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Visually disturbing
About an hour ago I experienced something very odd. I was on a train and noticed that the centre of my vision had gone blank, as if I'd looked at the sun for a moment. I didn't think about it until I realized that it wasn't sunny, and I hadn't looked at the sun. Also, it wasn't getting better. After a while, the affected area spread out and ( Read more... ) -
Optimal Leitner arrangement
I'm using a Leitner Box system to review kanji, vocabulary, and grammar. At the moment I have sets of cards set at one day, two day, four days, one week, two weeks, four weeks, two months, and so on. I have schedule like this:
2 day Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday 4 day Monday, Friday 1 week Wednesday 2 weeks First and third Saturday ( Read more... ) -
Joke of the week
I like the word "dichotomy" though I don't know what it means. I keep using words that I don't understand. Like "ironic". I say "ironic" all the time time, even though I don't know what it means. Which is ironic really. Or is it? I just don't know.
From "Boothby Graffoe in No Particular Order" Broadcast on Radio 4, 2005-08-02 18:30
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A simple view of Japanese grammar
I've had some thoughts on how to analyze Japanese sentences, and how this leads to a simple understanding of the great は/が problem. It's probably a load of rubbish, in which case, please tell me now.
( No doubt incorrect analysis ) -
Existence and possession
In Japanese, the verb "ある" is used for both existence and possession. But perhaps it used to be two separate verbs.
( Uncover the evidence ) -
The mystery of desu
Japanese has a special grammatical object called the copula, which is roughly equivalent to the English verb "to be". Except that it doesn't behave quite like a verb. I've been trying to unravel the mystery of the copula.
( More amateur grammatics ) -
Grammar puzzle
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (the "yellow book") and the Naganuma School textbooks share a rather odd (to me) view of grammar. I was wondering if it made sense to anyone else.
( Something of no interest except to Japanese grammar geeks )
