lower cases, there are many operations done with small versions of the 平仮名 and 片仮名
You may also see small 平仮名 or 片仮名 above/below written kanji. These are for the pronunciation of that kanji and are known, among other names, as 振り仮名 (furigana).
Why is there no "wa"? Aren't you describing where you are or aren't going??
That is right! When we describe time and/or location we use 「に」instead of 「は」
You are right but in Japanese the subject is usually left out. (私は)かいしゃに行きません.
So I know in these early stages they are probably only teaching us the present tense, but what is the connotation of this sentence: Is it really "I do not go to the office" {ever} or is it "I am not going to the office" {today} the software accepts both.
