Grammar question

[Asher]

It just depends on the stress in your voice. Imperatives are quite often used as questions in casual speech (Although it would sound more natural with よ appended) なになにてよ etc.

Yes, I know it is transative hence why I wrote ‘to get taught’ not, ‘to be taught’. The focus is simply on a different person. It is also important to remember that Japanese do not actually have ‘transative and intransative’ verbs. Which I think is where a lot of the confusion comes from. You’re right that a better translation would be ‘teach this to me’, but this isn’t a translation, it’s a literal interpretation. And it literally means ‘Can I get taught this?’ (focus being on the teacher), thus showing your conversation partner that you need them to do something.

Forcing english concepts into other languages is a common theme in language teaching that only serves to confuse learners. There is a bomb playlist on Japanese grammar for Japanese middle school students that I will link to this post in the next hour or so. Many of the words we use to describe Japanese grammar are poor attempts to ‘link’ Japanese and English in ways that they frankly don’t need to be linked. And in some cases, ways that are impossible to link.

Edit: I should note. Being transative or intransative is irrelevant to what え does to verbs. All it does is show that there is a ‘getter’ and a ‘giver’. The が particle just shows the actor. We can reverse the が particle but keep the same meaning across many verbs.

教える- To get taught, (Teacher requires が)
燃える- To get burned, (Burned thing requires が)

The reason the が Is different is because the thing that takes に is only temporary, there is no guarantee that the action will continue. For 燃える に would be the thing that sets it on fire, but this may be only a one or two second event, while the burning object remains alight for a long time, regardless of the spark. For 教える に is being taught, but you cannot guarantee that the に focus is actually learning/engaged in the teaching. Hence why transatives and intransatives behave very differently in Japanese.

[Asher]

This first playlist is short but has some absolutely amazing short descriptions of why Japanese verbs conjugate the way they do (from a completely non-english perspective)

The rest of this guys videos are great too. He teaches a wide range of subjects.

This second guy is more widely known and also does amazing grammar videos.

His video about dissecting sentences with ね is amazing. I think it is one of the first few from memory.

Edit: If anyone else wants to check these out I highly recommend them. The second guy is much easier listening. First guy is a motor mouth so you may be pausing frequently to check the meanings of certain words hahah

[Kai]

(Accidentally posted my message early; edited since)

Japanese do not actually have ‘transative and intransative’ verbs

They have 他動詞 and 自動詞 though, and 教える functions with を so it’s a 他動詞

Does one of those videos go into detail about what you’re getting at with 教える?

[Asher]

Sorry, that’s what I meant to write*

[Asher]

教える can also function with が. It is just a matter of perspective. I don’t believe there is an example specifically for 教える. But they do teach about how 他動詞 and 自動詞 actually work.

I just asked my partner if she thought 僕にこれを教えて sounded normal and her answer was-

僕にこれを教えてくれる？
Sounds more natural , but if casual に or くれる isn’t needed because it is clear you want someone to teach.

Quick edit- The reason intransative and transative does not exist in Japanese is because of language deixis (quick screenshot taken from wiki). In english we only have one deictic centre (this is why transative and intransative work the way they do in English). But in Japanese, there are two. This eliminates the need for transative and intransative because they are implicit.

But most teachers are worried that this is ‘too complex’ for learners, when in reality it is 100% essential knowledge for actually understanding things like a native would.

[Asher]

Great video here by one of the only ‘In English’ Japanese channels I recommend. This talks about how transativity really works in Japanese and at the end they talk about how there are many ‘transative’ verbs inJapanese that are not actually transative at all.

[Kuromaku]

Can someone help me decipher this sentence?

母はお鍋いっぱいにトマトソースを作りました。

I don’t understand the role に plays there.
Also, is there any particular reason to say お鍋 rather than just 鍋?
And does お鍋いっぱい mean “a whole nabe’s worth”?

[Asher]

My guess, the に behaves like the に in あまりに、and just shows the extent of the amount of tomato sauce. ‘She made enough tomato sauce for a whole bunch of nabe’.

As for the お, it depends purely on the speakers feeling about the nabe。Maybe because it’s the speakers mothers 鍋

Edit: here is an answer from a native. Note that she slams my Japanese simultaneously, so at least we kmow she isnt being too nice and the grammar is wrong hahah.

[Asher]

Just as a side note that may or may not help, I like to think of に after any ‘extent’ word as ‘B meeting the demand of A’s extent/intent’
AほどにB
AあまりにB
AつもりにB
AいっぱいにB
Etc etc

[Kuromaku]

@Asher thank you for such a detailed reply, even taking time to ask a native speaker! It makes sense now!

I didn’t think it was used to show extent. Frankly, I didn’t realize に can be used to do that just by itself. It’s my first time seeing it used like that on its own.

This sentence is from iKnow, btw, so I assume it was written by a native speaker.

[Asher]

No worries mate, glad it was able to be cleared up for you!

