My first attempt at a Japanese sentence.

[Morrigan Eriu]

I read over the basic grammar section of the website, and decided to give a shot at creating my own sentence. So... here it is.

Japanese is hard to learn.
Nihongo ga narau nikui desu.

Japanese (subject modifier) to learn (-is hard) is.

I would be so grateful is someone would please tell me what errors I have made!

Thanks in advance.

[faan-san]

narau is the dictionary form of the verb 'to learn', and if you have another verb you shouldn't need desu. If I had to make this sentance, I would say:

日本語はむずかしい語べんきょをします。
にほんごはむずかしいごべんきょをします。
nihon-go wa muzukashii go benkyo o shimasu.

Japanese (subject marker) difficult language to learn.
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Again, I apologize in advance if this isn't what you were looking for or my information needs a lil' tweaking. I tried.

[Infidel]

Morrigan Eriu wrote:
I read over the basic grammar section of the website, and decided to give a shot at creating my own sentence. So... here it is.

Japanese is hard to learn.
Nihongo ga narau nikui desu.

Japanese (subject modifier) to learn (-is hard) is.

I would be so grateful is someone would please tell me what errors I have made!

Thanks in advance.

nihongono narau kotoha(Learning Japanese) muzukashii desu would work better, I think. I'm still pretty iffy in my use of koto and I'm not familiar with nikui either. Nikui could be fine. I'm just haven't seen it used that way yet.

日本語はむずかしい語べんきょをします。
にほんごはむずかしいごべんきょをします。
nihon-go wa muzukashii go benkyo o shimasu.

Japanese (subject marker) difficult language to learn.

You're doing the same thing I did on another forum. Getting benkyou suru (study) confused with narau (learn).

hrm, just learned that nikui and muzukashii use the same kanji but different okurigana. I don't grok the difference yet if there is one.

[faan-san]

-nikui conjugation meaning "difficult to..."

If you want to use -nikui you conjuagte the verb properly. I don't have much experience with this conjugation or the verb 'to learn' (thank you Ishnar for the clearing that up) but, I can try that for you.

日本語はむずかしい語習います。
にほんごはむずかしいごならいます。
nihon-go wa muzukashii go naraimasu.

日本語は習い難い。
にほんごはならいにくい。
nihon-go wa narai-nikui.
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As always, my appologies should anything I typed be wrong or misguided.

[Suziepoo]

I would translate 'Japanese is hard to learn' to:

日本語を勉強するのは難しいと思う。

(nihongo o benkyou suru no wa muzukashii to omou).

I don't think you'll need to add 'koto' into this sentence, I think 'の' ('no') sounds better.

Also, rather than putting 'です' ('desu') at the end, it's better to say 'と思う'　('to omou') which means 'I think', because it's your opinion.

Damn, not long to go to the JLPT, tomorrow!! Good luck everyone, 頑張ってネェ〜V（^_^)V:)

[Suziepoo]

Oh btw, this is how to use 'nikui': (which means hard to do')
1) tabemasu >> (eat) >> take off the masu, and add nikui >> =tabenikui
2) iimasu >> (say) >> take off the masu, and add nikui >> =iinikui
3)mimasu >> (look) >> take off the masu, and add nikui >> =minikui (minikui is actually the same word as 'ugly' in Japanese, so be careful when you use it!)
Anyway that's just a few examples.. actually, if you change 'nikui' to 'yasui', it means it's 'easy' to do something. eg, tabemasu = tabeyasui, (easy to eat.)

Hope that helps someone.. じゃね;)

[Suziepoo]

Morrigan Eriu wrote:
I read over the basic grammar section of the website, and decided to give a shot at creating my own sentence. So... here it is.

Japanese is hard to learn.
Nihongo ga narau nikui desu.

Japanese (subject modifier) to learn (-is hard) is.

I would be so grateful is someone would please tell me what errors I have made!

Thanks in advance.

[Suziepoo]

Morrigan Eriu wrote:
I read over the basic grammar section of the website, and decided to give a shot at creating my own sentence. So... here it is.

