Grammar point example sentences

[Steve_Poppers]

Oh, doi! I failed to write that down when taking notes. They shall be fixed!　...Howzat?

[Yudan Taiteki]

Steve_Poppers wrote:
Want to do　たい
何を言ったいですか。

This should be 言いたい.

分かりたい。

You can't say "wakaritai". The -tai form can only be used with verbs that involve control or volition. You can't choose whether or not you understand something, so there is no control or volition involved -- and thus no たい form can be used.

[Steve_Poppers]

Ah. I see. You're good. And very helpful. ..So, the rest are good?

[richvh]

Yudan Taiteki wrote:

分かりたい。

You can't say "wakaritai". The -tai form can only be used with verbs that involve control or volition. You can't choose whether or not you understand something, so there is no control or volition involved -- and thus no たい form can be used.

Funny, just today I came across it (or at least the negative form of it) in the novel I'm reading. (魔性の子 by 小野不由美, page 322)

　分かりたくない、と思った。そんな理屈は分かりたくない。広瀬は首を降った。

[Yudan Taiteki]

Yeah, 分かる is one of those borderline words (it sometimes occurs with を as well instead of が). I think this is one of those cases where you should understand the rules in order to break them, though.

[Steve_Poppers]

Adjecteves い
Write 3 sentences for each conjugation of 3 different adjectives.
熊のプーさんは可愛いです。
熊のプーさんは可愛くないです。
熊のプーさんは可愛かったです。
熊のプーさんは可愛くなかったです。
このパンコーンは新しいです。
このパンコーンは新しくないです。
このパンコーンは新しくないです。
このパンコーンは新しくなかったです。
英語は安いです。
英語は安くないです。
英語は安かったです。
英語は安くなかったです。

This seems kind of repetitive, but it's just practice.

[richvh]

You didn't conjugate any verbs; those are all adjectives.

[Yudan Taiteki]

Two things:
かわいい is usually not written in kanji.
安い does not mean "easy" in the sense you are trying to use it; you want やさしい for that. 安い is generally "cheap".

Your conjugations are fine, though.

[Steve_Poppers]

You didn't conjugate any verbs; those are all adjectives.

Oops. Fixed it.

かわいい is usually not written in kanji.

Got it.

I did get a little confused by what rikaichan said 安い meant. What would I use instead?

[Yudan Taiteki]

やさしい

[Steve_Poppers]

Ok. Thanks.

Next:
Very とても
5 examples
あのりんごはとても赤いです。
あなたはとてもかわいいです。
この和食はとてもおいしいです。
東京に住んではとても高いです。
あの食べ物はとても熱いです。

And...Go!

[Yudan Taiteki]

Somehow とても赤い strikes me as a little odd -- it does get 570 google hits so somebody's using it, but 570 is rather low compared to the 550,000+ hits that "very red" gets in English.

東京に住んではとても高いです。

This means something like "If one lives in Tokyo it is very expensive" (and isn't a natural way to say that since that structure is almost always used with a negative predicate or at least one with a strongly negative connotation).

What you want to do here is 東京に住むのはともて高いです; I would recommend holding off on those sorts of relative clauses until you get a little further along in your studies; they're not the easiest topic in Japanese grammar.

[Steve_Poppers]

Ghaa! I want to learn this stuff! But there's so much!

So do people just not describe things as "very red" in japanese?

[Yudan Taiteki]

Hmm, I tried some other "very" terms and got slightly more encouraging results. 2000+ hits for each of すごく赤い, すごい赤い, とっても赤い. Without asking a native speaker I'm not really sure here.

Ghaa! I want to learn this stuff! But there's so much!

Welcome to language learning. All you can do is take it piece by piece, and you should expect to make many, many, many mistakes. Everybody does.

[SolidSnail]

Don't the japanese use the word 真っ赤 ?