Ahoy! I have questions : )

[francistravers6336]

Hello, first time poster. I <3 this site and just found out about the forums. My teacher is away and I want to learn, so I figured maybe it's ok to ask questions here : ).

I have two questions that I hope I can convey.

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First one is about a sentence pattern for saying something along the lines of "I wonder what would be good" or "I wonder if it's good to..."
I'll give some examples.
なに　を　かけば　いいか　わからない　ので。。。
"Because I don't know what would be good to write..."

どこ　に　帰れば　いい だろう。
"I wonder where is a good place to return to."

What I have noticed is that these patterns use the "if" from えば　as the first clause which then qualifies いい　
Another example:
ぜんぶ　を　たべれば　いい　です　か。
to form something with the literal meaning of
"is it good that I eat it all?"
or "is it ok if i eat it all?"

Is what I'm writing accurate?
Is this a natural way to summarize and then talk about "what would be good" to do?
Is this a common expression to qualify いい to say "good if i do ___"
Please tell me what you can : ).

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The second question I had is a bit weirder. It's also about natural Japanese speech patterns which are still awkward to me.
I'll give some examples in English. The main thing I'm looking at here are the verbs used in English to describe what the person is doing.

"I'm looking forward to going home." In this sentence, we are "looking forward" as our action.
In Japanese it would be something like:
私　は　帰る　のが　たのしみ　です。
Which translates to "For me, returning home is something to look forward to."
Because たのしみ is the noun in this sentence, we're not "looking forward" to anything, but instead "something to look forward to exists."

As an English speaker the most natural way to try to say this in japanese would instead be:
私　は　帰る　のが　たのしみに　している。
Which is very literal in that you are right now in the process of "looking forward" to going home.
Does this suggest that you are perhaps in the process of daydreaming about going home?

The same thing I've noticed with many sentences in Japanese.
あなた　の　けんこう　が　しんぱい　です。
Which I think is more literally "your health is a worry." Worry being a noun and not a verb.
Whereas English it's definitely going to be another verb.
"I'm worried about your health."

So when is it ok to say　「 たのしみに　している」　or　「しんぱい　している」
Is this reserved for cases like when someone is daydreaming because they are stuck in their internal thoughts since they are worrying/looking forward to something?

Is it just the most natural to have these sort of sentence patterns as "x is a worry" and "x is something to look forward to" instead of "I'm worrying about x" and "I'm looking forward to x"

Also, I'm speculating that perhaps the answer is that certain nouns which represent states (like worry) are very similar to intransitive verbs, which also represent states or changes. Because the nouns I have presented in my example are states. "Is a worry" is a state and a noun, just like "たのしみ" is a state and a noun, just like a "falling ball" is a state that a ball is in, but would use an intransitive verb to describe this state : 「ボール　が　おちる」

Edit: Or is it that these nouns which describe qualities of something are just better to be thought of as adjectives?
IE: たのしみ　えいが　です。
Literal: "Something to look forward to that is a movie."
Better: "A movie that (you, I) can look forward to."
#2: この　えいが　は　たのしみ　です。
"This movie is something to look forward to." --> A movie that has the qualities of one that should be looked forward to.

Am I crazy, what's going on???

Please clear my confusion if you can : ).

[community.japanese]

francistravers6336-san,
I think you need to be a little bit away from English to understand those two issues.

1. ～ればいい
This is the fixed phrase to state the solution. If this is used in interrogative sentence (i.e. ～ればいいですか)
it means the speaker is asking for the best solution. If it's used in more "wondering" voice, it means
the speaker is wondering what the best solution is.

2. たのしみです。　しんぱいです。
Those are typical expressions that English and Japanese use the different grammatical patterns.
Yes, "looking forward" is an action in English, but there's no corresponding Japanese expression.
Instead, we express the same feelings in different manner. This is how languages work.
Strictly speaking, たのしみにしています is NOT literal translation of "looking forward to", because literal
translation should be まえをむいて見ています and this doesn't make sense at all in Japanese.
So, you caught the expression たのしみにする as a corresponding expression. This doesn't mean
that this expression needs to have the same tense as English.
Both たのしみにしています and しんぱいしています are grammatically correct, so are たのしみです and しんぱいです.
The important point you must know is not conjugation in this case.
私は帰るのがたのしみです。 is correct. But if you want to use たのしみにしています you need to change the particle:
私は帰るのを楽しみにしています。
The usage and pattern changes as does particle to accompany.

Hope this helps!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[francistravers6336]

ごくろうさま　でした。

二しゅう　まえ　に　ebay.comで　ゲームパッド　を　かいました。　今日は　にせゲームパッド　が　着かれました。 何を　すれば　いい　かんがえる　けど。。。
Is this proper usage?

Lastly, could I ask how you think of the nouns in Japanese which describe qualities?
IE: 禁止, いたみ、　たのしみ、　etc.
Even though the noun forms must be conjugated like nouns, do you think of them as nouns in your head? Or do they feel more like adjectives?

[community.japanese]

francistravers6336-san,
Did you get a fake game board?

Could you tell me why you wrote ごくろうさま　でした。 at the beginning?
Depending on your intention, this can be replaced with　こんにちは。OR おつかれさまです。
Perhaps ありがとうございました。??
Anyway, it's never ごくろうさまでした。

I'm not 100% sure what you wanted to say, but...
二しゅうかん　まえ　に　ebay.comで　ゲームパッド　を　かいました。　
でも今日　にせもののゲームパッド　が　とどきました。

And, what exactly did you want to say with this sentence below?
何を　すれば　いい　かんがえる　けど。。。

We consider nouns as nouns, not adjectives....but I'm not very sure what you mean...

