A little note to those who know some Japanese and are worried about the way I am studiously avoiding the wa particle. Don't worry. We're coming to that next. Every sentence is logically a ga-sentence. Wa is a non-logical particle, so it is a kind of supplement to the logical ga (which is never replaced by wa, only supplemented by it). Don't worry about this explanation either. I know it won't make sense right now (unless you've read _Unlocking Japanese_ or seen some of my more advanced videos). Next week we'll go over it step by step. With trains. th-cam.com/video/U9_T4eObNXg/w-d-xo.html
KawaJapa CureDolly 面白いね、Most teachers start with は, and です structure first, like: これはペンです。I think this very clear to the student UNTIL が IS INTRODUCED. Then, mass confusion (at least for me).
Absolutely. In my view the conventional methods start with a kind of "phrase-book Japanese" and never entirely get beyond that. They tell you that コーヒーが好きです (koohii ga suki desu) means "I like coffee" (which literally it just doesn't) and never explain what is really happening. They never tell you what that ga is really doing (so it seems like a crazy exception). They leave you to believe that the invisible "watashi" is the actor of the sentence (it isn't). You either end up intuiting all this for yourself or you don't. No wonder people give up. Explaining things in logical order and telling people exactly what is happening with no "phrasebook explanations" is quite challenging. For one thing it isn't super-easy to give good examples at this early stage without jumping the gun and using concepts I haven't introduced yet (this is what makes the semi-phrasebook approach of conventional textbooks so much easier for the teacher). For example, I can't model adjectivals with trains right now because it would look confusing until I explain what Japanese "adjectives" really are - and that needs its own lesson. Interestingly, although it will be basic, it will go beyond the information given in my adjective lesson ( th-cam.com/video/yJ2EhSPLQsk/w-d-xo.html ). Why is that? Because that lesson starts from the conventional concept of "i and na adjectives" and explains in those terms what is really happening. Starting from scratch and using the train model I can explain from the beginning what Japanese adjectivals _really_ are. So this basic course is in some respects more advanced than my more "advanced" work. Because really understanding Japanese structure necessitates starting from scratch, not just patching the existing misleading concepts. Strange as it seems no one seems to have even tried introducing Japanese structure in logical order, step by step. Maybe it needed an android. Androids look at conventional textbooks and say "Processing error. That does not compute." _Unless of course you're one of those new-fangled "user-friendly" androids that is programed to say "Gee I don' understan' that" when what they mean is "Processing error. That does not compute"_
I agree with Retro Nick. I think because of the way I’ve been taught it feels normal for me to use は with everything and so even now I struggle to work out the difference. Unless it’s a sentence like りんごが好きだ I know it’s が just because I imagine there’s an invisible 私は there and that ___が好きだ is kind of a set phrase so I only ever see が used with 好き. I bought your book and I’m really looking forward to more videos!! I really want to become a master of Japanese and go on to teach it. All of the hiccups I’ve had with learning Japanese has shown me better ways to teach it, and things I still struggle with show me things that need more time spent on them. 先生ありがとうございます
応援しています。I am supporting and encouraging you (really it sounds a little strange when you say it in English). But yes. Pursue that goal. You can do it. And it makes me very happy because that's one of the things I really want in the long term. To help a new generation of teachers to teach Japanese in more effective ways. You can say りんごは好きだ but it would have a different implication from りんごが好きだ. Usually what you are saying then is I like apples (as opposed to something else). So for example I said りんごやおれんじが好きなの？(do you like apples and oranges?) and you reply りんごは好きだ you are implying "I like apples (but I don't like oranges)". You can see this by applying the base "as for" meaning of は: as for apples, I like _them_ But the usual expression, as you say, when you don't have any other implication, in mind, is りんごが好きだ. がんばってください
And now in the second eight minute video I more or less totally understand what almost two entire units of Duolingo so far have left completely unexplained. Dolly was taken from us too soon.
@@blackpurple9163 seems like my comment got removed, so in 2021 someone who had access to her Patreon said that (it's no longer there), but no details were told you can still read it in description of this video (it's only ending of url because youtube doesn't like links r8E1RNC4Zus)
Unbelievable. I’ve been studying Japanese intensely (〜5 hours a day or more) for about 3 months now, and while I think I’ve made really fast progress, on my bad days, I sometimes get incredibly frustrated with what appear to be insane rules or ideas about language. However, in watching just the first two of these videos, I actually felt such an immense sense of relief that I started laughing with joy. It’s like the hazy cloud that was keeping me from seeing the essence of the language is slowly dissipating even though these are topics with which I am already familiar. I’m so excited to watch the rest of the series!
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Very true. I'm of italian origins, and have a firm grasp on english grammar just because I had a teacher who'd never shut up about the basics. Turns out that watching stuff in english on TH-cam and playing games in their original language helped immensely with the lexicon, but without said teacher ingraining the basics into my brain I wouldn't know what to do with it. You're doing the same thing for me now with japanese. Thanks a bunch.
Thank you so much! I really apologize for the poor sound quality. I think this one was a little worse as it seems to have a bit of an echo. I'm constantly trying to improve things, but without too much success it seems (did you find the previous or next one better?) Sometimes it feels as if I spend more time fighting the equipment than saying what I have to say! Anyway, ganbarimasu! I'll keep on trying! And thank you so much for your kind words.
I've been learning Japanese fro almost a year now, mostly through Duolingo, Japanese websites, music and the occasional Japanese friend, but this series is the one thing I wish someone would have shown to me when I started. Thank you again for an amazing lesson!
I learned the hard way that duolingo is not for beginners, despite all the basics it teaches. After years of long periods of diligence, taking long breaks in between, completing the whole course, I found myself barely any wiser. Because it doesn't teach the skeleton of the language, it just wants you to memorize a bunch of random sentences and random tips. I lost my 360 day streak (; _ ;) and ignored all the sad emails it spammed. Cure Dolly is for beginners. I've learned much more from her. Once I've soaked in her whole channel, I'll go back to duolingo with structure instead of only memorizing. Duolingo is for intermediate practice.
@@sixkicksfightertricks949 I'm starting to think all of them are. Rosetta stone, Japanese pod, Duolingo. All of them seem to think you know hiragana/katakana. That Kanji can have 2 pronunciations. It's sad things like this you just have to stumble across via word of mouth.
@@sheepleslayer586 That's how I learned the alphabets too. IMO duolingo is actually pretty good for learning the alphabets. But rosetta stone and duolingo do nothing to teach basic grammar rules, hell rosetta stone doesn't even bother teaching the alphabets.
Thank you. This is what I would call structural analysis. All languages have the same set of problems to solve (expressing everything a human might want to express), so even when they do it in different ways we can need to work out which part of language A corresponds to which solution in language B in order to make cross-language explanations. This is the method I use.
00:00 Briefly recalling back the lesson 1 00:28 Introduction to the invisible carriage, the Japanese zero pronoun 03:14 How an invisible carriage works in Japanese 04:52 Introduction to を particle as the new carriage, the object particle-marker 05:38 How the を car works in a sentence 06:07 How the を car works with an invisible が car in a sentence 07:19 Little exercise for new learners of Japanese 07:30 Basic kanji book recommendation Please point out if there are any typos or other errors 誤字、間違え等ありましたら 指摘お願いします
I'm begining to like you cure dolly.. At first you frieghtened me with your uncanny appearance and you're slightly strange english accent concealed behind a potato microphone.. However, despite these shortcomings you've been dishing out some hardcore knowledge and it seems you got a new microphone which helps us humans to be less weary of you.... Anyway, thanks for the insightful explanations.
Honestly I am sorry to frighten you or anyone. That really isn't my intention, but I know it sometimes happens. Yes I did get a new microphone. I delayed this new series until it came (it isn't too simple for me to get things). I have been told that this second lesson wasn't as good in the sound department as the first and some people had trouble hearing everything (there are real English subtitles for anyone who does have trouble). So this has been a long-term problem for me and I continue to work to get it right. Thank you for coming back with an appreciative comment. If I can help you that makes me happy. That is what I am here for.
haha I'm joking about the being frieghtened part, even though I find the presentation of cure dolly a little strange because of the uncanny aspect of it, I've come to enjoy these and very much find these lessons quite helpful in my studies. What are using as far as microphones and input devices go? and how are you recording the audio to these? I have some experience in that department and might be able to make some helpful suggestions on that end.
I'm glad to hear I didn't frighten you and really happy to hear that the video lessons are helping you. Formerly I was using a wireless USB headset, which was the only mic I had. Recently I acquired a stand-alone USB mic which is supposed to be quite good for a cheap one. For the first of this series I held it in my hand and for the second had it mounted on an arm which kept my hands free. However (and I can't imagine why) when I did that I got a buzzing sound that I had to cut out in software - which may be why there was some degradation. It sounded ok to me - in fact I thought it might have been better, but from what people are telling me I think I will go back to holding it in my hand as that seems to be the best result I have had so far.
Another suggestion: The audio in your videos often sounds echoey. Are you recording in a room with flat-surfaced walls? Echos can happen when the sound is repeatedly bouncing back and forth between parallel walls... or between the ceiling and an hard, flat desk top.
I'm more of an intermediate Japanese learner, and I clicked on these beginner lessons out of pure curiosity from seeing your advanced は and が secrets video. I have to say your videos are amazing. Your ability to explain things to an almost silly level of simplicity is uncanny! Subscribing for sure.
PS - for more in-depth on advanced は and が (in fact the whole principle of non-logical topic/comment structure you might like to see this mini (two-video) playlist: th-cam.com/video/_nXHpkTTfGs/w-d-xo.html
Ive been self studying Japanese and have always found the concept of subjectless sentences confusing. Your framework makes it easy to understand. Ive actually gone through some of your advanced lessons but have decided to start from the basic again and I still keep discovering new ways of looking at things just from watching them. Thank you very much!
Yes it' a good idea because the basic lessons provide an infrastructure that isn't found elsewhere. Though you might also want to look at this one which addresses the myth of the subjectless sentence: th-cam.com/video/CEgGnitwXGA/w-d-xo.html
There's an analogy with computer programming languages which you might find interesting (enlightening, even! Maybe. 😊). In many programming languages where a given variable (let's call it 'x') might have various possible values, such as 0, 1, 2, or even -1, -2, etc., we 'set' the variable with a statement like: "x = 5;". If we then output the value of the variable, "print x;", the output will reasonably be: "5". This is all well and good, but what if we never set the variable at all? What value does it hold then? Well, in many of these languages, there is a special value which can be thought of as meaning 'has no value assigned', and it's usually called 'null', rather than 'zero' since 'zero', or '0' is already a concrete numerical value, whereas 'null' means 'no value is given at all'. Interestingly, and this is where it connects to your lectures, the concept of 'null' is often represented with the symbol ∅ (well, in mathematics this is the case; in programming languages, it's usually denoted by a keyword such as simply 'null', but nevertheless...). So, in your lectures, you might just as well say that the 'ga' particle (or, more accurately, the 'subject' of the sentence) is assigned a value of 'null', or ∅. In programming languages, when a variable is 'null', this is often an indication that a 'default value' should be used in its place. If I were to translate this concept into an imaginary 'Japanese' programming logic, it might look something like this: speaker = watashi; subject = find_subject_marked_with_ga_from ( sentence ); topic = find_topic_marked_with_ha_or_mo_from ( sentence ); ... if ( subject equals ∅ ) then if ( makes_sense_as_subject ( topic ) ) then default_subject = topic; ... _additional cases where some other X might makes_sense_as_subject ( X )_ ... otherwise default_subject = speaker; end if subject = default_subject; end if In other words, if the 'ga' subject is 'invisible' or the 'zero pronoun' or the 'null pronoun', then we humans must figure out whatever 'makes sense as the subject' from the context of the communication -- which may be given from the 'ha' topic or from any various other hints in the sentence itself, or which may require a broader understanding of the context that the sentence itself does not contain. The point in all of this is that both real Japanese and many existing programming languages have a concept of 'variables' having 'null' values, and those 'null' values indicating that the variables should be given some 'default' value in that case. I just think it's an interesting and revealing parallel. 😊
I think this is true. I am not well versed in programming languages (yes I know, but being organic doesn't make you a biologist either) but I would say that an early logical sequence is: Is が-marked subject visible? If not, ∅が must exist. Does default value ∅が=わたしが make good sense in context? If so, provisionally assume default value ∅が=わたしが, continue testing If not, test other values for ∅が In practice of course this process (if one has even a little experience) is normally so rapid as to be unconscious. The value of ∅が is almost immediately apparent. But whenever it isn't one can follow out the more conscious procedure.
I appreciate you taking the time to write this out for us all. It helped me realize I'll never understand Japanese and why I can't seem to wrap my head around Linux commands. Your answer is right there, I know it is, but my brain just like... Shuts off. Doesn't Null mean of no value? Invalid? Basically 0 but... It's not a 0 nor is it a 1 it's... A nothing? A blank. The command was left null= the command was left blank?
I have been studying Japanese some years by myself with books, friends and videos and you just explained what all those things couldn't in a few minutes... This is incredible, really.
You are really good at explaining! I like the uncanny feeling of the video, it helps to make it feel unique, You actually learn better when something sticks out, so I appreciate it a lot!
I had been doing Duolingo for two weeks now and while I got a few modules in I didn't feel like I was actually learning Japanese but just memorizing Japanese things. I've spent like twenty min on your channel and I feel like I finally understand what's happening and the structure of these sentences/rules. I wish I had spent the last two weeks here instead of there. Thank you!
i am learning Japanese for the last 3 years but your are still incredible helpful. They make you look at things differently. I am really glad I got over the voice and the doll. Awesome channel
I have been self studying Japanese for years, and while I was able to do so decently, it was through methods that explained Japanese as if it were English, and they never could explain ga in a way that made sense. I am still new to your videos, but as an intermediate learner your content is useful and easy to understand. Thank you!
Even though I already know pretty much all the basic grammar to a solid level, I'm still watching this series from the start to refresh. ありがとうございますドリー先生！
Very good Cure Dolly. This is rarely, if ever, explained, however its so important to understand this for Japanese sentences. For some reason this info is left out of so many text books and TH-cam lessons. Well done. Thank you.
I spent a few years trying to understand this invisible ga. Schools, teachers, textbooks all fail to explain this properly. Can I ask why is it ? It’s so important to know about this and yet hardly ever taught. After a few years I eventually got onto a good grammar teacher. So many students give up due to this.
