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- "Nice to meet you, my name is…
"Nice to meet you, my name is John."
Translation:はじめまして、ジョンと言います。
91 Comments
I just wanted to clarify for @kidkuma that the typical usage of ~といいます is different from your suggestion, which is very natural.
Typically, one would use either ~です OR ~といいます, but not both. Which one you choose ultimately comes down to personal preference, but as @Cecil164832 pointed out in another comment, the meaning of いいます is "saying", so an example situation where it might be natural to use it instead of です is if you write your name on the board before introducing yourself, i.e. "I'm your new English teacher {writes "Chris" on the board} "Chris"といいます."
There are a couple of reasons. The first major one is that お
名前 is used to refer to someone else's name. This is because お is an honorific prefix which indicates that you are showing respect to the name and it's considered poor social etiquette to indicate respect for yourself. On the other hand, ~といいます is a relatively polite way to introduce yourself because it's somewhat humble (it means "I am called ~" with the connotation that you didn't choose to be called this, but accept it anyway).
The other, less important reason is because, even if you had tried a correct way to introduce yourself 「私の
名前はジョンです」, Duolingo is trying to teach you a set course with preset sentences. By necessity, they have to assume that you know only what they've explicitly taught you up to this point in the course, and 名前 has not been. I think they should still accept it, but these exceptions have to be manually added for each sentence.
I have no clue what I'm doing... I keep guessing the sentence structures... I feel so discouraged
That's a pretty good way to think about it.
Names work because the topic is omitted, and "name" becomes part of the extra stuff. The full sentence in this exercise would be 私はジョンといいます. 私 ("I/me") is marked as the topic by は, ジョン ("John") is marked as the quoted thing by と, and the verb is いいます ("to be called/named"). Similarly, ジョンです in full is 私はジョンです.
No, 名前はジョンです is not normal, even in informal Japanese. If the subject was to be dropped, it would be the entire phrase, 私の名前, along with its associated particle, は, so you'd be left with ジョンです.
However, dropping the subject doesn't automatically make it informal Japanese. For this sentence, the verb has an informal form too, です -> だ
If you're talking about how Duo has set up separate buttons for と, いい, and ます, as well as といいます, there's no difference; it's just an exercise if you want to practice spelling out the words.
If you're talking about transliteration (writing it out using English letters), there's no real prescribed "correct way", but I prefer to write it as to iimasu, to help me remember that to is the particle and iimasu is the verb.
Japanese doesn't use spaces because they don't need to. They use hiragana, katakana, and kanji in specific grammatical roles to make spaces largely unnecessary.
The topic can often be omitted from a sentence if it is already known from context. In this case, the topic of the sentence is "I" since you are introducing yourself. If you were to include the topic the sentence would read as:
はじめまして、私はジョンといいます
Since the listener knows that you're referring to yourself though, it isn't necessary to tell them that it is specifically you who is John so the topic can be dropped.
The pattern I'm at the moment is that in Japanese, you put the thing that's being talked about (in this case John/ジョン) before the thing that subject is or is doing (in this case, the subject, John, is your name)
I'm not a native speaker so I don't know if this is accurate or not. Can someone confirm?
Be careful about patterns. Duolingo is more informal but practical Japanese. If you want to understand the guidelines and concepts, you need to use something with pro grammer like Genki 1 or Lingodeer so you don't form the wrong connections.
That is if you're wanting to read and write and not just speak. Ignore me in that case
は when used as a topic particle is pronounced "wa" but in every other instance it is "ha"
The sounds of many kana changed when the language was reformed and solidified, but since particles were in such common use, rather than change them all and have to completely re-teach the population to read and write they just allowed the old readings to stay as well, giving the kana used for particles multiple reading.
へ is "he" normally but "e" as a direction particle, and を is "wo" but pronounced "o" as an object marker.
が is the subject particle and marks the subject of a sentence. It marks new important information and stresses the word that comes before it. Sometimes the subject and the topic are the same thing, but not always.
Often は and が can be interchangeable, with each adding slightly different nuance to the sentence. は is used for the broader topic of conversation and if understood from context can be dropped. (The unspoken topic of this question's sentence would be "me" as in "my name is John") は carries some other functions such as showing contrast between things and is more often used in negative sentences for this reason.
Some examples:
Both of these sentences translate to "This is a pen" but different parts are stressed.
これはペンです - kore ha pen desu - (this) (topic) (pen) (is)
"On the topic of this thing - it is a pen" - "this" is already known, it being a pen is new information and is stressed. Could be in response to "what is this thing?"
これがぺんです - kore ga pen desu - (this) (subject) (pen) (is)
"This thing (is the thing that is) a pen" - "this" is new information and stressed. Could be an answer to "What is a pen?"
