"なつ"
Translation:summer
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The author of Fairy Tail named him Natsu because he thought it fitting; his previous series' main character was named Haru, meaning Spring, and Spring comes before Summer.
I wish they would use the Kanji more, then I would be able to use my Chinese knowledge.
These are the hiragana lessons to teach you how to read hiragana. The kanji will be used later in the course. :)
People may think that summer is my favorite season, but that is natsu (not so). (for those of us not familiar with Natsu Dragneel). [Edited to change the word weather to season.]
Natsu makes me think of the spanish word "Natación" which means swimming!
"We swim in summer, natsu means summer." That's how I think about it. :)
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I just think of natsu dragneel Natsu is a hotheaded idiot who uses fire dragon slayer magic and natsu means summer Easy peasy way to remember
To swim in Japanese 泳ぐ (およぐ)(oyogu) , could be a little confusing...un saludo
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Natsu (なつ、夏) means summer, and yasumi (やすみ、休み) means rest/ break. So natsuyasumi (なつやすみ、夏休み) means summer vacation. In Japan students have a long break in Summer from July to August, depends on the region. By the way, please don't give this kind of comments downvote, it makes you learn more!
Might be a weird question but... are there four seasons in Japan, too? Some cultures have more. Thanks for answering in advance.
i'd be interested to know what language/culture has more. do you know of one in particular?
as far as i know, hindu calendar is split into 6 seasons: spring, summer, monsoon, autumn, pre-winter and winter. also, medieval romance cultures had 5 seasons, once spring was considered two: prīmavēra (prīmus “first” + vēr “spring”) and vēr - the actual spring. although summer was called aestās, some languages adopted the vēr root as "summer" instead, as portuguese verão, spanish verano and romanian vară while most of them kept spring following the prīmavēra root :)
Th-th-thanks? Wow, you just told me more than what I learned in religion and history this year... XD
Finally someone who knows a bit of Romanian over here... Sunt mândru de tine!
In Poland we have: przedwiośnie = pre-spring wiosna = spring lato = summer jesień = autumn/fall przedzimie = pre-winter zima = winter But now when we have a global warming, there is only 4 seasons, and it goes toward only 2 (cold - summer)
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Oooh now I get why Natsumi from Terrace House is called "Fuyumi" when she showed her "dark side"
Here is a good way of remembering this one: 'natsu' sounds like 'nuts out'. So it's so hot in the summer that people take their 'natsu' hahaha
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Like English, we can use an adjective before a noun to describe the noun. There are certain adjectives which needs a な between the adjective and the noun in this case. For example:
- 元気（げんき）な 子供（こども） An energetic child
- 新鮮（しんせん）な 魚（さかな） Fresh fish
- 頑（かたく）なな 老人（ろうじん） A stubborn old person
well, kinda. The vowels 'u' and 'i' at the end of words are devoiced when after a voiceless consonant. They kinda sound like they are being whispered. Its very weird, japanese is the only language i know of that perposely whispers vowels. The same thing happens when those two are between any two voiceless consonants, like, k,s,t,sh,ts,h,f. Its why words like 'sasuke' sometimes sound like 'saske'
Probably a better example would be 好き which sounds like sski. For more about japanese whispered vowels, this guy does a good job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSxbtN3pdZQ
I believe the pronunciation for natsu is wrong in this one (coming from a native japanese speakers opinion). Its not nah-tsoo, but more nuh-tsu.
Thanks mari for the explanation, glad natives helping out those who want to learn.
Why do you sometimes use "つ" like this is Natsu, but in other words it just doubles the consinent
During Summer, it's"hot as balls" or "nuts". Natsu sounds like nuts. I dunno. Works for me!
there's this tradition where Japanese kids would shout, "なつ!" as they jump into the ocean during summer. picture the fun and you'll remember it
I will remember natsu because that is name of hinata's sister from haikyuu!! Now I know why she was named that!
