• MaggiWuerze@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    As someone who learns japanese. Is that a kanji for a honorific? probably kun? ゆうじ is the name, although weird that it is written in hiragana I guess… But I fail at this one 海行こうぜ

    The first Kanji has the one for mother as part of it I think… And the second one is pronounced it ‘i’ so …iikouze ? Let’s go somewhere?

    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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      3 days ago

      Yes, 君 is ‘kun’ when used as an honorific.

      海 is ‘umi’, or sea/ocean. You are correct that the second half of the kanji (母) is the same as the standalone character for mother, but it’s base radical is ⽏, which also just means mother. The first radical, ⺡, means water/ liquid, so you can sort of infer that “water mother” = ocean. Not all kanji work out this nicely with their radical structure, though.

      Last part is spot on, ikou (行こう) is the shortened (conjugation?) of iku or ‘to go’ that expresses a suggestion to do, i.e. “let’s (go)”.

      • MaggiWuerze@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        Thanks for the feedback, seems my efforts weren’t entirely wasted :D Interesting, that the Kanji for water itself does not contain that rqficale (unless you squint heavily) What’s the difference to Ikkimashou? Isn’t that the suggestive form? As in ‘we should go’

        • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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          16 hours ago

          The radical for water is actually derived from the standalone kanji. It’s basically an extremely short-stroke version of the kanji.

          Ikimashou is just the ‘formal’, full-length version. No difference in meaning. Just as “iku” is the casual version of “ikimasu”.

          Ikimasu -> iku

          Ikimashou -> ikou

          • MaggiWuerze@feddit.org
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            16 hours ago

            Fascinating. That explains the similarity. Since watching that episode of Witch Watch I definitely feel bad about my formal “Duolingo” Japanese :D

            By the way, is there a rule to how these short forms are formed?

            • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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              15 hours ago

              By the way, is there a rule to how these short forms are formed?

              Yep! Most Japanese verbs (with a few exceptions like ‘shimasu’ becoming suru) use one of the ‘i’ variants (‘i’, ‘ki’, ‘ni’, ‘mi’, or ‘ri’) after the kanji, that indicates they are verbs.

              Yakimasu (to burn/ cook), shirimasu (to know), arukimasu (to walk), arimasu (to be), shinimasu (to die), yogimasu (to read).

              Ki will become ku in the shortened version, ri will become ru, ni -> nu, etc:

              yaku, shiru, aruku, aru, shinu, yomu

              I believe the verbs that don’t end in one of those like tabemasu (to eat) will default to ‘ru’ (taberu), but I don’t know if that’s a rule off the top of my head, or if I just can’t think of any others right now.

              In the cases where rendaku applies, such as yogimasu (to swim), the end kana will also have rendaku applied, e.g. yogu. Ki -> ku, gi -> gu.

              • MaggiWuerze@feddit.org
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                15 hours ago

                Do you teach this usually? These explanations seem very practiced (in a good way).

                Thanks a lot, maybe this will help me sound at least somewhat casual :D