Questions

Questions:

"How do I say: you eat oranges, she/he/it eats oranges, we eat oranges/ they eat oranges? I am confused, hehehe...I have to translate kanji to romaji, romaji to english, english to Spanish or German. Lol :p I need some Japanese friends, please! xD"

Answer

We drop the subject usually because in conversation, you kind of know who's talking about whom. Just have a conversation with someone and see if you can get away with dropping the subject. It might sound a lil funny, but the meaning usually is still understood.

Questions:

There was one variation in the examples that im interested in, オレンジを食べない? it says would you like to eat oranges? 1. does that mean オレンジ can also be the plural form? 2. can it also be translated into " are you not going to eat the orange?" or "do you not eat oranges?"

Answer

There's no plural form, meaning that plurality is implied. In English, there's an orange and there are oranges, but in Japanese, there is just オレンジ. In English, ""you're not eating oranges?"" can imply the question ""Why aren't you eating oranges?"" In Japanese, this isn't the case, so this wouldn't be a proper translation. This is simply an offer of ""would you like oranges."" This is going to be true for many Japanese translations, that you can't just directly try to translate it."

Questions:

Why don't u pronounce the u in masu and desu?

Answer

The "i" and "u" are not standalone sounds. It's a "su" and "ki" sound. The 'su' sound gets changed to a 'ss' sound (maybe because it flows better and makes better emphasis at the end of a sentence). Another example is the object marker "wo" which is pronounced as an "o" sound.

Questions:

I thought love was 大好き

Answer

大好き can be used in situations to convey that you love someone. Alone it really just means you really like someone or something.

Questions:

I thought "I love you" was "Aishite iru". Is "anata ga suki desu" just another way to say it?

Answer

Japanese is a high-context language, so it really depends. In the case of telling a girl you're trying to date - "I love you", then it's "anata ga suki desu." However, if you're telling your husband you love him, you can use "ai shiteiru"

Questions:

Seriously, what does "no" (の) mean? I've wondered this for a while now.

Answer

の has many uses. We have a video on our site about this particle, but basically it serves as twofunctions. First, it's used for possession. So My Orange would be 私のオレンジ. Second, it's used like "of" -> Teacher of Japanese -> 日本語の先生(nihongo no sensei). This is used more broadly for connecting nouns. Bus Ticket -> バスの切符 (basu no kippu). It has a third use to turn non-nouns into nouns, but that's a little more advanced.

Questions:

"I just want to confirm if I changed both examples to present/future would these be right? gomugomu no mi wo kuu? or kuru? anata no koto wo kiku? kikuru? just going off tabe → taberu"

Answer

"if Tabe -> Taberu, then Ku -> Kuu and Kiki -> Kiku Taberu is a ""ru"" verb, but there are other types of verbs. We're going to cover this in a lesson coming out soon! You are correct that ゴムゴムの実を食う (gomugomu no mi wo kuu) means ""I eat/will eat the rubber-rubber fruit"". 食う(kuu) is already in the present/future tense, therefore there's no need for you to change it, but remember that 食う(kuu) is an informal way to say 食べる (taberu), which is also in the present/future tense. 食べ (tabe) is not a correct conjugation. Same thing for あなたの事を聞く (anata no koto wo kiku), which means ""I listen/will listen to you"" (or depending on the context, I hear about you), and 聞く(kiku) doesn't need to be changed because it's in the present/future tense."

Questions:

Why is she pronouncing WA as HA ? We all know WA is written as HA, and why. But it is never pronounced HA ? Just confusing !

Answer

When the character is read alone, it's read as "ha"

Questions:

taberu or tabemasu ?

Answer

"Taberu = casual (use with friends) Tabemasu = Semi-formal (use with strangers)"

Questions:

That's all good, but there're are still many other usages for "ga", right? What about them?

Answer

Unfortunately there are whole grammar books dedicated to this topic.  Our advice is not to dwell too much on this subject outside what's in this lesson until you start your Japanese Language PhD program.

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My points

Point summary:

Quizzes:3223
Lessons:21
Other:0
Total:3244