What exactly does -nasai do? Minna-san, I thought I wouldn't have any questions left for today, Yappari, I was wrong! :) More from the newbie-front! Okay, so when I learnt 'yasumi' (vacation, time off) today, I immediately had to think of 'oyasuminasai' (good night), which, stripped down, begets us: o-yasumi-nasai So, assuming the 'o' functions like a built-in honorary prefix, as it were (or it is something else, but it's not relevant for my point), I got to wonder what exactly -nasai does. From what I can tell, often it feels like it functions as a kind of 'assuaged Imperative' (for lack of a better term); like: Suwarinasai! -> (Please) have a seat! The 'suwarinasai' form does not appear in the verb conjugator: http://www.japaneseverbconjugator.com/VerbDetails.asp?txtVerb=suwaru Yet it exists; like: Shukudai o shinasai! -> (Please) do your homework! And this 'softened' Imperative (surprisingly, almost) seems to work on 'oyasuminasai' too, so as to form something like: "(Please) take the off-time!" So, I pushed my luck, and tried it on 'okaerinasai' (in response to tadaima!) too: o-kaeri-nasai And, indeed, kaeri appears to be "return, coming back." So far so good. But the Imperative sense, however softened, seems lost here (or manifests itself in a way invisible to me). So, my simple question is, what does -nasai do precisely? My gut tells me I can't be too far off, but I need just this small nudge, it seems, to get me fully on-track. Either that, or I derailed myself completely. :) Arigato gozaimasu!Wozitoya-san, thank you for explaing the verb conjugation rules. Okay, minna-san, let me see if I can fit this into a single rule my brain can grasp, and which will allow for irregular verb as well. What if I break of the -masu form of each verb, and replace it with -nasai, would that work? kuru -> ki-masu -> ki-nasai suru -> shi-masu -> shi-nasai wakaru -> wakari-masu -> wakari-nasai iu -> ii-masu -> ii-nasai yomu -> yomi-masu -> yomi-nasai miru -> mi-masu -> mi-nasai Seems to work. Would this be a valid way to go about it? Thanks!Well, seems it also works on taberu (not having '-imasu'): taberu -> tabe-masu -> tabe-nasai So, I'm just assuming I'll be pretty safe with the '-masu' rule.

On the topic of 'wa' Sumimasen, minna-san, seems I got some questions left regarding 'wa'. Yes, sorry, very noob stuff; demo, I still don't seem to get it entirely right. Please, consider the following two sentences: Sono heya ni hito wa nannin ga imasu ka? How many people are in that room? Anata no heya ni wa nani ga arimasu ka? What's in your room? What exactly is the subject in these sentences? In the first, it seems to be 'hito.' But in the second, the topic marker 'wa' follows just a temporal clause. So, what topic does it mark exactly? "Anata no heya ni" entirely? I learnt the following constructs: [thing] wa [place] ni imasu [person/place] (ni)wa [thing] ga imasu So as to say, Asoko ni neko ga imasu. There's a cat over there. So, could you drop the 'wa' in the above example too? As in: Anata no heya ni nani ga arimasu ka? What's in your room? (I take it 'ga' here is part of the mandatory 'ga...imasu' construct, and not meant to stress 'nani', right?) So, I just wonder what subject 'wa' precisely denotes in the second sentence (if it denotes a subject at all). Tsugi wa, concerning the -mo particle, could I form the following sentences like this? Daremo neko wo asonde imasen. No one is playing with the cat. Watashi no sara ue ni wa nanimo ga arimasen. There's nothing on my plate. Thank you for your time!Chihiro-san, Domo arigato gozaimasu again! Your presence here brightens the board! :)

How to say "Next year I want to find a boyfriend"? Not that I need one. :) And it wasn't really my own question. But the time to respond to the other guy's inquiry had expired, and I'm still curious how one would, indeed, express this. I'm a total beginner, so this should be fun. :) Nevertheless, I was thinking along the lines of: "Rainen no kareshi ga hoshii desu." Or maybe just "kare". Or "boifurendo" even. Well, I probably messed up the construct, but I'm curious to learn myself how it actually IS said.Wozitoya-san, I'm trying to learn Japanese here, so everything goes: from not-so-cute kittens to forming sentences about boyfriends. Actually, in one of my favorite Anime series, Macross Frontier, Ranka sing a song called: Watashi no kare wa pairotto. My boyfriend is a pilot. Since 'kare' means 'he' (and sometimes 'boyfriend', it seems) I figured I I kill two birds with one stone: learn some grammar, and get to know the right word for boyfriend, too. As for what the world may think about me using the word 'boyfriend', who cares? Certainly not I.Chihiro-san, Domo arigato gozaimasu! "kareshi" it is, then. :) And thank you for correcting my sentence. Got myself mixed up with: Kyo no shinbun ga hoshii desu. I'd like to have today's newspaper. How embarrassing! Gomen nasai! When I wrote "Rainen no kareshi ga hoshii desu," I guess she just said: "I want next year's boyfriend." (busy girl! LOL). Again, sorry for having you come out here to correct such a stupid mistake. Gomen ne.

