[StripMahjong]

Originally Posted by loveskyliemole

I remembered that I used to wonder
if I could say " I saw " (to mean "I understood")
since I can say "I see" (to mean " I understand") ?

"I remember that I used to wonder..." "Remembered" sounds a bit awkward here.

But yes, I see how that could be very confusing to the English learner! It makes sense to assume you could say that, doesn't it? English has a lot of strange little rules and exceptions like that.

Now, a quiz time for StripMahjong!

Can you tell me the differences of these?

1)わかります
2)わかりました
3)わかっています (often we sound like わかってます)
4)わかっていました(わかってました）

Hmm... Well, assuming the subject is "I", I think it would be:

1) "(I) understand" or "(I will) understand"
2) "(I) understood"
3) "(I) do understand" or "(I) am understanding" (in a current state of understanding)
4) "(I) was understanding" (was previously in a state of understanding)

Here's hoping I did better here than on the previous quiz! I had a lot of trouble with the っていました form in the past for some reason. I hope I've finally learned it!

May I ask you another question?

Do not many people spell the past tense of "learn" "learnt" but "learned"?
I learnT, "leant" at school in Australia by an English teacher from Manchester.
However I often get corrected by other English speaking people and they said
it's wrong, spell it "learnED"

This is another one of those confusing things for people learning English. Both are correct and mean the same thing, but "learnt" is more common in British English, while "learned" is more common in American English. So the people who are correcting you are probably American. Being American myself, hearing someone use "learnt" does sound strange (even my browser's spell-checker is telling me it isn't a word, even though it is!), but grammatically there isn't anything wrong with it.

Yes, I think so. I often see corns on the pizza.
Don't you put them on yours?

I've never seen corn as a topping on pizza here in America. I'm sure somewhere there is a restaurant that offers it, but it isn't common. I'd like to try it someday, though.

"I often see corn on pizza."

When talking about the food, "corn" generally doesn't need an "s" to be plural.

"the" should be taken out as well because you're talking about pizza in general. If you say, "I often see corn on the pizza," it sounds like your talking about one, specific pizza.

I think
if you ask Japanese people "What's Japanese pizza like?"
Some people might not know what to say.
They don't know the original pizza (Italian Pizza)is like,
so they can't compare.

I've heard this is the same for American pizza, too. I've never had real Italian pizza before, but I've been told it's very different from American pizza.

In Japan, you can see Pizza or pasta with something like, many types of mushrooms,dried seaweeds,umeboshi (I don't know how to say it in English, but let me try...pickled plums with salt and red-shiso harb),dried bonito(katsuo bushi) and other seafood. Oh and they usually have soy-sause taste.

Did you know that cheese & soy-sause go well!

My dictionary translates うめぼし as "dried plum," so I suppose that's how it's said.

We have a variety of toppings here for pizza and pasta, too, though they're all a lot more unhealthy than the Japanese toppings (which is typical for America, unfortunately!). We use a lot of meats such as sausages, beef, chicken, tomato sauce, alfredo sauce and more. We also use many different vegetables.

I didn't know that cheese and soy sauce go together. It seems like they wouldn't taste very good put together, but since I've never had it, I'm probably wrong! I'll have to try it some day.

mmm, everytime I talk about food, my stomach goes "ぐるるるる" to tell me
it have to be fed!

Me too, but I'm prepared today. I'm typing this while cooking lunch.

You know if you can come to Nagano (where I currently live),
you can have "Soba soft icecreams" (soft serve, you call?I don't remember the name for it, but in Japanes ソフトクリーム) and they are yummy!
and Soba-cha (tea) is also yummy.
Nagano is famous for Soba, so there are many restaurants you can go to,
and there are many varieties of soba noodles you can buy at a supermarket!

Now that I think about it, I have had one type of soba before. I had やきそば when I was at a festival in あさくさ. It was quite good, and very filling.

"Soft serve ice cream" is what we call ソフトクリーム here in the United States, but sometimes I've heard "soft serve" used as a shortened form, so I suppose either will work. Next time I go to Japan, I'll see if I can go to Nagano to try some of its famous soba! I'd also like to go to Hiroshima, which I hear is famous for its おこのみやき.

Do you know how to cook Japanese style curry?

I don't know how to cook it myself, but I live about a half hour drive away from a Japanese supermarket, and they sell pre-made curry sauce that I buy whenever I'm in the area.

My local supermarket has also started carrying it in the "asian foods" section, but they charge a lot of money for it because it is a specialty item there.

いいえ！そんなことありません。

とっても勉強になりました。

よかったです。　本当に厳しすぎましたと思っていまし た。　

でも、直してくれるのに　時間がかかったでしょう？

ご親切にありがとうございました！

どういたしまして。

時間がかかりましたけど、かまいません。　

By the way, I found a web site that may be useful to you. It has a lot of FAQs (frequently asked questions) about English grammar on it. The link is below.

Dr. Grammar - Frequently Asked Questions

またね！