"Koto" Please explain what it is used for and means ^^.

[Vengeance]

I've only seen "Koto" a few times in my school work and my teacher hasn't explained what it means. She says it's "Structured..." as she likes to put it.

I would really like to know when it's used and what it means because I hear it in anime soooo much. Like, I hear it every minute in anime so I think it would be important for me to know.

Thanx.

[Spaztick]

koto means thing, object, event, but you can just remember "thing."

EX: watashi wa nihongo o benkyou suru koto ga dekiru.
I can study Japanese. (Lit. I japanese-study-do-thing can.)

The koto in there makes a verb a noun so you can use dekiru with it. It's like saying you can do surfing, when it would make more sense grammatically to say you can surf. Koto does that.

[Vengeance]

Thanks that clears a lot up. Incidently, is there more meanings to the word "Dake" than just "only" - etc etc.

[Spaztick]

No, it pretty much only means "only," but you can stick other stuff on it as suffixes to create different words, like "aredake" means "to that degree."

[toryn]

Koto (you can also use 'no', depending on what you're saying) makes a verb act like a noun. So, as well as dekiru, you can use it to say things like

'I like surfing' (saafin o suru koto ga suki desu),

'surfing is fun' (saafin o suru koto wa tanoshii desu), and

'I saw that person surf' (sono hito wa saafin o suru koto o mimashita).

[Ady001]

It acts like a gerund...

For example:

I like killing
Ore wa korosu koto ga suki desu

I like killing a fool
Ore wa baka ni korosu koto ga suki desu

I like killing a fool with a knife
Ore wa baka ni naifu de korosu koto ga suki desu

[hihlordjp]

You like using "ore", don't you? :p

...Oh! I can make a "koto" sentence with that one! hehe

キミは「オレ」の使う事が好きだね？
Kimi wa "ore" no tsukau koto ga suki da ne?

[Vengeance]

I can understand what it means but I don't think I've quite grasped when to use it and when not to.

[leylia]

what about "dake do"? Is that dake= only + do= ??

^_^ thanks for the help in advance

[chousenjin]

leylia wrote:
what about "dake do"? Is that dake= only + do= ??

^_^ thanks for the help in advance

dakedo... da=more casual form of desu. kedo= but. it's actually short for keredomo.

so you might say, "nihongo wa muzukashii dakedo, totemo omoshiroi desu." japanese is difficult but interesting/fun.

oh, and to the original poster: based on my personal experience, koto is not necessarily used very often. maybe nowa... ぬすむことは だめです。= ぬすむのは だめです。

koto can also be used to make something a bit less direct. example: ぼくはすきですか？ do you like me? can be made a bit less direct by saying ぼくのことは すきですか？

hope i didn't fudge any lessons.
and hope that helps. =]

[Mukade]

toryn wrote:
Koto (you can also use 'no', depending on what you're saying) makes a verb act like a noun. So, as well as dekiru, you can use it to say things like

'I like surfing' (saafin o suru koto ga suki desu),

'surfing is fun' (saafin o suru koto wa tanoshii desu), and

'I saw that person surf' (sono hito wa saafin o suru koto o mimashita).

This is one of the more common usages of koto.

Another one is when you make statements of previous experiences. For example, if you want to tell your conversation partner that you've seen Japanese anime before:
Nihon no anime o mita koto ga arimasu.

Or that you've never been to Japan:
Nihon e itta koto ga arimasen.