'Conjugating' i-adjectives This conjugating of adjectives is most fascinating. I still have a ‘mondai’ or two left, though. So, sumimasen, I hope someone can clarify bit. 1) In general, can -kunai be used to negate the adjective like one would use ‘not’ in English? Like: Kono koneko wa kawaikunai desu. (To mean: That’s not a cute kitten.) 2) Lots of adjectives I saw examples of end in double ii, like tanoshii, yasashii, etc. The last 'i' gets dropped and replaced with '-kunai' to form a negative. But what about those ending in single ‘i’, like ‘kowai’ (= scary/scared). Could I say the following? Watashi wa kowaikunai yo! (To mean: I’m not scared!) Dropping the single ‘i’, to form kowakunai, feels awfully wrong somehow. 3) Speaking of kowai, I recently picked up that word in an Anime (Ergo Proxy), where Pino keeps referring to Re-L as "kowai onee-chan" (= the scary lady). Can you really use onee-chan (= sister + honorific suffix) to mean ‘lady,’ as used in the above context? Or did I did I just mishear? Much obliged.Hmm, if I hear correctly, seems I need to drop the last 'i' regardless. So, 'kowakunai' would be correct, after all.Okay, let me see if I got this straight: Watashi wa kowakunakatta yo! (To mean: "I was not scared!") Or, formal, Watashi wa kowakuarimasen deshita. Or, Koneko wa kowakuarimasen deshita. (To mean: "The kitten was not scary!")I'm sorry, Wozitoya, but your answer confuses me. :( I thought 'ja nai' was only for special words, like 'kirei', 'tenei', etc. (which are not really i-adjectives). Everything I learnt so far (which, granted, is limited, of course, after 2 weeks) tells me that only 'kawaikunai' is correct, and that 'kawai ja nai' is incorrect. So, I'm greatly confused now. Somebody, kindly unconfuse me! Nihongo no benkyo wa yasashikunai yo! LOL.@Michelle, arigato gozaimasu! That was a most illuminating lesson in subtlety! And I noticed I actually used 'kono' (this) instead of 'sono' (that) neko. Not that it really mattered all that much for the example, but still. I will examine your word order variations more closely to try and get it right next time. It's important: if you can't say what you mean, you can't mean what you say! I'm just a newbie, of course, so I'll forgive myself this time. :) Demo, watashi wa ganbarimasu!

Basic question on Imperative Mina-san! Mou ichido tetsudatte kuremasu ka? (That was supposed to mean: "Can you help me again?" I'm sure you can't combine it like that, but it's all I know for now; gomen nasai!) I'm trying to get a (very) basic grasp on verbs and their conjugations. I ran across this standard phrase on a podcast: "Ganbatte kudasai!" So I resolved to explore just the Imperative a bit for now, for which someone handed me the following rule: "Ru-verbs are easy because they all follow the same rule for forming the imperative, as you can see: make the -masu form, eg. taberu -> tabemasu, then take off ‘masu’ and put ‘te’ instead - and that’s it." So, after some searching I found that 'taberu' and 'miru' are basically Ichidan verbs (ending in -ERU and -IRU), that conjugate differently from regular Yodan verbs, like those ending in -RU, such as 'ganbaru,' right? Like: ganbaru -> ganbatte suwaru - suwatte Then I looked up some -ERU and -IRU forms, like: miru -> mite taberu -> tabete I almost felt like I was beginning to understand it, when I ran into: hashiru -> hashitte Itai-yo! (Ouch!) Where does the extra T come from, all of a sudden? I expected "hashite". I would be most grateful again if someone would explain this to me. And I apologize, also again, for asking such newbie questions.

