|
 |
Trip to Osaka in a month | ||
Tags: Japan | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4301 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes  Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 9 03 November 2014 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I've got a short work-related trip to Osaka in a month. It'll just last for a few days but like any good HTLALer
I'm not going to miss out on this opportunity to go out of my way speak Japanese with native speakers in Japan or more accurately torture them with my phrasebook Japanese. I have almost zero Japanese except a couple of Pimsleur lessons on my mp3 player (yes it was that long ago) when I was in college and a whole lot of technical terms in Judo since I was a hardcore Judo nut (I started playing when I was 14 and was collegiate champion twice) but I know that amounts to just about zilch. Any suggestions on what material will help give me a bunch of good phrases I can try out? I hope I can use this thread to ask really silly newbie questions and torture you guys as I go along, like what is the difference between: Eigo ga hanasemaska?; and, Eigo wa hanasemaska? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4147 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 9 04 November 2014 at 1:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Go ahead. You've got a sucker for Japanese-related question torture here. :)
I'll follow this thread so as to answer your questions unless somebody else does. There are a thousand ways to explain why "ga" and "wa" are different. It's so bad that if you ask a different Japanese person everyday, you'll get a different answer each day. :) However, the way I teach the difference between those particles is this: -"Wa" is purely a topic marker (indicating that what you're asking the interlocutor is specifically if they can speak English, not French nor Dutch). -"Ga" is an subject marker (indicating that the subject of the action "hanaseru" is "eigo"). As you can see, from this explanation there is no right or wrong alternative, it's just the nuance that changes when you change particles. However, I will add that the cheat-out to remembering when to use which one is that "ga" is mostly (and by mostly I mean 80% of the time) followed by verbs or adverb+verb combos, whereas "wa" is more commonly followed by nouns and adjectives. A few examples: + Nimotsu ga arimasuka? + Anna no ie wa akai desu. + Matsumoto-san wa yuki ga kirai desu. (Kirau means "to hate") Another cheat-out: when in doubt, omit the particle. This is very common in modern colloquial Japanese, and won't get you in hot water while out in town, eating and looking around (although it may get you in trouble at work :p). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4478 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 9 07 November 2014 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
"Eigo wa hanasemaska" (I think) means "English? do you speak it? (I don't care about reading or writing, just speaking)". "Eigo ga hanasemaska?" (I think) means "Do you speak English" (I'm not asking about Spanish or anything else, just English)". So it's all emphasis. Do you care that they speak English or do you care that they speak English? I suspect the former, so I think you probably want "Eigo ga hanasemaska?" In essence the difference between the two won't be a problem at all if all you have is a little Pimsleur. I expect that they'll appreciate the effort and switch to English. It's been a while since I tried Pimsleur out but I think it does have some variants of "Eigo ga hanasemaska?" or similar quite early on. It also covers general thanking and generally apologising for interrupting someone with a question, so you might want to check those out (and switch to "sumimasen, eigo ga hanasemaska"). Someone from my office went to Tokyo for a holiday with almost no Japanese and came back saying that they were very helpful and polite and he basically had no issues at all. Edited by dampingwire on 07 November 2014 at 12:47am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4660 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 4 of 9 07 November 2014 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Just wanted to agree with what the others said. And the people here in Osaka are pretty cool and friendly - more laid-back than people in Tokyo, in my opinion, so you shouldn't have too many problems.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6410 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 9 07 November 2014 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
you make me feel old... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4478 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 9 07 November 2014 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I stopped using the CD player in my car a few years ago and moved to an MP3 player. Am I out of date already :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4301 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 9 25 January 2015 at 3:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
My trip to Osaka turned out fantastic, despite it being postponed. I spent some time in Tokyo too after my
work-related activities in Osaka. Yes, the people in Japan are so helpful and polite, and traveling around Japan is really convenient. Yes, I did torture the ears of several Japanese waiters and waitresses with my phrasebook-level Japanese but they overall seemed very appreciative of my efforts. And of course, being such a language buff, like most people on this HTLAL, saying Korekudasai while pointing at a picture in a menu was enough to make me smile inside, and probably it showed outside too. Being caught up in my current TL, Mandarin Chinese, while I've been living in China for the past two years, getting joy from being to able to say the most basic niceties in foreign language brought back some of the bubbly excitement with foreign language learning that I feel much less with my protracted struggle with Mandarin. Thanks to all the HTLALers who replied to my post. =) Edited by Duke100782 on 25 January 2015 at 3:15am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6410 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 9 25 January 2015 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're just as sane as I am ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
