help on the wo particle

[Ken-san]

is this right? "nihongo wo hanasu ii janai desu"
im trying to get a sentence that says "i dont speak japanese well"

[richvh]

No, it's not right. And this isn't a chat room, 10 minutes isn't enough time to wait for a response.

"Nihongo ga amari dekimasen" would work; there are many other ways to say it, though.

[clay]

Have a little patience. I understand your wanting to get a response, but double posting is against the rules.

One easy way to express what you want to say is
日本語がまだまだダメです。 nihongo ga mada mada dame desu. I'm still no good at Japanese.

[Ireth-chan]

hi, it should be: watashi wa nihongo ga hanasemasen ( negative form of hanasu )

hanasemasu means "can speak" but i guess u can translate it as "dont speak" in that case

[Ken-san]

so 'mada mada' means "still" (in reference to time)?
i never 'knew' the defenition of 'dame', but thought it meant something like no good from hearing it used. thanks 4 confirming it
could i replace nihongo and put another word in to say im still not good at something? ex: hashiru ga mada mada dame desu.

[Ireth-chan]

dame means no good, its correct

"mada" means yet, still, besides, more.

Dunno about "mada mada", i guess its just to give strenght to it

[Ireth-chan]

hashiru ga mada mada dame desu

hashiru? it means "to run" so its a verb, u cant make that verb a subject with "ga" because the subject is ("I") .. it should be わたし　わ　まだ　だめ　はして　います"watashi wa mada dame hashite imasu" - (I) am still no good running

ps. sorry for the double post

[witega]

Ken-san wrote:
could i replace nihongo and put another word in to say im still not good at something?

Yes.
ryouri ga mada mada dame desu - I'm not yet good at cooking

ex: hashiru ga mada mada dame desu.

But not like this. Hashiru is a verb and so can't go directly before ga as a sentence subject. You would need to transform it into a noun somehow (for example, hashirikata 'style/way of running' - so 'hashirikata ga mada mada dame desu' might be something a newbie to the track team would say.)

[Yudan Taiteki]

"watashi wa mada dame hashite imasu" - (I) am still no good running

This has to be "dame ni"; even then I'm not sure it's the most natural way to say that.

If you want to modify a verb to show the manner in which the verb is being done (i.e. an adverb) you use the -te form of a verb, the -ku form of an -i adjective, or a noun/na-adjective + "ni".