Japanese speakers, help!

[skabiker]

I've been studying japanese this semester and, so far, things have been fairly easy. But we started covering the negative forms of い adjectives and now I find myself in a quandry. Is there any easy way to remember which adjectives belong to the い　group and which belong to the な group? I fear that it will come down to simple memorization. What a pain...

Oh, I should explain a little further.
For instance: きれい　ends in い but it is a な adjective and therefore you wouldn't use it with ーくない　to make it a negative. This is the crux of my dilemma. If anyone with more experience could help me, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

ありがとう！

[Sakuraso]

The い group end with an extra 'detachable' い, like かわいい, which turns into かわいくない, take off the い and add ーくない~ ^^
...lol, you wait till you get the past negative and all that, now that's fun XD;

[skabiker]

The い group end with an extra 'detachable' い, like かわいい, which turns into かわいくない, take off the い and add ーくない~ ^^
...lol, you wait till you get the past negative and all that, now that's fun XD;

Ok, that makes sense. Sometimes my prof. doesn't exactly make things clear.

ありがとうございます！！！

[Sakuraso]

どういたしまして~! ^_^;

btw~ If you want some resources for learning Japanese outside of your lessons, I made a list of handy books that I can copy for you if you like >.>;

[-SoiFong-]

どういたしまして~! ^_^;
btw~ If you want some resources for learning Japanese outside of your lessons, I made a list of handy books that I can copy for you if you like >.>;


It's a shame we don't live near Sakuraso because I would actually pay you for lessons instead of reading books and listening to CDs. It's just not the same! :(

[Sakuraso]

^__^;; Thank you~~

Well, at least we live in the same country :P Where do you live in the UK? >.>;

And you can always ask me stuff through PM or MSN/AIM/etc or something~ ^_^; I might not always be able to answer though :P I'm not fluent yet XP;


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Edit: In case someone might find this useful~

I originally wrote this for -SoiFong-, so if you have already started Japanese lessons, it's up to you to see if you might find some of these useful or not~ I've included books from beginner to intermediate (sorta) - dictionaries, resources you will really need! *loves her dictionaries* XD

~*~

The best EVER book is - [Teach Yourself] Beginner's Japanese by Helen Gilhooly - £6.59 on Amazon.co.uk. They also have audio available to go with it~~ I never personally used the audio though XD; ...I also have a way older version, so it's probably been improved even more since I bought it XD

Helen Gilhooly also wrote [Teach Yourself] Beginner's Japanese Script - £7.19 on Amazon.co.uk. I recommend that you start learning the language before starting on Kanji, once you have a good grasp, then it's easier to learn the kanji~

And again Helen Gilhooly also did [Teach Yourself] Japanese Language, Life & Culture, which I think is pretty much the same thing as World Cultures: Japan by Helen Gilhooly which can be found on Amazon.co.uk for £6.59. ...I have both XD; The former has a nice pink cover though :P The latter is the only one I have in the new format~ >_<

There's also Colloquial Japanese by H.D.B. Clarke and Motoko Hamamura but... it's not that good... maybe once you're well into it, not if you're starting off...

Once you're in, you might find the Oxford Japanese Grammar & Verbs, it's quite handy, 'cause it's small and you can take it with you to places XD

The Tuttle Kanji Flash Cards are good, as well as their Kanji Power, A workbook for mastering Japanese Characters by John Millen...
I don't really use the latter myself, it's mostly basic characters that I did in lessons ages ago~ But it should be good to start off with...

as for dictionaries... The Kenkyusha Romanized EN-JP, JP-EN Learner's Pocket Dictionary, it's very good, but has dodgy romanisation! (Like, ee instead of ei, and oo instead of ou -.-; )

Then when you're really into it all XD; The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary - Awesomeness in Book Form.

~*~

lol, I should probably take a photo of my collection of books on Japan XD;;; Nothing like my J-Pop/Rock collection though o_o;;

[skabiker]

Hey, thanks a lot!!!

I'm really trying hard to learn as fast as I can so any help is appreciated.

Thanks again!