This reminds me another example from when I saw the train approaching the station. I heard people shouting : Kita ! And that was all that was needed to be communicated really. Everyone assumed it was the train. Having a different language as native also really helps. I find many similarities with the Greek language as we would also say : came !
I am afraid I do not know Greek so I don't know if "came" would be a complete sentence in Greek, but in Japanese "kita" is a complete sentence because it means "∅-ga kita" and the zero pronoun is the normal pronoun in Japanese. So it is just the same as saying "it came" in English. On the other hand if they had just said "densha!" (train) it would not have been a complete sentence. It would have been short for "densha da" (it's the train) because there is no zero copula in Japanese.
I was watching your videos and decided to start the series from scratch. I am so glad I did, I have been learning Japanese for a year but it was a great idea. I was really confused on your last video when you said さくらが歩く because I thought it should have been さくらを歩く. Your explanations really helped because now I won't be walking people XD. Jokes aside, thank you for this awesome series!
Lesson 2 work sheet #1 zeroGa(A) +(B) 1.がマルセルだ 2.かくるまだ 3.がうさぎだ 4.かけーきい 5.がねこだ 6.がいぬ 7.がごはんだ 8.がさかなだ 9.がすしい 10.がばななだ I couldn’t find that zero with the slash mark through it so I put at the zero name as a reference. Lesson 2 work sheet #2 zeroGa(A) + (B) adding を - Noun: we are doing something. 1.がごはんをたべる 2.がばななをたべる 3.がとりにくをたべる 4.がさかなをたべる 5.がろまんをたべろ 6.がすしをたべる Also I have been keeping up with your recent videos I just got caught up with helping someone learn the lesson structure you thought In lesson 1 and 2 so they may learn natural as well
These videos are extremely high quality. The logical issues with Japanese absolutely revolve around "da" suffixes, "wa" vs "ga" pospositionals and the absence of second person pronouns and non-proximal demonstratives, especially "it," "the," and "they." In my opinion, this actually serves as a valid criticism against modern Japan and the culture of modern Japanese people, because old Japanese (710ad -- 794ad) actaully has both 2nd person pronouns and non-proximal demonstratives like "it" and "the" in englsh! Amazing and logical! Specifically, 1st person pronouns were "a(re)" for "I" "wa(re)" for "we" (proximal -- when everyone was present) and "wa(re)-wa(re)" for "us" (non-proximal -- when everyone is not present). The 2nd person pronoun for "they" was "na(re)." And the non-proximal demonstratives for "it," "the" and "that" were "so" (nominal), "soko" (location), "soti" (direction), "soku--" (degree), "sate" and "sika" (manner). So for example, to say "it is red" they would say "so ga akai." To say "they are red" they would say "kore ga akai." To say "we are red" they would say "ware-ware ga akai" unless everyone was present, then they would say "ware ga akai." Turns out wa(re) is reflexive for "ourselves" and "we" or "us" when not use reflexively. But for some reason, this linguistic form was opposed by subsequent Japanese and has been prosecuted for a thousand years in favor of a more vague and indirect grammer that does not have non-proximal demonstratives and second person pronouns. And that is totally crazy. It makes me wonder if the violence in the history of Japan is responsibile for this change, out of fear of using second person pronouns baeically out fear for physical abuse in response to offending someone. In other words, the linguistic changes were due to rampant authoritarianism and corporeal violence, with no one to save the public from harm and abuse duing that time period. For more on Old Japanese, see Miyake, Marc Hideo (2003). Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction., Frellesvig, Bjarke (2010). A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-65320-6, Bentley, John R. (2001). A Descriptive Grammar of Early Old Japanese Prose. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-12308-3, Vovin, Alexander; Ishisaki-Vovin, Sambi (2022). The Eastern Old Japanese Corpus and Dictionary. Leiden, Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-47119-1, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Japanese#CITEREFVovin2020.
Brilliant. You may very well be correct in deducing the secondary pronouns were removed out of fear, perhaps reverence or even fear of nefarious "telling" of someone talking about someone else. It also seems to fit with the tendency to use the honorific or polite forms in official communication, placing an importance on respect above all else. Thank you, this was eye opening.
こんばんは。Here are my practice sentences... アニメをみる。 ∅がアニメをみる。 (I) watch anime. にほんごをまなぶ。たのしいよね。 ∅がにほんごをまなぶ。∅がたのしいよね。 (I) study Japanese. (Studying Japanese) is fun! Thanks again, Sensei, for making it so easy to learn Japanese!
Yay! Absolutely right. The second one is a good example of how the zero pronoun can switch quickly from "I" to something else - but it's perfectly natural and understandable isn't it? Thank you for practicing. This week's lesson is up now.
Practicing! I don't know if it's "eating" or "eat" or if it's in the past tense. Thank you for your lesson, you explain really well. I eat ice cream アイスクリームをたべる I draw a flower はなをかく I wear a shirt ジャツをきる Today is monday げつようびだ
I'm really glad I found your video! It's a miracle. Thank you for explaining it very well! I wish your videos get recognition more and more because you totally deserve it!
I just found your channel through reddit and I have to say I really appreciate the work you're doing!! I've been trying to learn Japanese for a long time now but always found myself getting discouraged because I wasn't making any progress and the progress I was making often felt clunky or inefficient. I finally feel like I'm understanding now, more so than ever before! So I look forward to watching the rest of your content and lots of love from Australia!! :))
Its really making sense to me so far. Glad to have such a simple to understand resource. Homework: 1st Sentence (minus invisible carriage) にくを たべる 1st Sentence (with invisible carriage) わたし が にくを たべる 1st Sentence (English Translation) "I eat meat" 2nd Sentence (minus invisible carriage) 2nd Sentence (with invisible carriage) わたし が くるま写る 2nd Sentence (English translation) "I photographed a car"
Both are structurally correct. 写る does not mean "take a photograph". For that you need: わたし が くるまの写真を撮った. A little more advanced, and since you said "photographed" we have to put it in the past tense. We'll come to all that soon, but the important thing is that everything is structurally correct. Congratulations.
I mean.. is it that hard for textbooks to write this stuff? I could spend an hours lesson in a textbook on this and know unnecessary stuff without even grasping the necessary stuff but your lessons are short and just have what you need to know. Thank you very much Cure Dolly
が always existing but often hidden to avoid redundancy makes a lot of sense. It was a bit of a shock to the system to hear that が was the linchpin of the Japanese sentence but your rather simple explanation made it clear. I'd rather have heard this earlier than the more labyrinthine methods often employed.
Fantastic, in my opinion this is the cause why so many people find Japanese too confusing and give up. It's just never fully explained in textbooks so beautifully as Cure Dolly does. The hidden subject Ga pronoun.
This is Terrific. I have over-complicated Japanese. I think part of the reason the second language I learned was Spanish. In Spanish, the objects are omitted but the verb conjugation clariefes exactly what the object was. El, Ellos,Ella, Tu,Nostoros,Vosotros, etc. But the Japanese don't do that at all. I was thinking it did do something like that. Even after living in Japan for 2 years. No wonder my coworkers are always misgendering the boss and each other. It's very difficult to misunderstand if you drop the object and the verb doesn't make up for as well as the culture of just Hai hai hai even when you don't understand. These videos are amazing.
1. わたしがたこやきをたべる 2. たこやきをたべる 3. I eat takoyaki I just watched 2 of your videos, but I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate them ! Thank you for your hard work ! :D
After studying Japanese in college for a couple years, I always wondered about the 'it' factor in Japanese. We never really delved into it. Felt odd because I used to handle sentences as "___-san did this. Then ___-san had that" or "watashi wa ___. Soshite, watashi wa ___". This video really answered a question i was struggling with for a while! I enjoy your approach to teaching these concepts. So happy you popped in my recommended, I look forward to watching the rest of your videos and hopefully picking up Japanese again as a passion. ありがとうございます。
I started watching this playlist today! So so good! Thank you for everything Dolly sensei. I am confident that with your explanations I will be very advanced in the next 12 months. I'm an intermediate student that spent quite some money on an online course, and now I realized that the explanations of grammar and structures are a Westernized version of the original Japanese logic behind the language. It's good to know that you have so much content offer, with very high quality explanations. Also, in the beginning I thought your voice was a little bit strange (sorry about that), but now I got used to it and I find it very soothing :D In this online course I've reached the "medium" intermediate level, do you plan to upload more videos about high-intermediate and advanced grammar/structures? Thank you so much, and stay safe! よろしくおねがいします ^^
Thank you for making these videos, Cure Dolly-sensei, im gonna binge this playlist after my exams. If you could, what is the expected outcomes after watching these videos? I want to make a checklist while watching. Again, thank you for these lessons!
Funny that I found a similarity with Portuguese: like in Japanese (As you explained in the video), in Portuguese, we sometimes use phrases without the pronouns. but in Portuguese, without a subject (Name, pronoun, etc..) at the beginning of a phrase. We call it the null subject, where you start the phrase with the verb (example: "A camisola é vermelha", This phrase means in Portuguese "The shirt is red". You can remove the subject ("A Camisola" or "The shirt") as say or write "É vermelha")
A very nice explanation. I think the issues here stem mostly from the fact that in English there's no concept of a so called "implied subject," which would be the proper academic name for what you're explaining, and the fact that most Japanese learning material on the internet was made with an English speaking audience in mind, due to US people emigrating to Japan and anime fans. For the record, it does exist in rare cases in English aswell, for example in imperative sentences such as: "Go away!" There is no "you" being explicitly written, but most people understand it's being addressed to a second person. The way it works in Japanese is simply that the subject can be anything, not just "you." I think this is reflected in the language aquisition success statistics aswell. Someone starting learning Japanese from a language other than English is significantly more likely to get somewhere compared to an English speaking individual. Furthermore, coming from a non-English speaking country, i find the English sources of linguistics to be severely lacking. There's very little information in English on the internet on the topic of "implied subject" even, exception being academic papers and course aids. The same goes for example for the topics of "grammatical cases" or anything regarding sentence structures really... To think there are so many influential English speaking modern linguists, though...
I wish I stumbled upon this channel years ago before deciding to quit learning Japanese because all the books and resources were garbage... Now I’ve regained my passion for this language and I’m lucky enough to find this channel at the right time! It’s never too late to start learning!
Many videos out there characterize the "ga" particle as one that's used as an emphasis instead of "wa" - but that "wa" is more generally in - most - sentenses rather than "ga". Is this true? How do you go about recognizing when to use "ga"?
Very true. Everything is going ridiculously slowly. Perhaps I'm wrong about the revolutionary importance of what I'm saying. But I don't believe I am. So I'll keep trying, at least for now.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 No one in history ever managed to get truly popular if he had the goal "I want to be popular". Do what you do and eventually people will notice. If they don't, bad luck. It happens. I've been there before. Some magnificant artist get discovert only after they die as such an event appears to be a reason to finally have a closer look at what he or she was doing. Especially in this modern world driven by algorithms and certain patterns you have to keep in order to be successful. In other words, it's not you, it's them. Cheer up.
@@Leon_der_Luftige Thank you! I don't really want to be popular but I think I have something worth saying and I'd like people to hear it - at least the people it would help. I know these things develop slowly and saying something that people haven't heard before is probably slower at first than just repeating what has already been said for the several-hundredth time. Being inorganic probably doesn't help either. It would probably be better if I was a human, or at least a cute bunny or a frog... Still. がんばります! And thank you again for your encouragement.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 For what it's worth, I was randomly recommended one of your videos and now I'm going to binge all of them. I love your style of teaching, it's just what I've been looking for. I'm a very logical person, and I like to understand how systems work and why they work the way they do. Getting taught Japanese by just memorizing phrases in Genki and in school and on duolingo is a style of teaching I seriously dislike.
Thank you Dolly! Just started learning Japanese a month ago! This channel I found on a subreddit is really great so far! I found the lessons easy to understand as they are only 8-10 minutes. However, is it okay to just learn grammar from your videos, or you also recommend having a grammar book like Genki? With invisible ga train: にほんじんだ With zero-ga train: 私が にほんじんだ In English: I am Japanese
Your sentence is correct. That is exactly how it should look. Zero-ga and invisible ga are the same thing and they never appear in Japanese writing or are heard in Japanese speech. In our structural notation we can write ∅が にほんじんだ or 私は ∅が にほんじんだ. The zero, or invisible, particle is never actually seen in Japanese, but we use it to help us understand the structure. We'll learn about は next lesson. The problem with Genki etc is that if you read them too early they will fill your head with a lot of misleading ideas. I would recommend following this course up to around lesson 20 before looking at conventional textbooks. By that time you should have enough knowledge of real structure to spot the problems. Whether you actually use conventional textbooks or not is up to you. If you find them useful, that's fine. If not, choose methods that suit you better once you have done the first 20 of this course: th-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
For the sentence like “私ががケーキを食べる”, the more logical illustration is ( from the left to the right) A car labeled “Subject”, a connecting part labeled “が”, a car labeled “Object”, a connecting part labeled “を”, then the Engine labeled “う”. To me, particles like が or を serve to connect the cars so that they all can be pulled by the engine( the verb). Just my humble opinion.
First of all I avoid most grammatical terminology. Many people find it hard to understand the difference between "subject" and "topic" for example. Secondly I think it very important to make it clear that a noun and its particle form a single unit in Japanese and that particles belong exclusively to the noun they are attached to. Some Western grammar sources talk about things like "verbs that take を" which is nonsense. No verb "takes" any particle. Only nouns do. So I think it important to guard against these misconceptions.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly Thanks for the reply. I am one of the majority group and still think in the 英本語 mode. That was the reason why your video caught my attention. I would like to watch more of your videos and see if I will become one of the minority group.
I wonder if I might bring up an older topic that I asked about on one of your previous videos. It was an inquiry regarding the nature of a multiple が construction and how one would resolve the apparent presence of two subjects in the same clause. You answered that for a construction like「私がコーヒーが好きです」you could take it as an ellipsis for「私がコーヒーが好きなのです」and thus resolve the conflict. However, I've run across a number of instances where this doesn't seem to be the case. For example if one were to come across a sentence like「ｘが人気があります」how would one go about explaining the apparent double subjects in the construction?
