Yesterday, I upped my words from san(3) to roku(6), I remembered that I knew how to count to juu(10) in Nihongo when I reached my first word of the day: ni(2,に).
ni, or に means two, and sometimes February, which makes alot of sense. Apparently, it can also be used to indicate direction of travel, similar to the english word 'to'. I find this to be a strange coincidence.
te, or て means hand or arm when used literally, and skill or ability in other contexts. It is easy for me to group all these things together.
to, or と I had some trouble with. The only translation that I was comfortable with was that of 'door', specifically a Japanese style door. Since it is so high up in frequency of use, I can't imagine that Japanese culture is that obsessed with doors. I'm assuming it is used frequently to refer to other kinds of portals, or to opportunities or barriers to opportunities, as a door can be either.
suru, or する means to rub,scrape,shave,scrub, and somewhat apart from these other things, print. I imagine that this is a very versitile word, but since my word frequency list was compiled from newspapers, perhaps する は popular desu(deす).
ga or が is a particle that ends a sentence and denotes a question. As in something like 'anata wa と san deす ga?' I remember from a couple lessons at japanesepod101 that questions like the one above end in 'ka', at least that's how I heard it. Some sources I read grouped ga and ka together, as if they were different romaji of the same Nihongo. They are very similar sounding, so I'm going to keep this in the back of my mind for later.
da or だ is used to end a sentence to imply informality. It also seems to be possible to imply general apathy or violence with this word. Humorously, it is also considered masculine, and women frequently omit this word. Of this days words, I am by far the most uncertain about this one. I think I'll save speculation for later and simply remember that it's used to imply informality.
For now, I'm just going to stick with this and add more notes to my flash card if I discover alternate meanings.
1 comment:
Great stuff here Spree. Hope you dont mind me adding to your post.
First と acts like the conjunction *and*. "I like chicken と beef". This is probably why it is a high frequency word.
A correction on your post - か (ka) denotes a question, while が (ga) is used in other ways. ga can act like the conjunctive particle "but" when used in a sentence like this:
I really like Tokyo, が it is too hot in the summer.
I took the following from japanesepod101:
The difference between "ga" and "ha" (pronounced "wa") is one of the most troublesome for people studying the Japanese language.
Generally speaking, "ga" is replaced by "wa" when:
a) the grammatical subject has already been introduced during the discussion;
b) the subject is something that the listener is assumed to be familiar with;
c) making generalizations;
d) making comparisons.
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