Practice Your Japanese Through Conversation

[Jason]

Now the question I'm asking myself is "is there an equivalent for "-kute" ending, but in the past tense. Back to the grammar book

No, there isn't. The te-form, for both verbs and adjectives, is by nature "tense neutral." It takes on the tense of whatever the last non te-form verb/adj in the phrase is.

[Alan]

Now the question I'm asking myself is "is there an equivalent for "-kute" ending, but in the past tense. Back to the grammar book

No, there isn't. The te-form, for both verbs and adjectives, is by nature "tense neutral." It takes on the tense of whatever the last non te-form verb/adj in the phrase is.

また有難う。今日はたくさん知りました。　

[metablue]

Hrm, I totally lost it at the end, didn't I. Ha ha ha! I'd better go read the pdfs for the te-form lessons.

どうもありがとうございますジャソンさんとアランさん。

No one can read what I said about seals and whiskered robot submarines, can they. Shall I tell you what I was trying to say?

[Jason]

どういたしまして、お二人さん。ですが、私の名前はカタカナで「ジャソン」じゃなくて、「ジェイソン(Jeison)」です。

[metablue]

ですが、私の名前はカタカナで「ジャソン」じゃなくて、「ジェイソン(Jeison)」です。

ごめんなさいジェイソンさん。

またそのことば「じゃなくて」です！おもしろくてあたらしいグラマーですね〜。
I'm going to track that grammatical entity down in a textbook ...

[Alan]

「じゃなくて」は「て-form」で　「じゃない」です。
英語で 「without doing, not doing, does not do and」です。

I really need to study Jason's earlier grammatical example so I can describe grammer properly in japanese. While my grammer book suggests "does not do and", I think more literally it is "is not and". However I guess this is an area in which literal translation doesn't work too well.

Or maybe I can say something like
「て-form」こと　の　「じゃない」は「じゃなくて」です。
or maybe
」「じゃない」こと　の「て-form」　は「じゃなくて」です。
although I haven't got the hang of 'koto' or 'koto ga' yet, so this is probably horribly wrong. I'm not sure whether I need the 'koto' in there, but think that 「て-form」might count as a phrase, rather than a noun & need converting to a noun before I can use の on it. Ah, what it is to expose one's ignorance in public

Edit: After thinking about this, I reckon 'koto' is only for turning a subclause ending in a plain-form verb into a noun. So forget the above ramblings.

Notes to myself for later:

言葉 = ことば = word/speech/language
意味 = いみ = meaning
形容詞 = けいようし = adjective
過去 = かこ = the past
詞 = シ / ことば = language
Actually my dictionary gives: 時制 = じせい = tense, so:
過去時制 = kakojisei = past tense
現在時制 = genzaijisei = present tense
And I guess the following will be useful
動詞 = どうし = verb
名詞 = めいし = noun
副詞 = ふくし = adverb
I wonder how to say "te-form" in japanese. I did find "gerund", which was:
動名詞 = どめいし = gerund
which literally is "motion noun", so I'm pretty sure that's not it.

[metablue]

こわいですね〜 ^^

I don't know anything about koto and koto ga yet (other than what you just said about turning a phrase into a noun), but this will all make sense one day (I keep telling myself). I confused myself by mistaking じゃない for something else. A friend warned me about this a while back when we first learned about i-adjectives and くない. He said not to think of the くない as one single thing because really the く and the ない are separate. He warned me that I'd run into the ない in other places and would be able to apply the same rules to it there, but that it'd be harder if I thought of it as an "adjective-related thing". And he was right!

You can link negated adjectives, right?
eg あかくなくてたのし = not-red and fun

So in this case you're doing the same thing, but with verbs? "X is not and Y is" seems right, but the way it's being used is more like "X is not but Y is".

If what I said just now is so completely wrong that you can't make sense of it, don't worry. It'll be funny to come back to in a few months. And I always learn something just from writing out the things I don't know.

[Alan]

After some further thought, I decided the above wasn't the right place to use 'koto'.
I wait to be corrected, but I think thats for converting sub-clauses that end in a verb into a noun. Got to go to work now, so that's all from me for a bit.

[metablue]

... I think thats for converting sub-clauses that end in a verb into a noun.

eg:
"the horse that likes to gallop" ?

I'm starting to wish I'd learned more about English grammar.

[Alan]

Yes, thats the sort of thing, although in my case:
'The galloping horse came to a sudden stop and I fell off.'

Here are some examples from my grammer book. Perhaps typing them in will help me remember them

うたう　こと　が　すき　です。I like to sing.
しゃちょうさん　が　いった　こと　を　おぼえて　います　か。Do you remember what the company president said.
こどもたち　も　いきたかった　こと　を　わすれました。I forgot [the fact] that the children also wanted to go.

There are some more examples specifically for 'koto ga aru' which means 'ever do/occasionally do':
ときどき　おすし　を　たべる　こと　が　あります。I eat sushi from time to time
まいとし　なんどか　りょこう　を　する　こと　が　あります。 Several times each year I do some travelling.