I think some Japanese grammarians would take exception to constructions like this as being strictly incorrect. However they are fairly common and I think what is going on here is that there are a number of expressions such as 人気がある, 勇気がある and 頭がいい that are so commonly used that they have become fused together as stock adjectivals. 人気がある = "popular", 勇気がある = "brave", 頭がいい = "smart" and so forth; and they are used by some speakers pretty much as if they were い-"adjectives". Thus the が is used to make the person or thing described by the adjectival its subject just as if it were a true "adjective".
Ah, I had wondered if that might be the case. May I ask about a similar situation with the potential construction? Something like「私が本が読める」. Of course one could change the second が to を here, but is the double が construction itself still grammatical?
Where have you heard this one? 私は本が読める is correct and most usual 私が本を読める is disputed by some but makes logical sense and is used (not as much as the former). 私が本が読める is simply incorrect. I did a Google search just to make sure and got only one result, which was 40代半ばにいる私が本が読める年齢の間になんとか復刻していただきたいです！ In this instance (which is I think rather awkwardly phrased) 本が読める is being used as an adjectival modifier for 年齢 so 本が読める年齢 is the noun-phrase "an age when I am able to read books" (or more literally "an age when books are readable to me) and the が marking 私 (which is the Main Car) relates to the overall sentence (coupling it to いただきたい, the sentence's Engine - the final です, of course is a formality-marker). So in context, in the only instance I could find there are not two subjects in the overall sentence. A search for "私が本が読みます" (in quotes) brought no instances at all.
Apologies, I simply made it up on the spot as an illustration. So then I would take it any similar such constructions are also ungrammatical and that when one wishes to use が instead of は to mark what coincides with the subject in English they must change the second が to を. 「AがBがpotential verb」ｘ 「AがBをpotential verb」△ 「AはBがpotential verb」◯ Is this correct?
Yes that is correct. Actually I would say that your second example is accepted enough to get a ◯. There are people who consider it bad style which I find interesting as someone who thinks a lot about Japanese structure. However it is generally accepted as a less-common construction. Unlike 私がコーヒーを好きだ which is considered howlingly bad by most people even though it is used quite widely by some younger people. We could compare that to constructions like "I'm totally going to do that", which is (or was) widely used but even the users probably didn't consider it "correct". Even 私がコーヒーを好きだ is correct in terms of が・を structure. The incorrectness lies in treating the adjectival noun 好きだ as if it were a verb (just as English-language "Japanese grammar" does). Of course 私がコーヒーが好きだ makes no sense at all. Incidentally leaving the だ off 好きだ when it is a sentence-engine is something you will see in informal speech. This is a common (completely ungrammatical) contraction. Compare similar English contractions like "can't eat that stuff" which is an ungrammatical though common contraction of "I can't eat that stuff".
Omg i love you soooo much. I love your Videos ! Thank you so much for teaching me Japanese :) With your Videos I finally Unterstand so much. Thank u Thank u so much please continue making such great and informative Videos. ^^
I like the new take on diagraming sentences without getting into full grammatical terms. I don't fully agree that Japanese doesn't fit into grammatical rules as we know then in Western languages. Your train cars are basically the subject and the predicate. You make it much easier to understand than my 3rd grade English teacher did back in Catholic school. Lol.
You can make anything fit anything - it's just a matter of how far you want to stretch the terminology. To me the important thing is not whether you can do it but how far it serves any useful purpose to do so. Subject and predicate are I think pretty universal and that is exactly what the A car and B engine are (in Japanese 主語 and 述語) other pieces of terminology (such as "conjugation" and "passive") are simply misleading because they stretch the terminology so far that it loses any usefulness. And in fact it is worse than useless because it encourages people to think that Japanese works in ways that it doesn't.
本を読む。 楽しいよね。 ∅が本を読む。 ∅が楽しいよね。 (I)read books. (Reading) is fun. This seems much more efficient than writing 'it' everywhere and having to state what you're talking about, although it seems like a necessary skill to be able to pickup on the ∅が within the flow of conversation, which I can only assume can be acquired from immersion.
∅が is really no more obscure than "it" in English. The trick is really only getting used to the fact that it is going to be there. Immersion is the way to do that.
I've only gotten this far, and I'm honestly a bit confused at the high preference of が over は, I thought they both mean the same thing, but I'm assuming this will be talked about in a video I have yet to get to?
I wish I have seen this channel earlier! You made everything so clear to me now!! However, there's a sentence that confuses me if I try to understand it with this video's concept: Nihongo ga wakaru. Does that sentence mean Japanese understands? But for what I know it should mean (i) understand Japanese. Hope you can clear up my confusion, arigatou!
Wakaru means literally "do understandable". English translations completely confuse people by saying Nihongo ga wakaru means "I understand Japanese". That is what an English speaker would say, not what the Japanese is actually doing. The Japanese is saying "Japanese does understandable (to me). If you continue with the course this sort of thing will be covered in much more detail
It took me a while to dare clicking on the first video but the many people who recommended your channel were right. The content is fab. I'd been baffled by the ga particle. I could tell it should be there and it really annoyed me. Even when I read about Japanese being understood from context, it still did not click with me that this was the reason why that ga was not where I wanted to see it. I speak french and English fluently and both languages are so far from Japanese that it's quite the leap to get the grammar. Even German, which is very organised is still no help in comprehending how Japanese sentences are built. I thought it was going to be a nightmare to get Japanese grammar even though I studied a few languages and Latin. I feel confident I can forget what I know and just use your videos to learn without making parallels now. Thanks!
Actually German and Latin do give you some help with Japanese. If you understand the case system, this is exactly what the logical particles do. が marks the nominative case, を marks the accusative case etc. Without any complex or irregular declensions, with one simple, unchanging particle that never does anything but sit on the end of the noun. It is the case system done right. Of course this is only one aspect of Japanese but it is an important one, and hard to grasp for speakers of English and Romance languages, which have largely dropped the case system (because the Indo-European version of it is so over-complex). However it is very important to distinguish logical particles (case-marking particles) from non-logical particles and others. See this video for that: th-cam.com/video/dwcTI9qvO-U/w-d-xo.html
Hi Cure Dolly! Your channel is really informative and refreshing to see. Thanks so much for all the useful info. In your opinion, is Wanikani a good vehicle to get a solid base in Kanji/vocab?
It's better than Heisig because it uses vocabulary (but out of context). After the first 100 kanji, I recommend learning from actual Japanese material. See this video for more detail: th-cam.com/video/b5jL-m0eIG0/w-d-xo.html
Okay, here are some test sentences (with the context being someone asking a question): "What are you?" (I am) a person (watashi-ga) hito da (わたしが) ひと だ "What is she doing?" (she) eats ice cream (watashi-ga) aisu kuriimu-wo taberu (わたしが) あいすくりーむを たべる "What colour is the taxi?" (the taxi) is red (zero-ga) akai (Øが) あかい "What does the boy have?" (the boy) has delicious cake (watashi-ga) oishii-wo kekki (わたしが) おいしいを けーき "What is she doing?" (the woman) sings happy (happily) (watashi-ga) ureshii-wo utau (わたしが) うれしいを うたう (^I'm not sure about this last one if there is actually a different word in Japanese for the difference between happy/happily or if it's just that as long as it is in the sentence properly it works as it is supposed to) Also, I understand that the carriage is invisible and is never usually said when speaking but just for clarification: is watashi-ga always used or is it different for objects/animals? ie. I/he/she/they/them is watashi-ga (わたしが) and we use zero-ga (Øが) for objects? Or is zero-ga just a placeholder and we'll get to what objects actually are later? (If you cover this in a different lesson, just say that so I know the differences are explained later. Or if I should just be focusing on the fact that the carriage is invisible but still be aware that it is there with ga for now, say that.) Thank you in advance ^_^
We haven't covered adverbs (adjectives describing verbs) yet so this isn't the place to practice them. You need to know more things before you can use adjectives adverbially. But note that we can _never_ attach a logical particle (like を) to an adjective (or a verb). They attach to nouns only. So your first three examples are correct. The fourth is correct if you remove the を and the fifth is nowhere near correct, but then we haven't learned that yet.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 oh yes that makes sense! Sorry, I forgot that wo/o is attached to the *noun* we are doing something to, per your explaination. I had just been looking at the other ones and trying to make sure they were right for so long I forgot the rule for adding in this carriage (ノ_＜) So, it should just be: "What does the boy have?" (the boy) has delicious cake (watashi-ga) oishii kekki (わたしが) おいしい けーき No wo/o in that since [the boy has cake] and [delicious] is an added descriptive carriage, but it’s an adjective. And then don’t worry about 5 since we’re not there yet.
Thanks for making this video, everything is explained very well. One question I have is do more advanced textbooks explain grammar better than the early ones?
No, I'm afraid they don't. What happens is that once the basics have been explained (if you can call it "explained") , "intermediate grammar" ceases to be grammar at all. What it becomes is idiom-memorization. You get told all kinds of different patterns of expression and what they mean. Just as with basic grammar they generally fail to tell you _why_ they mean what they mean. They just give them to you to memorize. To be fair, in some cases this is necessary. Some idioms really are "just idioms", but a lot aren't. One example of this is kamoshiremasen, which I explain at the end of this video th-cam.com/video/00nKUtmnzvI/w-d-xo.html However, leaving aside the rights and wrongs of idiom-memorization, the real point here is that they never return to fundamental grammar and teach it properly. After the early lessons you're on your own trying to figure out the half-explained structure of Japanese, handicapped by some total misconceptions.
KawaJapa CureDolly Are the advanced textbooks still worth getting, on lots of sites of sites I see the genki and tobira textbooks getting recommended, or should I use another method?
Good question. At some point I would like to work with someone to create a whole basic Japanese course (this is only a Japanese structure course) but obviously that's some way off. Whether you need an actual textbook depends a lot on how you work. I had Genki in the beginning but I never used the dialogs or the exercises - just the grammar points. I wrote little stories to practice grammar and in the early stages they were corrected by a non-professional Japanese teacher (you could use something like Lang8 for that). For me this was really the ideal approach. After a relatively short time acquiring the basics I started slogging through J-subbed anime for children. That really is a steep approach but a very valuable one if you are determined enough. I looked up grammar and vocabulary as I went and also browsed grammar sites and books. If I'd had access to the material I'm presenting now that would have made the process a lot easier! So this isn't exactly an answer, partly because I think people work differently so part of it is dependent on the way you work best. I have some plans for material to help early learners but they will take time to develop. If you want to use a textbook, here's my take. They teach a lot. They also teach some bad misconceptions, but if you are following my material at the same time you should be able to avoid those to a large extent. So if the textbook route suits you go ahead. If you have questions or problems about what you learn there, feel free to ask me on this channel.
KawaJapa CureDolly Thank you for all the advice and help! Your videos about ga and the zero particle cleared up a lot for me. I have one more question which is will you at some point make videos on more advanced grammar?
In conventional Japanese teaching, "advanced grammar" actually means memorizing various idioms. The textbooks don't ever go deeper into the structure. Some of this idiom work is necessary and I would recommend Nihongo no Mori (here on TH-cam) from N3 upward. They are teaching in Japanese _in_ Japanese, and by the time you get past N4 you should be able to learn that way. They work through the standard JLPT (and other conventional Japanese) idioms (often closely following Kanzen Master). What I would like to do in terms of advanced grammar is essentially two things: 1: idiom memorization is needed in some cases but there are lots of cases where this material can be presented logically by explaining _why_ things mean what they mean. Also the current method is to give lists of setsuzoku - the way the idioms are connected into a sentence. This seems to me absurd in a lot of cases. Students are expected to memorize not only the meaning of the idiom (sometimes necessary, often not) and then the three to five ways it connects to different types of context (with na-adjectives do this, with verbs do that etc.) Most of the time even when the first rote-memorization part can't be avoided the second can. It is generally possible to explain the structure so that a student can know without any list-memorization how to connect the idiom. 2. I would like to do more in-depth analysis of textual passages. Current textbooks etc (I don't know about classes) seem pretty short on this. I am actually thinking about doing it from a fairly elementary level and then progressing to more and more complex texts, helping people to see how it all fits together and why it means what it means. In fact just last week I was looking at out-of-copyright Japanese literature that might be used for just this purpose. In a way it would be a linear development from our modelling very simple sentences with trains. So, those are my thoughts at present on advanced grammar. They may of course develop over time.
I’m guessing these invisible carriages usually come up when the subject has already been established prior, however can they be implied even without the subject being established prior? For instance, when someone asks "Who ate the cake?" would saying "keeki-o taberu" make sense, or would you have to say "watashi-ga keeki-o taberu"?
We would need the past tense to say "ate" of course - we'll be getting to that shortly. But yes invisible carriages are used when the subject has already come up and is clear (from words or from the situation), and usually defaults to わたし when it has not been established. If someone asks "who ate the cake" it is just like English. You can reply with the full sentence, but if you don't you would probably just say わたし or わたしが. Since all the other information is supplied by the question. Just in English we would reply "I" (or more commonly but less grammatically "me").
Omg... like, 6 years later i`ll try to follow sensei`s invite to type down some phrases in order to practice the lesson. I hope i get it right. 1) ろっくをすきです 2) 日本語をべんきょおおするすきです Can somebody tell me if I got this right? As i'm writing it down, and nobody can 'see' the context, should I mandatorily use 'watashi ga'?
I'm a month late but: 1) Since すき is an "adjective" (or, adjectival noun as you'll learn) in Japanese, it can't have an object. In Japanese *you* don't do the act of liking rock music, rock music *is likable*. 「ロックが すきです。」"Rock is likable". If you wanted to make it clear that you were specifically talking about yourself: 「わたしは ロックが すきです。」"As for me, Rock is likable." 2) What you want to say is getting quite a bit ahead of this lesson. Since "Studying Japanese" is a verb, and "likable/enjoyable" is an adjective (which can only describe nouns) you'll have to wait until you learn a way to turn an entire phrase into a noun. A sneak preview: 「日本語をべんきょうするのがすきです。」which means "(The act of studying Japanese) is enjoyable." The の wraps the previous phrase up into a single noun, which you then throw が on and say it's likable as normal.
I'm a little bit confused but it may be natural. Have I done the first sentence correctly? I'm typing as I watch to grasp this concept. So... 1) anime omoshiroi da (Anime is amusing) 2) watashi-ga anime mite (I watch anime) Thanks again Dolly!
