"Tto" "yosa so" and "ya"

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

LI S5 L17:

Iinā.... Watashi mo ganbarō tto
いいなぁ・・・。私も頑張ろうっと。
Lucky...I've got to work hard too.

Never seen this before. It isn't in my dictionary. Any ideas?

Hē. Kenkō ni yosa sō!
へー。健康によさそう！
Wow, that sounds really good for your health.

I know that you can change adjectives with "sa." For example, "takai" (tall) can be modified with "sa" to make it "takasa" which means "height." Assuming that "yosa" comes from "yoi" (good), that would make it "yosa" (goodness). That doesn't seem to make sense. Wouldn't "yosou" be more appropriate? "Kenkou ni yosou" rather than "Kenkou ni yosa sou?"

LI S5 L16:

Jitaku ya kaisha de kaitenzushi o tanoshimitai to iu iken ga atte ne.
自宅や会社で回転寿司を楽しみたいという意見があってね。
A lot of people said they wanted to enjoy conveyor-belt sushi at home and work.

I've seen "ya" used with shops before. Like "hon-ya" meaning "book shop." I've never seen it used with a person's house before. Is it the same "ya?"

[mmmason8967]

I've seen "ya" used with shops before. Like "hon-ya" meaning "book shop." I've never seen it used with a person's house before. Is it the same "ya?"

I think it's just "and". Whereas to is used for an exclusive list, ya is used for a non-exclusive list. So in this case jitaku ya kaisha de means "at home and work (and quite possibly several other places too)".

マイケル

[mmmason8967]

I know that you can change adjectives with "sa." For example, "takai" (tall) can be modified with "sa" to make it "takasa" which means "height." Assuming that "yosa" comes from "yoi" (good), that would make it "yosa" (goodness). That doesn't seem to make sense. Wouldn't "yosou" be more appropriate? "Kenkou ni yosou" rather than "Kenkou ni yosa sou?"

I'm sure I read about this a while back, only I can't remember where. From what I remember, yoi is irregular: it doesn't exist as yosou as you'd expect but as (I think) yosasou. I'm not 100% sure I'm remembering correctly though--but it fits very well with your reasoning.

マイケル

[Tracel]

Hi there,

Iinā.... Watashi mo ganbarō tto
いいなぁ・・・。私も頑張ろうっと。
Lucky...I've got to work hard too.

In the above, I believe that the 「頑張ろうっと」 is just a contraction for 「頑張ろうっと思っています。」　The volitional form + と思っています　suggests that you "have decided to do something or am going to do something". So in this case "I have also decided to go for it" (meaning diet here).

Hē. Kenkō ni yosa sō!
へー。健康によさそう！
Wow, that sounds really good for your health.

The above is one of the 「＋そうです」 constructions, which give the meaning of hearsay or conjecture. The one in the above sentence is for conjecture, and in this sentence, this is what makes the "sounds like" meaning. (いい) like マイケルさん says, is an irregular adjective and changes to 「＋よさ＋そうです」. The negative 「ない」 form of the adjective also changes for this construction to 「＋なさそうです」.　

健康によさそうです。
That sounds like it is good for your health.

このアパートはよさそうです。
This apartment looks good.

問題はなさそうです。
It looks like there is no problem.

彼の車は新しくなさそうです。
His car doesn't look new.

There are a few constructions that give similar meanings especially when translated to English. Where you can use each one is a bit complicated for westerners though. It is one I struggle with constantly. So, watch out for: -souda, -youda, -rashii, -darou, and another -souda.

Jitaku ya kaisha de kaitenzushi o tanoshimitai to iu iken ga atte ne.
自宅や会社で回転寿司を楽しみたいという意見があってね。
A lot of people said they wanted to enjoy conveyor-belt sushi at home and work.

Here, 「や」　has the meaning of "and" but also adds the meaning of "such as" or "and the like" so you can make an endless list of examples. Think of it like the Japanese version of etc. or ............! So a bit more literal translation would be:
"A lot of people said they wanted to enjoy conveyor-belt sushi at (places such as ) at home, at work...."