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Yes, this is the Katakana form of summer (direct import from English). We tend to use Katakana form to describe something western, and use the Hiragana one for normal use or describe traditional things.
e.g. サマーフェスティバル vs 夏祭り(なつまつり). Both means summer festival, but the former one gives a more westernized feel e.g. it may be referring to a department store campaign. The later one gives a feeling of traditional Japanese festival where people wear traditional clothing called Yukata.
I learn the four seasons in the Given anime. The character Haruki as for Haru [ 春 | はる] , Mafuyu as for Fuyu [ 冬 | ふゆ], Akihiko as for Aki [ 秋 | あき] and Ritsuka [ 立夏 | リツカ] where 夏 also means Summer. Anyone else who watched the anime? (Oh yeah, it's shounen-ai genre)
Kanji was the original writing system adopted from Chinese and how Japanese was traditionally written. Using kanji alone is messy and complicated though as Chinese has very different grammar to Japanese (Chinese doesn't really have conjugations, whereas Japanese is agglutinative and has conjugations for verbs and adjectives). This meant in many situations applying a bunch of different readings to a single character and using complex characters purely for the sounds they make rather than their meaning.
The kana systems (hiragana, katakana) made reading and writing far easier. These systems are symbols that have been derived from complex kanji to be used for their pronunciation. With more consistent ways of spelling words and with easier symbols to learn (only 46 unique syllables) literacy was far more attainable than it was before (when you would have to know thousands and thousands of kanji, many of which only for a sound rather than its original meaning).
Today a combination of all three systems are used to make reading understandable. Since there are no spaces in Japanese, switching between them makes it far easier to see where words begin and end and be understood quickly.
Kanji are used for most noun, verb and adjective bases for their meanings.
Hiragana is used for most grammatical components (particles, conjugations) and some set expressions.
Katakana is used for loan words, onomatopoeia, and emphasis, similar to writing in CAPS or italics
If you were to say something like "a sunny summer" would it be "Hare natsu" or "natsu hare"?
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I believe it means that there are a lot of sunny days in this summer. In which case maybe よく晴れた夏
Yeah, 'なつ' means summer. But I think the true accent would be 'な↓つ↑' (The example sounds like 'な↑つ↓')
when i goes to type in english in test its gives incorrect why? i Typed. natsu. please help me this issue
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You need to type summer because it is asking for a translation. Natsu is the pronunciation.
Depends on the kanji used
夏季 - "Summer season" or 夏木 "Summer tree"
No, it would usually be written in kanji 夏
The majority of noun/verb and adjective bases will use kanji. Hiragana is mainly used for grammar parts (conjugations, particles, etc), expressions and furigana (the kana that show how a kanji is pronounced). Most children's books are also mainly in hiragana since it is the first writing system they learn and spend their entire school life learning the kanji. Similarly Duo is teaching some basic easy vocabulary words to practice your hiragana before diving into more complicated systems where you'll learn the kanji.
So, I noticed that なつ is translated to summer here, but in the exercise it says it's Summer. With the ふゆ exercise, it is written as being translated as winter on both the "Correct!" section of the screen, and the discuss page. Is this just an error on Duolingo's part? Or does summer get a specific treatment in terms of capitalization? I'm not that far into Japanese, so I'm not entirely sure.
There isn't anything special about the capitalization. It isn't graded at all, nor does it exist in Japanese.
In English we don't capitalize the names of seasons since they aren't proper nouns, but in a sentence we do capitalize the first letter. When inputting individual words without a full sentence often the contributors will input the word with caps as if it is the beginning of a phrase, other times and other contributors won't. Don't get too hung up on solo nouns with or without capitals; it isn't really an error nor does it have any effect on anything aside from giving you a hint for which word to start with when inputting a full sentence from the word bank.
With winter the EN->JA has it with caps https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/27519873/Winter
And the reverse JA->EN has it without https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23033248
These very early skills get the most amount of spam/repeat comments which we remove to make the discussions easier to navigate and find actual answers to questions.
If you can see the spam still I assume you're on mobile where there's a glitch that doesn't hide it from view as it should. It really doesn't help the 'makes it easier to read' purpose of removing them.
I think of the Childish Gambino song "Feels like Summer". I just change it to "It feels like なつ".