I am afraid neither is correct. The first one should be 1) anime ga omosiroi a) It must have a ga because _every sentence must have a ga_ - if you don't see it you must know where the invisible ∅-ga would go. But this sentence doesn't have an invisible ga because the black A-car is anime and the black A-car is always marked by ga. So this is a simple A ga B sentence. b) As we explained in the first lesson, adjectives (that is i-adjectives) _do not take da_ They already have the da-function. In formal speech we do put desu after them but that is just confusing because it isn't really part of the grammar. Don't worry about that now - it is exactly why I am _not_ teaching desu at this stage! Just remember that i-adjectives have no da after them. They carry their own da-function. The second one should be 2) Watashi ga anime wo miru I watch anime. a) If you are doing something to or with anything else (like watching anime) you must mark that thing with a wo. So the black A car is watashi-ga, the black B-engine is miru and together they make "I watch". "Anime" is a white wo-car telling us more about miru (what it _is_ that I watch). b) Remember that all verbs end in a u-sound. We haven't gotten to anything else yet. If you wanted to say "I watched anime" in the past tense you would say "watashi ga anime wo mita (not mite)" - but please don't, because we haven't learned that yet. We soon will. "Mite" is the te-form and is wrong in this place. We'll learn about te-form later too. Please don't worry about any of this right now. The problem here is that you are remembering bits of textbook grammar that you've learned and using them here. Please put them out of your mind and start from scratch with just what I am teaching. We'll get to all these other things as we go along. Please try another two sentences. Just use what I have taught in the first and second lessons.
hello dolly! ive spent more time on this video than i probably should, and I think I understand it now, but I do have a few questions. so the ０が is implied correct? as in we are not actually saying ０が, as your example demonstrates, けーきをたべる、there is no ０が being said, rather it is implied? here are a few of my attempted sentences, I tried to be a little creative and I'm not sure if broke some rules or not in the process うさぎけーきをたべる rabbit eats cake (now do i need the ga here or is it implied?) あいすくりーむをたべる (I) eat icecream ０があいすくいーむをたべる (i) eat icecream わたしがあいすくりーむをたべる i eat icecream たくしーあるく (i) walk to taxi ０がたくしーあるく (i) walk to taxi わたしがたくしーあるく i walk to taxi i'll cut it short here but thank you again for the great videos, and my apologies if i am a little dense understanding these concepts :D
Yes, the ∅が is never said or written. It is just a way of clarifying the logical structure. Essentially it does what English "it" (or I, him, her they etc) does but it is not said or written. うさぎけーきをたべる is incorrect. The が has to be present in grammatical speech. The only time が or any other logical particle is zeroed in grammatical speech is when the noun it is attached to is zeroed. The first sentences are correct. たくしーあるく is not for a reason we will come to shortly. We need another logical particle, に, to mark the destination of movement.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 thank you again dolly!! gotcha, so if I'm understanding correctly, うさぎがけーきをたべる would be correct, no? it wouldn't make sense to use the 0が as i am talking about a specific thing, a rabbit, and it not something that could implied without prior context. ありがとう！ also if you have a patreon or something of the like, i'd love to help support you!
Yes it makes sense. The masu ending has been put onto the stem of taberu to make it formal. I don't teach desu/masu until lesson 17 because learning Japanese in desu/masu form from the beginning makes it much more confusing than it should be. I explain why (and explain how to use desu/masu form) in this video th-cam.com/video/ymJWb31qWI8/w-d-xo.html - it's a little more advanced because it isn't wise to look at desu/masu form until a slightly more advanced stage.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for your quick answer. i will watch all your lessons they really help me to learn. i appreciate the work that you put in these videos and that you always have an ear for the watching ones :-)
@@asf1062 At this stage in the course I think it is much better to use plain Japanese rather than start adding decorative helper-verbs (which happen to be - unlike most Japanese - very irregular) _before_ we learn the basic structure of the language. So I don't teach it at this stage and prefer people to leave it alone until we get to it in the course. But it is correct, and we will need it eventually. We deal with it in Lesson 17: th-cam.com/video/ymJWb31qWI8/w-d-xo.html
Had to master the kana before i could even attempt learning the vocabulary. It's one thing to know how to type a kanji but you have to know what it means. I'm finding now that i finished katakana and hiragana that it's far easier to read the word cake in katakana than it is in romanji. I took a double look, realized there was kana below it and nailed it on the translation app. My sentence example is 私は日本語(を)勉強してます. I am studying Japanese.
@@synthium4742 You are right about kana. English Romaji has trouble with words like ケーキ. If we write "keeki", which is logical, it looks as if it rhymes with "creaky". We can start using accent marks to indicate pronunciation but they are only a poor substitute for real kana. Your sentence is correct. The を is necessary (you can't leave it out). The は is fine and more usual. The important thing to remember is that the が is always logically there. Actually the _most_ usual way of saying it is 日本語を勉強します. The 私は is only needed if you have some special reason to stress that you are talking about yourself. English learners (and sadly textbooks) tend to fill their sample sentences with unnecessary 私s and あなたs that imitate English pronoun usage. This isn't ungrammatical in Japanese, but does sound a bit odd and foreign. However the important thing to realize is that whichever way we say it the が-marked subject is always logically present. Using nothing or using 私は are both equally ways of allowing the が to be invisible. And this is another reason why excessive 私はs are a bad thing. They tend to obscure this fact by making it look to the English speaker as if 私は is the equivalent to "I am" in English. It isn't, it just means "as for me..." "I am" is 私が but it doesn't need to be (and usually isn't) visible if it is clear from context.
1-ピヤノを弾く 2-アマンダ が涙を拭う 3- 涙を拭う 4-アマンダ が部屋を 清潔 5-部屋を 清潔 I'm confused about the last two phrase is it correct to use a na- adjectiv after the を car cus 清潔 (clean) in the dictionary says it's a na adj / adjectival noun not a verb or It can be used as verb (Amanda clean her room )?
These are all correct except 4. That is also structurally correct as far as this lesson goes, but 清潔 is not a verb. We know that because verbs must end in an う-row kana. Of course if we write せいけつ in kana つ is an う-row kana which may be what you were thinking, but verbs have to end in an actual kana - not one that is part of (or can be written as) a kanji. We will learn a little later that when a word is all-kanji like that _it has to be a noun_ But that isn't part of this lesson, so as far as this lesson goes, everything is perfect. Congratulations
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly what if I add だ to it is it gonna be grammatically correct and ? Anyway thank you so much gonna recommend your channel to anyone i know who want to learn japanese
@@ehnanizafacku1819 Thank you so much! You could say アマンダ が部屋を清潔にする (Amanda makes the room clean) though this would tend to imply purity rather than just ordinary cleanliness, which would usually be きれい (綺麗). Just adding だ to your original sentence doesn't work because を marks the indirect object of a verb, and adding だ doesn't turn a noun into a verb. You could say 部屋清が清潔だ (the room is pure), and that is perfectly good grammar, though again きれい would be more usual.
Not specifically but this video talks about sentence structures where this happens (essentially it always happens for the same basic reason) th-cam.com/video/uot49Z85wNs/w-d-xo.html
so the “zero-ga” we never actually say. you’re just keeping that there to show that there is always an invisible carriage, right? meaning, we just say “keeki-wo taberu” and we never actually say “zero-ga...” etc. hopefully that question makes sense. i know well say watashi-ga when needed, but we never verbally say or write “zero-ga” since it’s invisible ?
Yes that's right - that's why it is called zero because it has no spoken or written representation - we are just using the zero to clarify the concept.
I think it is because the hands are directing to the nouns along with adding emphasis where needed or to show emotion. Since the topic has been covered, albeit by hands, the brain just moves on to the next part that the hands cannot convey. /s having fun with the whole "Italians talk with there hands" meme. I grew up in a part in the US where the hands are used to communicate part of a sentence, like pointing when referring to direction, and sometimes people forget that we can't see which way you are pointing in certain cases.
hi sensei im from the future, 2024 here , i heard you hv been passed away, hope u got better place there 😭. its my 15th day learning japanese and and finally i found your channel , this video answer my big confusion about sentence, that what u call " invicible carriage", damn thats all make sense now. again rip 🥀, so sad can't see your video with real appearance
Somehow I'm reminded of the common anime line 「海だ！」/ "Umi Da". Many are aware that it means. "It is the sea". How does the zero pronoun of this look like? Is it just "It"?
Could you please explain where the "hidden が" is here? 田中は僕がマイクにボールを投げたのを見てた Tanaka has to be the subject of the sentence, but using two が's isn't an option because it confuses the subject of 見てた if we do that. 田中は田中が僕がマイクにボールを投げたのを見てた And I don't think there's a way to solve this sentence either, right? 田中が僕〇マイクにボールを投げたのを見てた
It is a bit early in the course to understand this. What we need to be aware of is the function of the の pronoun, or what I call the の-box. This is modified by the clause that comes before it and allows us to handle the whole unit as a noun. So: 僕がマイクにボールを投げたの = "thing of I-threw-ball-at-Mike" And this "thing" is handled like any other noun. Let's call this "thing" Z for convenience. The sentence is then clear enough. 田中は∅が Zを見てた So long as we understand that 見てた is a common abbreviation of 見ていた we should be fine. Does this clarify?
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you! I really appreciate your quick response and explanation. I was always super frustrated about how things were falsely equated to English in my textbook so thank you for your channel and videos!
Cure Dolly Sensei, here's my homework. I don't know how to type the zero with a line through on an iPad so I have used '0/' instead! My Japanese vocabulary is pretty much non existent so I used words from the vocabulary you gave for lesson one's homework. あいすくりーむをたべる。 0/が あいすくりーむをたべる。 (I) eat ice cream.
Another enlightening lesson! My sentence: ケーキを切る。美味しい！ ∅がケーキを切る。∅が美味しい！ (I) cut the cake. (The cake) is delicious! If I understood the first lesson correctly, there's no need for a だ after 美味しい, correct?
All correct. Not only is there no need to add だ; it is ungrammatical to add it. です is added to adjectives as a formality marker, not as a functional copula. だ is not a formality marker. You do add だ to so-called "な-adjectives" because they are nouns.
@@HenryJonesVictor Yes it is, but it has the peculiarity in modern use that it also acts as a formality-marker for adjectives (including helper adjectives like 〜ない and 〜たい). This is one of the reasons why it is so confusing to learn です・ます Japanese before learning the core structure of the language. Things happen with です・ます that don't happen anywhere else so it's best to learn them a little later once you have the basic structure solid. See this lesson: th-cam.com/video/ymJWb31qWI8/w-d-xo.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation! I'll watch all of the lessons in order, but I'll keep my eyes especially peeled for that one!
In spanish would be "tenía mucha hambre. vine por algo para comer". We don't use I, me, you, he, she... most of the time we omit it, I still do it whenever I write in English 😂 maybe that's why it was so hard to understand what invisible o was, at first I was a bit confused until I saw its pretty similar to my language. This was clear when I saw English is low context while spanish and japanese is high context. So yeah, we don't have a lot of resources to learn japanese from spanish but something good had to have haha
I always find it curious that both English and French force one to include the personal pronoun in "I am X" "je suis X" when "am" and "suis" can _only_ be used with "I" and je". It is an example of the redundancy these languages insist upon. In Spanish "soy X" does not need "yo" because it is redundant. Much more economical.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 so true. I always found English repetitive. Didn't knew about french! On my other native lang (catalan) we also omit the same way as spanish does. It's been 26 years since I started learning English and I still do the same, I know I'll never sound like a native cause I got used to avoid it.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
A little note to those who know some Japanese and are worried about the way I am studiously avoiding the wa particle. Don't worry. We're coming to that next. Every sentence is logically a ga-sentence. Wa is a non-logical particle, so it is a kind of supplement to the logical ga (which is never replaced by wa, only supplemented by it). Don't worry about this explanation either. I know it won't make sense right now (unless you've read _Unlocking Japanese_ or seen some of my more advanced videos). Next week we'll go over it step by step. With trains. th-cam.com/video/U9_T4eObNXg/w-d-xo.html
KawaJapa CureDolly 面白いね、Most teachers start with は, and です structure first, like: これはペンです。I think this very clear to the student UNTIL が IS INTRODUCED. Then, mass confusion (at least for me).
Absolutely. In my view the conventional methods start with a kind of "phrase-book Japanese" and never entirely get beyond that. They tell you that コーヒーが好きです (koohii ga suki desu) means "I like coffee" (which literally it just doesn't) and never explain what is really happening. They never tell you what that ga is really doing (so it seems like a crazy exception). They leave you to believe that the invisible "watashi" is the actor of the sentence (it isn't). You either end up intuiting all this for yourself or you don't. No wonder people give up.
Explaining things in logical order and telling people exactly what is happening with no "phrasebook explanations" is quite challenging. For one thing it isn't super-easy to give good examples at this early stage without jumping the gun and using concepts I haven't introduced yet (this is what makes the semi-phrasebook approach of conventional textbooks so much easier for the teacher).
For example, I can't model adjectivals with trains right now because it would look confusing until I explain what Japanese "adjectives" really are - and that needs its own lesson. Interestingly, although it will be basic, it will go beyond the information given in my adjective lesson ( th-cam.com/video/yJ2EhSPLQsk/w-d-xo.html ).
Why is that? Because that lesson starts from the conventional concept of "i and na adjectives" and explains in those terms what is really happening. Starting from scratch and using the train model I can explain from the beginning what Japanese adjectivals _really_ are. So this basic course is in some respects more advanced than my more "advanced" work. Because really understanding Japanese structure necessitates starting from scratch, not just patching the existing misleading concepts.
Strange as it seems no one seems to have even tried introducing Japanese structure in logical order, step by step. Maybe it needed an android. Androids look at conventional textbooks and say "Processing error. That does not compute."
_Unless of course you're one of those new-fangled "user-friendly" androids that is programed to say "Gee I don' understan' that" when what they mean is "Processing error. That does not compute"_
I agree with Retro Nick. I think because of the way I’ve been taught it feels normal for me to use は with everything and so even now I struggle to work out the difference. Unless it’s a sentence like りんごが好きだ I know it’s が just because I imagine there’s an invisible 私は there and that ___が好きだ is kind of a set phrase so I only ever see が used with 好き. I bought your book and I’m really looking forward to more videos!! I really want to become a master of Japanese and go on to teach it. All of the hiccups I’ve had with learning Japanese has shown me better ways to teach it, and things I still struggle with show me things that need more time spent on them. 先生ありがとうございます
応援しています。I am supporting and encouraging you (really it sounds a little strange when you say it in English). But yes. Pursue that goal. You can do it. And it makes me very happy because that's one of the things I really want in the long term. To help a new generation of teachers to teach Japanese in more effective ways.
