Problem with particles
 

Hi, I need help regarding the particles for the following phrases. For 1 and 2, I do not understand why で was used instead of に? For 3, 4 and 5, why were 3 different particles being used for "laugh at"? As for 6 and 7, the particles that were used were を, whereas 8 and 9 used で. I am confused.


1. かすかな声で笑う
laugh in a dim voice

2. きざな態度で笑う
laugh in a snobbish manner




3. 自分のジョークに笑う
laugh at one's own joke

4. 自分の惨めさを笑う
laugh at one's own misery

5. 面白くないことで笑う
laugh at something that isn't funny




6. 氷の上を滑る
slide on the ice

7. テーブルの上を滑る
slide on the table

8. 床の上で滑る
slide on the floor

9. 階段で滑る
slip on the stairs

I see you get the same confusions over and over regarding particles. You absolutely need to stop thinking about English when learning this stuff.

Some languages treat things as different parts of speech. For example, the たい form of a verb behaves very much like an adjective in Japanese, but obviously "want to" never is anything close to an adjective in English.

In your first example, e.g., you laugh, and the instrument by which you laugh is a かすかな声. で is the instrumental particle. に marks the dative case grammatically (i.e., indirect object).

As for the later sentences, I don't have a good answer right now, and I'm getting offline to watch a movie (Scream 2!) with my wife now. :)

Thanks for the explanation, KyleGoetz.

Just curious. How do you guys study particles?

For the major ones, I learned them straight up individually or in pairs. は／が, に／へ, を, で,か／よ, まで／から, etc.

Then it's all about learning the minor ones as you go along, seeing them in sentences, etc. Also, when you learn new verbs, look at them in a sentence to see if they use particles the way you would expect. If they do, don't bother with stuffing more in your head—just remember "this verb is default." If there's something strange (like 要る for me is strange for "to need" because you may "need an object" in English, but in Japanese "a subject is needed").

I need a table.=テーブルが要る。
××テーブルを要る。

It's kind of the same way you learn gender in Spanish or pluralization in German. Just when you learn the new word, check to see if it's going to be something weird or not.

For example, in Spanish, most words that end in -o are masculine, and -a feminine. But "el agua" is masculine, and "la mano" is feminine.

I think that's the best way. I didn't do it that way at first, and I still sometimes forget whether 知っている takes an を or が, and I still mess up a few other verbs. For years I had に／を switched in my mixi profile when I wrote about my having 卒業ed.

Thanks for sharing, KyleGoetz.