Japan Holiday

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WORD FOR TODAY!

WORD FOR TODAY!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

HIRAGANA WRITING! (N 'na' column)

Hiragana Writing (N 'na' column)

な - Na 
に - Ni 
ぬ - Nu
ね - Ne
の - No






All of them are important particles!

Besides being used to "spell" Japanese words, なにぬねの, when used alone, serve as important particles in the Japanese language. (Of course, there are other particles.)

な-It is put after the basic form of a verb to mean "Don't". For example, たべる(taberu, or eat)+な=たべるな (taberuna, or "Don't eat"). This form is to give orders and thus must be used carefully.

に-This extremely important particle can be translated into English "in", "to", "from" or other prepositions, depending on the context.

ぬ-It is put after the negative form of a verb to mean "not...", mainly used in writing.

ね-Used at the end of a sentence to get people's attention, ask for agreement, etc. The Japanese language has a lot of "at-the-end" particles that simply do not exist in English.

の-It means "'s" or "of" as in English "the dog's tail".


Learn your first Japanese verb - しぬ(shinu, or die)

The basic form of all Japanese verbs ends with "u", such as いく (iku, or go), はなす (hanasu, or speak), あう (au, or meet). And the only verb that ends with ぬ is しぬ. So I want to take this opportunity to introduce it to you.

The onyomi (Chinese style pronunciation of Japanese words) of the number 4 is "shi". Many Asian languages also have similar pronuciations for this number. There is a widespread superstitious fear of the number 4 in Japan, China, Korea and many other Asian countries, as the number 4 is associated with "death" because of their pronunciations, e.g. "shi" vs "shinu".

This is something you must know if you want to spend your life in an Asian culture. For instance, when you are planning to buy an apartment, you must know that the price of the 4th floor (or the 14th, 24th, 34th) is significantly lower than other floors. And you should not have a business phone number with a lot of 4's.


(How to write)

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