You may be interested in reading some of the comments that we have received about these lessons. Please feel free to add your own remarks by using the box at the bottom of the page.
Please note that there are additional comments at the bottom of the How to Read Japanese page.
Hello,
Thanks for the fabulous work in compiling these audio files! They are a great companion to the Japanese For Everyone textbook. Arigatou gozaimashita!!
Just a quick feedback on the files in the FTP server — I was able to download all the files without a problem via FTP. However jaf03lesson020214.mp3 is only 16KB in size on the server. I then downloaded it separately via the webpage. Not sure if the file on the server got corrupted somehow.
Thanks again.
Hi Shahi,
Thank you so much for letting me know about the damaged FTP file for Lesson 3. You were absolutely right. I have replaced it, and the new file seems to download and play correctly.
Please let me know if you find any more problems with the site. Good luck with your studies!
Hey,
This is really a great post. Thank you very much for taking the time to make these excellent lessons.
Thank you for writing, Yomuzoku.
Hello, I have a perplexity regarding question 7 of your grammar quiz.
“`
You are telling your friend about an interesting museum you visited. You want to say “it’s close to Kyoto.”
Which of the following 4 Japanese sentences is correct?
1. 京都に近いです。(kyouto ni chikai desu)
2. 京都の近いです。(kyouto no chikai desu)
3. 京都に近くです。(kyouto ni chikaku desu)
4. 京都の近くです。(kyouto no chikaku desu)
“`
You say both answers 1 and 4 are correct, but shouldn’t 「京都の近くです」 translate as “it’s the vicinity of Kyoto”? Shouldn’t it be 「京都の近くにです」 as for “it’s at the vicinity of Kyoto” instead?
Even your example 「家の近くに店があります」 “at close to the house, there is a store” makes sense to me.
Where is my mistake?
Thanks for sharing your material with us!
Hi Fabio,
That is a good question. I showed it to my wife.
We think that there is a confusion between です desu = “it is,” on the one hand, and あります arimasu = “there exists,” on the other hand.
Consider this sentence, in English, Japanese and Spanish.
1. It’s a flower. 花です hana desu. Es una flor.
All three versions are correct.
Now consider another sentence, in English, Japanese and Spanish.
2. There’s a flower. 花があります hana ga arimasu. Hay una flor.
Again, all three versions are correct.
The word に ni means “at,” and it can refer to either time or place. Now consider the following sentences:
1. It’s a flower here. ここに花です koko ni hana desu. Aqui está una flor.
The English and Spanish sentences sound OK. If you changed the order of the English words, the sentence would sound better: here’s a flower. On the other hand, the Japanese sentence sounds completely wrong because Japanese people would never use に ni with です desu.
2. There’s a flower here. ここに花があります koko ni hana ga arimasu. Aqui hay una flor.
In this case, all three versions are correct.
To summarize, the reason that you cannot say 京都の近くにです kyouto no chikaku ni desu, is that you can never use に ni with です desu.
I hope that this has answered your question. If not, please write again.
It answered my question, thank you very much.
So 「花はここにです」 wouldn’t be correct, but would 「花がここです」 “flower it’s here” make sense?
Thanks again for your time and your patience!
P.S.: By the way, I’m from Italy.
Hi Fabio,
Yes, 花がここです hana ga koko desu would make perfect sense. So would 花はここです hana wa koko desu. (I try to explain how to use ga and wa in the “Ga vs. Wa” document which you can download on the Downloads page of this site.)
I thought that you might be Italian. I have tried to learn Italian but couldn’t devote enough time to the project. Maybe someday I will try again. I do speak Spanish, and it seems to me that Italian is somewhat similar to Spanish. That’s why I added the Spanish sentences to my answer above, thinking that they might be helpful, if not to you then maybe to someone else.
I had to drop you a note to say how valuable these lessons are. I copied the files to a CD and I listen to them in the car, often for 10 minutes or less. Even with such short exposure — maybe because of the short exposure — I’ve been learning so much. Best of all is the minimal effort it has taken. You are a saint for having put this all together for the love of language.
Thank you for writing, CS. We appreciate the encouragement. Good luck with your Japanese studies!
Many thanks to you and your wife!
Hi A,
You’re welcome. Thank you for writing.