2014年2月16日日曜日

Can you? vs Do you?

日本語できますか?
にほんご できますか?
nihongo dekimasuka?
Do you speak Japanese?

日本語が話せますか?
にほんごが はなせますか?
nihongoga hanasemasuka?
Can you speak Japanese?

When you want to ask a person whether she or he able to do something, you do not want the opponent feel bad when they can not do it. Instead of asking "can you?" ask “Do you?"
eg:
Instead of of asking Can you drive? you ask, do you drive?. Though literally you want to know whether they can drive or not, the second one is polite way to ask. Because it does not deal with the ability of the person.

2013年9月15日日曜日

何か(なにか) vs 何が(なにが)

何か(なにか) vs 何が(なにが)

These are two words we use frequently in daily conversation. so what is the difference between 何か and 何が。 Consider the following situation,

When you return home hungrily and asking your mother, 
You : 何か食べ物ありますか?(Is there any food? or is there anything to eat?)
Here you don't know whether there is something to eat. So you are asking, is there anything to eat?. For this question the answer is either yes or no.
Mother : はい、(Yes)

You: 何があります?(What is there? )
Here your mother said there is something to eat. So you want to know what are all the food available?

Summary:
なにか - anything or something?
なにが - what?


何があります and 何がありますか
Usually in spoken language, the speaker mostly do not use ka(か) when he is asking なにがあります? and use ka(か)when they ask なにかありますか.  In fact this is purely speaker specific and this is not a rule. and some people make it as question by intonation

But the proper grammar is always use ka(か)to make the statement as question.
so it would be なにがありますか?

How to read (yomikata-読み方)

How to read (yomikata-読み方)

Reading Japanese is hard especially kanji. Sometimes we see some examples in the internet but we find difficult to read. Though there are lot of sites help you to find out how to kanji, and hiragana to romaji. http://translate.google.com/ is one of great website to which help you to find out the romaji. It also can read out louder and its useful for not only the beginner and for everyone.

But please note that, the translation is not accurate so I recommend use this only to learn how to read. (yomikata-読み方)
Eg:
http://goo.gl/l0f6gk
http://goo.gl/Hbb3D3