Hello yumyumtimtam!
I'm not too bad, thank you. I hope you're well.
I have been quite interested in certain aspects of Japanese culture for a long time. It started when I began practising karate around the age of 10 or so. I loved the self-discipline and even the atmosphere of the dojo. Unfortunately other things in my life (mostly school-work) cut down on the time I had available to practise and I stopped attending classes. I am actually planning to start learning aikido soon.
Anyway, so I'm also interested in Buddhism, but that's another story really. As for learning Japanese itself, I love languages, and have always enjoyed studying both the structure of language and thinking about how different societies and cultures form and are formed by their languages. I have studied french classical greek, latin, classical hebrew, russian (ish!) and a little bit of german. My vocation is science, but I want to keep my brain in multi-lingual mode as much as possible.
So, I hope that begins to answer your question, and you can appreciate that I enjoy learning foreign languages purely for its own pleasure too. It sounds like you've had quite an adventure, and I'm glad that you were able to fulfil your dream. I would love to hear more about your time in Europe. Did you spend much time in England? Where did you visit?
So I thought I would start out by quoting your post with corrections in
blue. If this seems rude or patronising please let me know and I'll stop! Apologies in advance. I won't make comments unless I find a point of interest, so please ask if a correction doesn't make sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yumyumtimtam
はじめまして。
日本人（にほんじん）のyumyumtimtam です。
よろしく おねがいします。
Hello, sarvodaya さん.
How are you today?
I will try my best to help you with Japanese.
It would be wonderful if you could help my English too.
May I ask you what made you want to learn Japanese?
In my case, I simply wanted to live overseas to see how the people live there,especially in English speaking countries. So I thought I needed to be able to understand what they are saying and also to be understood.
[no and at beginning of sentence] I decided to go and live in Australia for a while after finishing [no my] college in Japan. I had a wonderful time there. After that, I went backpacking around Europe. So I think I did see how the people live overseas, so one of my dreams came true, but I didn't stop learning English. Actually I didn't want to stop. Learning foreign languages is very very interesting.
さっそくですが、ひとつ えいごのしつもんが ありま す
Id like to know how to use "ish"... Can you help me?
I heard people (at a pub in Walthamstow,England) using "ish" a lot in their conversation. I mean I learnt words like... childish,selfish... but never heard nor used just "ish" as one word.
にほんごのしつもんも たのしみに おまちしています
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Now for "ish".
You will have noticed that I used "ish" as an independent word above in discussing learning russian.
As a suffix, -ish is simply used to modify a noun, as in your examples child or self, to form an adjective; thus childish or selfish. As a general rule the resulting adjective will have a related meaning such as "child-like". Obviously "self-like" isn't very illuminating, but here it means "self-interested", "self-centred" or putting oneself before others.
Now, I think you're asking about "ish" when it appears as a word by itself, right? This is very much a colloquialism, used only in casual speech. It's not something I personally use very often. It is used to modify the intensity of an expression, usually an attributive phrase. Thus, when I used it above, I meant that my study of russian wasn't nearly as formal or extensive as my studies in classical greek or french. It can be appended to an adjective to modify it's intensity:
"The lamp shade has a yellowish tinge."
"John tends to arrive early-ish, around 8 a.m."
It can be used after a slight pause, indicating that you have reconsidered the extremity implied by what you have said and want to quickly modify it, as in the following example.
"Sarah was absolutely crazy. Ish. Well I mean, she shouldn't be sectioned or anything, but her behaviour scared me!"
"The leaves have turned a fiery red. Ish, or at least they are turning that way."
Or it can even be a response, indicating that you disagree with the intensity of the speaker's attribution of a property, but agree with the general idea, as in the following example.
"Tony Blair was a great leader."
"Ish! I mean, I think that the same qualities that made him great at times were also his downfall."
I think those are the main points about ish, but do ask if anything is unclear.