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Japanese nominalizer no help

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xmoonsirenx
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Joined: June 27th, 2007 2:22 am

Japanese nominalizer no help

Postby xmoonsirenx » February 23rd, 2010 4:33 am

I just went over BL S4#6 ( The plot thickens) and in the pdf the nominalizer (no) was introduced. I understood the gist of what it's used for,but I am having some trouble.

I was doing the practice questions, and it asks me "nani o suru no ga suki desu ka?
I want to respond " I like to study Japanese." I can think of 3 ways to write it but i'm not sure which one is correct :O Please help.

1. nihongo benkyou o suru no ga suki desu. <--Should "ga" go after nihongo?
2. nihongo ga benkyou o suru no ga suki desu. <---is the particle "o" neccessary?
3. nihongo ga benkyou suru no ga suki desu.<--what's wrong here?


Thank you in advance :)

empress_of_asyl
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Joined: February 17th, 2010 11:42 am

almost had it!

Postby empress_of_asyl » February 23rd, 2010 9:48 am

Firstly, benkyou can join with suru to make the verb 'to study' = benkyousuru.
So it should be:
nihongo o benkyousuru no ga suki desu.
the 'o' is necessary because its the particle that you use with most verbs.
You almost had it!

You can also you use 'coto' instead of the 'no' if you wanted to.

Stephanie.

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xmoonsirenx
Been Around a Bit
Posts: 23
Joined: June 27th, 2007 2:22 am

Thank you

Postby xmoonsirenx » February 24th, 2010 11:02 pm

arigatou gozaimasu asyl san:) You were a great help. I now understand the correct structure! :)

Javizy
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Re: Japanese nominalizer no help

Postby Javizy » February 24th, 2010 11:40 pm

xmoonsirenx wrote:1. nihongo benkyou o suru no ga suki desu. <--Should "ga" go after nihongo?
2. nihongo ga benkyou o suru no ga suki desu. <---is the particle "o" neccessary?
3. nihongo ga benkyou suru no ga suki desu.<--what's wrong here?

が marks the subject, を marks the direct object of a transitive verb. If you're unfamiliar with these concepts, then try wiki'ing them or something because it's pretty important. Japanese relies on particles to explicitly mark these parts of speech, whereas English relies on the word order. If I translate your sentences, you might get the gist.

1. I like Japanese studying. (needs a 'no' after 'nihongo' though).
2. Japanese language likes doing studying.
3. Japanese language likes studying.

As for 'koto', it's not always interchangeable. You use it to talk about slightly more abstract things, so it would sound unnatural here, since you have first hand experience of studying Japanese. You have to use 'koto' no matter what at the end of a sentence though. There are lots of good explanations about all this stuff in A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar by Seiichi Makino. A little pricey, but a great resource.

xmoonsirenx
Been Around a Bit
Posts: 23
Joined: June 27th, 2007 2:22 am

Thanks!

Postby xmoonsirenx » March 6th, 2010 10:14 pm

Yes. I agree. Particles are a must,but they are definitely tricky. Practice and time will make it clear to me. Than you Javizy for your great examples, it was very helpful! and i'm also aware of koto but that's another one that has me slightly confused as to when to use and when not to. :O


Again, thanks !! :)

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