Hope this helps,

お元気で
トラ

[community.japanese]

andy-san, マイケルsan, トラセルsan,
kon'nichiwa
Another great forum; thank you very much for helping each other!
And thank you very much for brilliant explanations!

Well, as our Japanese savvy listners have already gave perfect answers, my job is done here
How lucky am I? Right, andy-san?

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

Yup, I'm glad there was a simple answer to all these problems. Thanks everybody.

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

Here's another mystery "house + ya" from LIS5L24's PDF:

Hoshino-san wa ikkenya o kau rashii.
"I heard that Mr. Hoshino is going to buy a house."

In my original post the "ya" was used as "and" - "Jitaku ya kaisha." In this example, it can't be "and" because nothing follows it.

Why is it used?

[Teabag]

Andy san,
Here "ya"means house.
ikkenya 一軒家　means a house standing by itself, a solitary house.

Still not considering learning kanji? Once you see this kanji ”家”, you know
immediately whether it means "house" or "and."
The formation of this word is actually quite interesting.
Imagine this 宀 on the top is the roof of a house.
And 豕 at the bottom is like a person with 2 hands and 2 legs.
When put together, they give us the image of a man being beneath that roof!!
Our first home back in the Stone Age.

Happy studies!

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

Andy san,
Here "ya"means house.
ikkenya 一軒家　means a house standing by itself, a solitary house.

I hadn't heard that before. My dictionary said that "ikken" was "house" but had nothing for "ikkenya."

Still not considering learning kanji?

About a year ago, I read a story about a native English speaker who was learning Chinese. He was at an airport and picked up two newspapers, a Chinese newspaper and a German newspaper. He understood less of the Chinese newspaper (which he'd been studying for ten years) than he did of the German newspaper (which he'd never studied).

I'd love to know kanji but I don't think it's an effective use of my time. I focus my studies on the areas that will be the most useful for me. The reason I started learning Japanese was because I enjoy Japanese horror films and Japanese professional wrestling. I've learned a lot of specific vocabulary for those two subjects. Not understanding reading/writing doesn't factor into my everyday life, I'm not somebody who reads manga or Japanese books.

I've picked up some kana without making any sustained effort to learn it. I do intend to devote more resources to kana but it's not high on my list of priorities. Maybe I'll get it done before Christmas. I'm just very conscious that any time I spend on reading/writing is time that I take away from listening/vocabulary/grammar (etc).

Once you see this kanji ”家”, you know
immediately whether it means "house" or "and."

I already said in my post that I knew it didn't mean "and."

It's like when Eric-san said in this thread:

Crikey, seeing the kanji makes it sooooo much easier to read/understand. Thanks. Yes, 用 means "use", but it's not about context, "用" and "よう" are different words. And as such have different meanings. Like "there" and "their" or any number of other examples in English. "there" and "their" sound the same, and if they were written in romaji they'd look the same and things would get pretty confusing fast.

Of course, he was right but Japanese people don't have kanji when they converse with each other. When they're listening to the radio, they don't have kanji. It's important to learn meaning by context so that we can understand Japanese as it's spoken.

[community.japanese]

Andy-san, Teabag-san,
thank you very much for a brilliant explanation, Teabag-san!
The "breaking-down" kanji explanation is superb!

I'd love to know kanji but I don't think it's an effective use of my time. I focus my studies on the areas that will be the most useful for me. The reason I started learning Japanese was because I enjoy Japanese horror films and Japanese professional wrestling. I've learned a lot of specific vocabulary for those two subjects. Not understanding reading/writing doesn't factor into my everyday life, I'm not somebody who reads manga or Japanese books.

Well, I must agree with Teabag-san and Eric-san. Learning kana and kanji is not only for reading
manga or any books at all. At the beginning, it's okay to use romaji, but without knowing Japanese characters,
you'd probably have a limited information, limited access to "the world of Japan/Japanese".
For your main reasons of learning Japanese, if, for example, you want to get a ticket to wrestling,
you'd get more and better information if you know basic kana and kanji.