[s1212z]

My guess, the に behaves like the に in あまりに、and just shows the extent of the amount of tomato sauce. ‘She made enough tomato sauce for a whole bunch of nabe’.

I just took this as a noun/na adj turning into a adverb to modify the verb. BP doesn’t cover it but probably should since it’s pretty fundamental

https://www.punipunijapan.com/japanese-grammar-adverbs/

Adverbs

[Asher]

I know I bang on about this all the time, but it’s even easier (I think) if you treat に as always extent/movement towards. Japanese doesn’t have adverbs, but words which put directional emphasis on nouns (seeing that most Japanese words are nouns).
So instead of seeing 上手に喋っていた as (he was speaking skillfully), I would say understanding に is easier if you translate it to (he was speaking -with/in the direction of- skillfulness). に always behaves like this, it shows what noun you are moving towards.

[s1212z]

It’s worth mentioning there are no tomato sauce based nabe dishes (as in the japanese dish). So for something like 母はお鍋いっぱいにトマトソースを作りました,it comes down to either “Mom made tomato sauce” or more literally “Mom made a pot’s worth of tomato sauce” but I’d side with the first version because how else would anyone make tomato sauce.

If you replace トマトソース with トマト or オデン , you can go back to a ‘nabe’ based dishes that could be translated as such. This is both my opinion and native checked

Japanese doesn’t have adverbs

I don’t understand this statement but I know you studied this extensively so maybe I’m missing something. The definition for ‘adverb’ is extremely broad, but more likely a verb modifier but can be a modifier for adjective, noun or adverb. We see this all over Japanese so I’m not certain what specific definition you are mentioning or how you see this

So instead of seeing 上手に喋っていた as (he was speaking well/skillfully), I would say understanding に is easier if you translate it to (he was speaking -with/in the direction of- skillfulness). に always behaves like this, it shows what noun you are moving towards.

I can agree with this just reading and thinking Japanese only, but if this is toward translation I don’t agree with this fully since nuance of emphasis sounds different to either modify the verb or emphasis the preceding noun. And if you expand the clause more elaborately, you can’t keep the emphasis on ’ speaking with skillfulness’ to force 上手 as a noun. So some thing like 田中さんが会議で上手に喋っていたために同僚が分かりやすかった, I rather translate as ‘speaking well’ instead of ‘speaking with skillfulness’, the nuance emphasis sounds different to me or rather the translation sounds awkward in order to avoid an adverbial translation.

Hopefully I wrote that correctly

Either way you generally get a reasonable translations both ways and I know we separate alot of uses for に almost too excessively to confuse learners in attempt to keep an English connection. I would agree with you to find a single usage understanding just to keep thinking in Japanese without internal translation. But when I hear ‘extent’ is sounds like the emphasis is on the preceding noun and adverbial form is on the verb; in this case 作る, not いっぱい even though it is a quality that could lend it self easily toward ‘extent’ (at least this is how I hear it).

Here is another explanation how they cipher between Extent and Adverbial for に which does give distinctive usage in the sense we are talking.

Maybe I’m missing something here but this just to the way I understand it; perhaps these nuance don’t even matter for practical application (just translation). I think we all go the gist of the original sentence without the burden of translating

[Asher]

It’s not forcing 上手 as a noun, 上手 is in fact a noun. I think part of the issue is that some translators see Japanese particles as appendages of other words, like -ly being an appendage of English adverbs. However they are not appendages, they are markers designed to add logic, in にs case, the logic is movement toward something.

I can agree with this just reading and thinking Japanese only, but if this is toward translation I don’t agree with this fully since nuance of emphasis sounds different to either modify the verb or emphasis the preceding noun

This part is fine, It doesn’t need to make sense. Japanese was not designed to pander to English nuance habits, not was English made to pander to Japanese nuance habits, so even if something sounds wrong, or strange, it by no means implies that it ‘is’ strange. The languages stand independently of each other, in absolutely every sense. Avoiding the adverbial translation is on purpose, because it makes 上手 appear as something that it is not, an adverb.

To paint a clearer picture of に, lets suppose for a second that my statement that most words are nouns is correct. If that is correct, then lets look at に as a joiner of nouns, nothing more, nothing less.

新宿に行く To Shinjuku, i’ll go.

サッカー選手になるつもりに練習している To my plan of being a soccer player, i’m training.

7時に来る To 7 o’clock, i’ll come.

あまりに驚いたんだけど嬉しい To an excessive point I was surprised, but I’m happy.

きれいに忘れちゃった To the point of clearness, I forgot.

Sure, these sound unnatural… However the purpose is to show what に is doing. Not create a logical sentence in English. I just used a few different grammar points to illustrate that に is actually always just the same thing, not 100 different things as most resources want you to believe.

I guess my main point is that English and Japanese grammar rules are 100% different, and ‘linguistic’ words (like adverb), were designed for English, and are dangeous to apply to another language that does not require them to function properly.

