"I eat fish."
Translation:魚を食べます。
74 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
At last I found this. But I didn't read all of them. Sorry.
301
Oh my god, thank you so much been looking for something like this. Duolingo should teach this straight off the bat imo
Whenever you have listed an object of any kind (inanimate) you place the object marker 'o' after it to designate that what you just said is some sort of object
It marks the object of the sentence. In english we use word order to achieve this.
What mashte is actually? Is hajimemaste is somewhat denoting past (given kudamashte is past)?
The まして in はじめまして is actually a somewhat old way of speaking, which isn't commonly used nowadays, I believe. Essentially, it's the polite version of the て-form, which has a couple of grammatical functions.
One of these is to indicate a series of actions, which はじめまして kind of falls under, I think. As far as I know, はじめまして is actually a shortened version of the sentence 「はじめまして("to do for the first time")お目にかかれて("to be able to meet", lit. "to be able to set my eyes on")光栄("honor")です」 which is a very polite way to greet someone you meet for the first time (though it will sound very stiff and over the top in today's language).
I'm not sure what you mean by kudamashte... as far as I'm aware, that's not a correct conjugation. Perhaps, 「くださいましてありがとうございます」? It's a formal phrase for "thank you for doing that for (someone so lowly as) me"
Is there some rule when to use the first ones compared to the second ones? Or more specifically, when to use this "ない"-form? "食べません / 食べない" And thx for all your comments sora, they're always really helpful :)
Now I just need to find out how to tell what the subject or topic of a sentence is.
I'm a native english speaker but it doesn't mean I understand the syntax of the language.
Just how to use it.
Well, it also seems that they're different from what we commonly call the "subject" of an English sentence. In almost all of these examples, the unseen "I" (or "you" or "he" or "she") is what we would call the "subject" in English grammar, but it's the "topic" with regards to "は". Extra little layer of confusion there.
That's why I'm bothered with all the simple explanations people give on here, because you really can't expect Japanese to follow English language rules. And it doesn't help understand the way these particles work but instead just causes confusion.
Personally, this article here really helped me get a better grasp ond を and が http://learnjapaneseonline.info/2016/09/04/is-there-a-grammatical-subject-in-japanese/
Actually, the topic might be the subject at the same time, and it wouldn't be marked with が in such a case
I really don't think it's helpful because が doesn'talways work the way an english subject would which is really confusing in many instances if you strictly adhere to が = Subject.
To really make you grasp the concept of it I recommend everyone reading this article http://learnjapaneseonline.info/2016/09/04/is-there-a-grammatical-subject-in-japanese/
は marks the subject of the sentence and を marks the object. In this exercise, I am the subject so I write 「わたし」は, and the object that I'm eating is the fish, so I write 「さかな」を. It's very common in Japanese (as well as Korean) to indicate the subject and object in a sentence.
If you look at the sentence, you'll notice that it has no time tag to it (meaning that it's just saying "in general, I..."). That being said, if you use は, it makes it general where you say, "As for fish, (I) don't eat (in general/ever)." If you were using を, it wouldn't have a direct time tag on it, but it would be more of an implied 'this will happen in just a second/in the near future.' 私は: ステーキはたべます。I eat steak (from time to time, in general, etc.) ステーキをたべます。I will eat steak (in a second, a few minutes, etc.)
Research particles online.
can not write all the usage of '私'. Because I am not a linguist, There are many cases, but I can not say about everything.
Watashi along with similar words, means all of those things wheb paired with the right particles. は and が are good examples of such particles. は and が are very similar but both have different uses. は is often referred to as the topic marker particle, which means that when comes after a noun it sets a new topic for the conversation. が however is more often used in connection to question with specific answers. In a way you could say that が translates to "... is the one".
If you want to know more about this I suggest you google Tae Kim and find his blog post on this, as he does a good job explaining it.
That is just how the verb conjugates. It is the polite positive present conjugation, so it means "(I) eat".
Yeah I think it is weird that the app doesn't have notes on the grammar, the web courses do. Hopefully if this course gets released on the web they will release grammar notes as well.
If you speak spanish this is a mnemonic for fish: Ana se ahoga, saca a Ana (con una red de pesca)
- 380
The same kanji can be pronounced different ways, depending on how it's used. An example is 時, which can be "ji", "jikan", or "toki". These are called "readings". Sometimes the software picks the wrong one. Typically there is both a Chinese loanword, and a native Japanese word, mapped to the same kanji. These are called "on yomi" and "kun yomi" in Japanese. I can not remember which is which.
