Japanaesop

For your reading and practicing pleasure:
Aesop's Fables in Japanese, one for each day of the year.

Can you kanji?

Take your first, hesitant steps on the road to kanji proficiency using the all-new Kanji quiz. Clicking 'Learn' lets you look at a string with kanji in it, and enter hiragana (and sometimes katakana), followed by the English translation between brackets. Make sure your keyboard is set up so you can type kana. You can also check the box marked 'Ignore stuff in parentheses', so that only entering the kana is enough. There's still some issues with spaces here and there.
If this is too cumbersome, try 'Play Scatter' instead.
As the previous list, I'll be updating this one as the course goes on.
Enjoy!

Let the games begin!

Well, our new Japanese course has started, and that means new words to learn. To help you, here are the words in quiz form.

Note that the entry for いろいろ　is written 色々. The first character is a kanji, 色, which means color. The little insect next to it, 々, is neither a kanji nor a kana character, but an 'iteration mark', which is a fancy way of saying that it indicates that the previous kanji should be repeated. So 色々 is 色色 (色 on its own, by the way, means 'color'). Note that the pronunciation of the two kanji can be different, as in 時々, pronounced ときどき.

Anyway, if you click Learn in the quiz, you see the Japanese and have to guess the English. The Japanese you see is either in kanji + hiragana with hiragana in brackets after it, or in katakana. Note that it's probably best not to try and memorize the kanji yet, but to passively learn them just by looking.

I'll keep updating this list and I'll also create a list for the kanji listed at the end of each chapter, where you see the kanji (+ hiragana) and have to type the hiragana. E.g. you see 一つ and have to type ひとつ.

やるかにがっせん part 6: 3 for the price of 1!

The story so far:
おむすびを　ひろった　かにに　さるが　いいました。
The monkey said to the crab, who had found a rice ball:
「かきの　たねと　おむすびを　こうかんしようよ。　たねを　うえたら　おいしい　みが　どっさり　なるよ。」
"Let's exchange your rice ball for my kaki seed! If you planted the seed, lots of delicious fruit would grow!"
「それは　いい。　こうかんしよう。」
"OK. Let's exchange."
かにが　たねを　うえて　まいにち　みずを　やると　かきの　みが　たくさん　なりました。
When the crab planted the seed and gave it water every day, a lot of kaki fruit grew.
かには　かきを　とろうと　おもいますが　つるんと　おちて　きに　のぼることが　できません。
The crab thinks he'll pick the kaki, but he falls down making a sliding sound; he can't climb the tree.

Our next sentence is easy:
かにが　こまっていると　さるが　やってきました。
crab[subj] be-worried[ING][when] monkey[subj] come-along[polite,past]
"While the crab was worrying, along came the monkey."

The verbs used here are こまる, to be troubled or worried, used in the -ing form っている; and やってくる, which is listed in the dictionary as 'to come along/around, to turn up', used in the polite past form.

This was such a doozy that we can go straight to the next sentence.
「きのばりは　おいらに　まかせて。」
This, too, is a pretty straightforward dictionary search:
きのぼり means 'tree climbing', and is obviously related to き (tree) and the verb のぼる (to climb) that we saw two sentences ago.
おいら means 'I, me', and as 'Systemjap' explained to us in his video in an earlier post, this is a form used in manga/anime, and by little boys living in the country, as he put it.
The last word is the -TE form of まかせる, to entrust, to leave to.
Again, the translation is easy:
"Tree-climbing[topic] me[to] entrust[-TE]."
"Leave the tree climbing up to me!"