You can say りんごは好きだ but it would have a different implication from りんごが好きだ. Usually what you are saying then is I like apples (as opposed to something else). So for example I said りんごやおれんじが好きなの？(do you like apples and oranges?) and you reply りんごは好きだ you are implying "I like apples (but I don't like oranges)". You can see this by applying the base "as for" meaning of は: as for apples, I like _them_ But the usual expression, as you say, when you don't have any other implication, in mind, is りんごが好きだ.
がんばってください
I read Unlocking Japanese (and bought one for a friend!) and I wish you would write a full textbook!
And now in the second eight minute video I more or less totally understand what almost two entire units of Duolingo so far have left completely unexplained. Dolly was taken from us too soon.
what happened?
@@cgottschify She has passed in 2021.
@@simp-wait what? How did that happen? And how do you know about it?
@@blackpurple9163 seems like my comment got removed, so in 2021 someone who had access to her Patreon said that (it's no longer there), but no details were told you can still read it in description of this video (it's only ending of url because youtube doesn't like links r8E1RNC4Zus)
I feel the EXACT same way
Unbelievable. I’ve been studying Japanese intensely (〜5 hours a day or more) for about 3 months now, and while I think I’ve made really fast progress, on my bad days, I sometimes get incredibly frustrated with what appear to be insane rules or ideas about language. However, in watching just the first two of these videos, I actually felt such an immense sense of relief that I started laughing with joy. It’s like the hazy cloud that was keeping me from seeing the essence of the language is slowly dissipating even though these are topics with which I am already familiar. I’m so excited to watch the rest of the series!
That's wonderful! Getting a real grip of the very basics is so important, because everything else is built on them.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Very true. I'm of italian origins, and have a firm grasp on english grammar just because I had a teacher who'd never shut up about the basics.
Turns out that watching stuff in english on TH-cam and playing games in their original language helped immensely with the lexicon, but without said teacher ingraining the basics into my brain I wouldn't know what to do with it. You're doing the same thing for me now with japanese. Thanks a bunch.
Turn on subtitles guys...it really works.
This classes are gold, thank you Sensei!
Thank you so much! I really apologize for the poor sound quality. I think this one was a little worse as it seems to have a bit of an echo. I'm constantly trying to improve things, but without too much success it seems (did you find the previous or next one better?)
Sometimes it feels as if I spend more time fighting the equipment than saying what I have to say! Anyway, ganbarimasu! I'll keep on trying! And thank you so much for your kind words.
You're so right! They really are.
I've been learning Japanese fro almost a year now, mostly through Duolingo, Japanese websites, music and the occasional Japanese friend, but this series is the one thing I wish someone would have shown to me when I started. Thank you again for an amazing lesson!
Literally the same as me :)
I learned the hard way that duolingo is not for beginners, despite all the basics it teaches. After years of long periods of diligence, taking long breaks in between, completing the whole course, I found myself barely any wiser. Because it doesn't teach the skeleton of the language, it just wants you to memorize a bunch of random sentences and random tips. I lost my 360 day streak (; _ ;) and ignored all the sad emails it spammed. Cure Dolly is for beginners. I've learned much more from her. Once I've soaked in her whole channel, I'll go back to duolingo with structure instead of only memorizing. Duolingo is for intermediate practice.
@@sixkicksfightertricks949 I'm starting to think all of them are. Rosetta stone, Japanese pod, Duolingo. All of them seem to think you know hiragana/katakana. That Kanji can have 2 pronunciations. It's sad things like this you just have to stumble across via word of mouth.
@@sixkicksfightertricks949 I used duolingo for the alphabet lol duolingo is ok for practicing what I have learned, and that is about it for me.
@@sheepleslayer586 That's how I learned the alphabets too. IMO duolingo is actually pretty good for learning the alphabets.
But rosetta stone and duolingo do nothing to teach basic grammar rules, hell rosetta stone doesn't even bother teaching the alphabets.
Wow, making the analogy with "it" was mind-blowing. Thank you!
Thank you. This is what I would call structural analysis. All languages have the same set of problems to solve (expressing everything a human might want to express), so even when they do it in different ways we can need to work out which part of language A corresponds to which solution in language B in order to make cross-language explanations. This is the method I use.
may she rest in peace these videos are a great service to the world!
00:00 Briefly recalling back the lesson 1
00:28 Introduction to the invisible carriage, the Japanese zero pronoun
03:14 How an invisible carriage works in Japanese
04:52 Introduction to を particle as the new carriage, the object particle-marker
05:38 How the を car works in a sentence
06:07 How the を car works with an invisible が car in a sentence
07:19 Little exercise for new learners of Japanese
07:30 Basic kanji book recommendation
Please point out if there are any typos or other errors
誤字、間違え等ありましたら
指摘お願いします
I'm begining to like you cure dolly..
At first you frieghtened me with your uncanny appearance and you're slightly strange english accent concealed behind a potato microphone.. However, despite these shortcomings you've been dishing out some hardcore knowledge and it seems you got a new microphone which helps us humans to be less weary of you....
Anyway, thanks for the insightful explanations.
Honestly I am sorry to frighten you or anyone. That really isn't my intention, but I know it sometimes happens. Yes I did get a new microphone. I delayed this new series until it came (it isn't too simple for me to get things). I have been told that this second lesson wasn't as good in the sound department as the first and some people had trouble hearing everything (there are real English subtitles for anyone who does have trouble). So this has been a long-term problem for me and I continue to work to get it right.
Thank you for coming back with an appreciative comment. If I can help you that makes me happy. That is what I am here for.
haha I'm joking about the being frieghtened part, even though I find the presentation of cure dolly a little strange because of the uncanny aspect of it, I've come to enjoy these and very much find these lessons quite helpful in my studies.
What are using as far as microphones and input devices go? and how are you recording the audio to these?
I have some experience in that department and might be able to make some helpful suggestions on that end.
I'm glad to hear I didn't frighten you and really happy to hear that the video lessons are helping you.
Formerly I was using a wireless USB headset, which was the only mic I had. Recently I acquired a stand-alone USB mic which is supposed to be quite good for a cheap one. For the first of this series I held it in my hand and for the second had it mounted on an arm which kept my hands free. However (and I can't imagine why) when I did that I got a buzzing sound that I had to cut out in software - which may be why there was some degradation. It sounded ok to me - in fact I thought it might have been better, but from what people are telling me I think I will go back to holding it in my hand as that seems to be the best result I have had so far.
Another suggestion: The audio in your videos often sounds echoey. Are you recording in a room with flat-surfaced walls? Echos can happen when the sound is repeatedly bouncing back and forth between parallel walls... or between the ceiling and an hard, flat desk top.
Hmm there isn't much I can do about that as far as I know. There is only one place where there is enough light to record.
I'm more of an intermediate Japanese learner, and I clicked on these beginner lessons out of pure curiosity from seeing your advanced は and が secrets video. I have to say your videos are amazing. Your ability to explain things to an almost silly level of simplicity is uncanny! Subscribing for sure.
Thank you for your kind words and thank you for subscribing. Welcome to the channel.
PS - for more in-depth on advanced は and が (in fact the whole principle of non-logical topic/comment structure you might like to see this mini (two-video) playlist: th-cam.com/video/_nXHpkTTfGs/w-d-xo.html
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly I’ll check them out for sure thank you
Wow! Never had someone explained the ga particle to me so well. It even clears the difference between wa and ga for me
sensei ga kawaii. This channel is extremely helpful.
arigatou!
Ive been self studying Japanese and have always found the concept of subjectless sentences confusing. Your framework makes it easy to understand. Ive actually gone through some of your advanced lessons but have decided to start from the basic again and I still keep discovering new ways of looking at things just from watching them. Thank you very much!
Yes it' a good idea because the basic lessons provide an infrastructure that isn't found elsewhere. Though you might also want to look at this one which addresses the myth of the subjectless sentence: th-cam.com/video/CEgGnitwXGA/w-d-xo.html
I write a paper.
作文を書く
僕が作文を書く
I enjoy having a teacher and lessons much more than only a textbook. 本当にありがとう
There's an analogy with computer programming languages which you might find interesting (enlightening, even! Maybe. 😊). In many programming languages where a given variable (let's call it 'x') might have various possible values, such as 0, 1, 2, or even -1, -2, etc., we 'set' the variable with a statement like: "x = 5;". If we then output the value of the variable, "print x;", the output will reasonably be: "5". This is all well and good, but what if we never set the variable at all? What value does it hold then? Well, in many of these languages, there is a special value which can be thought of as meaning 'has no value assigned', and it's usually called 'null', rather than 'zero' since 'zero', or '0' is already a concrete numerical value, whereas 'null' means 'no value is given at all'.
Interestingly, and this is where it connects to your lectures, the concept of 'null' is often represented with the symbol ∅ (well, in mathematics this is the case; in programming languages, it's usually denoted by a keyword such as simply 'null', but nevertheless...). So, in your lectures, you might just as well say that the 'ga' particle (or, more accurately, the 'subject' of the sentence) is assigned a value of 'null', or ∅.
In programming languages, when a variable is 'null', this is often an indication that a 'default value' should be used in its place. If I were to translate this concept into an imaginary 'Japanese' programming logic, it might look something like this:
speaker = watashi;
subject = find_subject_marked_with_ga_from ( sentence );
topic = find_topic_marked_with_ha_or_mo_from ( sentence );
...
if ( subject equals ∅ ) then
if ( makes_sense_as_subject ( topic ) ) then
default_subject = topic;
... _additional cases where some other X might makes_sense_as_subject ( X )_ ...
otherwise
default_subject = speaker;
end if
subject = default_subject;
end if
In other words, if the 'ga' subject is 'invisible' or the 'zero pronoun' or the 'null pronoun', then we humans must figure out whatever 'makes sense as the subject' from the context of the communication -- which may be given from the 'ha' topic or from any various other hints in the sentence itself, or which may require a broader understanding of the context that the sentence itself does not contain.
The point in all of this is that both real Japanese and many existing programming languages have a concept of 'variables' having 'null' values, and those 'null' values indicating that the variables should be given some 'default' value in that case. I just think it's an interesting and revealing parallel. 😊
I think this is true. I am not well versed in programming languages (yes I know, but being organic doesn't make you a biologist either) but I would say that an early logical sequence is:
Is が-marked subject visible?
If not, ∅が must exist.
Does default value ∅が=わたしが make good sense in context?
If so, provisionally assume default value ∅が=わたしが, continue testing
If not, test other values for ∅が
In practice of course this process (if one has even a little experience) is normally so rapid as to be unconscious. The value of ∅が is almost immediately apparent. But whenever it isn't one can follow out the more conscious procedure.
as a former programmer this helped me loads, thanks man :)
As a comp sci major this really solidified my understanding of the concepts. Thanks!
Learning programming along with Japanese here, lol
I appreciate you taking the time to write this out for us all. It helped me realize I'll never understand Japanese and why I can't seem to wrap my head around Linux commands. Your answer is right there, I know it is, but my brain just like... Shuts off. Doesn't Null mean of no value? Invalid? Basically 0 but... It's not a 0 nor is it a 1 it's... A nothing? A blank. The command was left null= the command was left blank?
this voice really is hard to understand but the knowledge being imparted is INSANE! best page by far.
I have been studying Japanese some years by myself with books, friends and videos and you just explained what all those things couldn't in a few minutes... This is incredible, really.
R.I.p dolly she was an amazing teacher
You are really good at explaining! I like the uncanny feeling of the video, it helps to make it feel unique, You actually learn better when something sticks out, so I appreciate it a lot!
The best Japanese learning channel on TH-cam
👍👍
I had been doing Duolingo for two weeks now and while I got a few modules in I didn't feel like I was actually learning Japanese but just memorizing Japanese things. I've spent like twenty min on your channel and I feel like I finally understand what's happening and the structure of these sentences/rules. I wish I had spent the last two weeks here instead of there. Thank you!
Thank you so much for commenting. I am very glad that I was able to help.
fluent yet?
本をよむ。 わたしが本をよむ。I read books.
ドアーをあける。 (わたしの )お母さんがドアーをあける。 my mother opens the door.
コーヒーをのむ。 いもとがコーヒーをのむ。my younger sister drinks coffee.
Your explanation is amazing!
This person is unbelievably good, i will for sure recomend this to everyone
Miss you Dolly and hope you're in a better place.
i am learning Japanese for the last 3 years but your are still incredible helpful. They make you look at things differently. I am really glad I got over the voice and the doll. Awesome channel
I am happy to be able to help. I never understand this "the voice" business. It's just my voice. But congratulations for braving it.
I have been self studying Japanese for years, and while I was able to do so decently, it was through methods that explained Japanese as if it were English, and they never could explain ga in a way that made sense. I am still new to your videos, but as an intermediate learner your content is useful and easy to understand. Thank you!
Even though I already know pretty much all the basic grammar to a solid level, I'm still watching this series from the start to refresh.
ありがとうございますドリー先生！
Thank you. I do recommend going over the early part of the course even if you have done conventional grammar.
Very good Cure Dolly. This is rarely, if ever, explained, however its so important to understand this for Japanese sentences. For some reason this info is left out of so many text books and TH-cam lessons. Well done. Thank you.
Thank you. These are the very basics of the language. Without them we can't start out on the right foot!
I spent a few years trying to understand this invisible ga. Schools, teachers, textbooks all fail to explain this properly. Can I ask why is it ?
It’s so important to know about this and yet hardly ever taught. After a few years I eventually got onto a good grammar teacher. So many students give up due to this.
This reminds me another example from when I saw the train approaching the station. I heard people shouting : Kita ! And that was all that was needed to be communicated really. Everyone assumed it was the train. Having a different language as native also really helps. I find many similarities with the Greek language as we would also say : came !
I am afraid I do not know Greek so I don't know if "came" would be a complete sentence in Greek, but in Japanese "kita" is a complete sentence because it means "∅-ga kita" and the zero pronoun is the normal pronoun in Japanese. So it is just the same as saying "it came" in English. On the other hand if they had just said "densha!" (train) it would not have been a complete sentence. It would have been short for "densha da" (it's the train) because there is no zero copula in Japanese.
I was watching your videos and decided to start the series from scratch. I am so glad I did, I have been learning Japanese for a year but it was a great idea. I was really confused on your last video when you said さくらが歩く because I thought it should have been さくらを歩く. Your explanations really helped because now I won't be walking people XD. Jokes aside, thank you for this awesome series!
