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Things I learned today...
- Intonation plays a BIG part in the meanings of words, i.e.; SA-ke = salmon / sa-KE = rice wine
- Kazoku = Family
- Hiragana and Katakana are used to spell out words simply, but Kanji is used, in part, to represent words that can be confused as homonyms and heteronyms (see my sake example above)
- If I were to hear "Watashitachi niwa musuko ga hitori to musume ga sannin imasu." spoken in a conversation, I would need to ask the parents to repeat themselves at LEAST 6 times!
Questions on my mind...
- How does one determine the suffixes used when counting various objects? For instance, in my last point above, when counting daughters "musume ga sannin imasu." is the suffix -nin always added to a number (san in this case) when counting people?
- Are haha and chichi familiar forms of "mom" and "dad"?
- Why can seven be called 'nana' AND 'shichi', and what are the circumstances in which each is used?
Parting practice phrase:
Onna no hito to kanojo no inu. おなのひととかのじょのいぬ。 A woman and her dog.
Hi Brendan. I'm not an expert on teaching Japanese but I'll try to explain.
ReplyDeleteAs you already know san means 3 (three), and nin means person or people.
For example,
3 people = san nin
4 people = yo nin
5 people = go nin
but please note that if we want to say 1 person or 2 persons (people), we say
1 person = hitori
2 persons (people) = hutari
Also,
haha means mother. mom is more like "okahsan" (in this word "san" is used but it doesn't mean 3)
chichi means father. dad is more like "otohsan"
As you mentioned, seven is called "nana" and "shichi" in Japanese.
If we count numbers separately, we can say both, but when we wan to say 7 people, we usually say
7 people = nana nin
perhaps because we Japanese find it a little hard to pronounce "shichi-nin"
but it's not strange if we say shichi-nin.
Besides, if we want to say 7 pieces, we say "nana ko"
Ah, that makes sense, thanks! I should've made that connection, as I am familiar with the word "ningen". Other suffixes I've noted are -sai (which I know is age), -mai, -dai, and -ko. I'm still working on those.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your explanations :)