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You're forgetting that there are only 3 (three) verb conjugations in English, of which two are almost always the same. Only a finite number of verbs have irregu

by Grue3 10y ago

You're forgetting that there are only 3 (three) verb conjugations in English, of which two are almost always the same. Only a finite number of verbs have irregular conjugations, so you just learn them along with vocabulary. In Japanese, the number of possible conjugations of all irregular verbs (copula, "suru", "kuru") is probably larger than the number of English irregular verbs that are commonly used. In fact, let's count the number of conjugations of "kuru" in my ICHIRAN [1] database: ICHIRAN/DICT> (length (get-kana-forms 1547720)) 186 Are English possessives considered difficult by anyone? Not sure what that demonstrates. Plurals! Oh, that's my favorite topic that I'm working on right now. -tachi is mostly used with people, so can't be used in most context. For inanimate objects you just say the number of them. And that's where the counters come in... At which point any sane person gives up learning Japanese for good. Past tense, isn't that the same as conjugations? Also your rules don't really work. "tanoshii" => "tanoshiideshita"? Pretty sure that's not a word. The correct past tense is "tanoshikatta [desu]". [1] https://github.com/tshatrov/ichiran https://github.com/tshatrov/ichiran

laurieg 10y ago
We have counters in English too! Tons of words are uncountable, like water, bread, and so on. A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) We even have lots of words that are both countable and uncountable. "I ate some tomato" and "I ate some tomatoes" has quite different meaning. Overall I think all languages have their foibles, and trying to hold one widely used natural language up as "More regular" or "more difficult" is a pretty fruitless endeavour. Thought it is fun to talk about ;)
- mhink 10y ago
  > A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) This doesn't seem that unusual to me, all things considered. "Bread", as a word, is more of a substance-noun than a discrete object-noun. Moreover, "slice" and "loaf" don't strike me as words which give meaning to the phrases "slice of bread" or "loaf of bread"- in fact, it's the other way around. For instance, "slice" is the primary noun, and "bread" is just meant to distinguish it from other "slices" (e.g. "slice of pizza"). So, when I say "Pass me two slices of pizza", I'm really saying "Pass me two 'slice-of-pizza's", rather than "Pass me 'two-slices' of pizza".
glandium 10y ago
You're somehow comparing 3 verb conjugations in English vs. 186 for "kuru". Well, I hate to break it to you, but there aren't 186 conjugations for "kuru". There are, exactly, 6. 9 if you count the formal/archaic forms[1]. There may be 186 forms you can build with auxiliaries, but then, you'd have to compare to all the variants you can have in english with may, can, shall, etc. 1. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E8%A1%8C%E5%A4%89%E6%A0%BC%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E8%A1%8C%E5%A4%89%E6... Edit: > Past tense, isn't that the same as conjugations? Also your rules don't really work. "tanoshii" => "tanoshiideshita"? Pretty sure that's not a word. The correct past tense is "tanoshikatta [desu]". 'tanishiideshita' is the kind of mistake you make when you're not taught that, in japanese, adjectives conjugate. Sadly, a lot of material glosses over that fact. Similarly, most material for non-natives like to talk about the -masu form, then describe things as "-masu form without masu" (sigh). Cumulating "knowledge" from such material, you end up with simplified rules like in GP, which work in some cases, but don't in many others. Then when you dive more into the language, you either encounter new forms and consider them as such, and are crushed under the sheer number of forms, or have to basically start over, deconstruct what you learned and realize that, in fact, it's all much simpler and structured than what you thought, and what made it all more complex is all the learning material for beginners. In some ways, it's like maths. Coming back to the 186 forms for "kuru", I'm sure you only end up with that because of that same learning material "limitations". So you probably end up counting "konai", "konakatta", "konakute", "konakereba", and many other forms as forms of "kuru", when, in fact, they are one form of "kuru" with variants of "nai". The same material will e.g. also tell you about "-kunai" for the negative form of "-i adjectives", but fail to mention that it's actually "-ku+nai", which explains why you will find forms like "-ku ha nai" or "-ku mo nai". I've never seen those explained in textbooks, but that I'm sure it's not pretty.
- Grue3 10y ago
  No, that's not counting auxiliaries (except "-masu"). The "explosion" comes from the fact that many conjugations can themselves be conjugated (e.g. "konai" can be conjugated as an i-adjective). I don't think katsuyōkei should be counted as conjugations because they're not words by themselves. Like, obviously a godan verb has 5 possible root endings but that doesn't mean it has 5 conjugations. If we're counting auxiliary verbs, my system can recognize more than 4000 verb/adjective endings.
greggman 10y ago
Counters exist in English. "5 head of cattle" is exactly analogous to "ushi go tou" (牛五頭) Most English counters have left common usage but the concept exists. Similar but not the same many people enjoy learning all the names for groups of animals I English. "A murder of crows" for example