Japanese is hard to learn.
Nihongo ga narau nikui desu.

Japanese (subject modifier) to learn (-is hard) is.

I would be so grateful is someone would please tell me what errors I have made!

Thanks in advance.

Sorry, I'm back!
'Nihongo ga narau nikui desu.' would also be understandable, just change 'narau' to 'narai'. (Don't put it into dictionary form, just take off the masu). Good try though.

[Kates]

faan-san wrote:
日本語はむずかしい語習います。
にほんごはむずかしいごならいます。
nihon-go wa muzukashii go naraimasu.

I think this sounds wrong... >_> First, you're missing the を--you need the direct object marker to show what you are learning. If you would just plug in を to the sentence you wrote, you'd get:
日本語はむずかしい語を習います。
Which still doesn't seem to make sense (to me, anyway...) Since 'むずかしい語' is the direct object of 習います... I dunno, it sounds weird. But I could be wrong, of course, I'm no expert. ^^;

I would suggest something along the lines of what ishnar-san said--using 'こと'.
日本語を習うことは難しいです。
にほんごをならうことはむずかしいです。
Nihongo wo narau koto ha muzukashii desu.
"(The thing that is) Learning Japanese is difficult." ...literally

'Koto' is often used in this way to nominalize a verb phrase--as in 'learn Japanese' (日本語を習う) to make 'learning Japanese' (日本語を習うこと).

faan-san wrote:
日本語は習い難い。
にほんごはならいにくい。
nihon-go wa narai-nikui.

This one, however, sounds perfect. ^_^ It's what I would have suggested first. Just maybe add the　です at the end! 'Nikui' is an adjective, so you'd need the cupola です to make it 'completely grammatical' (let's say).

Suziepoo wrote:
日本語を勉強するのは難しいと思う。

As ishnar pointed out... 勉強する doesn't mean "to learn," it means "to study." Your sentence means something more like, "I think studying Japanese is difficult." (Not that it isn't correct... because it is. ^_^ It just doesn't mean 'learing Japanese.')

[richvh]

Just to throw in my 2 cents,
日本語は習い難い言葉です。
Nihongo wa narainikui kotoba desu.
Japanese is a difficult language to learn.

[Infidel]

きそくてきな勉強し難い事だけから、日本語を習い難いです。

kisokutekina benkyoushinikuikotodakekara, nihongowo narainikuidesu

Did I seriously butcher that?
Learning Japanese is difficult only because studying reguarly is difficult.

Thanks Suziepoo for the explaination?

[faan-san]

Kates wrote:

faan-san wrote:
日本語は習い難い。
にほんごはならいにくい。
nihon-go wa narai-nikui.

This one, however, sounds perfect. It's what I would have suggested first. Just maybe add the　です at the end! 'Nikui' is an adjective, so you'd need the cupola です to make it 'completely grammatical' (let's say).

According to this site ->http://www.thejapanesepage.com/readarti ... cle_id=186 -nikui is the ending to a verb, therefore, my sentance has a verb and shouldn't need desu...right?

[richvh]

faan-san wrote:

Kates wrote:

faan-san wrote:
日本語は習い難い。
にほんごはならいにくい。
nihon-go wa narai-nikui.

This one, however, sounds perfect. It's what I would have suggested first. Just maybe add the　です at the end! 'Nikui' is an adjective, so you'd need the cupola です to make it 'completely grammatical' (let's say).

According to this site ->http://www.thejapanesepage.com/readarti ... cle_id=186 -nikui is the ending to a verb, therefore, my sentance has a verb and shouldn't need desu...right?

Not quite - nikui is an ending that turns a verb into an adjective.

[Morrigan Eriu]

Wow, I didn't expect such a detailed discussion. This is a great community! Thanks a bunch everyone. Should help me out quite a bit.

[faan-san]

richvh wrote:Not quite - nikui is an ending that turns a verb into an adjective.

Ah. Ok, thanks. But, then, it shouldn't be considered a conjugation (as this page would have it), should it?