I don't know what I did wrong. I wrote さかな (sakana, fish) を (wo, object marker) 食べ (tabe, eat), but it wasn't accepted. My understanding is that my sentence would have been correct in the context of a conversation about different foods that I eat and that 私 (watashi, I) さかな (sakana) を (wo, object marker) 食べ (tabe, eat) ます (masu, I think it makes it more polite) would be correct when I (the subject and topic) was not already the topic, like for example if we were talking about what YOU like to eat and when you mention that you do not eat fish, I politely point out that I do.
Can someone please explain?
'tabe' is the unconjugated form. basically you said 'I to eat fish'. the 'masu' brings the 'tabe' into the right form. 'I eat' instead of 'I to eat'.
Just adding to what flypirat said, you're right in that ます does show politeness, but not as simply as just being there.
The root word for the verb "to eat" is 食べる. You can use this as a verb in plain/casual speech. When you want to show politeness, you should conjugate it into ます-form. Depending on the class of verb, there are a couple of different rules for doing this, but in the case of 食べる, it's simply done by replacing る with ます. Like flypirat pointed out, you need to put the ます back on to complete the verb conjugation.
So in essence, you show politeness by using different forms of the verb, rather than the mere presence or absence of ます.
Tbh it's very unfortunate to see so so mucb discussion/guesswork being done here. This Duo course is not suitable for learning grammar as it explains nothing.
Please people, refer to books/other apps and websites (like JA Sensei or Tae Kims Guide) to understand basic particle usage and verb conjugation :/
Why is 魚を食べます not accepted, while やさいを食べます (in the other exercise) is accepted ??
I'm confused why you need 私は in this sentence but in all the other sentences, を indicated "I"
"I" is assumed from context, you don't NEED "I" if people know that you are speaking on your own behalf. :)
By including I you are emphasizing that you are the one that does not eat fish. For example, youre in a large group of people and youre all asked if you eat fish. Not including I would be like saying no one in the group eats fish, but that might not be true if you dont know for sure.
を doesn't indicate "I" in any sentence; it's always the "object particle" and indicates what the verb acts on.
In previous exercises, 私は (which actually indicates that "I" is the topic of the sentence) was left out because, as the others have commented, it can be left out, and often is, if it is obvious you are talking about yourself.
This is one of the things i dont like about the app. How was someone supposed to know that that was the kanji for fish. It was never introduced before.
And reading all the comments shows that you already have to have some background in japanese already to understand what they are doing. Especially all the grammatical particles.
It seems like whenever the sentence says they dont eat a certain food, they use 'wa', but for when they do eat a certain food, they use 'o'
- 380
Is anyone else getting the "u-o" reading from the audio? When do you use "u-o" for the fish character?
Because て-form serves a number of specific grammatical functions, none of which are applicable to simple present tense, i.e. "I eat fish."
Fish doesn't have legs. I guess the four dots are caudal fin. ：）
Exactly, but 食います【くいます】is a rather crude/crass form of the word, something rebellious teenage boys or ill-mannered men are more likely to use.
Even though I got this right,I'm still a bit confused as to what's the difference between を、は、に & が?
I really recommend you reading this article http://learnjapaneseonline.info/2016/09/04/is-there-a-grammatical-subject-in-japanese/
It helped me get a better grasp on が and を
@sora_Japan also posted a very helpful cheat sheet from Tofugu in an earlier comment. I would recommend reading through the other comments on this discussion page to help you get a feel for it too.
But, I wouldn't worry too much about it at this stage. Using particles takes some time and exposure to get used to, and time spent analyzing why a specific particle was used can be better utilized by getting more exposure to the different ways particles can be used. You'll just get a feel for what's right eventually.
The を is there to mark the object of the sentence. It identifies a noun or a noun phrase as "the thing the verb acts on".
Like all particles in Japanese, it is a "postposition", rather than the "prepositions" we are used to in English. So in this sentence, the verb ("eat", 食べます) acts on/gets applied to the noun that came before を, which is 魚 ("fish").
Why is it wrong to use 魚 in this context? How do you tell when to use 魚 and さかな? Don't they read the same?
why does it say: Sakana "を" tabemas = i eat fish and in another lesson is said: Sakana "は" tabemasen = i dont eat fish
is it when you dont do someting "は" and when you do its a "を"?
Without seeing your actual answer exactly as you input it, we will not know. Romaji does not give us enough information.
Unless you mean that you answered in romaji, in which case Duo does not accept romaji answers. You need to use actual Japanese 魚を食べます
を marks the direct object of the sentence; the thing the verb is acting on.
Your answer would mean "Fish eat me"