Quote:
Originally Posted by Retrogamer77
Well, if you're going to get technical then all of the contractions should be changed as well. (don't= do not, etc.) In formal writing contractions are not allowed.  |
True enough, though "however" is supposedly more universal than contractions, I believe. As in you're supposed to use "however" everytime you write any kind of composition (fiction or scientific journal) whereas contractions are only excluded from compositions such as expository or analytical essays or a scientific or legal document.
But I could be wrong.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by aiaiaiai
May I ask a question?
We don't call it "Kenjyutu".○
We can't call it "Kenjyutu".×
In this case,the usage of "don't" means that we Japanese don't call it as custom in general??
In the case of "can't",we have a little possibility of that??
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As I said, it's more of a nuance issue than a grammatical one. Nuance is by far the hardest thing to learn of any language (barring colloquialisms).
I guess if I had to describe the difference, using "don't" vs "can't" gives one of these impressions:
Don't: It simply isn't done.
Can't: It's not possible/you can't do it.
In that sentence, the way it is phrased and the information around it implies that there is a good reason we
don't call it that, even though, technically, we probably could call it that. Or rather, one might think that we would call it kenjutsu, but we actually don't "because ... ".
That's about as well as I can explain it. Nuance is difficult--mostly because not even native speakers truly understand it and therefore cannot really explain it. It's just something you know intuitively.