Ramblings of a Crowe

Those Wacky Adverbs!

Since this seems to be "lets bitch about languages" week, I thought I'd get off my ass and do another, "Look What Zoso Has Learned" piece. Regarding that fun loving language of Japanese, which I manage to butcher on a daily basis. Hiro san, Yuuko san, I'm sorry I destroy your language with each email I send. Ha ha. I'll get better, I promise!

So today I'll talk about some adverbs. Why? Because that's what I've been studying lately and talking about them helps me remember. In theory, anyway. Feel free to correct mistakes, but play nice. I hate rude assholes.

Okay, so we all know that adverbs are words that modify other words. There are two kinds of adverbs in Japanese. 1.) the kind that modifies other words and 2.) those used for interrogatives, negations, conditonals, etc. Confused yet? Good.

Word Modifiers (a few)
いつも (itsumo)　always
とても (totemo) very
もっと　(motto) more
たくさん (takusan) a lot

Negations, Interrogatives, Conditionals, etc.
なぜ　(naze) why
たぶん　(tabun) probably
ぜひ　(zehi) definitly

Adverbial placement is pretty free, just so long as it comes before the word it modifies. However, the closer it is the the word, the better.

Some adverbs can be used as vowels by adding する(suru) to them.

いらいらする (iraira suru) become irritated

Adjectives, nouns, and verbs can become adverbs. Adjectives use the 'adverbial form'.

早い hayai fast　( i type adjective)
早く hayaku quickly (adverbial form)

静かな　shizukana quiet (na type adjective)
静かに　shizuka ni quietly (adverbial form)

私は明日日本語を勉強します。　(noun type adverb)
Watashi wa ashita nihongo wo benkyou shimasu.
I will study Japanese tomorrow.

川で泳いで、リラックスしました。(verb type adverb)
Kawa de oyoide, rirakkusu shimashita.
Swimming in the river, I relaxed.

And that's all I've got to say about adverbs. That, and there's a lot of them.

Posted by Zoso at November 15, 2005 08:40 PM