by Grue3 10y ago

laurieg 10y ago

We have counters in English too! Tons of words are uncountable, like water, bread, and so on. A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) We even have lots of words that are both countable and uncountable. "I ate some tomato" and "I ate some tomatoes" has quite different meaning. Overall I think all languages have their foibles, and trying to hold one widely used natural language up as "More regular" or "more difficult" is a pretty fruitless endeavour. Thought it is fun to talk about ;)

mhink 10y ago
> A slice of bread, a loaf of bread, a bread roll (Hey, why did that one come after the 'bread'...) This doesn't seem that unusual to me, all things considered. "Bread", as a word, is more of a substance-noun than a discrete object-noun. Moreover, "slice" and "loaf" don't strike me as words which give meaning to the phrases "slice of bread" or "loaf of bread"- in fact, it's the other way around. For instance, "slice" is the primary noun, and "bread" is just meant to distinguish it from other "slices" (e.g. "slice of pizza"). So, when I say "Pass me two slices of pizza", I'm really saying "Pass me two 'slice-of-pizza's", rather than "Pass me 'two-slices' of pizza".

glandium 10y ago

You're somehow comparing 3 verb conjugations in English vs. 186 for "kuru". Well, I hate to break it to you, but there aren't 186 conjugations for "kuru". There are, exactly, 6. 9 if you count the formal/archaic forms[1]. There may be 186 forms you can build with auxiliaries, but then, you'd have to compare to all the variants you can have in english with may, can, shall, etc. 1. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E8%A1%8C%E5%A4%89%E6%A0%BC%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E8%A1%8C%E5%A4%89%E6... Edit: > Past tense, isn't that the same as conjugations? Also your rules don't really work. "tanoshii" => "tanoshiideshita"? Pretty sure that's not a word. The correct past tense is "tanoshikatta [desu]". 'tanishiideshita' is the kind of mistake you make when you're not taught that, in japanese, adjectives conjugate. Sadly, a lot of material glosses over that fact. Similarly, most material for non-natives like to talk about the -masu form, then describe things as "-masu form without masu" (sigh). Cumulating "knowledge" from such material, you end up with simplified rules like in GP, which work in some cases, but don't in many others. Then when you dive more into the language, you either encounter new forms and consider them as such, and are crushed under the sheer number of forms, or have to basically start over, deconstruct what you learned and realize that, in fact, it's all much simpler and structured than what you thought, and what made it all more complex is all the learning material for beginners. In some ways, it's like maths. Coming back to the 186 forms for "kuru", I'm sure you only end up with that because of that same learning material "limitations". So you probably end up counting "konai", "konakatta", "konakute", "konakereba", and many other forms as forms of "kuru", when, in fact, they are one form of "kuru" with variants of "nai". The same material will e.g. also tell you about "-kunai" for the negative form of "-i adjectives", but fail to mention that it's actually "-ku+nai", which explains why you will find forms like "-ku ha nai" or "-ku mo nai". I've never seen those explained in textbooks, but that I'm sure it's not pretty.

Grue3 10y ago
No, that's not counting auxiliaries (except "-masu"). The "explosion" comes from the fact that many conjugations can themselves be conjugated (e.g. "konai" can be conjugated as an i-adjective). I don't think katsuyōkei should be counted as conjugations because they're not words by themselves. Like, obviously a godan verb has 5 possible root endings but that doesn't mean it has 5 conjugations. If we're counting auxiliary verbs, my system can recognize more than 4000 verb/adjective endings.

greggman 10y ago

Counters exist in English. "5 head of cattle" is exactly analogous to "ushi go tou" (牛五頭) Most English counters have left common usage but the concept exists. Similar but not the same many people enjoy learning all the names for groups of animals I English. "A murder of crows" for example