Okay, regarding the high heel ask earlier. I see the anon was referencing this post. But contrary to [what seems to be] popular belief, it is indeed written right to left.

空に近付きたくて、
ハイヒールをはいた
I want to be closer to the sky
so I wore high heels.

Hope this clarifies everything.

-admin k

くない is the stem to make an い adjective negative
かわいい —>　かわいくない
たかい —> たかくない
あたたかい —> あたたかくない
いい —> よくない **exception
etc

じゃない　is for な adjectives
げんき —> げんきじゃない
いじわる —> いじわるじゃない
しずか —> しずかじゃない

And it’s actually ではない (or ではありません more formally)
It can be used with い or な adjectives and nouns as well.

I’m going to assume (and I’m sorry if my assumption is wrong.) that you learned Japanese using romaji a lot. This is the mistake many people make when they learn through romaji — using わ instead of は grammatically. In parts of speech I don’t think there’s one function that uses わ. It’s always は but its pronunciation is changed to わ, just like へ when used as a particle sounds like え. It can be confusing at first.

Learn your い and な adjectives well.
It’s not too hard and it makes a big difference on your learning curve.

When I get time, I’m hoping to add a section to my lessons on adjectives (and finish verbs).

Hope this helps. Happy studying.

-admin k

popcornjapanese:

思う＝おもう

When I first got to Japan, I used と思っている for everything. For some reason I had taken away from my Japanese classes the idea that と思っている was somehow “more correct” for everyday usage than と思う. 

Yea, THEN reality stepped in and I realized that wasn’t the case.

THEN laziness kicked in and I started using と思う for everything. 

So I finally set about to differentiate them in my brain.

と思う is when you want to say “I think…” or “I plan to…” like:
今勉強すると思います。
いまべんきょうするとおもいます。
I think I will study now. (or I plan to study now)

Or as I often use in meetings:
クラスにこの活動をすると思います。
くらすにこのかつどうをするとおもいます。
In class, I think we will do this activity. (or I am planning on doing this activity)

I started using it more because I heard other people using it a lot, sort of as a way to be less direct or blunt when you say things.

と思っている, on the other hand, is for when something started in the past but is still happening now. So like:

沖縄県に行くと思っています。
おきなわけんにいくとおもっています。
I think (I’ve been thinking) I want to go to Okinawa.

As I understand it, it’s a thought that didn’t occur for the first time recently and it’s still the way you think now.

I also just read that と思っている can be used to talk about what someone else is thinking, like:

友達は今年アメリカに帰ると思っています。
ともだちはことしアメリカにかえるとおもっています。
My friend plans to return to the US this year.

Comment away - Did I miss something big? Have anything to add?

edit: haha, lolz! I got the kanji for 勉強 mixed up. That’s what I get for typing fast and not re-reading. Thanks, redsixthgun! also dustandparticles, thank you for catching YET ANOTHER typo.

例えば：

明日ゴルフに行くんだけど、高田君も行かないかな。
I’m going golfing tomorrow. I wonder if Takada-kun wants to come as well.
(Chino, 54)

恋かな？
Is this love?

遅れたかな
I’m late aren’t I?

晴れるのかな。
I wonder if it’ll be nice.

(jisho)

-admin k

ps. to nicholasinski about by book saying かな as male speak yesterday. And I quote “Typically used by men, indicates a tentative question or[…]”. Clearly states male speak. Which I thought was odd to begin with. I’ve never really “learned” かな well before reading this book and I could have sworn I’ve heard women say it in dramas and such. ….

(出典： fuckyeahnativejapanese)

spoken with rising intonation, indicates a question at the end of a sentence. Equivalent in function to か but provides a softer, more casual tone.

母: もうご飯食べたの。

息子: まだ食べ終わってないよ。

Mother: Have you already eaten?

Son: I’m still eating.

How To Tell The Difference Between Japanese Particles - Naoko Chino

- Admin K

(出典： fuckyeahnativejapanese)

Yes, that is true for the end of the sentence の, and I also stated that in the post I made, :) 

I’ll go bold it just in case people miss it  !  

F.

I’m starting Japanese at college level in 2 weeks. We’re going to be using Genki. Needless to say, I won’t be spending money on the work book and this is why.

The problem with conventional textbooks is that they often have the following goals.

They want readers to be able to use functional and polite Japanese as quickly as possible.
They don’t want to scare readers away with terrifying Japanese script and Chinese characters.
They want to teach you how to say English phrases in Japanese.

Traditionally with romance languages such as Spanish, these goals present no problems or are nonexistent due to the similarities to English. However, because Japanese is different in just about every way down to the fundamental ways of thinking, these goals create many of the confusing textbooks you see today. They are usually filled with complicated rules and countless number of grammar for specific English phrases. They also contain almost no Kanji and so when you finally arrive in Japan, lo and behold, you discover you can’t read menus, maps, or essentially anything at all because the book decided you weren’t smart enough to memorize Chinese characters.

The root of this problem lies in the fact that these textbooks try to teach you Japanese with English. They want to teach you on the first page how to say, “Hi, my name is Smith,” but they don’t tell you about all the arbitrary decisions that were made behind your back. They probably decided to use the polite form even though learning the polite form before the dictionary form makes no sense. They also might have decided to include the subject even though it’s not necessary and omitted most of the time. In fact, the most common way to say something like “My name is Smith” in Japanese is to say “Smith”. That’s because most of the information is understood from the context and is therefore omitted. But does most textbooks explain the way things work in Japanese fundamentally? No, because they’re too busy trying to push you out the door with “useful” phrases right off the bat. The result is a confusing mess of “use this if you want to say this” type of text and the reader is left with a feeling of confusion about how things actually work.

The solution to this problem is to explain Japanese from a Japanese point of view. Take Japanese and explain how it works and forget about trying to force what you want to say in English into Japanese. To go along with this, it is also important to explain things in an order that makes sense in Japanese. If you need to know [A] in order to understand [B], don’t cover [B] first just because you want to teach a certain phrase.

Essentially, what we need is a Japanese guide to learning Japanese grammar. (Tae Kim)

(出典： fuckyeahnativejapanese)

jappract:

This construction of adjective+する refers to causing something to become large, expensive, beautiful, or whatever. As with the adjective+なる construction, い-adjectives go into their ―く form, and な-adjectives go into their に form, as shown by the following examples:

長い（ながい）―＞　長くする　（ながくする） to make long

便利（べんり）―＞　便利にする　（べんりにする） to make convenient 

静か（しずか）―＞　静かにする　（しずかにする） to make quiet

甘い（あまい）―＞　甘くする　（あまくする） to make sweet

＊These constructions are sometimes ambiguous, and only the context they’re in can clear up the meaning.

きれいにしましょう。

Let’s make it beautiful OR Let’s do it beautifully.

早くしましょう。

Let’s make it so that it’s fast OR Let’s do it quickly.

(出典： japanesepractice)

japanesesentences:

I love this site! It’s not the only one I use, but it’s a great tool.

go check it out! ;)