Wow, this was also easy. Let's take on something more challenging:
さるは　するすると　きに　のばり　かきを　ぱく　ぱく　ぱくと　いただきます。
The first word is our monkey.
Next するすると is listed, with and without the と, as 'swiftly, quickly'.
のばり is a noun, but it doesn't have any particle with it.
ぱく is another onomatopoeia, which stands for eating. The game PacMan is named after this sound (if you've ever played it, PacMan also makes this sound). As with onomatopoeia before, this is followed by a と for some reason. A good English equivalent would be 'myam myam myam'.
いただきます is a well-known expression, 'bon appétit', but it's also the polite form of いただく, which means (among others) to eat or drink. But this is a bit of an unusual form called "kenjougo", normally used when a lower person talks about himself to a higher one. I think that this form is used here to remind kids of the expression.
As you can see, the grammar is very loose:
monkey[subj] swiftly tree[to] ascent;climbing kaki[obj] myam-myam-myam eat[polite].
Especially the 'climbing' without any particle is strange, but we can come up with some sort of free translation:
"The monkey quickly climbed up the tree and ate the kaki. Yummy!"

やるかにがっせん part 5: onomatopoeia

The story so far:
さるかにがっせん
Monkey Crab Battle

おむすびを　ひろった　かにに　さるが　いいました。
The monkey said to the crab, who had found a rice ball:
「かきの　たねと　おむすびを　こうかんしようよ。　たねを　うえたら　おいしい　みが　どっさり　なるよ。」
"Let's exchange your rice ball for my kaki seed! If you planted the seed, lots of delicious fruit would grow!"
「それは　いい。　こうかんしよう。」
"OK. Let's exchange."
かにが　たねを　うえて　まいにち　みずを　やると　かきの　みが　たくさん　なりました。
When the crab planted the seed and gave it water every day, a lot of kaki fruit grew.

On to the next page of our story, which starts with the following long sentence:
かには　かきを　とろうと　おもいますが　つるんと　おちて　きに　のぼることが　できません。
Some words here are familiar from the sentences above.
Others are easily found in the dictionary:
とろう - to pick (as a fruit, which works perfectly with the かきを just before it)
おもいます - to think, intend, plan, which sounds like a verb that takes と (like to say). This is followed by が, which after a final form verb means 'but, and'.
Let's skip the middle for now and go to the end which is できません, which is the negative of できます, 'to be able to'. So it means 'cannot'. The sequence [verb]ことが　できます (or できません in this case) is quite typical and translates as 'can(not) [verb]'. In this case, [verb] is のぼる, 'to climb'. Before that verb is きに, which just means 'into the tree' (き means tree, but you're excused if you thought of 'spirit'. This is why Japanese needs kanji, people.)
So it starts:
crab[topic] kaki[obj] pick[that] think;believe[but]
"The crab thinks he'll pick a kaki fruit, but..."
and it ends:
tree[into] climb[subst] can[neg].
"...he can't climb into the tree."
(The [subst] is a substantivizer, meaning that it turns the verb into a noun. However, it's must easier to remember the sequence 'ことが　できます'.)

Now for the middle part, which reads つるんと　おちて. おちて is the -te form of おちる, to fall down or drop. But the つるんと was a big riddle. It wasn't in the dictionary (and neither was つるん) so I had to resort to asking real human beings in the About.com Japanese language forums. It took three days before I got the answer, but it was worth it. Turns out that つるん (or rather ツルン, the proper katakana spelling) is an onomatopoeia, that is, the imitation of a sound. These are very frequent in Japanese. This one indicates a sliding or slipping sound. The presence of the と is still a bit of a mystery. So つるんと　おちて translates to something like "ssssshhh he falls down".

So once more from the top:
かには　かきを　とろうと　おもいますが　つるんと　おちて　きに　のぼることが　できません。
"The crab thinks he'll pick the kaki, but ssssssshhhh! he falls down; he can't climb the tree."
Note that I translated the -te form as a semicolon (;) after the first verb. It seemed most natural here.

Every sentence in this story is a new lesson!

Update: As it turns out, onomatopoeia in Japanese are very different from those in other language. Although they can imitate a sound, they can just as easily refer to something completely abstract, like a feeling, or to something that doesn't make a sound. This is pretty hard to understand, but this article tries valiantly.

