notes

sentence structure review

  • there are three engines: verb, adjective, and noun + copula
  • there are various carriages: nouns and their logical particles
  • these can be mostly pared down to three types of words: い engine (adjectives), う engine (verbs), and noun (noun + copula engine and noun + particle carriage)
    • adverbs are almost always a noun or adjective variant
    • most words that are not adjectives or verbs are nouns

      する verbs

  • noun + 「する」
    • ex: 「勉強」 means “the act of studying”, 「勉強をする」 means “to do the act of studying”, and 「勉強する」 means “to study”

      adjectival nouns

  • usually called “な adjectives” even though they never stop being nouns
  • ex: 「綺麗」 can be used as 「綺麗だ」 or as 「綺麗な」 (with 「な」 being the connective form of 「だ」) to describe something
  • some nouns (like 「綺麗」) are almost always used as adjectives and others (like 「元気」) are used as nouns and adjectives with similar frequency

    non-adjectival nouns

  • regular nouns can still be used descriptively
    • ex: 「魔法の帽子」 means “magic hat”
      • 「魔法」 is not an adjectival noun, but it can be used to a similar effect

        な vs. の

  • 「不思議な国」 means “mysterious country” (descriptive) while 「不思議の国」 means “country of wonder” (attributive)

    なる nouns

  • contraction of 「のある」 where 「の」 is taking the place of 「が」
    • 「華麗なる探偵」
    • 「華麗のある探偵」
    • 「華麗がある探偵」
    • which means “detectives possessing splendor”
  • can sound a bit more old-fashioned
  • 「XなるY] means “a Y possessing X”

    たる nouns

  • contraction of 「とある」
  • the thing being described exists in a way implied by the noun
  • 「XたるY] means “Y existing in an X-like way”

    groups of kanji

  • kanji can be used descriptively without any of the mentioned connectors
    • ex: 「日本」 + 「語」 = 「日本語」
    • ex: 「本」 + 「棚」 = 「本棚」
    • ex: 「大学」 + 「教育」 = 「大学教育」

      resources

  • youtube