Nominalization: こと + の

Of all the grammatical structures we studied in class, the one I wished I had studied harder is nominalization: turning a verb or adjective into a noun so that it can be used as the subject or the object of a sentence. Although only four pages are devoted to nominalization, my advice to you, dear reader, is spend a lot of time practicing nominalized forms.

Nominalizing Verbs

Seeing is believing. In this example, the 〜ing form makes nouns (gerunds) out of the verbs to see and to believe.

NP1は NP2 =
見ることは 信じること です。
みることは しんじること です。

Any plain form of a verb can be nominalized: positive, negative, present, past, continuous. So my real complaint is that I did not spend enough time in class studying plain forms. My weakness is remembering the negative past. I think too much of the beginning student's time is spent focused on learning 〜ます forms. Plain forms are used in so many ways--not just in informal speech.

In "Using Japanese" (Would that be 「日本語を使うこと」? or is he using 〜ing to make the continuous? In English, it's hard to differentiate.), William McClure says that the main difficulty for the student is learning when to use こと and when to use の. "Yookoso!" explains that こと is used for generalizations and の is used when talking about subjective or personal experience.

Maybe my real problem is that I'm getting this mixed up with the のだ｜のです、んだ｜んです. (Yookoso! Book 1. Grammar Point 20.) But I don't think so. I think the real problem is that Yookoso! introduces them as two separate grammar points. I think that GP20 is just one situation in which you use nominalized verbs. So Yookoso! confuses the issue by teaching usage before grammar and then treating them as two different things.

Posted by スティーブンズ. February 17, 2005
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Harry Potter Chapter 7 Stats

All through Chapter 7, I've felt pretty discouraged. Every page seems just as difficult as the last. It takes me just as long to get through a page as it did in the beginning. There are very few sentences I can understand without parsing them. So I don't have any sense of progress at all. However, I still think that my main problem is a lack of vocabulary. And although I forget a lot, it is easier for me to remember words I learned in context of the story.

I did learn two new ways of expressing probability: 「に違いない」if you are pretty certain about something, and 「かもしれません」if you're not. Turns out I was supposed to learn this in first-year Japanese, but our teacher skipped that section.

Nouns

Verbs

In Compounds

Posted by スティーブンズ. February 16, 2005
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Comparatives and Superlatives

I had the opportunity last week to practice some old grammar points from first year Japanese: comparatives and superlatives. The textbook (Yookoso! 1 GP18) is pretty confusing. And although I remember this grammar in theory, putting it into practice is much more difficult.

In both Japanese and English you use different forms when you want to compare two things and when you want to compare three or more things.

  Comparative Superlative
attributes bigger, better, more beautiful biggest, best, most beautiful
actions jumps higher, runs faster jumps (the) highest, runs (the) fastest
alternatives Which is better?
=> A or B? A is better.		 Which is the best? A or B or C?
=> C is the best.
What is the most expensive hotel in Tokyo?
=> Hotel X is the most expensive hotel in Tokyo.
sameness My car is about as old as your car.  

Comparing Attributes

Learning how to make comparisons in Japanese reminds me again how glad I am that I'm not studying English. In English when you compare the attributes of two things, English adjectives change form: (big, bigger), (small, smaller), (new, newer). This 〜er form is called the comparative form.

Compared With: NP より

Japanese adjectives do not have a comparative form. To compare two things, you use a specific sentence structure which basically means, NP1=Predicate Adjective, compared with NP2.

A: Austin is big. オースティンは　大きい　です。
B: Austin's not big. オースティンは　大きくない　です。
A: Compared with San Marcos. サンマーコスより。
B: Compared with San Marcos, Austin is big.
= Austin is bigger than San Marcos.		 サンマーコスより　オースティンは　大きい　です。
＝　オースティンは　サンマーコスより　大きい　です。

Austin is big compared with San Marcos. In Japanese, the word order is a different: literally, "Austin, compared with San Marcos, is big." This is a perfectly understandable English sentence. What makes it a bit difficult for English speakers is we like to keep our subjects and predicates together. "Austin is big compared with San Marcos." Or using the comparative form, "Austin is bigger than San Marcos."

