Hmm, how would I say this?

[Brody]

I thought to use this thread just as a general "How do you say..." thread.

First off, what's a good way to say, "how do I say...?" どういったら・・・??
I'm looking more for something to say while I think. My Japanese friend always says, "How do I say?" when we practice English, so I thought I might as well follow suit and learn to say it in Japanese. Maybe なんていうか　　なんていったら（いいのか）??? (Though, I think those mean more of "What should I say?")

Also, how about "It's something he likes to do" ?

The best I can come up with is, "彼がやることがすき何かです。" but I'm sure that's wrong. Probably need to replace 何か with こと but...hmmm...

ありがとう

[Bueller_007]

I thought to use this thread just as a general "How do you say..." thread.

First off, what's a good way to say, "how do I say...?" どういったら・・・??
I'm looking more for something to say while I think. My Japanese friend always says, "How do I say?" when we practice English, so I thought I might as well follow suit and learn to say it in Japanese. Maybe なんていうか　　なんていったら（いいのか）??? (Though, I think those mean more of "What should I say?")

Also, how about "It's something he likes to do" ?

The best I can come up with is, "彼がやることがすき何かです。" but I'm sure that's wrong. Probably need to replace 何か with こと but...hmmm...

ありがとう

First one:
〜は日本語でなんといいますか。
In my experience, this is the most common way to say it...

As for the second one, you're right. You can't use 何か here.
I guess you could easily say this, but I don't know how natural it is:
〜は、彼の楽しみ（の一つ）だ。
lit: "~ is (one of) his pleasures."

You can use it for nouns and verbs, yeah.
テレビを見るのは、彼の楽しみの一つだ。
"Watching TV is one of the things he enjoys."

It might not be the most natural way to say it, but it's easy, and you'll be understood... It might actually be the most natural way to say it... I don't know.

Incidentally, if you have questions about easy phrases like these, I highly recommend the J-E/E-J dictionary "Eijirou". The list of example sentences is extremely useful. There's a free version on the web:
http://www.alc.co.jp/

The search engine is pretty picky though: it only finds EXACT matches, not fuzzy matches. And it's designed for Japanese people learning English, so there's no furigana for most words. But it's a good counterpart to edict, because edict was written mostly by a native English speaker, and Eijirou was written by native Japanese speakers (but be careful: some of the English translations are a bit off).

You can try this website too. The J-J dictionary (accessed from the 国語 link) is quite useful:
http://goo.ne.jp/

[Brody]

Thanks, buller-san. I love alco. I tried it, but, like you said, it has to pretty exact to get a good match.

I will try goo, though.

[Brody]

All right, here's a new one:

I'm trying to say, "I don't need those kinds of posters on my wall anymore."

In a basic sense I know I can say, （僕には）もうそんなポスタが必要じゃない。 (I don't need those posters anymore.)

I'm trying to figure out where to put the 'on my wall." I know it's not really necessary for the sentence (where else would you put posters?) but it is how I would say it in English and I am slowly trying to transfer myself over to Japanese.

So would I put it before ポスタ as in もう壁にあるそんなポスタが必要じゃない。 ??? Or would this just sound too weird (For me, if I were to translate it back to English, it seems it would sound something like, "I don't need those kinds of posters that are on my wall."

Can you suggest something else or would you drop the "on my wall" part all together?

I'm just trying to add some zest! to my Japanese, though I don't know if I'm doing it right...

よろしく

[Jason]

First off, it's not 必要じゃない but 必要はない. While you can say 必要だ／です, I don't think it works in the negative. Optionally, you could use 不必要だ but I think 必要はない is much more common.

I think your sentence works. Here's an alternative that may work a little better with respect to the English:

そんなポスタがもう壁にある必要はない。

[Brody]

Thanks for the reply, Jason-san.

I think you can say 必要じゃない/ではない。　It's a ナ形容詞 so to negate it you just add じゃ/ではない or　ではありません　to it.

I google'd it and got over 350,000 hits so I'm guessing it's all right.

I think the difference is because I'm using 必要 as an adjective while you are using it as a noun.