There are also some examples for 'koto ga dekiru' which means 'be able to do/can do':
おにいさん　は　ぎたあ　を　ひく　こと　が　できます。　Older brother can play the guitar.
め　が　いたくて、みる　こと　が　できません　でした。My eyes hurt, and so I wasn't able to see.
There's also 'koto ni naru'/'you ni naru' which is 'come about/come to pass/wind up doing/turn out that'.:
どようび　に　も　はたらく　こと　に　なりました。It turns out that I will be working on Saturday also.
おかあさん　が　びょうき　で、　びょういん　に　いく　よう　に　なりました。 Mother was sick, so I wound up going to the hospital.

And there's 'koto ni suru'/'you ni suru', which is 'decide to'
あした　とうきょう　に　いく　こと　に　しました。I decided to go to Tokyo tomorrow.
やはり　しゃちょう　と　はなす　よう　に　しました。He decided to speak with the company president after all.

The above examples all used the dictionary form, but there are also some 'koto ga aru' examples for the informal past form (-ta form). These mean 'have ever done/have had the experience of doing':
ようろっぱ　に　いった　こと　が　あります　か。Have you ever been (gone) to Europe?
さしみ　を　たべた　こと　が　ありません。I have never eaten raw fish.

So, after all that, lets try that horsey example:
'The galloping horse came to a sudden stop and I fell off
Horse = uma; to gallop = hashiru; tomaru = to stop (intransitive); suddenly = fui ni;fall=ochiru
uma wa hashiru koto ga fui ni tomarimashita. soshite watashi ga ochimashita.
午は走ることが不意に止まりました。そして私は落ちました。

Maybe use 'sorede' rather than 'soshite' perhaps. or maybe 'suru to'

I wonder if that's anywhere near right

アラン

[Alan]

You can link negated adjectives, right?
eg あかくなくてたのし = not-red and fun

メタブルさん、Quoting my grammer book (again), it says "an ending is usually attached to the stem of the true adjective, although some endings follow the informal form, which is simply the adjective (in any conjunction) without desu.

Look at the Informal form endings, I can't see 'kute', so I'm not sure linking negative adjectives works. Maybe ジェイセンさん can clue us in?

アラン

[tarokun]

About the negative adjectives, can you say "non-red cat" with

赤くない猫？

How about for na-adjectives?
[/quote]

[metablue]

Wow, thanks for all the examples. I think we wore ジェイソンさん out.

In the horsey example, the "ga" isn't directly linked to the "koto", is it?

uma wa hashiru koto ga fui ni tomarimashita. soshite watashi ga ochimashita.

Is it grouped like this?
(uma wa hashiru koto) (ga) (fui ni) (tomarimashita)
rather than this:
(uma wa hashiru) (koto ga) (fui ni) (tomarimashita)

So the "koto" makes the galloping horse into a noun, and the "ga" marks it as the topic.

[Jason]

You can link negated adjectives, right?
eg あかくなくてたのし = not-red and fun

I'm actually not clear on this myself. But my gut feeling is "no."

About the negative adjectives, can you say "non-red cat" with

赤くない猫？

Yes.

How about for na-adjectives?

有名ではない町

Is it grouped like this?
(uma wa hashiru koto) (ga) (fui ni) (tomarimashita)
rather than this:
(uma wa hashiru) (koto ga) (fui ni) (tomarimashita)

In this case, it's more like:

(uma wa) (hashiru koto) (ga) (fui ni) (tomarimashita)

So the "koto" makes the galloping horse into a noun, and the "ga" marks it as the topic.

Well, the horse is already a noun. The way this sentence is layed out, we don't have a "galloping horse that stopped" but "the horse suddenly stopped galloping." Koto here is attached only to hashiru and makes it a gerund (a noun form of a verb). "to run" -> "running."

私なら、こう書きます：

走っている馬は急に止まって、私は転げ落ちました。

or a little more expressive:

走っている馬は急に止まって、私は転げ落ちてしまいました。

"Koto" and "no" can be used as nominalizors (sp?). Basically all that means is they can make a noun form out of a non-noun structure. The structure can then be treated just like any noun/noun phrase.

[Alan]

About the negative adjectives, can you say "non-red cat" with

赤くない猫？

おはよう　たろさん。はい、あります。

How about for na-adjectives?

You have to put the negative on the verb.
否定動詞　使います。　Use a negative verb - (Well thats what I hope it says)　

あの　猫　は　奇麗　でわ　ありません。That cat isn't pretty.

Of course, that doesn't help when you want to put the negative adjective in front of the verb. Going back to my grammer book (Japanese verbs & essentials of grammer by Rita L Lampkin ISBN 0-07-143514-X) there's this example:

奇麗　でわない　人　は　部屋　に　入りました。　A non-pretty person entered the room.

Now でわない is the informal negative of です, so literally it's 'pretty is not person'
Generally it looks like you can replace the な with でわない .
So a 'non-pretty cat' is 奇麗　でわない　猫。

Which brings me back to　メタブル's point about how to link several verbs, when some of them are negative. I can't figure it out.

アラン