I have a doubt (I'm not a native English speaker btw)

Japanese Language Grammar
1

Is this translation correct?
I’m Aleks. I like dogs and cats. I go to school in the tenth grade and i like archaeology.
俺はアレックスです。犬も猫も大好きです。私は十学年の学校に行きます、と考古学好きです.
Also, where can i study Japanese grammar? until now i used bunpo, on android, and i liked it, but now the app is requesting a payment, so i can’t spend other money, at least not for now.

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2

I can’t comment on everything, but for one thing I think it’s probably pretty unnatural to mix using 俺 with です in a sentence and then using ます forms of verbs in subsequent sentences.

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3

thanks for the reply, then what should i use? 私?

4

僕 or 私. You’re combining polite です with a pronoun that is very informal and almost arrogant sounding. I would expect a native speaker would give you a pretty bizarre look talking that way. Or you would drop the です and ます for one thing if you’re going to use 俺.

5

ok thanks a lot

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6

You’re welcome. I would also suggest listening to the Tofugu podcasts where they discuss first-person pronouns with Kanae who is a native speaker. Especially the one on 俺 to fully understand how that pronoun is perceived and used.

7

A few notes here (if other people could check, because I’m far from fluent in Japanese):

  1. You don’t need to repeat the 私 here since the topic is pretty clear from the context and it seems a bit reduntant (if it’s clear what is the topic of the sentence, you don’t need to repeat it over and over)

  2. I think you should say that you are a first year student of Senior High School (I’m not familiar with the Japanese nor the American school system so I checked on Wikipedia, not sure about this)

  3. To connect two sentences, you can’t use と - it’s actually done using the ～て form of the verb, for exemple デパートに行ってズボンを買いました。(I went to the department store and bought pants).

  4. You have to use the が particle with 好き

So here is my take on your last sentence:
高等学校一年生で、考古学が好きです。

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8

If you want to use a verb for “going” to school you should use 通っています（かよっています） rather than 行きます. However I think NickeeCoco’s modification to your last sentence works fine.

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9

thanks man

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10

When I was taking Japanese in high school, our teacher taught us that the abbreviated form 高校 is more commonly used than 高等学校. Otherwise, I agree this is a good edit. :+1:

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11

There’s plenty of free resources on the internet.

  1. I enjoy Imabi a lot, all the explanations are very detailed (might be too much information for a beginner though but they’re thorough): https://imabi.net/
  2. The award-winning Tae Kim’s Guide To Japanese is also available for free, a looooot of people recommend this: Learn Japanese – Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese
  3. The series of textbooks Japanese from Zero also offer the first book’s content for free online at https://www.yesjapan.com/ and the author covers the other books content too for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxuZNRnlprC70l1bnI0n-XQ (Honestly it’s a great resource, I’ve learned a lot from it, somehow it gets overlooked a lot)
  4. Japanese Ammo With Misa is also a good resource (https://www.japaneseammo.com/) with a YouTube channel that covers a lot of grammar topics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSyd8tXJoEJKIXfrwkPdbA
  5. Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkdmU8hGK4Fg3LghTVtKltQ) is another YouTube channel that is often recommended on the forums here. If you can get past the creepy computer-generated voice it’s a very very good resource.
  6. The WaniKani forums!!! Lots of resources on the threads, and a whole lot of people waiting to answer your questions if you need clarification with grammar points etc. Places to start: The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List! or Short Grammar Questions (Part 1) if you want to see what kind of questions other users ask.

Enjoy! :smiley:

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12

Sorry I can’t help you since I’m really new at Japanese but are you from India by any chance?

13

I assume this is just a typo, but 猫 would be cats rather than “car.”

14

sorry man, I’m bulgarian and live in Italy

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15

Agreed. I don’t think there are many situations where a non-native could use 俺 and it not sounding weird (and rude). Even between Japanese speakers it is only used between very close male friends from childhood that you have known for a long time or with your close family. 僕 is fine even in academic situations, unless it is a very formal situation.

16

And by most Visual Novel male protagonists :wink: - even if they are stereotypical “nice guys”, as far from “arrogant” or “rough” as possible. That always puzzled me.

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