Lesson 2 work sheet #1 zeroGa(A) +(B)
1.がマルセルだ
2.かくるまだ
3.がうさぎだ
4.かけーきい
5.がねこだ
6.がいぬ
7.がごはんだ
8.がさかなだ
9.がすしい
10.がばななだ
I couldn’t find that zero with the slash mark through it so I put at the zero name as a reference.
Lesson 2 work sheet #2 zeroGa(A) + (B) adding を - Noun: we are doing something.
1.がごはんをたべる
2.がばななをたべる
3.がとりにくをたべる
4.がさかなをたべる
5.がろまんをたべろ
6.がすしをたべる
Also I have been keeping up with your recent videos I just got caught up with helping someone learn the lesson structure you thought In lesson 1 and 2 so they may learn natural as well
These videos are extremely high quality. The logical issues with Japanese absolutely revolve around "da" suffixes, "wa" vs "ga" pospositionals and the absence of second person pronouns and non-proximal demonstratives, especially "it," "the," and "they."
In my opinion, this actually serves as a valid criticism against modern Japan and the culture of modern Japanese people, because old Japanese (710ad -- 794ad) actaully has both 2nd person pronouns and non-proximal demonstratives like "it" and "the" in englsh! Amazing and logical!
Specifically, 1st person pronouns were "a(re)" for "I" "wa(re)" for "we" (proximal -- when everyone was present) and "wa(re)-wa(re)" for "us" (non-proximal -- when everyone is not present). The 2nd person pronoun for "they" was "na(re)." And the non-proximal demonstratives for "it," "the" and "that" were "so" (nominal), "soko" (location), "soti" (direction), "soku--" (degree), "sate" and "sika" (manner). So for example, to say "it is red" they would say "so ga akai." To say "they are red" they would say "kore ga akai." To say "we are red" they would say "ware-ware ga akai" unless everyone was present, then they would say "ware ga akai." Turns out wa(re) is reflexive for "ourselves" and "we" or "us" when not use reflexively.
But for some reason, this linguistic form was opposed by subsequent Japanese and has been prosecuted for a thousand years in favor of a more vague and indirect grammer that does not have non-proximal demonstratives and second person pronouns. And that is totally crazy.
It makes me wonder if the violence in the history of Japan is responsibile for this change, out of fear of using second person pronouns baeically out fear for physical abuse in response to offending someone. In other words, the linguistic changes were due to rampant authoritarianism and corporeal violence, with no one to save the public from harm and abuse duing that time period.
For more on Old Japanese, see Miyake, Marc Hideo (2003). Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction., Frellesvig, Bjarke (2010). A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-65320-6, Bentley, John R. (2001). A Descriptive Grammar of Early Old Japanese Prose. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-12308-3, Vovin, Alexander; Ishisaki-Vovin, Sambi (2022). The Eastern Old Japanese Corpus and Dictionary. Leiden, Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-47119-1, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Japanese#CITEREFVovin2020.
Brilliant. You may very well be correct in deducing the secondary pronouns were removed out of fear, perhaps reverence or even fear of nefarious "telling" of someone talking about someone else. It also seems to fit with the tendency to use the honorific or polite forms in official communication, placing an importance on respect above all else.
Thank you, this was eye opening.
こんばんは。Here are my practice sentences...
アニメをみる。
∅がアニメをみる。
(I) watch anime.
にほんごをまなぶ。たのしいよね。
∅がにほんごをまなぶ。∅がたのしいよね。
(I) study Japanese. (Studying Japanese) is fun!
Thanks again, Sensei, for making it so easy to learn Japanese!
Yay! Absolutely right. The second one is a good example of how the zero pronoun can switch quickly from "I" to something else - but it's perfectly natural and understandable isn't it?
Thank you for practicing. This week's lesson is up now.
Practicing! I don't know if it's "eating" or "eat" or if it's in the past tense. Thank you for your lesson, you explain really well.
I eat ice cream
アイスクリームをたべる
I draw a flower
はなをかく
I wear a shirt
ジャツをきる
Today is monday
げつようびだ
Yes, all correct. Good. たべる is eat. We'll get to "eating", past tense etc. a little later.
I'm really glad I found your video! It's a miracle. Thank you for explaining it very well!
I wish your videos get recognition more and more because you totally deserve it!
Thank you!
I just found your channel through reddit and I have to say I really appreciate the work you're doing!!
I've been trying to learn Japanese for a long time now but always found myself getting discouraged because I wasn't making any progress and the progress I was making often felt clunky or inefficient. I finally feel like I'm understanding now, more so than ever before!
So I look forward to watching the rest of your content and lots of love from Australia!! :))
Its really making sense to me so far. Glad to have such a simple to understand resource.
Homework:
1st Sentence (minus invisible carriage)
にくを たべる
1st Sentence (with invisible carriage)
わたし が にくを たべる
1st Sentence (English Translation)
"I eat meat"
2nd Sentence (minus invisible carriage)
2nd Sentence (with invisible carriage)
わたし が くるま写る
2nd Sentence (English translation)
"I photographed a car"
Both are structurally correct. 写る does not mean "take a photograph". For that you need: わたし が くるまの写真を撮った. A little more advanced, and since you said "photographed" we have to put it in the past tense. We'll come to all that soon, but the important thing is that everything is structurally correct. Congratulations.
I was recommended this channel. All this is very useful. Thank you!!!
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
I mean.. is it that hard for textbooks to write this stuff? I could spend an hours lesson in a textbook on this and know unnecessary stuff without even grasping the necessary stuff but your lessons are short and just have what you need to know. Thank you very much Cure Dolly
が always existing but often hidden to avoid redundancy makes a lot of sense. It was a bit of a shock to the system to hear that が was the linchpin of the Japanese sentence but your rather simple explanation made it clear. I'd rather have heard this earlier than the more labyrinthine methods often employed.
That information really is the core isn't it? After that everything else is ready to fall into place!
When I first started learning grammar I was told the da (or desu as usually taught first) equalled the it in English but this makes so much more sense
Fantastic, in my opinion this is the cause why so many people find Japanese too confusing and give up. It's just never fully explained in textbooks so beautifully as Cure Dolly does. The hidden subject Ga pronoun.
This is Terrific. I have over-complicated Japanese. I think part of the reason the second language I learned was Spanish. In Spanish, the objects are omitted but the verb conjugation clariefes exactly what the object was. El, Ellos,Ella, Tu,Nostoros,Vosotros, etc. But the Japanese don't do that at all. I was thinking it did do something like that. Even after living in Japan for 2 years. No wonder my coworkers are always misgendering the boss and each other. It's very difficult to misunderstand if you drop the object and the verb doesn't make up for as well as the culture of just Hai hai hai even when you don't understand. These videos are amazing.
These videos don't give me headaches
1. わたしがたこやきをたべる
2. たこやきをたべる
3. I eat takoyaki
I just watched 2 of your videos, but I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate them ! Thank you for your hard work ! :D
Thank you so much! All correct.
After studying Japanese in college for a couple years, I always wondered about the 'it' factor in Japanese. We never really delved into it. Felt odd because I used to handle sentences as "___-san did this. Then ___-san had that" or "watashi wa ___. Soshite, watashi wa ___".
This video really answered a question i was struggling with for a while! I enjoy your approach to teaching these concepts. So happy you popped in my recommended, I look forward to watching the rest of your videos and hopefully picking up Japanese again as a passion.
ありがとうございます。
Thank you Cure Dolly for these astounding explanations, you are single handedly making learning simply and most importantly fun! ありがとり!
I started watching this playlist today! So so good! Thank you for everything Dolly sensei. I am confident that with your explanations I will be very advanced in the next 12 months. I'm an intermediate student that spent quite some money on an online course, and now I realized that the explanations of grammar and structures are a Westernized version of the original Japanese logic behind the language. It's good to know that you have so much content offer, with very high quality explanations. Also, in the beginning I thought your voice was a little bit strange (sorry about that), but now I got used to it and I find it very soothing :D
In this online course I've reached the "medium" intermediate level, do you plan to upload more videos about high-intermediate and advanced grammar/structures? Thank you so much, and stay safe!
よろしくおねがいします ^^
Thank you for making these videos, Cure Dolly-sensei, im gonna binge this playlist after my exams.
If you could, what is the expected outcomes after watching these videos? I want to make a checklist while watching.
Again, thank you for these lessons!
This video should help with that: th-cam.com/video/Ky12sKu3EcE/w-d-xo.html
Good luck with your exams.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 ありがとうございます！
i like this train theory, easy to understand
Funny that I found a similarity with Portuguese: like in Japanese (As you explained in the video), in Portuguese, we sometimes use phrases without the pronouns. but in Portuguese, without a subject (Name, pronoun, etc..) at the beginning of a phrase. We call it the null subject, where you start the phrase with the verb (example: "A camisola é vermelha", This phrase means in Portuguese "The shirt is red". You can remove the subject ("A Camisola" or "The shirt") as say or write "É vermelha")
Hello, I love this channel, thank you so much for making these videos.
Here’s my sentence, I hope it is correct.
コーヒーを飲む。
I drink coffee.
Thank you for your comment! And yes the sentence is correct.
A very nice explanation. I think the issues here stem mostly from the fact that in English there's no concept of a so called "implied subject," which would be the proper academic name for what you're explaining, and the fact that most Japanese learning material on the internet was made with an English speaking audience in mind, due to US people emigrating to Japan and anime fans. For the record, it does exist in rare cases in English aswell, for example in imperative sentences such as: "Go away!" There is no "you" being explicitly written, but most people understand it's being addressed to a second person. The way it works in Japanese is simply that the subject can be anything, not just "you."
I think this is reflected in the language aquisition success statistics aswell. Someone starting learning Japanese from a language other than English is significantly more likely to get somewhere compared to an English speaking individual. Furthermore, coming from a non-English speaking country, i find the English sources of linguistics to be severely lacking. There's very little information in English on the internet on the topic of "implied subject" even, exception being academic papers and course aids. The same goes for example for the topics of "grammatical cases" or anything regarding sentence structures really... To think there are so many influential English speaking modern linguists, though...
Rest in peace.
Why are people saying rest in peace? Where did this info come from?
@@cgottschifyShe passed away. It was announced on her patreon
I wish I stumbled upon this channel years ago before deciding to quit learning Japanese because all the books and resources were garbage...
Now I’ve regained my passion for this language and I’m lucky enough to find this channel at the right time!
It’s never too late to start learning!
がんばってください。
Many videos out there characterize the "ga" particle as one that's used as an emphasis instead of "wa" - but that "wa" is more generally in - most - sentenses rather than "ga". Is this true? How do you go about recognizing when to use "ga"?
This video has a atrociously slow number of views.
Very true. Everything is going ridiculously slowly. Perhaps I'm wrong about the revolutionary importance of what I'm saying. But I don't believe I am. So I'll keep trying, at least for now.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 No one in history ever managed to get truly popular if he had the goal "I want to be popular". Do what you do and eventually people will notice. If they don't, bad luck. It happens. I've been there before. Some magnificant artist get discovert only after they die as such an event appears to be a reason to finally have a closer look at what he or she was doing. Especially in this modern world driven by algorithms and certain patterns you have to keep in order to be successful. In other words, it's not you, it's them. Cheer up.
@@Leon_der_Luftige Thank you! I don't really want to be popular but I think I have something worth saying and I'd like people to hear it - at least the people it would help. I know these things develop slowly and saying something that people haven't heard before is probably slower at first than just repeating what has already been said for the several-hundredth time. Being inorganic probably doesn't help either. It would probably be better if I was a human, or at least a cute bunny or a frog... Still. がんばります! And thank you again for your encouragement.
@@hakainokame It's kind of unpredictable what one turns into but I'll definitely try to avoid the duolingo bird.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 For what it's worth, I was randomly recommended one of your videos and now I'm going to binge all of them. I love your style of teaching, it's just what I've been looking for. I'm a very logical person, and I like to understand how systems work and why they work the way they do. Getting taught Japanese by just memorizing phrases in Genki and in school and on duolingo is a style of teaching I seriously dislike.
Oh! I never thought of that mnemonic that ties o to the English object! How neat!
Thank you Dolly! Just started learning Japanese a month ago! This channel I found on a subreddit is really great so far! I found the lessons easy to understand as they are only 8-10 minutes. However, is it okay to just learn grammar from your videos, or you also recommend having a grammar book like Genki?
With invisible ga train: にほんじんだ
With zero-ga train: 私が にほんじんだ
In English: I am Japanese
Your sentence is correct. That is exactly how it should look. Zero-ga and invisible ga are the same thing and they never appear in Japanese writing or are heard in Japanese speech. In our structural notation we can write ∅が にほんじんだ or 私は ∅が にほんじんだ. The zero, or invisible, particle is never actually seen in Japanese, but we use it to help us understand the structure. We'll learn about は next lesson.
The problem with Genki etc is that if you read them too early they will fill your head with a lot of misleading ideas. I would recommend following this course up to around lesson 20 before looking at conventional textbooks. By that time you should have enough knowledge of real structure to spot the problems.
Whether you actually use conventional textbooks or not is up to you. If you find them useful, that's fine. If not, choose methods that suit you better once you have done the first 20 of this course: th-cam.com/play/PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj.html
As a Spanish speaker, I'm totally ok with the invisible carriage, lol. Italian and Portuguese have also that feature.
So would it be "are ga usagi da"? as the full version of "usagi da"?
yes.
Thank you! This was so helpful 🙏
For the sentence like “私ががケーキを食べる”, the more logical illustration is ( from the left to the right) A car labeled “Subject”, a connecting part labeled “が”, a car labeled “Object”, a connecting part labeled “を”, then the Engine labeled “う”. To me, particles like が or を serve to connect the cars so that they all can be pulled by the engine( the verb). Just my humble opinion.
First of all I avoid most grammatical terminology. Many people find it hard to understand the difference between "subject" and "topic" for example. Secondly I think it very important to make it clear that a noun and its particle form a single unit in Japanese and that particles belong exclusively to the noun they are attached to. Some Western grammar sources talk about things like "verbs that take を" which is nonsense. No verb "takes" any particle. Only nouns do. So I think it important to guard against these misconceptions.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly Thanks for the reply. I am one of the majority group and still think in the 英本語 mode. That was the reason why your video caught my attention. I would like to watch more of your videos and see if I will become one of the minority group.
