昨日はAJMのたんじょうびだった。
彼は40才だ。
「おじいちゃん」と言いています。
でも彼は私よりわかい。
来週の週末にパーティーをある。
昨日はレストランに行った。
彼はしょうくじが好きだった。でも私は美味しくなかった。
プレゼントは「PS２」だ。
たぶん男の子だけど。
Generally Speaking
Yesterday was AJM's birthday. He's 40! I'm going to start calling him "Gramps". Actually, he's younger than I am. Next weekend we'll have a party. Yesterday we went to a restaurant (to celebrate). He liked the food, but I didn't think it was very good. As for presents, he's getting a Playstation 2. I think he's just a boy at heart.
質問とコメント
A lot of new grammar in class this week. We are finally learning the informal past tense of both verbs and adjectives. Kiyo said that blogs, like journals and newspapers, are typically written with informal (plain) forms. I hadn't learned them yet. That's why I've always used the ~masu forms.
Because this is new to me, I had to write it in the formal first and then translate it into informal. Right now, all these different tenses are a jumble in my brain. It seems like we use one tense for months, and then in one week we learned several. It's a bit confusing. I need go go do some homework now.
You know, 40 used to be considered old--or at least well into middle-age. Now people are more active, getting married and having kids later. So 40 doesn't seem "old" to me. But that might just be because I passed it a long time ago.
Permalink.
今日はインフォーマルな日本語使い始まり？おめでとう！実はね、僕はインフォーマルすぎ。もっと丁寧語(formal speech - "masu" "desu" etc.)使ったほうがいいと思う。でも、僕には、丁寧語の使うのは、つまらない。
-ジェイソン
Posted by: Jason Cha on March 4, 2003 08:58 AM
Blogs in Japanese are still in the beginning phase, and it completely depends on the person as to what forms to use. Interesting, I felt the "masu" form sounds more casual and familiar for your blog. You may find it difficult, but the "da" form can sound conventional and is not necessarily an "informal" form. I sometimes feel more at ease with writing in English than in Japanese. I think you can try various forms in this blog.
Oh, please say Happy Birthday to AJM for me. :) 私も心のなかはまだ「男の子」です。;)
ところでジェイソン、どうして丁寧語を使うのはつまらないの？
Posted by: Kiyo on March 4, 2003 10:00 AM
Thanks for the encouragement, guys. It's fun to try something new and, of course, one purpose of this blog is to practice what I'm learning in class. But the plain form sound a bit to "manly" for me. Or maybe I should practice it while writing a rant of some sort.
Kiyo, perhaps "~masu" forms sound more natural for me because of my age and because I'm a woman. Even in English, the tone of my blogs tends to reflect my age, I think. Also, I spent almost 20 years writing technical manuals and papers. So it's very difficult for me to overcome my desire to be exact, even though I'm aware that my writing sometimes sounds stilted as a result. I still haven't found my "voice" with blogs, either in English or in Japanese. It's almost like letters, but my writing is still not as natural as my letters used to be. (Possibly because half the time I'm writing to a specific audience like you guys and half the time I'm trying to write general informative piece for whomever drops by.)
Another factor in my tone is that I possess a natural reserve that makes me cringe from the overly familiar. In America, people first see me as shy and then as cold or stuck-up. In fact, I'm neither. I'm just more comfortable in my two adopted countries, Japan and England, where people seem to understand personal boundaries and respect your privacy.
Posted by: M on March 4, 2003 10:38 AM
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