Short Grammar Questions (Part 1)

Right right, I guess in that case, if they weren’t gonna say

アキちゃんも

And insisted on using 方 I would maybe expect.

アキちゃんの方も

So maybe the で is what is making it feel like it wouldn’t be possible? Theres some 違和感 but I don’t know why

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Hey guys, question

I found some expressions on the book

わかりましたか→do you understand?
わかりました→I understood
わかりません→I don’t understand

And I was wondering if it’s a fixed way of saying or I can conjugate it as I want.

First, this is the わかる verb ‘to understand’ right?
Can I use it without the polite form if I’m talking to ~let’s say my brother, and use eg.

わかったか (did you understand), or
わかった (I understood), or
わからない (don’t)

And for this last one, can I put it in the past to say ‘I didn’t understand what u just explained’ (just like the question that is in the past form - mashita)
わからなかった

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Yeah, it looks good :slight_smile:

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When using casual forms, か is typically left out. It can sound very direct, argumentative, etc.

If you just mean to ask it relatively neutrally, then “わかった?” with a rising intonation is better.

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Thanks!

Ok very clear :raised_hands:

Hello! Sorry to put what I think is stupid question but could someone please help me with the way in which this verb conjugation is working? I’ve attached a picture and it’s the last bit of the first sentence I don’t quite understand. Why is it “deimashita” instead of “teimashita” which is what I’d expect and what’s the “nn” for?

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It’s a conjucation of 住む, でいました isn’t a separate word here.

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Sorry yes - that was my question, is the nn part of the conjugation?

te form

住む ー> 住んで

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Thank you, sorry to be so dumb!

Verbs that end in む, ぶ, or ぐ in their dictionary form use で rather than て in their te-form.

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It takes a while to pick up initially, so don’t apologise. If you’re interested in doing further reading, you can look up ‘godan verb conjugation’ in order to see more examples of this and other exceptions. Here’s are two summaries I made fairly recently:
https://twitter.com/AnAsianPolyglot/status/1488780528253906945/photo/1
https://twitter.com/AnAsianPolyglot/status/1496862184332271619
(The second Tweet is about the plain past tense, but the て-form works exactly the same way, just with て/で instead of た/だ.)

You might want to go look at some grammar sites for a clearer picture, because I couldn’t really elaborate due to the character limit.

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Fab thank you!

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Question:

Let’s say I found a wallet on the floor of the classroom. To ask “Whose wallet is this?” I can say

これはだれのさいふですか。

But can I say

このさいふはだれですか。

?

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Close, you’d say このさいふはだれですか.

The の is important - otherwise, you’re asking “who is this wallet” instead of “whose wallet is this”

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:joy: got it :ok_hand: is it a sentence that would sound natural?

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It’s a pretty neutral sentence, so, yeah, I could see someone saying it, but it still sounds like a textbook answer.

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That’s a hard question to answer. What sounds natural is heavily dependent on context, who you’re talking to, what’s been said before, where you are, etc.

It’s probably gonna sound a little stiff, but it’s not gonna sound weird at least.

It’s like asking if the sentence “Who does this wallet belong to?” is natural in English. It’s not wrong, I can see people saying it, and I wouldn’t think it’s strange, but it does sound a bit like a sentence from a phrase book or textbook or something, and it’s not the most likely way I’d ask that question myself.

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Ok, now it’s clear :ok_hand:

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And to add an additional wrinkle – because really even the simplest questions have additional wrinkles – it would probably be better to say どなた instead of だれ. When in doubt, politer is better.

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