"何かつくりましょうか？"
Translation:Shall I make something?
74 Comments
It's always disheartening when Duo throws words/phrases at me before teaching me, and I'm left completely lost.
426
Some people actually learn that way better. When you are confronted with something you don't know, you may actually remember it better.
...but it does not work for everybody.
You can place your finger on the words and it will show you their meaning
Stop crying, it is done on purpose. How do you think you learned your first language?
It means to get you used to understandIng through the context.
And it is actually not thrown at you... These are always along things you KNOW are not what was asked.
Good thing that i checked out the comments. I thought it was just a less literal translation of "what shall I make"
Isn't this the same verb as 使う (つかう)? What's the difference between them?
- 426
使う means to use
e.g. 漢字を使ってください。「kanji o tsukatte kudasai」。 please use kanji
作る means to make, to create
食べ物を作ってください。「tabemono o tsukutte kudasai」 Please make food.
Why would this ever be "shall I make something" doesn't ましょうimply doing something with another person?
The ～ましょう form can function in many ways. It can 'imply doing something with another person' just as you mentioned, yet it can also imply the speaker's intention (as in this sentence), and it can express commands (in an indirectly way) and predictions of the future or guesses to things.
何か means 'something', once you see that (and stop thinking about 'what') the rest of the meaning kinda falls into place!
Regardless of gender I have never heard anyone other than new language learners say Nanika rather than nanka
- 276
The actual word is nanika. You only say nanka when you're talking informally.
If it's said fast, or "arrogantly", the second "ni" is often not fully pronounced. (By arrogant i mean... cute girls will tend to say nanika and tough boys will tend to say nanka.) My dictionary has a separate entry for "nanka" but it still uses the same kanji.
Question words don't really take は. Try saying "regarding" to yourself when translating は, and the sentence doesn't really make a lot of sense.
- 384
Particles are usually omitted while speaking when the meaning can be understood without them
You don't use を and か-as-question-subclause together ever;. It's like は where it supercedes the を。
I think its because 何か is used for what questions in general, and を for things that are physical direct objects of something. I think if you used 何を you'd be talking about two or more previously mentioned subjects, as in 'which one shall I make?'
But that's just what I instinctively think, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Does this sentence have an implied は or is the particle left off for 何か and other similar some- words?
My Japanese teacher said the other day that with words like 何か、誰か、and so on, you drop the を particle. The か part is the particle, kinda.
When using mashou it can be with a group or as if someone is talking to themselves aloud or mentally, so my rule of thumb is use that somilar to let's or shall we. So there may be an implied someone being spoken to but it could also be just the one person.
- 426
AFAIK, topic marker は is never used directly after interrogative words like nani, doko, dare, dochira, etc.
は is usually used to show who is the subject, the one receiving the action, in this case 何か translates to "something" and when using ましょうか demonstrates that it is oneself that performs the action. I may be wrong too , if someone disagrees please correct me
は sets the conversational topic and the one bringing the action (not recieving it)
が and を tell who's on the recieving end.
何か means something. か after a question word is like "some-" 誰か someone どこか somewhere
Uhm what?
As far as I know it's a matter of context with this sentence, that's it.
No, that's not the case. Another example: どこ = where どっか (irregular) = somewhere
I think both "Shall I make something" and "Shall I make YOU something should both be correct, as it can mean both ^_^
According to my Japanese-English dictionary (https://jisho.org/search/tsukurimasu), yes you can.
these are confusing, sometimes it's "would you like me to ..." sometimes it's "shall i ..."
- 1072
'Will I make something?' should also be accepted here; not all dialects of English use 'shall'.
" What shall we make? " is incorrect? Have I misunderstood the 「-ましょう」ending? I believed it to be inclusive.
When would 何 sound be changed in the sentence before this (im not sure what it said in english) it sounded like nan, but this sentence sounds like nani? Why's that?
Duolingo not accepting common kanji. Again. Accepting mostly kana is one thing, downright marking kanji as wrong a whole other bag. It is considered wrong if you write kana instead of common kanji in Japanese and duolingo does very little to encourage use of kanji.
This chapter is the worst. I'm keep losing lives even when i put correct answers. Literally, this starts with "nani" and "what should i make" counts as wrong...
It doesn't start with 何, it starts with 何か. The first means "what", the second means "something".
- 552
How can one tell in this sentence alone, if it meant for the speaker, the group, or the object to whom the speaker is speaking to attempt the creation?
the missing conext threw me off.. I translated it as "shall we make something?"