Can someone clarify nan demo nai and betsuni, please? Mina-san, sumimasen! A few newb questions, if I may. In an Anime I watched, I heard the following convo: Lain: Doushite no? Mika: Betsuni. Nandemonaiyo. Which I understood to mean something like, Lain: What's wrong? Mika: It's nothing. Nevermind. I was pretty sure about that, until I actually looked up nandemonai today, and the dictionary said: "easy, trifling, harmless." (?) I can't really place that. Breaking it down, I get: Nan-demo-nai-yo Nan (short for nani perhaps?) + demo = but + nai = negative particle + yo = emphasis. Which, to me, sounds awfully close in meaning to 'Nevermind'.* So, how does this translate to "easy, trifling, harmless," all of a sudden? Confused now. I was also pretty sure about Betsuni, but yesterday I heard it in a context in which it almost certainly could not mean "It's nothing." Someone asked whether the other person was planning on going, and she responded just with 'Betsuni.' It felt more like "Not really." Or something close to it. I'd be most grateful if anyone would be willing to shed some light on the matter. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu! (which, if I understood it correctly, in this context, can also mean "Thank you in advance!") -- * In Dutch, my native tongue, the equivalent expression would be something like "Laat maar [zitten]." ('maar' = but). Nice coincidence.P.S. In the above example, "Doushite no?" sounds closer to "DoushitA no?" actually. Although I can't find "Doushita" in the dictionary. I take it Doushita is a derivative of Doushite somehow.P.P.S. Now I wonder, maybe it's really "Nande mo nai"? Hmm, that would change things entirely. :)Chihiro-san, domo arigato gozaimasu! :) Your kind and extensive help is truly a blessing! Seems my initial rendition was slightly off. I take it the correct translation should have been more like: Lain: Doushita no? Mika: Betsuni. Nan demo nai-yo. Lain: What happened? Mika. Nothing in particular. It's nothing. As for Doushita, I suspected as much, that it would be a Past Tense (like in shitsurei shimashita = I was rude); but I didn't know what verb was involved. So, again, thank you for clarifying. P.S. You can be assured I looked these things up on the internet, prior to asking here. But you'd be surprised how much non-sense is out there! Like the "Nande mo nai" suggestion I came acoss yesterday (like 'nande' used as 'why?'). Since I'm too new to Japanese to separate grain from chaff, as it were, I tend to get confused in cases like that. So, thank you again for your kindness in taking the time to help me out! (I guess this is a typical occassion where I could use 'sumimasen,' in order to thank you for your trouble).

I don't know how to say "I don't know." Hajime mashite! I love watching Anime series. In Japanese, of course, so I can learn the language. I'm really at an extreme newbie level, though. I'm picking up stuff left and right already, but I'm still confused about basic denial forms (among other things). Especially the manifold ways to say "I don't know." This is what I got so far on the matter. Feel free to correct me (no, please, do!), as I just gathered these things from personal observation, and I could be dead-wrong. shiranai -- "I don't know." wakarinai -- Also "I don't know." But closer to "I don't understand." And I don't think you can use shiranai to say you don't understand. wakarimasen -- Like wakarinai. Seems to me, in general, the -masen suffix is somehow more official, though it seems to have the exact same meaning as the -nai suffix (just like shirimasen vs. shiranai), My guess is that nai, as a general negative particle, is simply easier to use. As least kids seem to use -nai more than -masen (unless in more formal settings). wakanai -- Almost certainly just slangy for wakarinai. Like 'dunno' in English. Then there is this sort of blanket-negation phrase that keeps popping up everywhere: chigau yo (sounds like "chi-gal yo"). For instance, in my all-time favorite Anime, Serial Experiments Lain, which I'm currently disecting to try and learn the language, when her father tells her something, Lain just replies: "Chigau yo!" Which I've seen translated as: "You're wrong!", "You're mistaken!" "Not true!", etc. I think the latter is actually closest to its original meaning. And when her friend Arisu asks Lain whether she did something bad, she says (I think): "Rein, chigau yo ne!?" Which would then mean something like: Lain, it's not true, is it? In another series (Ergo Proxy) the main characters, Re-l, looks at a number of mugshots, trying to identify a person, and simply says "Chigau!" at each photo (without 'yo'; unsure why); loosely translated as "No, it's not him." I got the nagging suspicion, though, that all these instances of "Chigau yo" just mean, in essence, "No, it's not [true]." If someone could clarify a few of these matters for me, I'd be most grateful!