Another example. My husband's car is old. But it's newer than my car. So I'm not saying that my husband's car is new, just that it is more new than my car. That sounds really awkward, right? So with 〜er adjectives just think, "newer than", "bigger than", "smaller than".

Many English adjectives don't have an 〜er form. You can't say "It's interestinger." You say "It's more interesting". So another English translation of より is "more [adjective] than".

EnglishNP1は NP2より Predicate Adjective (positive)
Kyoto is beautiful. 京都は きれい　だ。
Kyoto, compared with Tokyo, is beautiful.
= Kyoto is more beautiful than Tokyo.		 京都は東京よりきれい　だ。
I think Kyoto is more beautiful than Tokyo. 京都は東京よりきれい　だ　と　おもいます。

Making comparisons in Japanese is easy if you remember that the predicate refers to the topic (NP1は).

Everything else you've learned about adjectives applies. The adjective in the predicate can be formal or informal. It can be non-past, past, or probable. It can be an i-adjective or a na-adjective.

〜より positive、〜ほど negative

There is one exception: positive vs. negative.

Sentence Pattern: Comparative Adjectives (Positive)

NP1は NP2より Predicate Adjective (positive)
オースティンは サンマーコスより 大きい　です。
Austin compared with San Marcos is big.
=> Austin is bigger than San Marcos.

Sentence Pattern: Comparative Adjectives (Negative)

NP1は NP2ほど Predicate Adjective (negative)
オースティンは ダラスほど 大きくない　です。
Austin compared with Dallas is not big.
=> Austin is not as big as Dallas.    

If the adjective is negative, make one small change: replace より with ほど。You do the same type of thing in English: "is bigger than NP2" => "is not as big as NP2"

Comments and Notes...
Posted by スティーブンズ. February 12, 2005
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Harry Potter Chapter 6 Stats

2005-01-22 I finally completed Chapter 6. It seemed very long! AJM hopes that at some point the amount of new words I need to learn will taper off. But right now, each page still has more new vocabulary and kanji than I can learn in a day. So I continue to look up just the more common words. I review my kanji cards every evening. If I have any doubts about the reading or the meaning of a kanji I've learned in the past, I pull it out of my kanji box and add it to the review stack. It's still true that once I learn a kanji, I start seeing it everywhere. Even rereading Chapter 1, I'm recognizing kanji I glossed over originally.

To counter the feeling of being completely overwhelmed by new vocabulary, I started paying more attention to grammar points this chapter. I think it's really fun to review a grammar point and then find instances of it in the text. For some reason, this reminds me when I used to write programming standards and review code for standards compliance.

Nouns

Verbs

In Compounds

Posted by スティーブンズ. January 23, 2005
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It's Just That: 〜の

One of the most common sentence structures in Chapter 6 is sentences ending in 〜のだ、〜んだ、or just 〜の. This structure is used for explanations and sharing information, so it's very conversational. "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" explains that the 〜の is used primarily by women. Thinking about it, I suddenly hear the housewives in Ozu's おはよう talking. 「どうしたの？」

Mrs. Weasley

Mrs. Weasley uses this form, when she first meets Harry. It makes her sound kind and motherly.

Hermione

Hermione used it five times in her first meeting with Ron and Harry. When Hermione uses this form, it stresses her bossy, Miss Know-it-All tone of voice; she's treating them like children.

Professor McGonagall

In Chapter 1, McGonagall and Dumbledore have a long conversation in which a lot of explanations are asked for and given. However, she uses this form only once. Her tone of voice is curt and business-like. For an excellent explanation of how Dumbledore speaks in Japanese, see cjvlang site. This site gave me the idea to try to read Harry Potter in Japanese in the first place.

Maybe I'm missing something here. Normally the verb should be informal: なったの？ rather than なりましたの？

Posted by スティーブンズ. January 20, 2005
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