Mark Kramer
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).
Dec 19, 2009 12:00 AM
Answers · 2
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Hi! Another good guess! 0. Everyone "mina-san" is correct. If you want to sound more casual, you can use "minna." If you want to sound more formal, "mina-sama." 1. Betsuni "Betsuni" : particularly (adverb). It's always followed by some negative predicate such as ......nai, .......masen, and the predicate is often dropped in conversation. Without the predicate, we just understand "Betsuni." as a sentence means "Not particularly." 2. Nan-demo-nai-yo Your breaking down is correct. "Demo" here means "any" or "even" like in "whatever" "whoever" "anything" "anyone." (Example) "Nan-demo ii" = Whatever fine. Anything is good. "Nai" is negative as you know, so "nan-demo-nai" becomes "Not anything."--"Nothing." When "nan-demo-nai" is used to describe a noun, it means "worse to nothing" or "requires nothing" That's why your dictionary gives that definition, I think. 3. Dou-shita-no It's "dou-shita-no" not "dou-shite-no." You can trust your ears :) You cannot find "doushita" in dictionary because it's combination of "dou" + "shita"(past tense of "suru"). "Dou": how, in what way "Suru": do, some situation happens So "dou-shita" becomes "What happened?" "No" here is an ending particle. It makes soft question.
December 20, 2009
HI! (: so basically," betsuni" means particularly, and "Nandemonai" means nothing/nevermind. So, "betsuni, nandemonai" would mean nothing in particular. Youre right about "Nan" being short for "Nani". And if your asking someone "Doushita no" its spelled with an "A" not an "E" (doushite) because "Doushite" would mean "Why" (: PS. its spelled "Minna san" :)
December 19, 2009
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