Japanese Verb Myths Part 1

Japanese Verb Myths Part 1 The road to understanding Japanese in littered with lies. This is not intended to be harmful. The fact is that at the beginning of the lies seem natural and useful. They contribute, the language "feels" closer to our mother tongue (English, most likely). Unfortunately, the more knowledge you are trying to pile on top of these lies, the house of your leaing like a house built on a base of sponge. Instead of helping these myths only lives more difficult. At points, you may ask, "Why can not I understand Japanese? "" What's wrong with me? "" I just stupid. "If I have a formal Japanese class a few months ago, I realized how damaging the" friendly is' can be. I noticed that a class full of people who had almost three-quarters of a textbook not yet combine the verbs in a flat negative. I understood that it was difficult for my classmates, naturally conjugate an adjective. E 'stato simpler memory slips - my class do not understand how verbs work. While enjoying the benefits of native Japanese teachers, classrooms and talk time, neither the basic verb seemed to evade them. I realized, like the class below, that my companions were victims of a series of myths that I had before. These myths seem to be in the majority of leaing materials for students. If you are not the kind of person who is in a volatile, and in fact tries to discover why Inconsistancy there, it's easy to drink in these lies, grow until they are so large that their chela way from the brain, and spend the night in skittering. . Then, over the next week I will be after all the myths that I leaed about Japanese verbs and how you can defeat. I hope that you will find useful. Know your verb! (Some myths about Japanese verbs as a student of Japanese) desu = is If you think 'desu' = is, congratulations, you have to defeat its first big myth about Japanese. Let me clear: no desu means YES! Not today, not tomorrow, never. Desu is a word that has no equivalent in English. In short, it's what you say, more politely. This is exactly, word for word, what a friend told me Japanese. Ok, but what about: Kore wa desu penu This is a pen. (This phrase is perhaps more meaningful) is not desu mean in this sentence? Now we come to: The real secret of desu. Desu sometimes act as my own, if it is the last word in the sentence, and if it is no longer active verb at the end of the sentence. It 'exactly the same with the Mediterranean form of a verb to a verb more polite (MASU The next myth we defeat). So why not believe that desu = is my problem? Because a lot of time, desu no means all. Also, if one tries to think of "desu" means "is" only to confuse what really happens in a sentance. EC: Kore wa penu ja nai. This, a pen, it is not. (random) Kore wa penu ja nai desu. This, a pen, is not (more polite - not normally heard, but grammatically correct, and corresponds penu yes arimasen) Kore wa penu ja nai 'n desu. This, a pen, it is not. (I say this to explain what it is - see previous post: no / no desu. Polite. Often seen). If you believe (like me) that yes nai means' not 'and desu means' is', the last two sentances are a head-twisting. Pounds: this is not a pen, it's ... WTF! You can convince yourself: Well, something like this is only an exception to the rule, and memorize it. But if I am forced to realize that everything is an exception to desu = is myth, eventually, will soon be experiece desu buout. I am really in trouble if the word has meaning, closer: (what the Genki textbook calls "plain form of desu, when a simple desu is more for the 'desu' = 'is' crap) There is (in the sense of "This is a pen"), I say a lot closer, because the word "you" in English is very different from 'is' in Japanese. Japanese has a number of different types of words to express their existence. The more that you take are: DA, Aru (inanimate objects), GL (animate objects), because it is pretty drop redundant parts of the sentence in Japanese, sometimes the word "is" completely out. Finally, the word "is" is put up in another word, depending on how you conjugate (which is why you do not need to use a 'to' verb to say, I'm going to the store - Mise ni ITTE IRU ), we will be more milder Busted. I hope this helps clear the points of confusion with desu / da. Future Myths Busted: The MASU form (not the Real Deal), adjectives and verbs: How One and the same conjugate verbs and adjectives without sweating blood.