- Forum >
- Topic: Japanese >
- "ねこ"
75 Comments
I remember because you collect cats in a game called "Neko Atsume".
ik this has nothing to do with it, but I just wanted it at the top so people can see it.
BTW I did a separate comment on this but it's probably at the bottom
If you want to stress the number or the number itself is important, then yes. Otherwise you don't even need the number. (Though the number must be used together with a counter word. In the case of ねこ, it would be the counter word for small animals 匹（ひき）.
"There are six cats" or "I have six cats" would be
猫は六匹います・neko wa roppiki imasu・Cats (topic) six of them exist (animate)
or
六匹の猫がいます・roppiki no neko ga imasu ・ Six of them (noun-link) cats (subject) exist (animate)
counters are suffixes to numbers (like two slices, three sheets, four pairs, five loavesin English)
When "roku" gets combined with "hiki" there is some elision and with rendaku it becomes "roppiki"
When you place the number before the thing you are counting (second example) you connect that number with the object with the particle の, which is used to show possession or group of belonging. (It's like "six slices of bread)
"imasu" means "to exist" used with animate things (arimasu is used with inanimate). It also is used to mean "to have"
つ can be used as a general counter if you don't know the proper counter for a word. This counter uses the native Japanese counting system unlike most other counters. 六つ is pronounced "muttsu"
In certain circumstances you can use たち as a suffix for plurals (note this is typically only used with living things, even more usually only people, and roughly means "and company") 猫たち "nekotachi" would translate to "cats" but is more like "Cat and company" talking about a very specific group of cats, not just cats in general.
You'll see this with 彼女 - kanojo, "she" and 彼女たち - kanojotachi "they" (group of girls). And 私 watashi "I" becoming 私たち watashitachi "we"
When you use たち, you specifically talk about a group. For example if you say ねこたち, you talk about a specific group of cats (a specific cat and the other cats around it)
It's generally only used to pluralize human nouns/pronouns, in my experience.
Fun fact: The origin of this word is controversial, but one of the explanations is that the word is the combination of "ね"(as in ねる, sleep) and "こ"(子, kid).
So the actual definition of the word would thus mean Kitten, more so than Cat?
No, he's saying that's where the potential root of the word is from. The word for kitten is こねこ (koneko). Which is "child cat".
881
Cats meou "nyaa nyaa" or "nyan nyan" , and dogs bark "wan wan" in Japan. NYANKO and WANKO might be child's words.
I really dont understand why is there two ways to spell cat in Japanese someone please help me
Do you mean 「ねこ」and 「猫」? The first one is the hiragana form and the second is the kanji form.
Duo's listening questions are auto-generated. The contributors have no control of them and are incapable of adding multiple answer options. Since this question is from the hiragana skill, the hiragana is required.
*the person with the Secret of Mana profile picture standing eerily behind you*
If you're trying to say "my cat", it would just be 私の猫 (わたしのねこ) without the は since it isn't a full sentence.
私の猫
watashi no neko
my cat
私の猫はかわいいです。
watashi no neko wa kawaii desu.
My cat is cute.
"I" by itself is just 私, you only add a は when you're the topic of the sentence.
私は猫です。
watashi wa neko desu.
I am a cat.
[2019/03/24]
I learned the Chinese character first. Then I learned it was also the kanji for it. To this day, I still think of neko first and foremost as 猫 (kanji), not as ねこ(hiragana) or ネコ (catakana).
I wrote "gatto" in italian (my language" instead of "cat" and it's was considered wrong...
I always thought it was Nee-ko instead of Neck-ko but i don't even know how this one was pronounced.
The え sound in Japanese is often mispronounced as "ee" by English speakers, like in karate, kamikaze, or sake. Yes, it transliterates to our letter E, and yes we pronounce the name of the letter as "ee," but it's always pronounced as "eh" in Japanese.
I guess I'm lucky then and have a slovak background where e is also 'eh' and 'ee' sound is i :)
If anything is ever pronounced "ee" it would be for characters like り or に, (ri or ni) where the romanji (English letters) has an "I" in it. If the romanji is spelled with an "e," like ね or れ (ne or re) its pronounced like eh, as in "eh, I'll clean my room later" (at least from the characters I learned so far, that seems to be a good rule of thumb to follow)
Yes, although it's rōmaji (ローマ字), not romanji. Think of it like "characters from Rome".
