Comments on: Beginner Lesson S4 #11 - Three’s A Crowd

by: JKid

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:55:02 +0000

Kobukuro-san,
The review file is playing for me. Please try to play the file again. If it still does not work please try pressing Shift + F5 and then trying a third time. If you are still having problems please let me know. Thanks.

by: Kobukuro

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:29:44 +0000

Dear JPod-Team,

the review-file doesn’t work !

by: rufus709

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:24:49 +0000

Hiroko-san, thank you so much for the reply. Yes, that explanation was exactly what I was looking for. No worries, I understand you must be very busy. Thank you for all your hard work - otsukaresama deshita

by: Hiroko

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:14:50 +0000

giovanni san> Thanks for the insight! It’s added to JPod101 Idea bank!
With that, let me explain a little about what you mentioned for those who may be confused with this “possessive” description of no.
no has more functions such as “for”, “to”, “of”, “on”, “in” etc. as case particles. in today’s dialogue it was used as case particles for showing location/ordinal number.

by: Hiroko

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:43:27 +0000

トムさん＞二番目の信号 and 二つ目の信号 are the same Maybe my explanation above will help you understand the usage of those two a bit more

by: Hiroko

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:33:42 +0000

rufus709 san> Woops! I meant to reply to your message
As introduced in this lesson and NihongoDojo Style you 22, for indicating locations you use de.
You may use de in this case too: tsugi no shingō de migi ni magari masu.　

My explanation for the differences of the usage would be like this: Even though de is commonly used to indicate locations, for showing directions on the street, o is more commonly used, such as tsugi no shingo o migi ni magaru“turn right at the next light” or koko o massugu itte kudasai“please go straight here”. So, both “turn right at the next intersection” and “turn the next intersection to the right” can be tsugi no kōsaten o migi ni magaru, and as I mentioned above, using o sounds more natural when talking about directions on the street.
Therefore, o and de are not interchangeable in other cases such as hirugohan o kōen de taberu “I eat lunch in(at) the park”, you can’t say hirugohan o kōen o taberu.

It sounds complicated, but did that help you?

by: トム

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:43:08 +0000

Is there any difference between 二番目の信号 (nibanme no shingou) and 二つ目の信号 (futatsume no shingou)?

by: rufus709

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:25:39 +0000

Maxiewawa, what I mean is it seems more intuitive that “de” would go there since its describing what in English would be a prepositional noun phrase, as opposed to the object; that is, being used exactly as I expect “de’ to be used. This is exactly why I want to know how to say “to turn an intersection.”

Anyone have something more constructive and specific than “just something I have to remember?” Are there instances where “de” and “wo” are interchangeable?

by: Joao Paulo

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:47:43 +0000

Hiroko-san

Hontou ni arigatou gozaimasu!

That was a very nice explanation. I always wondered why the ordinal numbers where formed in two different ways. Thank you for helping me out.

by: giovanni

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:18:59 +0000

Hello. Though I thoroughly enjoy most lessons. There are a few recurrent issues that trouble me. One is about the so called “literal'’ translations you seem to love so much. Another, is the claim that grammar precedes the spoken language. What is apparent in this lesson is the problem of insisting to consider “no” as possessive, instead of a generic noun modifier, and forcing what you call a “literal'’ interpretation. Why is a “literal'’ translation such as “the next’s intersection” of any use? The intersection belongs to next? Here it’s more like a descriptive relationship. This supposedly “literal” interpretation can lead to meaningless statements or worse: completely wrong ones. In fact, often it can result in wrong interpretations. Once you used the same “literal” device for “Tonari no totoro.” The neighbor’s totoro? Even the “convenience store’s corner” supposedly helpful interpretation is actually not a possessive case. I do not think that perpetrating this approach, now also in the PDF files, even at the beginner’s level, is of any benefit to anyone learning the language.