"学生です。"
Translation:I am a student.
100 Comments
150
I got this 5 times lol. Maybe they got just a bit overboard spreading out the lessons...
Say the four sounds like you think they should be. Then say it again with u silent, but still leaving the same amount of space for it. You just pronounced Japanese. You'll find that it's light years more regular and predictable than English.
No, the u in the ku of gakusei is pronounced, it's only the u in the terminal su of desu that is dropped habitually.
in some words like がくせい, せんせい （sensei) the い isn't really pronounced it's more of stretching out the え sound.
considering they use syllabaries and kanji, which by definition makes their writing system not be phonetic, I find it to be extremely phonetic.
Why is 生 pronounced like せい but if I tab on it an even google sais it's なま? I knew that one Kanji can have multiple meanings but can it have multiple completely different pronouncation as well?
- 608
Afaict it is a rare kanji that has only one pronunciation. Most have at least two, one onyomi (derived from old Chinese) and one kunyomi (native Japanese). Some have more. Enjoy!
Yes, the pronunciations vary sometimes depending how the kanji stands, whether it be alone or different kanji. For example: 誕生日 : tanjoubi (birthday) uses the same character 生 , but is pronounced different in comparison to 先生: sensei (teacher). Its really going to learn kanji apart from this and learning the meaning and where its used.
Individuals Kanji can be pronounced many different ways depending on what they're paired with (or if they are alone). It's easier to just learn the word as a whole instead of reading kanji separately
So when you don't say わたしは, is your being the subject just implied anyway since you're speaking?
Also, this might be a sentence put in after introducing the topic, yes?
As I understand it, in Japanese you continually introduce "topics" and they will remain the topic until you change them.
So for example, if you say.. わたしは田中です. (I'm Tanaka) then you don't have to include the わたしは again if you're still talking about yourself...it's implied.
I might be very wrong, so correct me if so!
- 123
No, you're absolutely correct! I will just say that, when you don't say わたしは, in this course you are implied as the subject because you're speaking. This isn't always the case when you're speaking in Japanese. As you pointed out, the topic could have previously been introduced as something else, so if you are still talking about that topic, you don't need to say it again.
Sushi says "gasieh des" but clicking on the characters said "gaki nama desu". I get the des/desu thing. But.. The characters for student ? That's quite dramatic. I cannot even remember which version they "taught us" in the Lesson. At least in this first section, beginning words, they ought to be consistent with what we have learned so far. At this point in timer it's not many words, so proofing should be a small set to verify consistency on. Is Very Important to have consistency in the beginning. I understand there may well be many variations Later, and introducing (or letting this kind of inconsistencies) slide in later, makes sense at the advanced stages of learning a languages. By then we will be encountering more stuff in the wild, and have a good base.
The one that is driving me most nuts, today, it's the Lesson that quizzes is on the sound of the "naka" kanji character (part of the Tanaka name we learned). While the character'z audio always says "naka", as we learned, the "sound pronunciation" it always wants it's to match to is "chyu" !!
I report that one, but they never do anything about it. Has anybody else report that one ? That one is waaay worse than this , as it literally asks us to zay Trek completely different signs are exactly the same sound. Nobody's brain can Accept that!
Anyway, I love this course! There are just a few oddities in this certs version that trip is newbies up, and could be addresses, so that we do not run into learning walls, and give up.
That happened with memorize version. Their audio was sooo different in place to place, I have up extremely confused.v there got a point where there was no way to learn it. This was a couple years ago. Dunno if it improved or not. I HATE the Rocket ship theme they changed to. So I cannot even get myself to use their app anymore, for Any language, or subject.
Japanese though, was the only language I had trouble with on their platform.
I concluded there we no way to learn it from them.
I've done MUCH better so far this DuoLingo Japanese! I know these little things will trip up and happy many (not all) learners. So I would like to see these sticky smoothed over.
I've waited Years for Japanese to arrive in DuoLingo. I'm grateful to be part of the beta debut !!
Ah ... no worries, it's not an error, (probably?) I think the Jap beta mods purposely leave it so to introduce beginners that Kanji characters have two sets of reading (On'yomi [音読み] and Kun'yomi [訓読み]).
I'm no expert. But I believe I read somewhere that the pronunciation may change depending on what follows. The character for 'naka' has that pronunciation, but there may be some exceptions and it may change according to the next character, such is the case with naka-kumi. That together their pronounciation changes to shiyügoku (Chinese). The problem with duolingo is that it lacks this type of explanations that a language as complex as Japanese needs.