[FredKore]

Sometimes I feel like, when I’m reading these discussions, I should be drinking beer.

I think you have an amazing understanding of Japanese on a “gut feel” level, but not everyone thinks the way that you do. I think you’re approaching being pedantic about not defining Japanese grammar as “adverb” or “adjective” or “adverbial noun” or “phrasal proper noun verb” (I made up that last one). The unifying theory that you present here (which I believe is influenced by Cure Dolly) is really nice and I like this perspective, but when we imperfectly describe Japanese using English terminology, it is actually convenient to summarize concepts using English grammar concepts, like saying that に functions like an adverb here and functions like a location marker there. 上手に is an adverb describing 喋る because “adverbs” describe “verbs”. It’s not wrong to describe it this way.

Everybody studying Japanese pretty quickly understands that there’s many things that don’t translate well. So it’s not unreasonable to expect learners to understand that calling it an “adverb” is imperfect just for the sake of progress, while knowing that the actual Japanese usage can be more nuanced.

Honestly, I do look forward to a day when standard Japanese language instruction for non-Asian-language-speaking people evolves to better way of teaching that incorporates some of these unifying theories of Japanese grammar. (I think there should be a new school for this.)

p.s. Let’s try a thought experiment and take this idea to a new future, one where standard schools teach Japanese using all these unifying theories, and they teach に as a direction marker from day one. You will inevitably (probably immediately) get a student that says, “so 上手に is an adverb, right?”. And you’ll have at least one student like that in every class. Do you spend the rest of your teaching career constantly correcting them? Or do you accept that some people like to relate it to those terms?

[s1212z]

It’s not forcing 上手 as a noun, 上手 is in fact a noun.

I meant the difference in translation (‘skillfulness’ vs ‘skillfully’, i.e. noun vs. adverb) and not 上手 itself.

Sure, these sound unnatural… However the purpose is to show what に is doing. Not create a logical sentence in English. I just used a few different grammar points to illustrate that に is actually always just the same thing, not 100 different things as most resources want you to believe.

Totally agree, English nuance are getting in the way which in many ways impedes the process of language acquisition, no doubt. And I like you approach, because a 100 different rule is impossible to keep track of in real-time buffering, no native thinks like this so why should we! Translation and language acquisition is different though I think some language learners assume they are the same thing (so just be clear, I’m not saying the here )

I guess my main point is that English and Japanese grammar rules are 100% different, and ‘linguistic’ words (like adverb), were designed for English, and are dangeous to apply to another language that does not require them to function properly.

Adverbs is a general term, but I can’t ignore the adverb qualities you can extract from many nouns. I’m not a polyglot or know multiple languages, but this seems like a natural evolution for a language to take for conciseness for a noun to behave not just a noun, but be able to modify other nouns and verbs which is essential

So loosely, just the basics:

上手- skill (noun)
上手な - skillful -> noun modif (adj)
上手に - skillfully -> verb modif (adv)

いっぱい - amount to fill a container (noun)
いっぱいな - full -> noun modif (adj)
いっぱいに - fully -> verb modif (adv)

I know you know this and are consolidating singularly much like a native would (I attempt to do this as well) and these are just language learning training wheels. I get the semantics that 上手 is just a noun and particles （な、に）are giving it ‘properties’ of adjective/adverb is probably more accurate here. But I can’t forget this behavior in English exists though (as I’m native English speaker) and there times when it is usefully to smooth out translations but it’s certainly not something I want to use or rely on to create 1 to 1 translations when in ‘Japanese mode’ , that would be quite painful.

[Asher]

Language discussions are fun hahah. You both put forth a lot of good points, I think the main thing I was concerned about when we use words like adverb etc, is that it makes people (in the early stages of learning) think that it is one word. When it is really 2 words.

If we pretend the reverse, imagine I am a Japanese native and that text books told me that beautiful, and beautifuland were 2 different words. As an English native, if we read that it would make us rage because;
1: (beautiful and) is 2 words, not 1.
2: beautiful always just means beautiful, you cannot pin other words and it suddenly means something different.
3: It gives learners the impression that ‘pinning’ -and to any word will create a new word.

What we are doing by using words like ‘adverb’ etc, is kinda the opposite of this. It’s teaching it as something that it isn’t purely for the sake of simple translation. I completely agree that I am probably being pedantic, but that’s how it feels conceptually. Regardless, this turned into a fun discussion and I think we are all looking forward to a time when language learning evolves beyond the shitstorm that it currently is.

The unifying theory that you present here (which I believe is influenced by Cure Dolly)

This is the only part I will disagree with. I do like Cure Dollys presentation of many things, but I think her (it’s?) approach is a little too simplistic at times (and ignores certain grammar behaviors. If I had to guess, I would say that Cure Dolly is a native Japanese person that has a fantastic knowledge of English (but not the same feel that a native would), so their explanations only lacking point is English semantics.