Sentence Structure

[alanX]

Originally Posted by MMM

"Onna kirei na" sounds like something a monkey or 1960's robot would say.

Well I'm pretty sure I've said that at least 10 times to native Japanese, and they understood completely what I was saying, and didn't question it at all.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by alanX

Well I'm pretty sure I've said that at least 10 times to native Japanese, and they understood completely what I was saying, and didn't question it at all.

"Onna" used by itself is a bit of a degrading term for "Onna no ko" or "Onna no hito". When obviously not meant to be degrading, it sounds childish or robotic.

"Onna kirei na" means "Women are pretty".

I have found I have to tell my Japanese friends to correct me, or else they will just nod and giggle when I butcher the language. It isn't in their nature to correct people's Japanese.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by alanX

Well I'm pretty sure I've said that at least 10 times to native Japanese, and they understood completely what I was saying, and didn't question it at all.

Being understood and being gramatically correct are two entirely different things. When a little robot girl in Chobits says あたしわかりますです, I understand what she's saying, but she's terrifically ungrammatical about it. It's supposed to make her sound cute. But her grammar is terrible.

I'd gesture at the girl and say きれいなぁ.

Someone earlier in the thread did, however, point out an interesting thing about その vs. あの. The former usually is used when referring to things unfamiliar to the addressee, and the latter to things more familiar. For example, if you told a story about a hot spring that you went to with the addressee, you could talk about あの温泉. If you were relating your experience to someone who hasn't been there or didn't go with you, その温泉 is more correct.

I suppose this might transfer over to talking about a girl walking by, but I sure wouldn't bet on it. In that sense, the difference between その and あの is more likely to express the nearness of the girl to the addressee. And hopefully the girl is not within earshot, so あの is better.

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by alanX

Well I'm pretty sure I've said that at least 10 times to native Japanese, and they understood completely what I was saying, and didn't question it at all.

Well broken Japanese is just as annoying as broken English if you keep it up for extended periods of time so why make an ass of yourself when you don't have to.

It's like saying "me speak english good". Nobody thinks its cute if they say it constantly. 女きれいな is on the same level of brokeness.

The other key ingredient that is missing is intonation イントネーション. It's never taught in Japanese lessons for some very bizarre reason and on Japanese TV, they do such good 外人 Japanese accents.

Anyway I'm going on a tangent now.

[Iftikhar]

I want to learn Japanese ... I am in Japan ....reading books ...but very little talking .... I want to practice it .... is there any solution for this

[Gackt21]

Kono onnanoko wa kireina desu.
このうおんあのこわきれいなです。

Sentence structure is correct.
1.Time
2. person/object
3. what you have to say about the object.

if you all need more help one place that a Japanese friend of mine on Facebook directed me to is A better way to learn. - iKnow!. It night help you more with seeing sentence stucture and learning to read charaters.

Hope this helped.
ばいーばい。
さよおなら。

[Hatredcopter]

[alanX]

Originally Posted by Gackt21

Kono onnanoko wa kireina desu.
このうおんあのこわきれいなです。

Sentence structure is correct.
1.Time
2. person/object
3. what you have to say about the object.

if you all need more help one place that a Japanese friend of mine on Facebook directed me to is A better way to learn. - iKnow!. It night help you more with seeing sentence stucture and learning to read charaters.

Hope this helped.
ばいーばい。
さよおなら。

Quit.......just.....quit.

[PokemonTrainer]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

Your sentence is essentially correct, but no one in Japan really speaks that way. The simple/common way to say it would be to look in the direction of the girl and use "kirei-na...".

Agreed. The way the OP wrote it sounds like he was talking about a little girl.. which was creepy.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Iftikhar

I want to learn Japanese ... I am in Japan ....reading books ...but very little talking .... I want to practice it .... is there any solution for this

You're in Japan? What are you doing? Uni or work? Go to a bar, get drunk, talk to patrons. Especially old men. They love to shoot the shit with ferners when they're drunk.

There's also the time-honored tradition of getting a Japanese girl/boyfriend.

Also, now now, everyone. Gackt is clearly trying hard. I take issue with the seemingly authoritative stance she took in her latest post, but at least she's not spamming the board with "ZOMG HOW DO I LURND JAPANESE W/O BOOKS OR SCHOOL."