@@oldmanandthesea7039 You can do it! Good luck. がんばってください。
I like the fact that she used Andromeda Galaxy as an example ;o!
I wonder if I might bring up an older topic that I asked about on one of your previous videos. It was an inquiry regarding the nature of a multiple が construction and how one would resolve the apparent presence of two subjects in the same clause. You answered that for a construction like「私がコーヒーが好きです」you could take it as an ellipsis for「私がコーヒーが好きなのです」and thus resolve the conflict. However, I've run across a number of instances where this doesn't seem to be the case. For example if one were to come across a sentence like「ｘが人気があります」how would one go about explaining the apparent double subjects in the construction?
I think some Japanese grammarians would take exception to constructions like this as being strictly incorrect. However they are fairly common and I think what is going on here is that there are a number of expressions such as 人気がある, 勇気がある and 頭がいい that are so commonly used that they have become fused together as stock adjectivals. 人気がある = "popular", 勇気がある = "brave", 頭がいい = "smart" and so forth; and they are used by some speakers pretty much as if they were い-"adjectives". Thus the が is used to make the person or thing described by the adjectival its subject just as if it were a true "adjective".
Ah, I had wondered if that might be the case.
May I ask about a similar situation with the potential construction? Something like「私が本が読める」. Of course one could change the second が to を here, but is the double が construction itself still grammatical?
Where have you heard this one? 私は本が読める is correct and most usual 私が本を読める is disputed by some but makes logical sense and is used (not as much as the former). 私が本が読める is simply incorrect.
I did a Google search just to make sure and got only one result, which was
40代半ばにいる私が本が読める年齢の間になんとか復刻していただきたいです！
In this instance (which is I think rather awkwardly phrased) 本が読める is being used as an adjectival modifier for 年齢 so 本が読める年齢 is the noun-phrase "an age when I am able to read books" (or more literally "an age when books are readable to me) and the が marking 私 (which is the Main Car) relates to the overall sentence (coupling it to いただきたい, the sentence's Engine - the final です, of course is a formality-marker). So in context, in the only instance I could find there are not two subjects in the overall sentence. A search for "私が本が読みます" (in quotes) brought no instances at all.
Apologies, I simply made it up on the spot as an illustration.
So then I would take it any similar such constructions are also ungrammatical and that when one wishes to use が instead of は to mark what coincides with the subject in English they must change the second が to を.
「AがBがpotential verb」ｘ
「AがBをpotential verb」△
「AはBがpotential verb」◯
Is this correct?
Yes that is correct. Actually I would say that your second example is accepted enough to get a ◯. There are people who consider it bad style which I find interesting as someone who thinks a lot about Japanese structure. However it is generally accepted as a less-common construction.
Unlike 私がコーヒーを好きだ which is considered howlingly bad by most people even though it is used quite widely by some younger people. We could compare that to constructions like "I'm totally going to do that", which is (or was) widely used but even the users probably didn't consider it "correct". Even 私がコーヒーを好きだ is correct in terms of が・を structure. The incorrectness lies in treating the adjectival noun 好きだ as if it were a verb (just as English-language "Japanese grammar" does).
Of course 私がコーヒーが好きだ makes no sense at all. Incidentally leaving the だ off 好きだ when it is a sentence-engine is something you will see in informal speech. This is a common (completely ungrammatical) contraction. Compare similar English contractions like "can't eat that stuff" which is an ungrammatical though common contraction of "I can't eat that stuff".
Omg i love you soooo much. I love your Videos ! Thank you so much for teaching me Japanese :) With your Videos I finally Unterstand so much. Thank u Thank u so much please continue making such great and informative Videos. ^^
It was this easy all along, makes me want to laugh at how effort I used to learn it myself
クラスありがとう、先生
Good video! Thank you!
I like the new take on diagraming sentences without getting into full grammatical terms. I don't fully agree that Japanese doesn't fit into grammatical rules as we know then in Western languages. Your train cars are basically the subject and the predicate. You make it much easier to understand than my 3rd grade English teacher did back in Catholic school. Lol.
You can make anything fit anything - it's just a matter of how far you want to stretch the terminology. To me the important thing is not whether you can do it but how far it serves any useful purpose to do so. Subject and predicate are I think pretty universal and that is exactly what the A car and B engine are (in Japanese 主語 and 述語) other pieces of terminology (such as "conjugation" and "passive") are simply misleading because they stretch the terminology so far that it loses any usefulness. And in fact it is worse than useless because it encourages people to think that Japanese works in ways that it doesn't.
thank you!! 💞💞💞
I'm here again!! Hai sensei, the practice sentence:
日本語 を 弁慶 (I study Japanese)
Amazing explanations!
I'm a noob, but did you not mean: 勉強 (Benkyou) = study.
Rest In Peace!
Doing pretty good so far, loving the series!
1) さくらがはなをにおい
2) 京都府タワーをみる
Do they make sense?
におい is not a verb so you can't use it with を.
The second one is correct.
本を読む。 楽しいよね。
∅が本を読む。 ∅が楽しいよね。
(I)read books. (Reading) is fun.
This seems much more efficient than writing 'it' everywhere and having to state what you're talking about, although it seems like a necessary skill to be able to pickup on the ∅が within the flow of conversation, which I can only assume can be acquired from immersion.
∅が is really no more obscure than "it" in English. The trick is really only getting used to the fact that it is going to be there. Immersion is the way to do that.
All correct by the way!
I've only gotten this far, and I'm honestly a bit confused at the high preference of が over は, I thought they both mean the same thing, but I'm assuming this will be talked about in a video I have yet to get to?
が and は have completely different meanings, and we'll get to that in the next lesson, Lesson 3.
I wish I have seen this channel earlier! You made everything so clear to me now!! However, there's a sentence that confuses me if I try to understand it with this video's concept:
Nihongo ga wakaru.
Does that sentence mean Japanese understands? But for what I know it should mean (i) understand Japanese. Hope you can clear up my confusion, arigatou!
Wakaru means literally "do understandable". English translations completely confuse people by saying Nihongo ga wakaru means "I understand Japanese". That is what an English speaker would say, not what the Japanese is actually doing. The Japanese is saying "Japanese does understandable (to me). If you continue with the course this sort of thing will be covered in much more detail
Ah so I just misunderstood the meaning of the verb. Thanks for clearing things up! Definitely will finish this amazing course!
It took me a while to dare clicking on the first video but the many people who recommended your channel were right. The content is fab. I'd been baffled by the ga particle. I could tell it should be there and it really annoyed me. Even when I read about Japanese being understood from context, it still did not click with me that this was the reason why that ga was not where I wanted to see it. I speak french and English fluently and both languages are so far from Japanese that it's quite the leap to get the grammar. Even German, which is very organised is still no help in comprehending how Japanese sentences are built. I thought it was going to be a nightmare to get Japanese grammar even though I studied a few languages and Latin. I feel confident I can forget what I know and just use your videos to learn without making parallels now. Thanks!
Actually German and Latin do give you some help with Japanese. If you understand the case system, this is exactly what the logical particles do. が marks the nominative case, を marks the accusative case etc. Without any complex or irregular declensions, with one simple, unchanging particle that never does anything but sit on the end of the noun. It is the case system done right.
Of course this is only one aspect of Japanese but it is an important one, and hard to grasp for speakers of English and Romance languages, which have largely dropped the case system (because the Indo-European version of it is so over-complex).
However it is very important to distinguish logical particles (case-marking particles) from non-logical particles and others. See this video for that: th-cam.com/video/dwcTI9qvO-U/w-d-xo.html
Hi Cure Dolly! Your channel is really informative and refreshing to see. Thanks so much for all the useful info. In your opinion, is Wanikani a good vehicle to get a solid base in Kanji/vocab?
It's better than Heisig because it uses vocabulary (but out of context). After the first 100 kanji, I recommend learning from actual Japanese material. See this video for more detail: th-cam.com/video/b5jL-m0eIG0/w-d-xo.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 thanks for all that you do
Okay, here are some test sentences (with the context being someone asking a question):
"What are you?"
(I am) a person
(watashi-ga) hito da
(わたしが) ひと だ
"What is she doing?"
(she) eats ice cream
(watashi-ga) aisu kuriimu-wo taberu
(わたしが) あいすくりーむを たべる
"What colour is the taxi?"
(the taxi) is red
(zero-ga) akai
(Øが) あかい
"What does the boy have?"
(the boy) has delicious cake
(watashi-ga) oishii-wo kekki
(わたしが) おいしいを
けーき
"What is she doing?"
(the woman) sings happy (happily)
(watashi-ga) ureshii-wo utau
(わたしが) うれしいを うたう
(^I'm not sure about this last one if there is actually a different word in Japanese for the difference between happy/happily or if it's just that as long as it is in the sentence properly it works as it is supposed to)
Also, I understand that the carriage is invisible and is never usually said when speaking but just for clarification: is watashi-ga always used or is it different for objects/animals? ie. I/he/she/they/them is watashi-ga (わたしが) and we use zero-ga (Øが) for objects? Or is zero-ga just a placeholder and we'll get to what objects actually are later? (If you cover this in a different lesson, just say that so I know the differences are explained later. Or if I should just be focusing on the fact that the carriage is invisible but still be aware that it is there with ga for now, say that.) Thank you in advance ^_^
We haven't covered adverbs (adjectives describing verbs) yet so this isn't the place to practice them. You need to know more things before you can use adjectives adverbially. But note that we can _never_ attach a logical particle (like を) to an adjective (or a verb). They attach to nouns only. So your first three examples are correct. The fourth is correct if you remove the を and the fifth is nowhere near correct, but then we haven't learned that yet.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 oh yes that makes sense! Sorry, I forgot that wo/o is attached to the *noun* we are doing something to, per your explaination. I had just been looking at the other ones and trying to make sure they were right for so long I forgot the rule for adding in this carriage (ノ_＜)
So, it should just be:
"What does the boy have?"
(the boy) has delicious cake
(watashi-ga) oishii kekki
(わたしが) おいしい けーき
No wo/o in that since [the boy has cake] and [delicious] is an added descriptive carriage, but it’s an adjective.
And then don’t worry about 5 since we’re not there yet.
Thanks for making this video, everything is explained very well. One question I have is do more advanced textbooks explain grammar better than the early ones?
No, I'm afraid they don't. What happens is that once the basics have been explained (if you can call it "explained") , "intermediate grammar" ceases to be grammar at all. What it becomes is idiom-memorization. You get told all kinds of different patterns of expression and what they mean. Just as with basic grammar they generally fail to tell you _why_ they mean what they mean. They just give them to you to memorize. To be fair, in some cases this is necessary. Some idioms really are "just idioms", but a lot aren't. One example of this is kamoshiremasen, which I explain at the end of this video th-cam.com/video/00nKUtmnzvI/w-d-xo.html
However, leaving aside the rights and wrongs of idiom-memorization, the real point here is that they never return to fundamental grammar and teach it properly. After the early lessons you're on your own trying to figure out the half-explained structure of Japanese, handicapped by some total misconceptions.
KawaJapa CureDolly Are the advanced textbooks still worth getting, on lots of sites of sites I see the genki and tobira textbooks getting recommended, or should I use another method?
Good question. At some point I would like to work with someone to create a whole basic Japanese course (this is only a Japanese structure course) but obviously that's some way off. Whether you need an actual textbook depends a lot on how you work. I had Genki in the beginning but I never used the dialogs or the exercises - just the grammar points. I wrote little stories to practice grammar and in the early stages they were corrected by a non-professional Japanese teacher (you could use something like Lang8 for that). For me this was really the ideal approach. After a relatively short time acquiring the basics I started slogging through J-subbed anime for children. That really is a steep approach but a very valuable one if you are determined enough. I looked up grammar and vocabulary as I went and also browsed grammar sites and books. If I'd had access to the material I'm presenting now that would have made the process a lot easier!
So this isn't exactly an answer, partly because I think people work differently so part of it is dependent on the way you work best. I have some plans for material to help early learners but they will take time to develop. If you want to use a textbook, here's my take. They teach a lot. They also teach some bad misconceptions, but if you are following my material at the same time you should be able to avoid those to a large extent. So if the textbook route suits you go ahead.
If you have questions or problems about what you learn there, feel free to ask me on this channel.
KawaJapa CureDolly Thank you for all the advice and help! Your videos about ga and the zero particle cleared up a lot for me. I have one more question which is will you at some point make videos on more advanced grammar?
In conventional Japanese teaching, "advanced grammar" actually means memorizing various idioms. The textbooks don't ever go deeper into the structure. Some of this idiom work is necessary and I would recommend Nihongo no Mori (here on TH-cam) from N3 upward. They are teaching in Japanese _in_ Japanese, and by the time you get past N4 you should be able to learn that way. They work through the standard JLPT (and other conventional Japanese) idioms (often closely following Kanzen Master).
What I would like to do in terms of advanced grammar is essentially two things:
1: idiom memorization is needed in some cases but there are lots of cases where this material can be presented logically by explaining _why_ things mean what they mean. Also the current method is to give lists of setsuzoku - the way the idioms are connected into a sentence. This seems to me absurd in a lot of cases. Students are expected to memorize not only the meaning of the idiom (sometimes necessary, often not) and then the three to five ways it connects to different types of context (with na-adjectives do this, with verbs do that etc.) Most of the time even when the first rote-memorization part can't be avoided the second can. It is generally possible to explain the structure so that a student can know without any list-memorization how to connect the idiom.
2. I would like to do more in-depth analysis of textual passages. Current textbooks etc (I don't know about classes) seem pretty short on this. I am actually thinking about doing it from a fairly elementary level and then progressing to more and more complex texts, helping people to see how it all fits together and why it means what it means. In fact just last week I was looking at out-of-copyright Japanese literature that might be used for just this purpose. In a way it would be a linear development from our modelling very simple sentences with trains.
So, those are my thoughts at present on advanced grammar. They may of course develop over time.
I’m guessing these invisible carriages usually come up when the subject has already been established prior, however can they be implied even without the subject being established prior? For instance, when someone asks "Who ate the cake?" would saying "keeki-o taberu" make sense, or would you have to say "watashi-ga keeki-o taberu"?
We would need the past tense to say "ate" of course - we'll be getting to that shortly. But yes invisible carriages are used when the subject has already come up and is clear (from words or from the situation), and usually defaults to わたし when it has not been established.