Learning language is like a set deal. If you limit your study, you'd have more difficulties for longer time.
I'm learning other languages including Arabic which takes a completely different set of alphabets.
My reason to study Arabic was to communicate with my friends who don't really speak English.
However, it doesn't stop me learning those letters in the first place.

I hadn't heard that before. My dictionary said that "ikken" was "house" but had nothing for "ikkenya."

This is weird We never use "ikken" to say "house", because "ikken" is for counting a house just like
counting a paper "ichi mai".
"ken" is the counter for counting houses and shops (premisis, maybe).

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

About a year ago, I read a story about a native English speaker who was learning Chinese. He was at an airport and picked up two newspapers, a Chinese newspaper and a German newspaper. He understood less of the Chinese newspaper (which he'd been studying for ten years) than he did of the German newspaper (which he'd never studied).

I've noticed the same thing myself. Since I started studying Japanese I've noticed that Swedish, French and German seem to have become noticeably easier to follow. It's like some kind of bizarre side-effect for which I have no sensible explanation.

I've picked up some kana without making any sustained effort to learn it. I do intend to devote more resources to kana but it's not high on my list of priorities. Maybe I'll get it done before Christmas. I'm just very conscious that any time I spend on reading/writing is time that I take away from listening/vocabulary/grammar (etc).

When you decide to go for it, try the JPod101 Kantan Kana video course and learn to write them (if you can write them, you can read them). You can easily do the entire course in a weekend, and then that's that little job out of the way.

... but Japanese people don't have kanji when they converse with each other. When they're listening to the radio, they don't have kanji. It's important to learn meaning by context so that we can understand Japanese as it's spoken.

That's very true. But we're all learning Japanese from the outside, if you know what I mean. As a trivial example, if a Japanese person comes across a word or phrase they don't understand, they're not going to ask someone to explain it to them in English, like we do.

The Japanese writing system has been refined over time to reflect the way that Japanese people think their language works. It is, if you like, optimised for the Japanese language. From our point of view, working from the outside, the Japanese writing system allows us to reverse-engineer the process, using the way things are written to better understand how the Japanese see what they're saying.

マイケル

[Teabag]

I'm learning other languages including Arabic which takes a completely different set of alphabets.
My reason to study Arabic was to communicate with my friends who don't really speak English.
However, it doesn't stop me learning those letters in the first place.

(昨日習った言葉を使わせてください）

じぇじぇじぇ、Natsuko先生はアラビア語も勉強していますか。
ステキ

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、Teabag さん、
こんにちは

マイケルさん、thank you very much for interesting info about kana and recommending our video lessons

It's actually true that even when we "listen" Japanese (on TV, radio, etc.) I'd have kanji in my mind when I
hear words. We have a lot of words which have different kanji but same reading (i.e. hiragana),
and maybe because of that, we (I belive it's not only me) think of kanji of words we hear.

We also often literally explain the kanji for the word we've just said, to make sure the listeners
understand correctly. If this was English, probably they confirm the spellings, am I right?
This is how we often chat in Japanese too, and very probably more often than English spelling cases.

Teabagさん、
はい、勉強しています。でも、勉強の進度はカメよりノロいです。
(Oh, here's another example! If I wrote this sentence in romaji, I'm sure there're people who'd wonder why
I'm talking about "cursing" -noroi- with turtle in the same sentence although I started the sentence about
studying Arabic )

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

はい、勉強しています。でも、勉強の進度はカメよりノロいです。
(Oh, here's another example! If I wrote this sentence in romaji, I'm sure there're people who'd wonder why
I'm talking about "cursing" -noroi- with turtle in the same sentence although I started the sentence about
studying Arabic )

Well, I give up!

What does 「カメよりノロい」 actually　mean?

マイケル

[Teabag]

What does 「カメよりノロい」 actually　mean?

マイケルさん、
If I rewrite Natsuko sensei's message in kanji and hiragana, you'll understand it right away.
Here it goes.

亀よりのろいです。


Natsuko sensei is just being moderate and humble by saying her learning progress is slower than a turtle.
We also have the same saying in Chinese. Is there an equivalence in the English language?