The word for “play” in Japanese does not necessarily have the same context in Japanese as it does in English.

In English when we think play we think, in general, we think games or sports. From tennis and golf to video games or mind games.

The word 遊ぶ (あそぶ) can mean up to three main things.

• to play
• to spend time pleasantly
• to pay a social visit

To Play generally refers to the concept of playing not “actual” playing.

• こどものとき、よくともだちとあそびました
• When i was a hild, I often played with friends

To Spend Time Pleasantly refers to having a good time like going to a club or hanging out with friends.

• せんしゅうのしゅうまつはとうきょうにあそびにいきました
• I went to Tokyo to have fun last weekend

To Pay a Social Visit refers to when you visit someone as more a social obligation to be nice. Like if you had in-laws you hate and they invite you it is a social call to go visit them usually “playing” isn’t involved.

• わたしのうちにあそびにきてください
• Please come and see us again

The last one is the one that bugs me the most as it is so often mis-translated or purposely not changed in translation. I have seen a few j-drama where someone is invited to a house, party, or in one case a boat ride. Each of these they left play as the translated word and it is confusing if you don’t know the context from the Japanese langauge point of view.

If you want to say you are going to play a sport or video game you would use the verb する.

• テニスをする
• テレビゲームをする

There are other nuances to “playing” stuff, but this is the gist of it. I’ll come back down the road and expand more.

Update: Just Another Day in Japan posted a good compliment to this. Give it a read.Let’s enjoy Japanese: Playing around

Learning words through context has the benefit of showing you when and how to use the word from the beginning, but it can take a lot of time to learn the words this way since you are learning more than one thing at a time.

Flash cards are a quick way to gain a lot of vocabulary, but…

Above is an excerpt from my guest post over at Wide Island View check out their site and I recommend subscribing. They started as a e-zine and have recently moved to more of a blog. It is mostly for JET’s in Hiroshima. However it is in Japan and written in English so is a perfect candidate for subscribing to and reading. So seriously go visit Wide Island View.

For my post here it is:
Building Japanese vocabulary — the fun way

Everyone constantly wants something. Whether they want a hamburger or a new car, maybe even a pencil. In English we have the word want. We want things from objects or dreams to come true, and you probably want to know how to say in Japanese. Well fortunately this is super easy. Just add たい to the stem of a verb. So たべる becomes たべたい. Lets look at some example sentences so it can make more sense.

えいががみたいです。
I want to see a film.

いつか日本にいきたいです。
I want to go to Japan someday.

ほんをよみたいです。
I want to read a book.

In order to do this successfully there is something to realize about ru-verbs and u-verbs. For ru-verbs just drop the る and add たい. For u-verbs change the last sound to い and add たい. As for irregular verbs する and くる you do both you drop the ru and change the last sound to い. So する transforms to し and くる transforms to き. Here is a chart for example.

So now you can dream away in Japanese.

Note: There is more to this, but for now i will leave it here as I want to post on something else before covering another aspect of this subject. I will link to it once the second part of tai verb conjugations is up. This is the brunt of it though.

We often hit on doing stuff or requesting stuff be done, but sometimes there are just things you don’t want people to do. Like don’t eat the car. Not taking pictures in a museum.

To start be sure that you have reviewed short forms present tense. Because what you are going to do is add ～でください to it. Something like:

negative short form + でください / Please don’t…

Here are some example sentences.

ここでしゃしんをとらないでください
Please don’t take pictures here.

あしたはたべないでください。
Don’t eat tomorrow

きょうはしなないでください。あしたはOKです。
Please don’t die today. Tomorrow is ok though.

きょうかしょうはよまないでください。
Please don’t read your textbook.

やまだせんせいははなさないでください。
Please don’t speak professor Yamada.

That isn’t too painful and now you can request people to not do things.

Past tense short forms are a bit more tricky than present tense short forms, but not by much. First though be sure that you understand te-forms, and by extension u and ru-verbs.

Past Affirmative

Just like present affirmative was easy since it was just dictionary form. Past tense is easy too. Since you should arleady know te-forms then you know past tense affirmative short form since all you do is change the て/で of te-form to た/だ. Here are some examples.

Past Negative

I am going to be honest, this one is a bit more complicated, only because it requires a bit more thought. Since negative requires a bit more of a process here it is broken into steps.

General Steps

1. Get the dictionary form of the word
2. Short form present tense negative conjugate it
3. Drop the い
4. Add the かった

Steps in Use

1. よむ
2. よまない
3. よまな
4. よまなかった

It is still simple, but just have to think it through a bit more. With some practice you can easily get it down.

Note: I keep mentioning knowing the u and ru-verbs and how to distinguish them. I keep bringing this up because it is very important and makes life easier if you understand.

If you know of a dying language and you know people that speak it who are trying to save that language. You should point them to the Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program. I was poking around their site and noticed they have a program available to help save dying languages. This piqued my interest more since I recently did the post on “Who are the Ainu?” so a dying language was more on top of my mind. Here is the main chunk of the overview.

Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program

Pass on a Living Language to Future Generations

Around the world, indigenous communities are working to preserve and revitalize their languages. Rosetta Stone is a valuable resource for these efforts. We can help indigenous communities develop editions in their language for their exclusive use.

Throughout North America—from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake in the northeast to the Seminole Tribe in the deep south to NANA Corporation’s Inupiat shareholders in the Arctic. Rosetta Stone has been selected as the technology of choice for language revitalization.

Here are the bullet points of what they offer with their program.

• Community-Owned
• Culturally Relevant
• Keeps Language Integrity
• Supports Existing Efforts
• Offers Real Interactivity

To find out more visit: Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program

I think this is really cool because it helps them and they get to help the world, and it shows they do have a passion for languages, which is cool. I hope a lot of people can find out about this program so we can save as many languages as possible, if for nothing else archival purposes.

Short forms seem kind of complicated when I first saw them and messed with them, but they aren’t, at all. If you just know the principles of it short forms are super simple. For present tense you don’t need to really review anything other than u-verb and ru-verb conjugation. The only thing to really know though for these is the exceptions as to which verbs ending in ru are actually u-verbs. So lets get started.

Present Tense Affirmative Short Form

This one is easy. Basically you just use the dictionary form. Long form, or masu form, you would have ねます. If it was short form you would have ねる. Here is a table of a few more as an example.

Present Tense Negative Short Form

Negative is a bit more complicated, but not a lot. It is actually easy too. First remember that we have 3 types of verbs. ru-verbs, u-verbs and irregular verbs.

る-verbs
ru-verbs are easiest of these. Literally replace the final る with ない. That is it. Another way to describe it is remove the る so with たべる you remove る and have たべ left, then you just append ない to get たべない. Here are some examples.

う-verbs
This one kind of is confusing in some of the stuff I read. I have read where you should drop the final u and add anai. While that is true it is a bit confusing because that deals with sounds. Most of the time, at least for me, when I think of words I think of it as it is spelled. So how I like to think of doing short form instead of changing the u to a. Is to change the last character like く to か or む to ま. Here is a chart of dictionary form and short form. Remember change the u to a.

Remember the groups of characters か, き, く, け, こ and さ, し, す, せ, そ and た, ち, つ, て, と. When you come up on a character with u at the end remember that group and change it to the one that ends in a then add nai to it. く to かない, す to さない, つ to たない.

irregular verbs
Just like ru and u-verbs are easy so are irregular verbs. Change する to しない and くる to こない.

exception
Just like there is an exception for every rule, except the rule there is an exception for every rule. There is one for this, but it is easy.

Basically, the verb ある that is used for existence of things and people just goes to ない instead of あない. Not really sure why, but I kind of think because the あ in あない is kind of pointless since it will sound almost the same anyway.

In another post we had a video on object placement. Today we are going to go beyond an objects relative position to the speaker and discuss relative position to other things or places. This is, after all, more well used, some examples might be:

The building to the right of the post office.
On top of the table.
Under your shoe.

So lets look at the words that we are going to use and their translations.

The usage is actually fairly simple. Pretty much plug and chug, for those math people. X should be a noun Y should be the object and the location.

X は Y　の (location) です

Here it is with the words above.

Soooo what does that mean? Well here is an image to describe the translation

Basically when you say something like.

じてんしゃはとしょかんのなかです

You are saying the bike is in the library. Here are some more.

ぎんこうはとしょかんのとなりです。 – The bank is next to the library.
かさはテービルのしたです。 – The umbrella is under the table.
レストランはデパートとびゅおういんのあいだです – The restaurant is between the department store and the hospital.

Hopefully this will give you a start with describing where things are.

Te-Form verb conjugation is kind of difficult and freaks quite a few people out. Unfortunately, there is te-form conjugation with adjectives. Fortunately it is MUCH easier to do te-forms with adjectives over verbs.

い-adjectives drop the final い and add くて
な-adjectives add で to the base word
You can also treat noun+です the same as な-adjectives

Here are some examples:

い-adjectives:
やすい -> やすくて

な-adjectives:
げんき(な) -> げんきで

Irregular Adjective:
いい -> よくて

noun+です:
にほんじんです -> にほんじんで

We already discussed te-form verb conjugation so lets go to the next step and talk about combining activities, because lets face it we rarely just talk about one thing at a time. To do this we combine verbs to do anything from combining two actions, or two things we are doing, to describing why or how we are doing something. Lets look at a couple of examples.

ノートをかりて、コピーします
(I will borrow her notebook and xerox it.)

きょうは、ろくじにおきて、べんきょうしました
(Today I got up at six and studied.)

しょくどうにいって、ひるごはんをたべましょう
(Let’s go to the cafeteria and have lunch.)

Here is an example of how the first verb describes how the second one takes place

バスにのって、かいしゃにいきます
(I go to work by bus.)

This example describes the situation for which the apology is made

きょうかしょをわすれて、すみません
(I am sorry for not bringing in the textbook.)

Hopefully this will get you started on writing more than 4 word sentences. Well at least I am now writing 5 word sentences.