So while my idea would translate as "It's not necessary/ I have no need..."
Yours would translate, "There's no need (lit. there is not the need for those kinds of posters to be on the wall anymore)"
Also, I did a google search for ある必要 and got about 1,500,000 hits so it seems yours is much more common.

I'm glad you posted! This taught me a lot! Thanks!

[Brody]

Here's my next attempt:

"There will always be someone who is better (than you)."

いつも（あなたより）上手に出来る人がいる。

Good? Bad? I'm a little confused about the "better" part; do I need to say, "もっと上手？　If I omit あなた, can I keep より for より上手　？



よろしくです。

[Bueller_007]

Here's my next attempt:

"There will always be someone who is better (than you)."

いつも（あなたより）上手に出来る人がいる。

Good? Bad? I'm a little confused about the "better" part; do I need to say, "もっと上手？　If I omit あなた, can I keep より for より上手　？

よろしくです。

I'd say that's perfect the way it is.

Personally, I have some questions about when もっと can be used for comparisons between two things. My introductory text told me that it should never be used for comparing two different things (which is what we use より for). Just a change in the state of one thing. But I'm sure I've seen it used both ways.

[Jason]

I wouldn't use もっと with より. もっと is already "built-in" to より. And no, if you ommit あなた you can't use より. より has to be attached to some noun or noun phrase.

Here's a possible alternative:

いつまでももっと上の人がいる。

[Brody]

I just talked about this with a Japanese friend. He said it was better using もっと...not in comparisons (in which case he said to use ほう/より）but with, I guess you'd call them adverbs as in もっと深く more deeply.

Kind of in places where you could also use 最も so more as an adjective of an adjective (I forget what those are called in English). So you can use them in comparisons, but it is different than ほう/より

Did that make any sense?

[metablue]

I thought to use this thread just as a general "How do you say..." thread.

First off, what's a good way to say, "how do I say...?" どういったら・・・??
I'm looking more for something to say while I think. My Japanese friend always says, "How do I say?" when we practice English, so I thought I might as well follow suit and learn to say it in Japanese.

〜は日本語でなんといいますか。
In my experience, this is the most common way to say it...

Brody-san, you're asking about "how do you say ..." as a figure of speech, right? A bit like そうですね. Like in the movies when people learning English say things like: "That boy over there ... he's so ... how do you say ... dreamy!"

Bueller-san, could you just drop the 〜は日本語で part of your phrase above and say なんといいますか as a "thinking of a word" pausing tactic? Or would that just be weird?

[metablue]

What do you know! I go to catch up on some lessons I missed, and in World Cup Special, Jun-san says something while he's trying to think of a word to describe how he feels about the name of the Japanese team.

I think he says なんてのばら. Then just なんての, then Yoshi-san supplies "cheesy". I'm not sure about the ばら, because it sounds a bit more like ばな. It's almost exactly halfway through the lesson.

[Jason]

I just talked about this with a Japanese friend. He said it was better using もっと...not in comparisons (in which case he said to use ほう/より）but with, I guess you'd call them adverbs as in もっと深く more deeply.

Kind of in places where you could also use 最も so more as an adjective of an adjective (I forget what those are called in English). So you can use them in comparisons, but it is different than ほう/より

Did that make any sense?

....unfortunately, no, not really...

[Jason]

Brody-san, you're asking about "how do you say ..." as a figure of speech, right? A bit like そうですね. Like in the movies when people learning English say things like: "That boy over there ... he's so ... how do you say ... dreamy!"

Bueller-san, could you just drop the 〜は日本語で part of your phrase above and say なんといいますか as a "thinking of a word" pausing tactic? Or would that just be weird?

No, you can't just drop it like that. Even in polite speech, the "how do I say" phrase is なんというか, or some variation on it. It's almost a "set" phrase. To say なんといいますか sounds more like you're asking someone else, not wondering to yourself.

[Brody]

Sorry that didn't make sense.
I guess I don't understand completely yet...

Could we say that もっと, being an adverb、sort of acts like "-er" in English. I know you can say もっと大きい "bigger" もっと深い "deeper" etc. This is a comparison, but one just limited to adjectives.

Could we say that for everything else, you need to use something else, such as ほう/より?