やるかにがっせん part 4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

In part 4 of our story, we reach the end of page 1 of the story. The last sentence is:

かにが　たねを　うえて　まいにち　みずを　やると　かきの　みが　たくさん　なりました。

You should know or recognize most of these words by know. うえて is the -て form of うえる, and なりました is the polite past tense of なる.
The tricky part is the やると in the middle. やる is a verb with many meanings: to do, to kill, to have sex, to give, to do for, and so on. We also see と used after a final form of a verb here, which would mean 'if' or 'when', or with certain verbs 'that'. This leads us to the following word-for-word translation:

crab[subj] seed[obj] plant[-て] every-day water[obj] give[when] kaki['s] fruit[subj] much grow[polite;past].

My best translation of this is:

When the crab planted the seed and gave it water every day, a lot of kaki fruit grew.

The monkey continues...

(Read this post and this post to see what came before.)
The monkey's second sentence is

たねを　うえたら　おいしい　みが　どっさり　なるよ。

The interesting word here is うえたら, so let's translate the rest immediately:
seed[obj] うえたら　delicious fruit[subj] lots-of become;grow.
Searching for うえたら in the dictionary gives no results, except for the suggestion to check the verb うえる, which means either 'to starve' or 'to plant'. Given the object 'seed', 'plant' seems the best option. But what kind of form is うえたら?
To help us find out, some Googling was in order. I found this page, which lists "tara" as a Past Conditional verb ending. This means, in plain English, that うえたら means "if (you) planted". So the whole sentence reads:
seed[obj] plant[past;cond]　delicious fruit[subj] lots-of become;grow.
"If you planted the seed, lots of delicious fruit would grow."
If you understood the story so far, the crab's response shouldn't give you any trouble:
「それは　いい。　こうかんしよう。」

What the monkey said

In the previous post, we translated the title and first sentence of a kids' story about a monkey and a crab. Now, here's what the monkey has to say:
「かきの　たねと　おむすびを　こうかんしようよ。　たねを　うえたら　おいしい　みが　どっさり　なるよ。」
The first word, かき, has a number of meanings. It connects with the next word, たね,using の. By looking for a good combination and looking at the illustration, you will discover that we are talking about the seed (たね) of a kaki (かき), a fruit that looks a bit like a tomato. The combination 'kaki seed' (かきの　たね) is connected with the next word, おむすび, which we know is 'rice ball' from the previous post, using と, meaning 'and'. So 'kaki seed and rice ball', which as a whole is followed by を, indicating that this is the direct object of the verb, which ends the sentence.
This verb is こうかんしようよ and has a few parts:

• the よ at the end indicates emphasis (more or less an exclamation mark)
• the こうかん at the beginning has various meanings, but in this context, the meaning 'exchange, substitution' makes sense, and it's also the top ranked definition if the 'Common Words only' check box is checked in the dictionary.
• The remaining middle part, しよう, is not so easy to find. Some Googling reveals that it's the volitional form of する, to do. The volitional typically translate to "let's [verb]".

So the whole sentence runs:
kaki['s] seed[and] rice ball[obj] exchange-do[vol][!]
or, freely translated:
Let's exchange the kaki seed and the rice ball!
or
Let's exchange your rice ball for my kaki seed!
Next post: what the monkey says next.

Kids' stuff

It's not very difficult to get hold of digital versions of Japanese children's books, written in hiragana only. I thought it would be a good idea to go through one of these 'books' (each book consists of no more than a few dozen sentences) and try to translate it as best we can. Doing so can help us grasp the grammar better.

I'd like to try my hand at a story called さるかにがっせん。 This is story #9 in the おはなしシリーズ series, for those of you following along at home. Already, the title is tricky. It turns out that it's three words: さる, meaning monkey, かに, meaning crab, and がっせん, which isn't listed in the dictionary. Some Googling reveals that it's a changed version of かっせん, which means battle. So the title is Monkey Crab Battle.
Lesson learned: words can change their initial sound in context. Compare fun/bun/pun.

On to the first sentence, which reads:

おむすびを　ひろった　かにに　さるが　いいました。

Luckily for us, there are spaces for the little kids, so we can tell the parts of the sentence apart:

• The first part ends in を so it's a direct object.
• The second ends in た so it's a verb in the past tense.
• The third ends in に so it's a prepositional phrase ('to X', 'in Y' or something).
• The fourth ends in が so it's a subject
• The fifth we already know as the polite past tense of いう, to say.

