Learn Japanese

2021-03-01 08:17:30 in the previous example, 彼女はりんごを食べる can also mean "she eats apples" as in someone who eats apples vs someone who doesn't eat apples Open / Comment

2021-03-01 08:16:17 to say that someone is doing an action, you use the て form and います (formal)/いる (informal)

for example

彼女はりんごを食べる [かのじょはりんごをたべる] "she eats an apple", it can also mean "she is eating an apple"

but if you want to be explicit that she is eating the apple right now, you'd say

彼女はりんごを食べている [かのじょはりんごをたべている] Open / Comment

2021-02-12 22:17:46 you can do this with other い adjectives

like 美味しい [おいしい] meaning "delicious" or "tasty"

美味しい食べ物 [おいしいたべもの] "delicious food" or "tasty food"

美味しくない食べ物 [おいしくないたべもの] "non-delicious food" or "non-tasty food"

though, it isn't necessarily *bad* food

think of a single scale of

-5 to 5

where 5 is delicious, and -5 is bad

美味しい would be a 5 or very close to 5

美味しくない would be somewhere between 0 and 5, but not too close to 5 Open / Comment

2021-02-12 22:14:58 for all of the い adjectives (like 白い [しろい] meaning "white")

there are X-くない forms to them, meaning "not X"

for example

白い車 [しろいくるま] means "white car"

and

白くない車 [白くない車] means "a car that is not white" Open / Comment

2021-02-06 01:12:17 or using あなた (which isn't actually used in conversation, with possibly the only exception of a woman talking to her husband), this is actually used for scolding someone

like saying 何してるんだ？ [なにしてるんだ] vs あなた何してるんだ？ [あなたなにしてるんだ？]

the first one is "what are you doing?" the second is more like "do you realize what are you doing?"

in textbook grammar they are both the same, but in conversation people usually don't use あなた Open / Comment

2021-02-06 01:12:12 a lot of swear words in English are related to sex, like "fuck" or "bitch"

in Japanese, they do exist, but they are rarely used, at least in conversation, maybe they're used in novels? (I'm not sure)

for example

calling someone 部数 [ぶす] "ugly" or 禿 [はげ] "bald" or "baldy"

is more common

another way people "talk down" or offend others is by deliberately using pronouns that aren't respectful

like calling someone 貴様 [きさま] or お前 [おまえ] Open / Comment

2021-02-03 03:01:46 意味 [いみ] means meaning, as in "the meaning of that word" Open / Comment

2021-02-03 03:00:50 it does have a kanji by the way, I forgot to use it, it's 分かんない [わかんない] Open / Comment

2021-02-03 03:00:12 わかんない is a sort of contraction of わからない, it's probably more common in spoken Japanese than in written Japanese

you might have heard it in anime, but I think it's more rare in manga? (maybe not?) Open / Comment

2021-02-03 02:58:38 けど and でも can both mean "but" or "however" but I think けど is more common when "talking out loud" like I was doing Open / Comment