A Few Questions on the Beginner Lessons

[Airth]

Bueller, you took the words out of my mouth. Your explanation seems to cover all the bases, nice job.
For a moment there I was thinking this thread had been derailed...

[Joey]

ありがとうございました。sorry for my question causing some tension. okay, so in lesson 48: あおいわたがし = blue cotton candy, ピンクのわたがし = pink cotton candy, and むらさきのわたがし = purple cotton candy. blue cotton candy doesn't have a の but the other two do. Is this just because of the same reason already explained by Bueller_007-san, seasurfer-san and Brody-san?

[Jason]

ありがとうございました。sorry for my question causing some tension. okay, so in lesson 48: あおいわたがし = blue cotton candy, ピンクのわたがし = pink cotton candy, and むらさきのわたがし = purple cotton candy. blue cotton candy doesn't have a の but the other two do. Is this just because of the same reason already explained by Bueller_007-san, seasurfer-san and Brody-san?

No, this is different. 青[あお]い is an adjective form of 青 , so you can just stick it right in front of the word you're modifying. However, ピンク and 紫[むらさき] in addition to some other colors do not have adjective forms. They're nouns. To have a noun modify another noun, you have to use の.

[Joey]

ありがとうございます。is this pattern with の used with just colours or this for a lot of things? And, does this have anything to do with な-adjectives? like could you also say ピンクなわたがし? sorry for asking so many questions.

[Jason]

ありがとうございます。is this pattern with の used with just colours or this for a lot of things? And, does this have anything to do with な-adjectives? like could you also say ピンクなわたがし? sorry for asking so many questions.

It's not just colors. It can be used with all sorts of stuff. Ex)

左のビル (the building on the left)
日本の車 (Japanese car)

の is a very powerful particle and can express many meanings beyond a simple "A belongs to B" type of relationship. Though at it's root, I guess that's really it's most basic meaning, it's used to express many distinct nuances that the English doesn't cover. But no, it's not related to な-adjectives at all. ピンク isn't a な-adj so you can't use it like that.

And don't worry about asking so many questions. It's what this place is for.

[Joey]

thank-you Jason-san. i get it now. i'll probably have a lot more questions in the future so i'll just post them here.

[tintinium]

Also... you can think of の as 'of' in reverse at times.

日本の車 (car of Japan)
左のビル　(building of left)

A lot of times reversing the word order and adding 'of' can help you make sense of it until you get the feel of the particle.

[Joey]

ありがとうございます tintinium-san. the x's y = y of x example helps. i also take spanish at school and in spanish they don't have a word like の that is possesive and so instead of saying "his car" they would say "car of him" so i'm used to that method!

[tintinium]

^^^ Yeah,

It helped me when I was trying to translate things like:
誰の車。（だれのくるま）

I know I CAN say Who's car, but since の really denotes possession... or ownership, of seemed more fitting... I think I came across that revelation when the movie, Nausicaa.

風の谷のナウシカ　

Which translates as Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

Not, "Wind Valley's Nausicaa"

[Joey]

i have another question. This isn't from any particular beginner lesson, its just about a phrase,　もういちどおねがいします。Now i know that this means "one more time please," but could you substitute the いち with another number like 5 or something to have it mean "5 more times please" もうごどおねがいします。would that be correct?

[Bueller_007]

i have another question. This isn't from any particular beginner lesson, its just about a phrase,　もういちどおねがいします。Now i know that this means "one more time please," but could you substitute the いち with another number like 5 or something to have it mean "5 more times please" もうごどおねがいします。would that be correct?

Grammatically, it would.

But, in the context of "please repeat that", "mou ichi-do" is a bit of a set phrase. So it'd probably sound pretty weird to say "go-do".

You might be able to use it as a joke though.

*Japanese person says something you don't understand*
"Mou ichi-do onegai shimasu."
*You still don't understand*
"Mou go-do onegai shimasu."

[Joey]

arigatou gozaimasu Bueller_007-san, would it sound weird if i was an english teacher and i asked my students to repeat a word like 3 times? Like:
Me: everyone say "library"
Students: *say library*
Me: mou san-do onegai shimasu

[Bueller_007]

arigatou gozaimasu Bueller_007-san, would it sound weird if i was an english teacher and i asked my students to repeat a word like 3 times? Like:
Me: everyone say "library"
Students: *say library*
Me: mou san-do onegai shimasu

I'm pretty sure that would be alright.

[Joey]

ありがとうございます Bueller_007-san.

[Jason]

arigatou gozaimasu Bueller_007-san, would it sound weird if i was an english teacher and i asked my students to repeat a word like 3 times? Like:
Me: everyone say "library"
Students: *say library*
Me: mou san-do onegai shimasu

I'm pretty sure that would be alright.

I don't know. That sounds funny to me. I'd be more likely to suggest 三回言って下さい。