Working our way back from the end, the part before が is the subject, the person saying something, which is さる, which just like in the title, means monkey. So we have 'The monkey said'. The part before に is かに, the crab from the title. So, 'The monkey said to the crab.'
Then before that is a verb, and not a -て form, but a final form (past tense). So it's the past tense of something like ひろる, ひろす, ひろく etc. Searching for ひろ in the dictionary reveals a verb ひろう, meaning to pick up or to find. And finally, the object is おむすび which means rice ball.
So our final word-for-word translation is:
rice ball[obj] find[past] crab[indir obj] monkey[subj] say[polite;past]
It's important to realize that in Japanese, it's very easy to use a sentence as a modifier. That's what's going on here: the only way you can explain the final form find[past] sitting in the middle of a sentence is that it modifies something. In this case, it modifies the next word, かに, and the verb has an object, which is the おむすび or rice ball. So this is not just any crab we're talking about, but a 'found a rice ball' crab. Or as we would phrase it, the crab who found a rice ball.
Lesson learned: A final form in mid-sentence is a modifier.
So the full sentence runs:

The monkey said to the crab, who had found a rice ball:

So what did the monkey say? That is the next sentence, and also a next blog post.

Particle Man, Particle Man

One big omission from our Japanese lessons so far has been an overview of all commonly used Japanese particles and their meanings in various contexts. We've already learned that particles like が and の have a different meaning when they follow a noun or pronoun, or when they follow a verb.
Particles can actually occur in four different locations:

• After a noun or pronoun
• After the final form of a verb; that is, any verb form that can be placed at the end of a sentence
• After the -て form of a verb
• After the stem of a verb

No one particle can occur in all four of these positions, but a lot of particles can occur in at least two of these positions. So without further ado, here are the particles, where they can occur, and what they mean.

が

After a noun or pronoun

Grammatical subject of the sentence.

After a final form

Mild contrast, can be translated 'but', but very often as 'and'.

は (pronounced 'wa')

After a noun or pronoun

Topic of conversation, 'as for...'

の

After a noun or pronoun

Possession (John's book), origin (John from Daihatsu), material (wooden building), apposition (John, a doctor, ...), grammatical subject of dependent clause

After a final form

Turns the verb into a noun, e.g. 'Smoking is bad for you', 'To dance the Funky Chicken is my lifelong dream'.

を (pronounced 'o')

After a noun or pronoun

Grammatical object of a verb

から

After a noun or pronoun

from; rarely after

After a final form

because

After a -て form

after

と

After a noun or pronoun

with (as in 'accompanying'), and (between nouns)

After a final form

if, when (implying possibility); that (when used with verbs like to say, to think, to remember)

や

After a noun or pronoun

and (implying an incomplete set: 'Books and papers and more stuff like that'.

に

After an noun or pronoun

to, for (indirect grammatical object, e.g. Tim in 'I gave Tim a book'); in, on (a place); by (with a passive sentence, e.g. 'His work was studied by many people'); direct grammatical object with verbs like become, seem, meet etc.

After a verb stem

in order to (ex. えいがを みに, 'in order to see a movie': the み is the stem of みる or みます, to see).

へ (pronounced 'e')

After a noun or pronoun

to, into, towards

で

After a noun or pronoun

with, using, by means of; at; similar to 'being'

か

After a noun or pronoun

either... or...

After a final form

question mark

も

After a noun or pronoun

even, too; both... and...; nobody, nowhere etc. (with negative verb)

After a -て form

even if; whether... or...; neither... nor... (with negative verb)

では (pronounced 'dewa')

After a noun or pronoun

Grammatical subject of a negative verb

けれど or けれども

After a final form

Strong contrast: but (stronger than が).

ながら

After a verb stem

while, even though

なら

After a final form

if (hypothetical)

とき

After a final form

when ('at the time that')

のに

After a final form

although

ので

After a final form

since, because