"I am John" :
私はジョンです - watashi wa John desu - (I) (topic) (John) (am)
"On the topic of me - I am John" - can be shortened to a simple ジョンです John desu, because it can already understood you're talking about yourself.
私がジョンです - Watashi ga John desu - (I) (subject) (John) (am)
"I (am the one who is) John" - "I" is being stressed. You are John. Not that other person.
A sentence that uses both:
私はお茶が欲しいです - Watashi wa ocha ga hoshii desu - (I) (topic) (tea) (subject) (wanted/desired) (is)
"On the topic of me, tea is wanted" or simply "I want tea".
Can be shortened to お茶が欲しいです - ocha ga hoshii desu - because it is assumed you are talking about yourself.
Sorry that got a bit long, particles are complex things and I'm only really scratching the surface here. They'll become much easier to understand as you're learning and start actively using them.
Because it’s not well explained, 言います (いいます) is more like “I am called” but it can also be used for say/said.
You want to think if it more as “People say I am” only because the と Particle in this situation is used to mark a quote.
So literally it’s more like: Nice to meet you, I am called “John”.
Weird, I know.
Generally, a good way to start getting your head around Japanese grammar, especially as a beginner, is to start translating from the end, but if you hold on to that crutch too tightly, you very quickly get sentences that make no sense in English.
In this case, the comma separates the phrases はじめまして and ジョンといいます. By answering with "My name is John, nice to meet you", Duo thinks you think はじめまして = "my name is John" and ジョンといいます = "nice to meet you", which are both clearly incorrect.
You don't use san (or any other honorific) for yourself or when referring to your family; it makes you sound too proud.
For example you wouldn't talk to someone else about your mother using okaasan you'd use mama/haha, though in some families when talking directly to your mother you might use okaasan as a way of showing her respect.
Yes, it would be weird. In Japanese culture, to my non-native understanding, the use of honorific name suffixes like さん is a lot more nuanced than "is X an elder/respected figure?" The same person could go by さん to some people, さま to others, せんせい to others still, etc. The same person could refer to the same someone by さん in certain situations, せんぱい in others, etc.
Furthermore, one does not generally demand respect in Japanese culture; it's usually implied and/or expected. To that end, a person typically doesn't choose what name suffix they want to be addressed by.
Thst being said, I can imagine a scenario where someone is being disrespectful to John, who has a higher social status, and John feels the need to address such disrespect, but there are a couple of things weird about your suggested sentence. One, this typically wouldn't happen on a first meeting (as implied by the はじめまして), especially being the first thing you say to someone. They probably haven't had the chance to disrespect John yet. Their relative social status hasn't been established enough yet to be disrespected.
Secondly, and more importantly, if John was incensed enough to correct someone, he wouldn't use the polite verb conjugation of いいます. It would probably be more like お前(おまえ)にはジョンさんだぞ, where お前 is a rude and condescending version of "you", だ is the plain (non-polite) form of です, and ぞ is a strongly masculine emphasizer (similar to よ).
さん is a default title but Mr. Is not. In English we would ADD Mr. Out of respect. In Japanese, you REMOVE さん out of familiarity.
I've never liked "Mr, Miss, & Ms" as the translation。Titles like -どの (dono) or -さま (sama) are closer. Consider it doesn't have a direct translation so -さん means -さん.
This happens with most languages so instead focus on context . -さん is the default unless you have a personal relationship but its not like you MUST drop/change it.
Example, most common name for mother is "おかさん" but I've never heard anyone say おか. Likewise, they use "まま" but not "ままさん" so in this instance, the best translation is:
おかさま = Most respected mother (okasama) おかさん = Mother (okasan) まま = Mom/Mommy (mama)
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Is it not possible to use the small "tsu" in "to-i-i-ma-su" since its used for doubling of the following first character? Instead of two "i"s?
Well, now you have, and hopefully next time you'll remember some of them and what they say/mean. That's how you learn things.
Duo makes things a little easier for you by providing a "Tips and Notes" section at the start of every tree (the little light bulb icon, which unfortunately isn't available in the Android app) and hints for every word (if you click or tap the characters, the hints will appear).
Hey, I am using a japanese keyboard and when I type と言い the first い converts to a different kanji character that looks about the same but doesnt have the little nick on the top. it only doesnt type 言 in the questionair and I dont know if this is a fault with the keyboard and duolingo questionnaire cause I can type the exact same thing into anything else and it shows up with the right kanji character. Does anyone have any suggestions or knows if im just stupid and doing wrong? I dont want to use the select box method for every question that involves と言い but I cant figure out how to type the 言 character XO
How similar is the kanji that you get instead? Could it just be a difference in the font?
See this example:
These are Chinese characters, but the same principle applies to Japanese kanji. The each row shows different styles for writing a given character (top to bottom, 立, 言, 耀). The "little nick at the top" might just be a font difference.