I hate rocket ship theme too. Memrize isn't good app. I love this beautiful green app - Duolingo. But there are so many bugs with audio and "wrong" answers.
- 717
I am sure if you say that to every English speaker, they will understand. But it is just grammatically wrong, so that's why it is not accepted.
"a" is an indefinite article. This proceeds the noun to indicate a none specified now.
Such as:
- a cat (over there).
- a dog (over there).
These show that there is none specific cat and dog. Where as "the", a definite article, shows a specific noun.
- the cat (over there).
- the dog (over there).
this specifies which cat or dog.
- 717
Here you need the identifier particle 「が」, therefore the sentence becomes 「私が学生です。」
I may be wrong, but が is used to indicate who is doing the ACTION, as far as I know... for example: [私が寿司を食べます] Which means "I eat sushi".
The correct particle should be は。 [私は学生です]
So, considering there is no "私は" in front of this sentence why is "a student" not applicable?
- 717
A student in japanese is 「学生」. If they add 「です」into it, then it must imply that someone is a student depending to the context. It could be I, he, she, etc.
So here is what I am wondering.... how do you spell the words in Japanese if my key board is in english?
On your phone go into Settings then Language and Input and you can download the Japanese keyboard :)
Why here the second character sounds different than in other situations? I can't understand
What if you wanted to add a nationality? Would it be "わたしは日本学生 人です｡" or "わたしは学生日本人です。?
its not very cash money if you just walk up to someone and say "i am student" then walk away.
well its like over emphasizing it. if you say white in english and say it with a really strong emphasis on the 'H', like in Family Guy, it doesnt sound right
So for you guys that doesn't understand, です doesn't really mean anything, it just adds to the ends of a sentence to make it polite. Also, Japanese people do not have specifications for singular and plural (it is generally understood by the context) [学生です] can by those means have different meanings depending on the context. For example: student, students, he is a student, I am a student, etc.
wait wait wait wait... so i can legit just go up to someone in japan and say, "gakusei", and they will 100% automatically know that im a student
I thought desu meant ' am ' and ' is ' for example ' Ringo wa aka desu ' means ' The apple is red ' .
Duolingo is telling me two ways to say it..
' Gakusei desu ' and ' watashi wa gakusei desu. ' The both mean ' I am a student ' . Which one do I use?
- 623
The subject in Japanese is often omitted when it is already understood. Therefore you say "watashi wa..." when it is not clear that you are talking about yourself.
If you just say "Gakusei desu", you may also be saying someone else is a student.
Why does it happen when i press to hear it fully it skips the "nama" part? Im confused?
- 623
The first one has the subject specified and it can only be about "I" am student. The second one has the subject omitted, and thus it depends on who the subject understood for the sentence is. e.g. If the sentence is an answer for the question "Who are you?", then using the 2nd sentence is enough. The 1st sentence would still be used in some occasions, when the subject is not understood yet or to make an emphasis.
It's row to make you analyse sentence structure and memorise each symbol mentally and find a way to write it... when it's a row close your eyes and try to draw the sentence mentally... if you get it.. ? Congratulation you are thinking in japanese !!
Are these characters Kanji? Or is it in the Katakana and I haven't noticed...
the only katakana weve seen so far are when were referring to john, maria, america, and the uk. so yeah this is kanji right now
They may have given this one a lot because it could have been trying to get you to memorize the kanji for 学生 (gakusei)
Can some one pleas help me, i dont understand why when duolingo wants me to translate from englush to japanese the correct answer for i am a student is 私は学生です but when its asking me.to rranslate a different japanese phrase (学生です) to english it ends up the same? What im asking in short is whats the difderence, formality? Can someone please explain?
Late reply, and you may have figured this out by now, but the difference between the two phrases you posted is the absence of 私は (Watashi wa) in the second phrase. Watashi wa would mean "I am" and omitting the subject ("I") is common. The subject (the speaker) is inferred in the second case. Both should be correct. I think in a more formal setting saying 私は is more polite.
theyre the same thing but i guess when youre talking to an adult, say watashiwa gakusei desu to sound more polite
Why can't I write just "gakusei desu" with keyboard instead of using kanji? I don't have a kanji keyboard (I'm on PC) and this is just a listening exercise
when youre using the hiragana keyboard, it doesnt automatically convert it to kanji? whack
That's odd, I don't think I've ever been forced to put a period on a duo sentence before.
I said "I am a pupil" and it said I was incorrect. its correct, right..? I'm kind of confused