PS
I don't know if you've seen it, but "Japanese Street Slang" by Peter Constantine is pretty good too. It's always good to be able to recognize an insult and utter a retort in another laguage. :p

[Sakuraso]

No problem~ ^_^;
I'm happy to help where I can :D

So if you have any questions~ Just ask~ ^^
Since you're only just starting, then I'll probably be able to help in most cases ^^;

----

Edit -
I have seen it, but it's better to get a good grasp of the language before you go into slang XD; Otherwise when you're talking to your boss you might say something like '見せ物じゃないよ！’ instead of asking if there was some problem or something XD;;;


P.S. Have you started learning any kanji yet? Or is it all still hiragana and katakana?

[skabiker]

No problem~ ^_^;
I'm happy to help where I can :D

So if you have any questions~ Just ask~ ^^
Since you're only just starting, then I'll probably be able to help in most cases ^^;
ありがとうさくらそせんせい！　おれえのにほんごちょといって、でもおれえがくせいがいかんい よ。

ひらがなわかります。　　けどかたかなとかんじわかりません。 Those are covered in the second and third semesters of my school plan instead of learning a few at a time like other programs. What is good though is that we have NEVER used romanji, which seems to give students at other schools a hell of a learning curve once they make a complete conversion to kana.

[Sakuraso]

ありがとうさくらそせんせい！　おれえのにほんごちょといって、でもおれえがくせいがいかんい よ。

So you know;
It's just おれ, otherwise you're saying oree, which is a polite form of ree, 1, thanks, gratitude, 2, reward, fee~
And technically... you're referring to me as せんせい, but using a rude form for yourself XD; You should keep politeness the same throughout~ If you don't want to use 私（わたし）, you can also use ぼく, but おれ　is rather rude~ ^^

Also, you wrote んい、that's n and i by themselves, you should be using に　^^;

lol, you so want to be careful when writing to me :p I get very picky :P


Using romaji at the beginning isn't a good idea, but it's important for students to be able to romanise well though~ I get so annoyed by bad romanisation XD;;;

It's really good that you're keeping to the ひらがな, lots of people I know who are learning tend to see that they can stick かんじ in on the computer and end up sticking in utterly random かんじ　x.x;;

[skabiker]

So you know;
It's just おれ, otherwise you're saying oree, which is a polite form of ree, 1, thanks, gratitude, 2, reward, fee~
And technically... you're referring to me as せんせい, but using a rude form for yourself XD; You should keep politeness the same throughout~ If you don't want to use 私（わたし）, you can also use ぼく, but おれ　is rather rude~ ^^

Also, you wrote んい、that's n and i by themselves, you should be using に　^^;

lol, you so want to be careful when writing to me :p I get very picky :P


Using romaji at the beginning isn't a good idea, but it's important for students to be able to romanise well though~ I get so annoyed by bad romanisation XD;;;

It's really good that you're keeping to the ひらがな, lots of people I know who are learning tend to see that they can stick かんじ in on the computer and end up sticking in utterly random かんじ　x.x;;
Yeah, I realized I made a few mistakes after I posted. :p
My prof. is always chiding me about speaking informally and forgetting honorifics :rolleyes:
And as far as pickyness goes, it doesn't bother me. I should try to speak more formally anyway.

[Sakuraso]

Yeah, I realized I made a few mistakes after I posted. :p
My prof. is always chiding me about speaking informally and forgetting honorifics :rolleyes:
And as far as pickyness goes, it doesn't bother me. I should try to speak more formally anyway.

lol! See, that's why you don't read books on slang XD; You don't always have to be formal, it's just you need to know when to be formal and when you don't need to~

がんばってね~! ^-^

[koyami]

きれい is an exception, usually な　adjectives don't end with い so it's not too confusing :p In the case of きれい specifically, though, remember that an い　after an え　sound is more or less an extension of the え　sound... just like an う　extends an お sound. So like Sakuraso said, the い　at the end of きれい　isn't a detachable い, it's kinda attached to the れ that comes before.

Likewise ゆうめい　is a な　adjective despite ending in い - again the　い　is an extension of the め sound and not really 'detachable'. (hehe, I really like that 'detachable' explanation :p)

[Life Transfer]

- "domo arigato mr roboto.."