Postby timothy.oconnor_497415 » February 5th, 2014 6:45 am
Ok, I think I have it - First one should be a 'no' - this means 'travel company employee'. second one is 'ni', thus marking the travel company employees as the group that is giving me the souvenir.
Postby timothy.oconnor_497415 » February 5th, 2014 11:06 am
Up until now, Ive been told that 'kara' is used in relation to time, i.e it marks the time when something starts, and 'made' is used to indicate when something finishes. i.e:
watashi wa ku-ji kara go-ji made hatarakimasu (I worked from 9 to 5)
I wasn't aware it could be used for other things...
That's right. Kara can be more generally translated as 'from', so:-
Watashi wa ichiji kara niji-han made benkyō shimashita - I studied from 1.00 to 2.30. Watashi wa tomodachi kara tegami wo moraimashita - I received a letter from my friend. Watashi wa Kanada kara kimashita - I came from Canada.
That's at least for kara as a particle. Kara can only be used as a conjunction, meaning 'because', but this is a different 'kara', so it's probably best if you don't worry about that right now.
I need to correct myself a bit here, based on what I just learned.
You can also say:- わたしは かいしゃのひと に りょこう の おみやげ を もらいました。
(I.e. に instead of から)
This is in Beginner Lesson #105. They say there that although に and から can often be used interchangeably here, it's actually preferable to use に if the giver is a person. So I guess in this case から is not wrong, but に is preferred.
Now, in Beginner Lesson #108, Yamano advises Take that he should end his message with たけより - "from Take".
I had never heard of より meaning 'from' before, but WWWJDIC lists its first meaning as "from; out of; since; at" which is very similar to から. So when would you use より rather than から?
Postby community.japanese » March 18th, 2014 6:56 am
小狼さん、 今日は。 They both have the meaning “from” as you know however, When you use the sentence structure しか~ないor だけ, kara should be used. For example, 一般の方は12時からしか入れません。General people can enter from 12pm. 一般の方は12時からだけ入れます。General people can enter from 12pm. 一般の方は12時よりしか入れません。一般の方は12時よりだけは入れます。These sentences sounds weird. The other example is about distance. 福島から北が東北地方です。 福島より北が東北地方です。 福島から青森までの距離はどれくらいですか。These three sentences are ok. However, 福島より青森までの距離はどれくらいですか。is not used. Yuki 由紀 Team JapanesePod101.com