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[francistravers6336]

Sorry for replying so late, I only just now saw your response! Also, ありがとうございました！
Yes, I received a fake item in the mail, you interpreted it great.

I wrote 「ごくろうさま」　because my original post was very long and probably didn't make as much sense as it could have, so I thought it was probably a lot of work for you to go through. I wanted to say a bigger thank you for the effort it took. What sort of situations would 「ごくろうさま」　be reserved for?

1. ～ればいい
This is the fixed phrase to state the solution. If this is used in interrogative sentence (i.e. ～ればいいですか)
it means the speaker is asking for the best solution. If it's used in more "wondering" voice, it means
the speaker is wondering what the best solution is.

「何を　すれば　いい　かんがえる　けど。。。」　
This was me trying to say "I'm thinking of what I can do (about receiving a counterfeit item)."
「すれば」　is the　"eba" form of 「する」 right?

After learning a bit more, I'm starting to think using 「かどうか」　might be more appropriate for this, but from what I understand when a question word is used before 「かどうか」　it is changed to 「か」.
Is this better?
「なに　を　できる　か　かんがえている。」
"I'm thinking of what I can do."


As for what I mentioned about nouns and adjectives.
I think perhaps I should just ask what the difference is between 「これ　が　たのしみにする」　and 「これ　が　たのしみ　です。」

[community.japanese]

francistravers6336-san,
I'm very sorry for the super late reply!!

I wrote 「ごくろうさま」　because my original post was very long and probably didn't make as much sense as it could have, so I thought it was probably a lot of work for you to go through. I wanted to say a bigger thank you for the effort it took. What sort of situations would 「ごくろうさま」　be reserved for?

Oh, I see!
Thank you very much for your kind considerations!
This expression ごくろうさま is a bit tricky. You can say this to reward someone for his/her work, but
this also means that you're supposed to be in "higher position" than the other person.
So, you can say this to thank a delivery person or post man for their work and service (as a customer,
you're in a higher position than servers). However, you cannot use it to someone you should pay respect to.

「何を　すれば　いい　かんがえる　けど。。。」　
This was me trying to say "I'm thinking of what I can do (about receiving a counterfeit item)."
「すれば」　is the　"eba" form of 「する」 right?

After learning a bit more, I'm starting to think using 「かどうか」　might be more appropriate for this, but from what I understand when a question word is used before 「かどうか」　it is changed to 「か」.
Is this better?
「なに　を　できる　か　かんがえている。」
"I'm thinking of what I can do."

Yes; すれば is (e)ba form of する
The key here would be "how we say in Japanese" which is different from English way.
All you studied were correct and you correctly understood!
When we want to say "What should I do...?" kind of sentence, we often say
どうしたらいいんだろう。
どうすればいいかな。
Those are casual ways (i.e. this is like you think out loud, so no need to be polite).
However, when you write such sentences, you might want to keep the polite level.
So, how about...
どうすれば　いいか　かんがえていますが、わかりません。
どうすれば　いいでしょうか。

As for what I mentioned about nouns and adjectives.
I think perhaps I should just ask what the difference is between 「これ　が　たのしみにする」　and 「これ　が　たのしみ　です。」

When you use たのしみにする, it takes を: これ　を　たのしみに　する
We probably use more nouns in such cases, to describe our feelings.
When we say [something]をたのしみにしています (～います is more natural), it sounds more descriptive than
subjective. It might also be more suitable for formal conversations.
But, this might not be true in all the situations or with all the nouns you have in your mind
because my explanation is only about たのしみ and I don't know any other cases you want to know.

Hope it helps.

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[francistravers6336]

francistravers6336-san,
I'm very sorry for the super late reply!!

No worries : )　学校　は　始まりました　から　私も　あまり　暇　が　ありません。

This expression is a bit tricky. You can say this to reward someone for his/her work, but
this also means that you're supposed to be in "higher position" than the other person.
So, you can say this to thank a delivery person or post man for their work and service (as a customer,
you're in a higher position than servers). However, you cannot use it to someone you should pay respect to.

ほんとに　御免なさい！　Also thank you for the description, I won't make that mistake again!

When we want to say "What should I do...?" kind of sentence, we often say
どうしたらいいんだろう。
どうすればいいかな。
Those are casual ways (i.e. this is like you think out loud, so no need to be polite).
However, when you write such sentences, you might want to keep the polite level.
So, how about...
どうすれば　いいか　かんがえていますが、わかりません。
どうすれば　いいでしょうか。

When you use たのしみにする, it takes を: これ　を　たのしみに　する
We probably use more nouns in such cases, to describe our feelings.
When we say [something]をたのしみにしています (～います is more natural), it sounds more descriptive than
subjective. It might also be more suitable for formal conversations.
But, this might not be true in all the situations or with all the nouns you have in your mind
because my explanation is only about たみ and I don't know any other cases you want to know.

Hope it helps.

はい！　何時も　例文　は　役立つ！　教えてくれて　ありがとう！

[community.japanese]

francistravers6336-san,
oh, don't worry too much about ごくろうさま even because there're hundreds of JAPANESE people
who use this expression wrongly (oh well, it's not actually funny...shame, really)

Glad I could help anyway!
Anytime you have questions, please feel free to ask us!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com