If someone asks "who ate the cake" it is just like English. You can reply with the full sentence, but if you don't you would probably just say わたし or わたしが. Since all the other information is supplied by the question. Just in English we would reply "I" (or more commonly but less grammatically "me").
Omg... like, 6 years later i`ll try to follow sensei`s invite to type down some phrases in order to practice the lesson.
I hope i get it right.
1) ろっくをすきです
2) 日本語をべんきょおおするすきです
Can somebody tell me if I got this right?
As i'm writing it down, and nobody can 'see' the context, should I mandatorily use 'watashi ga'?
I'm a month late but:
1) Since すき is an "adjective" (or, adjectival noun as you'll learn) in Japanese, it can't have an object. In Japanese *you* don't do the act of liking rock music, rock music *is likable*.
「ロックが すきです。」"Rock is likable". If you wanted to make it clear that you were specifically talking about yourself: 「わたしは ロックが すきです。」"As for me, Rock is likable."
2) What you want to say is getting quite a bit ahead of this lesson. Since "Studying Japanese" is a verb, and "likable/enjoyable" is an adjective (which can only describe nouns) you'll have to wait until you learn a way to turn an entire phrase into a noun. A sneak preview: 「日本語をべんきょうするのがすきです。」which means "(The act of studying Japanese) is enjoyable." The の wraps the previous phrase up into a single noun, which you then throw が on and say it's likable as normal.
Thank you!
Let's start the journey 🎉🎉
I recall in young days when started to study English how weird to me that it sounded, like why it's in sentence at all if it's meaningless
I'm a little bit confused but it may be natural. Have I done the first sentence correctly? I'm typing as I watch to grasp this concept. So...
1) anime omoshiroi da (Anime is amusing)
2) watashi-ga anime mite (I watch anime)
Thanks again Dolly!
I am afraid neither is correct. The first one should be
1) anime ga omosiroi
a) It must have a ga because _every sentence must have a ga_ - if you don't see it you must know where the invisible ∅-ga would go. But this sentence doesn't have an invisible ga because the black A-car is anime and the black A-car is always marked by ga. So this is a simple A ga B sentence.
b) As we explained in the first lesson, adjectives (that is i-adjectives) _do not take da_ They already have the da-function. In formal speech we do put desu after them but that is just confusing because it isn't really part of the grammar. Don't worry about that now - it is exactly why I am _not_ teaching desu at this stage! Just remember that i-adjectives have no da after them. They carry their own da-function.
The second one should be
2) Watashi ga anime wo miru
I watch anime.
a) If you are doing something to or with anything else (like watching anime) you must mark that thing with a wo. So the black A car is watashi-ga, the black B-engine is miru and together they make "I watch". "Anime" is a white wo-car telling us more about miru (what it _is_ that I watch).
b) Remember that all verbs end in a u-sound. We haven't gotten to anything else yet. If you wanted to say "I watched anime" in the past tense you would say "watashi ga anime wo mita (not mite)" - but please don't, because we haven't learned that yet. We soon will. "Mite" is the te-form and is wrong in this place. We'll learn about te-form later too. Please don't worry about any of this right now.
The problem here is that you are remembering bits of textbook grammar that you've learned and using them here. Please put them out of your mind and start from scratch with just what I am teaching. We'll get to all these other things as we go along.
Please try another two sentences. Just use what I have taught in the first and second lessons.
hello dolly!
ive spent more time on this video than i probably should, and I think I understand it now, but I do have a few questions.
so the ０が is implied correct? as in we are not actually saying ０が, as your example demonstrates, けーきをたべる、there is no ０が being said, rather it is implied?
here are a few of my attempted sentences, I tried to be a little creative and I'm not sure if broke some rules or not in the process
うさぎけーきをたべる
rabbit eats cake (now do i need the ga here or is it implied?)
あいすくりーむをたべる
(I) eat icecream
０があいすくいーむをたべる
(i) eat icecream
わたしがあいすくりーむをたべる
i eat icecream
たくしーあるく
(i) walk to taxi
０がたくしーあるく
(i) walk to taxi
わたしがたくしーあるく
i walk to taxi
i'll cut it short here but thank you again for the great videos, and my apologies if i am a little dense understanding these concepts :D
Yes, the ∅が is never said or written. It is just a way of clarifying the logical structure. Essentially it does what English "it" (or I, him, her they etc) does but it is not said or written.
うさぎけーきをたべる
is incorrect. The が has to be present in grammatical speech. The only time が or any other logical particle is zeroed in grammatical speech is when the noun it is attached to is zeroed.
The first sentences are correct. たくしーあるく is not for a reason we will come to shortly. We need another logical particle, に, to mark the destination of movement.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 thank you again dolly!!
gotcha, so if I'm understanding correctly,
うさぎがけーきをたべる
would be correct, no? it wouldn't make sense to use the 0が as i am talking about a specific thing, a rabbit, and it not something that could implied without prior context.
ありがとう！
also if you have a patreon or something of the like, i'd love to help support you!
hey Dolly i have a question :-)
"watashi ga Keeki o tabemasu"
would this sentence make any sense? or is the "ru" ending needed?
Yes it makes sense. The masu ending has been put onto the stem of taberu to make it formal. I don't teach desu/masu until lesson 17 because learning Japanese in desu/masu form from the beginning makes it much more confusing than it should be. I explain why (and explain how to use desu/masu form) in this video th-cam.com/video/ymJWb31qWI8/w-d-xo.html - it's a little more advanced because it isn't wise to look at desu/masu form until a slightly more advanced stage.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for your quick answer. i will watch all your lessons they really help me to learn.
i appreciate the work that you put in these videos and that you always have an ear for the watching ones :-)
@@antdave8863 And thank you for sharing your appreciation. I am always happy to help.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you for this, I was wondering if tabemasu is correct.
@@asf1062 At this stage in the course I think it is much better to use plain Japanese rather than start adding decorative helper-verbs (which happen to be - unlike most Japanese - very irregular) _before_ we learn the basic structure of the language. So I don't teach it at this stage and prefer people to leave it alone until we get to it in the course. But it is correct, and we will need it eventually. We deal with it in Lesson 17: th-cam.com/video/ymJWb31qWI8/w-d-xo.html
Had to master the kana before i could even attempt learning the vocabulary. It's one thing to know how to type a kanji but you have to know what it means. I'm finding now that i finished katakana and hiragana that it's far easier to read the word cake in katakana than it is in romanji. I took a double look, realized there was kana below it and nailed it on the translation app. My sentence example is 私は日本語(を)勉強してます. I am studying Japanese.
Annnd now we hit the 3rd video. Lmao. K. Forget the wa particle i used :D
@@synthium4742 You are right about kana. English Romaji has trouble with words like ケーキ. If we write "keeki", which is logical, it looks as if it rhymes with "creaky". We can start using accent marks to indicate pronunciation but they are only a poor substitute for real kana. Your sentence is correct. The を is necessary (you can't leave it out). The は is fine and more usual. The important thing to remember is that the が is always logically there. Actually the _most_ usual way of saying it is 日本語を勉強します. The 私は is only needed if you have some special reason to stress that you are talking about yourself. English learners (and sadly textbooks) tend to fill their sample sentences with unnecessary 私s and あなたs that imitate English pronoun usage. This isn't ungrammatical in Japanese, but does sound a bit odd and foreign.
However the important thing to realize is that whichever way we say it the が-marked subject is always logically present. Using nothing or using 私は are both equally ways of allowing the が to be invisible. And this is another reason why excessive 私はs are a bad thing. They tend to obscure this fact by making it look to the English speaker as if 私は is the equivalent to "I am" in English. It isn't, it just means "as for me..."
"I am" is 私が but it doesn't need to be (and usually isn't) visible if it is clear from context.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 i am currently using a set of customized text books. So I'll keep that in mind. ありがとうございます
がんばってください。
1-ピヤノを弾く
2-アマンダ が涙を拭う
3- 涙を拭う
4-アマンダ が部屋を 清潔
5-部屋を 清潔
I'm confused about the last two phrase is it correct to use a na- adjectiv after the を car cus 清潔 (clean) in the dictionary says it's a na adj / adjectival noun not a verb or It can be used as verb (Amanda clean her room )?
These are all correct except 4. That is also structurally correct as far as this lesson goes, but 清潔 is not a verb. We know that because verbs must end in an う-row kana. Of course if we write せいけつ in kana つ is an う-row kana which may be what you were thinking, but verbs have to end in an actual kana - not one that is part of (or can be written as) a kanji. We will learn a little later that when a word is all-kanji like that _it has to be a noun_
But that isn't part of this lesson, so as far as this lesson goes, everything is perfect. Congratulations
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly what if I add だ to it is it gonna be grammatically correct and ? Anyway thank you so much gonna recommend your channel to anyone i know who want to learn japanese
@@ehnanizafacku1819 Thank you so much! You could say アマンダ が部屋を清潔にする (Amanda makes the room clean) though this would tend to imply purity rather than just ordinary cleanliness, which would usually be きれい (綺麗). Just adding だ to your original sentence doesn't work because を marks the indirect object of a verb, and adding だ doesn't turn a noun into a verb. You could say 部屋清が清潔だ (the room is pure), and that is perfectly good grammar, though again きれい would be more usual.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly I got it ..thank you again
You're welcome.
You sound like a virtual Dame Maggie Smith. Somewhat intimidating yet reassuring.
Do you have a video where you talk about sentences with two が particles?
Not specifically but this video talks about sentence structures where this happens (essentially it always happens for the same basic reason) th-cam.com/video/uot49Z85wNs/w-d-xo.html
Thank you so much.
so the “zero-ga” we never actually say. you’re just keeping that there to show that there is always an invisible carriage, right? meaning, we just say “keeki-wo taberu” and we never actually say “zero-ga...” etc. hopefully that question makes sense. i know well say watashi-ga when needed, but we never verbally say or write “zero-ga” since it’s invisible ?
Yes that's right - that's why it is called zero because it has no spoken or written representation - we are just using the zero to clarify the concept.
Very similar to my language, italian, where the subject is often omitted
I think it is because the hands are directing to the nouns along with adding emphasis where needed or to show emotion. Since the topic has been covered, albeit by hands, the brain just moves on to the next part that the hands cannot convey.
/s
having fun with the whole "Italians talk with there hands" meme. I grew up in a part in the US where the hands are used to communicate part of a sentence, like pointing when referring to direction, and sometimes people forget that we can't see which way you are pointing in certain cases.
hi sensei im from the future, 2024 here , i heard you hv been passed away, hope u got better place there 😭. its my 15th day learning japanese and and finally i found your channel , this video answer my big confusion about sentence, that what u call " invicible carriage", damn thats all make sense now. again rip 🥀, so sad can't see your video with real appearance
Somehow I'm reminded of the common anime line 「海だ！」/ "Umi Da". Many are aware that it means. "It is the sea". How does the zero pronoun of this look like? Is it just "It"?
Yes, it is just "it". It is (∅が) 海だ. So a fuller version would be それが海だ.
Now it makes more sense. Thank you Dolly sensei.
is this from love live? :D
Could you please explain where the "hidden が" is here?
田中は僕がマイクにボールを投げたのを見てた
Tanaka has to be the subject of the sentence, but using two が's isn't an option because it confuses the subject of 見てた if we do that.
田中は田中が僕がマイクにボールを投げたのを見てた
And I don't think there's a way to solve this sentence either, right?
田中が僕〇マイクにボールを投げたのを見てた
It is a bit early in the course to understand this. What we need to be aware of is the function of the の pronoun, or what I call the の-box. This is modified by the clause that comes before it and allows us to handle the whole unit as a noun. So:
僕がマイクにボールを投げたの
= "thing of I-threw-ball-at-Mike"
And this "thing" is handled like any other noun. Let's call this "thing" Z for convenience.
The sentence is then clear enough.
田中は∅が Zを見てた
So long as we understand that 見てた is a common abbreviation of 見ていた we should be fine.
Does this clarify?
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thank you! I really appreciate your quick response and explanation. I was always super frustrated about how things were falsely equated to English in my textbook so thank you for your channel and videos!
@@Bradoshado And thank you! Happy to have you aboard.
Cure Dolly Sensei, here's my homework. I don't know how to type the zero with a line through on an iPad so I have used '0/' instead! My Japanese vocabulary is pretty much non existent so I used words from the vocabulary you gave for lesson one's homework.
あいすくりーむをたべる。
0/が あいすくりーむをたべる。
(I) eat ice cream.
Yes that is correct. You're off to a flying start!
Another enlightening lesson! My sentence:
ケーキを切る。美味しい！
∅がケーキを切る。∅が美味しい！
(I) cut the cake. (The cake) is delicious!
If I understood the first lesson correctly, there's no need for a だ after 美味しい, correct?
All correct. Not only is there no need to add だ; it is ungrammatical to add it. です is added to adjectives as a formality marker, not as a functional copula. だ is not a formality marker. You do add だ to so-called "な-adjectives" because they are nouns.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Thanks for clarifying! I thought です was a formal variation of だ.
@@HenryJonesVictor Yes it is, but it has the peculiarity in modern use that it also acts as a formality-marker for adjectives (including helper adjectives like 〜ない and 〜たい).
This is one of the reasons why it is so confusing to learn です・ます Japanese before learning the core structure of the language. Things happen with です・ます that don't happen anywhere else so it's best to learn them a little later once you have the basic structure solid. See this lesson: th-cam.com/video/ymJWb31qWI8/w-d-xo.html
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation! I'll watch all of the lessons in order, but I'll keep my eyes especially peeled for that one!
In spanish would be "tenía mucha hambre. vine por algo para comer". We don't use I, me, you, he, she... most of the time we omit it, I still do it whenever I write in English 😂 maybe that's why it was so hard to understand what invisible o was, at first I was a bit confused until I saw its pretty similar to my language. This was clear when I saw English is low context while spanish and japanese is high context. So yeah, we don't have a lot of resources to learn japanese from spanish but something good had to have haha
I always find it curious that both English and French force one to include the personal pronoun in "I am X" "je suis X" when "am" and "suis" can _only_ be used with "I" and je". It is an example of the redundancy these languages insist upon. In Spanish "soy X" does not need "yo" because it is redundant. Much more economical.
@@organicjapanesewithcuredol49 so true. I always found English repetitive. Didn't knew about french! On my other native lang (catalan) we also omit the same way as spanish does. It's been 26 years since I started learning English and I still do the same, I know I'll never sound like a native cause I got used to avoid it.