sentence structure... i'm struggling to grasp

[Miyavifan]

Originally Posted by MMM

It is true. You will often hear Japanese conversations where the subject is mentioned only once, if at all.

ah, ok.......

[chryuop]

Originally Posted by MMM

It is true. You will often hear Japanese conversations where the subject is mentioned only once, if at all.

The problem is that in Japanese is a little bit harder to understand. There are other languages where the same thing happens like Spanish and Italian. I showed once to a person that I could write a text of around 30-40 lines introducing the subjects (2 people plus the firm they were working for) in the beginning and I didn't repeat them at all in the whole text (of course the style becomes not really pretty).
But languages like Italian, Spanish, French...have something which is "conjugating verbs", even if you don't put the subject you can easily understand what the verb refers to. Of course the point is that it is used the same level of politeness through the whole dialogue since in those languages the level of politeness is addressing to people with a plural verb.

In Japanese in my opinion is much harder, because the verbs are not so obvious lacking a real conjugation.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by chryuop

The problem is that in Japanese is a little bit harder. There are other languages where the same thing happens like Spanish and Italian. I showed once to a person that I could write a text of around 30-40 lines introducing the subjects (2 people plus the firm they were working for) in the beginning and I didn't repeat them at all in the whole text (of course the style becomes not really pretty).
But languages like Italian, Spanish, French...have something which is "conjugating verbs", even if you don't put the subject you can easily understand what the verb refers to.

In Japanese in my opinion is much harder, because the verbs are not so obvious lacking a real conjugation.

Japanese is all about context, and verbs certainly are conjugated, just not in the same ways they are in Spanish, French or Italian. To me, it us much simpler, as there is no difference in the way "I go" "You go" "They go" are conjugated, where all three are different in romance languages.

In Japanese unnecessary words are dropped. That's why "I" and especially "you" appear so rarely. "I am hungry" just becomes "am hungry" because it would be unlikely for you to be talking about anyone else's appetite. And if you are you would make it clear. "Are you hungry?" becomes "are hungry?" because who else would you be talking about?

[CaptainThunder]

Originally Posted by MMM

"I am hungry" just becomes "am hungry" because it would be unlikely for you to be talking about anyone else's appetite. And if you are you would make it clear. "Are you hungry?" becomes "are hungry?" because who else would you be talking about?

I'm not sure what you intend to illustrate with this example, since as you yourself stated, there is no "is"/"are" distinction in Japanese; the verbs remain the same across subjects. I'm pretty sure that to make it explicit that you were addressing the listener, you'd need to either throw in a pronoun, or a particle at the end of the sentence like か or ね ("is hungry" and "is hungry?" seems like a pretty clear distinction to me).

Although maybe I just misunderstood you

EDIT: Yeah, I misunderstood, the fact that you used "are" in the second sentence is coincidental, and the question mark is the critical part, as I alluded to. Sorry about that.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by CaptainThunder

I'm not sure what you intend to illustrate with this example, since as you yourself stated, there is no "is"/"are" distinction in Japanese; the verbs remain the same across subjects. I'm pretty sure that to make it explicit that you were addressing the listener, you'd need to either throw in a pronoun, or a particle at the end of the sentence like か or ね ("is hungry" and "is hungry?" seems like a pretty clear distinction to me).

Although maybe I just misunderstood you

EDIT: Yeah, I misunderstood, the fact that you used "are" in the second sentence is coincidental, and the question mark is the critical part, as I alluded to. Sorry about that.

Let me restate it, and it will either be more or less confusing.

Instead of saying "I am hungry." you would say "[state of being] hungry." as it is less than likely you would know or be talking about someone else's hunger.

When you ask someone if they are hungry you would ask "[state of being] hungry?" as it would be less than likely you are asking about anyone else but the person the question is directed to.

おなかすいた。

ONAKA SUITA. = I am hungry.

おなかすいた？

ONAKA SUITA? = Are you hungry?

[chryuop]

Originally Posted by MMM

Japanese is all about context, and verbs certainly are conjugated, just not in the same ways they are in Spanish, French or Italian. To me, it us much simpler, as there is no difference in the way "I go" "You go" "They go" are conjugated, where all three are different in romance languages.

In Japanese unnecessary words are dropped. That's why "I" and especially "you" appear so rarely. "I am hungry" just becomes "am hungry" because it would be unlikely for you to be talking about anyone else's appetite. And if you are you would make it clear. "Are you hungry?" becomes "are hungry?" because who else would you be talking about?

Yes, above all when you are talking about yourself it is easy. But I will offer you an example. We are in the same room along with my brother and my sister and later on they exit the room and I tell you: マーケットへ行った, it is kinda hard for you to understand who I am referring to...the boy, the girl or the both of them. With Spanish you can understand if only one or both went, with Italian and French (if not wrong about the latter) you can even understand if the boy or the girl went out without the subject.

True tho that the use of too many pronouns in Japanese can make the phrase even more misleading. It happened to me once that I was closing an email saying that my daughter wanted me to play with her and I wrote 娘は私を呼んでいるから、彼女と遊びたい (if I well remember). I got a reply saying that I didn't need to use 彼女, because it could be understood there was another woman present.

[Lucas89]

Originally Posted by chryuop

We are in the same room along with my brother and my sister and later on they exit the room and I tell you: マーケットへ行った, it is kinda hard for you to understand who I am referring to...

Just out of curiosity and correct me if i'm wrong here, but if they both left the room at the same time, would context not tell you that you are talking about both of them?
Since if one went to the market and the other went somewhere else would you not have to specify who went to the market, unless of course you were talking about one of them beforehand or something like that?

[chryuop]

Depends on the language. In Italian for example (and I think French too, but as I said I don't recall very well) the past participle shows gender and number so the subject is useless. Thus only saying "has gone to the market" would be enough to make you understand the sex and number of the subject. For Spanish doesn't work for the gender, but it does work for the number.
This really creates very little confusion and makes clear to the person listening what it was said.

My point was that in Japanese that comes out harder because many times the situation can make the phrase ambiguous (and I know Japanese people like this characteristic of their language), thus for learner like me it becomes harder to learn.

[abraincell]

Originally Posted by MMM

Japanese is all about context, and verbs certainly are conjugated, just not in the same ways they are in Spanish, French or Italian. To me, it us much simpler, as there is no difference in the way "I go" "You go" "They go" are conjugated, where all three are different in romance languages.

In Japanese unnecessary words are dropped. That's why "I" and especially "you" appear so rarely. "I am hungry" just becomes "am hungry" because it would be unlikely for you to be talking about anyone else's appetite. And if you are you would make it clear. "Are you hungry?" becomes "are hungry?" because who else would you be talking about?

ja, i guess this is the part that totally throws me off. english and (to some degree) indonesian need i and you most of the time, so when i tried to make sentence in japanese always ended up with lotsa watashi wa to start the sentence. the sentences then looked and also sounds funnie

[MMM]

Originally Posted by abraincell

ja, i guess this is the part that totally throws me off. english and (to some degree) indonesian need i and you most of the time, so when i tried to make sentence in japanese always ended up with lotsa watashi wa to start the sentence. the sentences then looked and also sounds funnie

Just drop the "watashi wa"s and you will sound much more natural.