how to say....

[rpgherogaz]

I have started my immersion!!

i turned facebook to japanese as well as the iPhone, seriously guys i reccomend it! Its great fun!


I want to say "my facebook is in Japanese"

Would this be right?

僕はFACEBOOKが日本語でいます!!

i think im close, but not possitive.

Also what is the purpose of 「」？ Speech? Brackets?? Any help would be fantastic as usual!

I also reccomend the "moji" firefox plugin to look up kanji on the fly for websites! I have about 5 kanji plugins for firefox, they are amazing!!

[hatch_jp]

my facebook is in Japanese ＝ 僕のFacebook は日本語です。

「」 are quotation marks like "".　They are used for
1. quote conversation
2. emphasis
3. title of books, movies and so on.

He said "No" ＝ 彼は「いや」と言った。
".jp" stands for "Japan" ＝ 「.jp」は「日本」を意味する。
"Romeo and Juliet" was written by Shakespeare ＝ 「ロミオとジュリエット」はシェイクスピアによって書かれた。

[rpgherogaz]

THank you very much

i think i must of rushed when i put "imasu" instead of "aru" seeing as facebook is not animate :p

You dont happen to know where anyone could go to "mine" a sentence properly?


by that i mean, say i was watching a anime (im thinking of watching darker than black again without subtitles) and i picked out a phrase.

How would i go about translating that sentence properly each time? Im doing this alone, and have no one to correct me when wrong...

I understand that translating each word one a time then piecing it all togther, but in context, things change.

Any help with that?

Thank you

[Taurus]

Obviously it's easier to mine from written source material like manga, but a good resource is www.alc.co.jp, which, if you haven't used it before, is a good online dictionary than includes lots of example sentences in its answers. In fact you could probably cut and paste them straight into your flashcards.

You could combine that with a good grammar dictionary. The complete master series, for example, has a pretty good index to look stuff up.

[rpgherogaz]

Thank you

I have "all about particals" both genki books, Basic Japanese grammar/intermediate grammar and a few other books to, so ALOT of material

Its just getting the proper translations

I read that if you can not get a proper sentece translation, to just get a word from it and use a online dictionary like the one you provided and yahoo.jp

[Javizy]

The grammar dictionary I recommended to you has kanji, romaji, and an English translation for each example sentence (the later two additions cut the romaji). Since all the sentences are based around the grammar point, they should be very easy to understand after reading the explanation. Making them into flashcards with key points as the answer side is a great way to drill more complicated expressions.

You can look up words you don't know fairly easily with a dictionary, but it's rarely the case with functional words, which can take some background understanding. Outside of sources with translations/explanations, you should probably stick to within the limits of your own understanding; pick out new vocabulary and kanji you can't read contained in sentences you can roughly understand. As you progress, the restrictions will become less and less.

Another way to avoid getting caught out is to learn idioms. You could lookup あご andつかう, and still have no idea what あごでつかう means. These sort of expressions also tend to be used frequently in daily conversation, so they're very useful to learn. Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms has about 900-1000 of them, including yojijukugo, with explanations and a number of example sentences with translations, which are generally very easy to understand, so they're ideal for flashcards. Could be worth checking out.

[rpgherogaz]

Thanks !


I did hear about idioms (for example, asoko can mean her family?!? aswell as "that over there/that direction)... Confusing!

Still, least it is not impossible to become fluent, I shall hold onto that thought

[Javizy]

By the way, I recommended the Kodansha one, since it's good for working through adding sentences to flashcards, but you can usually lookup ones you come across with a good dictionary. If you search for あごで使う on the site Taurus mentioned, you'll find it. Most electronic dictionary seem to include them.

[rpgherogaz]

I use the yahoo online dictionary. It seems really good for example sentences!

I couldnt find that phrase though, using the site given i got this...


* あごで使う
at one's fingertips
* （人）をあごで使う
have someone at one's beck (and call) // order someone around [about]