(Please try this and report back.)Īnother way to describe context-dependent time phrases would be to say that the points in time they refer to do not shift as time progresses. In fact, you could spontaneously walk up to someone in the street and say “Tomorrow!”, and they would immediately know what day you are talking about. We don’t need any more context than that. The verb tense – play/ shimasu します vs played/ shimashita しました – tells us if it is the nearest Tuesday in the future or past.īoth of these pieces of information are necessary to understand which Tuesday is being referred to.īy contrast, if we just said, “tomorrow”, then even if we used the wrong verb tense, we would know that the golfing is happening on the day after the current one.The only time it doesn’t is when there is – you guessed it – more context provided. “On Tuesday”/ “kayōbi ni” 「 火曜日 かようびに」 lacks more detail other than that it is a Tuesday, and this virtually always means “on the nearest Tuesday to now”.To be clear, there are two “pieces” of context in these examples: …is identical to the previous example, but the Tuesday being referred to is different. Much of the time, the context needed is actually implied to be “now”, such as in this example: Usually, however, it’s much easier than that. The date gives us the context we need in order to understand exactly which Tuesday we’re talking about. One way, of course, is to say something like “on Tuesday the 5 th of November 2019”. Now, in both English and Japanese, we also need to provide sufficient context, but how do we do that? The particle does get omitted sometimes colloquially, but for a sentence to be grammatically correct and complete, it should be included. In Japanese, time words that depend on context need to be followed by the particle “ni” 「に」 when used in a sentence. at 6 o’clock) and for months we use “in” (eg. In the case of “Tuesday”, that would be “on”, while for times we use “at” (eg. In English, words like this need a time preposition – in, on or at – to be used in a sentence. There have been and will be many, many Tuesdays, so if we want to use the word “Tuesday” in a sentence, we need to give it context in order to know which Tuesday we are referring to. The reason for this is because these time units are repeating.įor example, the word “Tuesday” could be used to describe exactly 1/7 th of all days that have ever been or ever will be. Words of this type do not depend exclusively on when “now” is, but rather on the context within which they are used. Time words that depend on context for specificity Notice that all of them refer to a specific point or span of time that will change as time progresses. Here are some of the most common ones: Now In Japanese, words in this category do not need the particle “ni” 「に」 when used in a sentence. For example, we wouldn’t say “at now” or “on tomorrow”. In English, words in this category do not need one of the prepositions of time – in, on, at – when used in a sentence. The points in time these words refer to change depending on when “now” is. It means the day after the current one, so depending on when the current day is – when “now” is – the exact timing of “tomorrow” varies. The same is true for a word like “tomorrow”. The exact point in time it refers to changes according to when I say it. If I say “now” at 2pm on Friday, it means 2pm on Friday, but if I say it at 5pm on Saturday, it means 5pm on Saturday. Words in this category describe points in time based on when they are/were relative to the moment when they are said. We’ll use English examples in most of our explanations here since a) that’s easier, and b) this concept applies to both English and Japanese. So, let’s see what these two groups really are. Context-dependent time phrases should be followed by “ni” 「に」.Relative-to-now time phrases should not be followed by “ni” 「に」.The reason we want to understand what these two groups mean is pretty simple. Time words that rely on context for specificity.Time words that describe a point in time relative to “now”.Types of time phrases (and deciding which time phrases need “ni”)īroadly speaking, we can divide words that describe timing into two types: Let’s take a close look at that now, and put any lingering confusion about this topic well and truly behind us. We could have easily changed this order, but again, that’s something we’ll worry about a bit later.įirst, we need to address the other major elephant in the room that these two examples highlight – when do we need to include the particle “ni” 「に」?īasically, there are two types of words or phrases that describe points in time, and whether or not “ni” 「に」 is needed depends on which category a given time phrase belongs to. In the first example, we have the time expression before the topic, and in the second, it comes after the topic. My older brother did some shopping in Ueno on Thursday.Īni wa mokuyōbi ni ueno de kaimono wo shimashita.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |