Please review new Wiki articles

[Gundaetiapo]

I have written some WagaWiki articles that I would like folks to read and provide comments on. There's four new articles.

Learning Japanese from media http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=Learning_Japanese_from_media
Reading manga http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=Reading_manga
Watching anime http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=Watching_anime
Japanese slurs http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=Japanese_slurs

I created "Learning Japanese from media" to contain information that's common to the various media people learn from, and the two additional articles for particular types of media. If you have suggestions for major contributions, you know who to ask! (Yourself.) I'll listen to your comments though.

Special thanks to coco who provided valuable help along the way.

[zengargoyle]

fantastic!

seriously, well done. i think these wiki entries are close to perfect examples of what a wiki article should be...

note: there is a 'semi not quite as documented as it should be' BBcode for wiki stuff:

[ wiki ] Page Name [ /wiki ] (without the spaces.) (if you QUOTE this reply you can see the raw BBcode.)

[wiki]Learning Japanese from media[/wiki]
[wiki]Reading manga[/wiki]
[wiki]Watching anime[/wiki]
[wiki]Japanese slurs[/wiki]

otherwise, very cool... this type of stuff is what the wiki was built for.

[richvh]

I made a few edits.

[zengargoyle]

i added a [wiki]Learning Japanese from media[/wiki] link to the [wiki]Just the FAQs[/wiki] and [wiki]Main Page[/wiki] pages...

[paulrowe]

I hope this isn't considered "hi-jacking", but I have made a contribution as well. I was going through the lessons and saw a link to a non-existent page for conjunctions. Thus, I created a page for that purpose. I encourage anyone to go in there and thrash so it comes out looking clean (or, at least, more conformist).

[wiki]Conjunction[/wiki]

[flammable hippo]

私は字電車とヘルメットを買った。

わたしは　じでんしゃと　へるめっとを　かった。

I bought a bike and a helmet.

I believe you mean 自転車ーじてんしゃーbicycle...

友達の村上さんはパーティーに行って酒を飲んだ。

ともだちの　むらかみさんは　パーティーに　いって　さけを　のんだ。

My friend, Mr. Murakami, went to a party and drank sake.

I'm not entirely sure on this one, but since Murakami is your friend he is part of your "in-group" and the way the sentence is set up, it appears you are speaking to a member of an "out-group" and thus using the suffix 'san' seems a bit inapropriate since its only supposed to be used with other people's names that aren't in your group.

Also, throughout your example sentences you keep on switching between polite and informal speech, use the same style for all of your examples.

[tanuki]

Similarly, you should not find 「けれでも」, 「けれど」, 「けど」, or 「が」 as conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence.

OK, but you should probably mention that you will find だけど, だが, etc.

Also, I think the title should be "conjunctions", since it deals with various conjunctions. It has a double title that looks awkward and is unnecessary.

And another thing: it would probably be better to divide the sections further. For example, for the "and" section, you could do a sub-title for nouns, adjectives and verbs.

[Yudan Taiteki]

The English conjunctions "and" and "but" are called "postpositives" because they should never occur at the beginning of a sentence.

They occur at the beginning of sentences all the time. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary says "But, like and, is a common transitional word and often begins sentences," and "Both and and but, and to a lesser extent or and so, are common as transitional words at the beginnings of sentences in all types of speech and writing: General Jackson thought the attack would come after darkness. And he was right. Any objection to this practice probably stems from the overuse of such sentences by inexperienced writers."

The 2006 American Heritage Dictionary says "It is frequently asserted that sentences beginning with and or but express "incomplete thoughts" and are therefore incorrect. But this rule has been ridiculed by grammarians for decades, and the stricture has been ignored by writers from Shakespeare to Joyce Carol Oates. When asked whether they paid attention to the rule in their own writing, 24 percent of the Usage Panel answered "always or usually," 36 percent answered "sometimes," and 40 percent answered "rarely or never.""

The American Heritage Book of English Usage (1996) says "but beginning a sentence. “In his youth Dostoevsky had been attracted to utopian socialism of the Fourierist variety. But four years in a prison camp in Siberia shook his faith.” As this quotation from J.M. Coetzee shows, the conjunction but can be highly effective as a sentence opener. You may still hear the injunction against beginning a sentence with a conjunction. The idea is that these sentences express “incomplete” thoughts. But a glance through any magazine or newspaper will show you that beginning with but has become common practice, and initial but must be considered acceptable at all levels of style."

Similarly, you should not find 「けれでも」, 「けれど」, 「けど」, or 「が」 as conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence.

Trying to compare English and Japanese grammar like this rarely is very productive.

[paulrowe]

Ok. I guess it needed a more severe thrashing than I thought. I've completely revised the article. どうぞよろしくお願いします。

[gaijinshiki]

Paul-san

This is kind of a small detail, but it is コーヒー, and not コヒー.

You are also missing a few particles...歯を磨く　and 映画を見ました

[paulrowe]

gaijinshiki wrote:
This is kind of a small detail, but it is コーヒー, and not コヒー.

You are also missing a few particles...歯を磨く　and 映画を見ました

Thank you. I have made those changes. I sometimes feel like I ought to drop articles in subordinate clauses, but I guess I shouldn't more often than I should.

BTW - I'm not that protective of the article. If someone else would like to fix something, especially if I made a glaring error in the Japanese grammar, I would greatly appreciate the correction.

[flammable hippo]

コーヒーかお茶か水がほしいか。

コーヒーか　おちゃか　みずが　ほしいか。

Putting ka as the question marker at the end of an informal sentence does not have the same general meaning as it does when put at the end of a more polite desu/masu-teineigo sentence. The same goes for all your other sentences that do this as well. Try to stay away from it in this type of sentence until you know how to use it. Usually the particle no could suffice.

昨日彼女と一緒に映画を見ましたり買い物したり喫茶店で食べたりしました。

きのう　かのじょと　いっしょに　えいがを　みましたり　かいもの　したり　きっさてんで　たべたり　しました。

That should be 見たり, not 見ましたり. You generally wouldn't put the tari form with a masu ending.

[paulrowe]

flammable hippo wrote:

コーヒーかお茶か水がほしいか。

Putting ka as the question marker at the end of an informal sentence does not have the same general meaning as it does when put at the end of a more polite desu/masu-teineigo sentence. The same goes for all your other sentences that do this as well. Try to stay away from it in this type of sentence until you know how to use it. Usually the particle no could suffice.

That was a stupid mistake on my part. I should have known better. Per the advice I got earlier, I'm trying to make all of the sentences polite, so it became 「コーヒー。。。がほしいですか。」

flammable hippo wrote:

昨日彼女と一緒に映画を見ましたり買い物したり喫茶店で食べたりしました。

That should be 見たり, not 見ましたり. You generally wouldn't put the tari form with a masu ending.

Another stupid mistake on my part. Thanks for pointing it out.

[NocturnalOcean]

Unlike が, でも and けれど can sometimes be found at the beginning of a sentence.

I just want to point out that, when Demo is used as "but" like you hear describe, it can ONLY be used as a sentence starter, never as a conjuntion in the middle of a phrase.

[Yudan Taiteki]

That's not entirely true. でも can follow nouns as a conjunction meaning "even though" -- i.e. 先生でも出来ない (Even a teacher can't do it) or 病気でもこなければならないんだ。 (Even if you're sick you have to come). What you can't do is say something like 高いでも買いたい。 When でも gets put at the beginning of a sentence, it doesn't matter how the preceding sentence ended, and it takes an associated meaning of "but".