I thought I'd share a little language tidbit that happened at two different grade schools where I teach at recently.
When I teach the younger kids, the 1年生 and 2年生 are usually combined into a giant monster class of about 50 kids. For the first part of my class I usually have a review time where we go over the words we studied from last time. I hold up a word card (with picture) and ask, "What's this?!" and the kids shout back the answer.
Of course with 50 kids shouting out variations on one word, it's a little hard to make out if their pronouncing it 100% correctly, but I can usually tell if their in the ballpark or not. But when somebody says the wrong word - that sticks out. This little language story deals with that.
Two different kids (at two different schools) used a very interesting Japanese grammar point that I thought was worth mentioning here...if only just to help show how Japanese is both harder, but sometimes more convenient than English.
Here was basically the situation, notice the sly use of the negative form by this one Japanese student (the scene is me at the front of a classroom holding way more cards than I should be)...
Me: "Okay!! Let's review!! 復習しましょう！
Kids: (various things are usually being shouted to me at this point that I ignore)
Me: "What's this?!"
Kids: "Pig!!"
Me: (changing cards) "What's this??"
Kids: "COW!!"
Me: (changing cards) "What's this?!"
Loud Kid: "HORSE!!!"
Kids: "SHEEP!!"
Loud Kid: "じゃなくてSHEEP!!!"
I really found that interesting, by simply sliding in a じゃなくて, you can completely negate what you just said...and that kid knows that! No less than 2 seconds after starting to hear that he was wrong, he slipped that in and then just repeated what everyone else did...in that way (in his mind) it looked like he got the answer correct.
I was trying to think if there was any way you could get away with this in English. You could say something like "Horse, is not what I was going to say but sheep", or "It's a Horse..NOT! It's a sheep" but nothing I could think of would come out as smooth as in Japanese when you are able to just slip in a じゃなくて at the end of what you say to completely negate it's meaning (and saying, "not" at the end of an English sentence is more for comedic value rather than serving any grammatical function).
When your verb (or adjective) comes at the end, it's easier to play around with your meanings and even change something mid sentence! その映画はめっちゃ面白・・・・い？くない？If mid sentence you notice that the person you are talking to seems to not like the movie, and you were about to say it was interesting, you could stretch out that ろ a little bit and turn your good review into a negative one. In English once you say "not", you've committed yourself to a negative sentence. No going back unless you do some backtracking and more explaining.
I guess more than anything I was surprised at the slyness of those two kids who though they were being pretty slick by negating their answer like that.
8 comments:
But sometimes it's easier to commit to a verb first.
In this example, when asked something he doesn't know or is unsure of, a kid could start saying "well, it's a... uh.." and use this time to think or get the answer from another kid.
I guess both systems have their advantages.
Reminds me of a news parody show that was on a few years back. Don't remember the exact script for shame, but it was along the lines of:
"The home secretary Gordon Brown regularly attends cabinet meetings with a concealed sawn-off shotgun, approaches little boys in parks and chews their cheeks, and has sexual intercourse with a wide range of stray animals claiming 'As long as it's got a backbone, I'll do it!' This story we reported to you last week, and have since found isn't true."
Interesting observation, Shane! I think it shows the nature of Japanese to put the important information at the end of sentences and utterances.
Like you alluded to with おもしろい, the only bit that gives you REAL info is the い at the end which says "it IS interesting".
With おもしろかった, the かった says "it WAS interesting".
And with おもしろくない, the くない bit says "it ISN'T interesting".
However, in English, we're bound to saying things like. "It is interesting", "It wasn't very intersting", etc. The part that gives information (and directs what comes after) is near the front of utterances. We've usually given our opinions 1/3 through anything we say.
And じゃなくて is indeed extremely convenient.
In english to reverse what you said, a simple way would be:
Horse... I mean, sheep!
maybe similar to the Japanese "っつーか // っていうか"
Codexus:
I think that you can still commit to a verb, the interesting thing is that all you really have to change is the inflection at the end.
Most kids usually do "buy time" for the answer ええと・・・, but those two kids thought they were beating the system by both using the answer they thought was correct then just negating it and saying the right answer.
Coal:
Ha! Yea, I've seen that kind of thing also..pretty funny stuff.
Chris:
Thanks! Your right on the money by saying that the real info is in the stem at the end. I didn't think of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense now that I am.
Yorkii:
Hmm...interesting. I didn't think of that one. While it does make sense in English, I don't think it really conveys what is going on in the じゃなくて Japanese version.
If you think about it, "Horse..I mean, sheep!" doesn't really convey any negativity, rather the "mean" is being used for clarification. It does in a way convey that the speaker knew the correct answer, but made a mistake and is now "clarifiying" the answer. The fact though that the speaker still made a mistake is almost assumed.
In じゃなくて, what it is basically doing is negateing what came before it (from the base じゃない= is not) and allowing for addition information to be added as well. So I think that the slickness comes in (in the kids mind) in that he shouts out what he thinks is the correct answer, when he hears he is wrong, he negates it so that (again in his head) he is basically saying "It's not a horse. It's a sheep". But I know full well that he thought it was a horse at first. In a way he is not admitting that he made a mistake.
Unlike the rest of the kids who buy their time, those two kids jumped in feet first knowing full well that if they were wrong, they could pull a じゃなくて out and make it seem like they were just pointing out what it wasn't, rather than everyone else who was telling me what it was.
STOP DOWNSIZING ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!
jk
japanese is very convienient but some times a covenient word can take away the feelin of a phrase.
like in english we can listen to an old song and say
" wow, that takes me back"
but in japanese, all you can say is
"thats naustalgic!"
i dont know, i like to stretch out my sentences, i dont like to be brief. but it is indeed convienient to use kunai and kunakata etc.
well, after bashing ur post im still freakin jealous cause im a wanna be translator starting his 4th year of japanese in highschool and ur teaching english in freakin japan! gratz on the nihongo!
really late comment, but what about this:
"Horse!-NO, SHEEP!"
Our negator is 'No' :D
*usually comes with "WAIT!" also
i love,
Thanks for your comment! I think that's a great comparison.
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