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Conversational contractions/abbreviations etc.

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Taurus
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Joined: October 16th, 2007 9:43 pm

Conversational contractions/abbreviations etc.

Postby Taurus » January 20th, 2010 11:24 am

I was wondering if there is a good summary, anywhere on the internet, of all the contractions that they use in Japanese conversation. Stuff like using って (-tte) instead of は (ha/wa) or 言って (itte), for example.

For example, I know this sentence:

あんた首都からきなすったんだろう?

...means something like, 'you came from the capital, right?'. But I don't know what 'kinasutta' means, and I wonder if it's some sort of contraction.

I know these things are scattered around in places, but after finding a good summary for learners of English (containing words like 'dunno' and 'wanna' etc.), I was wondering if there is any single place I can look for a comprehensive list...

QuackingShoe
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Postby QuackingShoe » January 20th, 2010 1:32 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_(grammar)#Japanese (read the stuff outside of the table as well)
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_g ... F_onbin.29 (scroll down to 'colloquial contractions')

Unfortunately I'm not at home and can't see Japanese at the moment, which makes it hard for me to try to help you with your problem sentence.

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Taurus
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Joined: October 16th, 2007 9:43 pm

Postby Taurus » January 20th, 2010 1:46 pm

That's perfect, thanks!

(As for the sentence, it was 'anta shuuto kara kinasuttandarou?')

Javizy
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Postby Javizy » January 20th, 2010 8:49 pm

Did you manage to understand your sentence? Is it something you heard by chance? If it was something like あんた首都からきた(っ)つったんだろう? it would make sense, since という can be contracted to つう (といった > つった) if you're speaking pretty crudely.

Edit: I asked my friend about this, and it seems that it's actually the verb 来なさる. It's a little confusing that such a polite verb is being used with だろう, but my friend says it could have the meaning of わざわざ来た. There's an explanation of why it becomes なする here.

Incidentally, another contraction I didn't see on the list is ~てあげる > ~たげる. There's a sticky somewhere on the forum with a list of them as well.

Ben Bullock
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Joined: January 12th, 2010 2:12 pm

Re: Conversational contractions/abbreviations etc.

Postby Ben Bullock » January 21st, 2010 12:08 am

Taurus wrote:I was wondering if there is a good summary, anywhere on the internet, of all the contractions that they use in Japanese conversation. Stuff like using って (-tte) instead of は (ha/wa) or 言って (itte), for example.

For example, I know this sentence:

あんた首都からきなすったんだろう?

...means something like, 'you came from the capital, right?'. But I don't know what 'kinasutta' means, and I wonder if it's some sort of contraction.

I know these things are scattered around in places, but after finding a good summary for learners of English (containing words like 'dunno' and 'wanna' etc.), I was wondering if there is any single place I can look for a comprehensive list...


This is mine: http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/colloquial-contractions.html

I welcome any comments or corrections.

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