こんにちわみんな Could somebody please help me? *-* I have to write an essay, and not sure how… - Feed Post by mistyrosenani
こんにちわみんな
Could somebody please help me? *-* I have to write an essay, and not sure how to express a few things.
1. I'm not sure which verb to use for "miss somebody"
2. and don't know how should I phrase "look alike" eg.: My brother and I don't look alike.
I would be so grateful if somebody could help me T-T
Could somebody please help me? *-* I have to write an essay, and not sure how to express a few things.
1. I'm not sure which verb to use for "miss somebody"
2. and don't know how should I phrase "look alike" eg.: My brother and I don't look alike.
I would be so grateful if somebody could help me T-T
posted by mistyrosenani
Comments 20
I might be wrong about most of this, seeing as I'm just another person learning Japanese, but here goes...
1.
Do you mean "miss someone" as in "yearn to see someone again"?
If so, then it's more likely to be an adjective you need. Which one to use depends on what kind of feeling you have:
寂しい (さびしい) can be used to mean you're "lonely" because someone isn't there.
懐かしい (なつかしい) is used especially for nostalgia kind of "miss". Like when talking about fond memories.
These also have a similar meaning, but I don't really know their differences properly:
恋しい (こいしい)
愛しい (いとしい)
慕わしい (したわしい)
Example:
あなたがとても恋しい。 = "I really miss you."
2.
似る (にる) means "resemble, look alike", but needs to be in ～て+いる form to express a continuing state. So just need to make this negative:似ていない.
The full sentence depends on whether you want to say that you don't look like your brother, or that your brother doesn't look like you. And it also depends on whether he's your older or younger brother for which word to use for that.
私は兄に似ていません。 = "I don't look like my older brother."
thank you very much :)
You could also say you want to meet someone, which would be 合いたい.- Well, I needed the sentence that I thought my brother missed me, so I put it together like this:
私は私がいなくなると弟は寂しいんだなと思いました。 - I don't know if it's just me, but the two 私 so close bothers me. I have a habit of speaking more relaxed, so I'm not sure if there's a cleaner way to do that in an essay form. Couldn't you say "Because I wasn't there, I was sure my little brother missed me." using 私がいないので? I do a lot of casual speaking in Japanese and I really ought to do more keigo speaking or essay writing... ah well.
- hmm, I guess that could work too :D I think I made it more difficult than it should be :s being too focused T-T"
In addition to what Arachkid said, there's also another thing that bothered me, which was that "寂しいんだなと思いました". I would just say "寂しいなと思いました". But then again, what you wrote isn't wrong, it's just that the "んだ" is not necessary.- I thought the same, but have less experience writing than I should. I also think it's weird to express what someone else is probably thinking in writing in Japanese. Might just be me, again, but I find that only in education - students talking about possible feelings of their students - do people talk about probable emotions of other people, and even then, it's about いじめ (bullying/teasing). Is this not something that you could say that you miss your little brother as you haven't seen them in a while? I mean, *I* might say something the way you worded it in Japanese, but that's the whole I'm not Japanese and tend not to speak like one thing. :P Anyone, feel free to tell me if I'm wrong, this is not based on teachings, but experience and feelings, so I can definitely be off.
- I think the same about speaking about the probable emotions of other people. It seems a little strange to think of people speaking in Japanese in that way.
My bad attempt at your sentence without putting much thought at all into it would be:
私がいなかったので、兄は寂しかったと思いました。
...but I think that's probably more past tense than is necessary, idk... It's also hard to know exactly what to suggest without knowing the entire situation and who you are talking to.
Might be a good idea to head over to http://lang-8.com and type your sentence on there, where native Japanese speakers hopefully will correct it and give their input and suggestions. Would be interesting to read their responses. ^^ 
It's hard to express miss in Japanese. It doesn't quite have the same nuance. I personally think the closest way to express it is (person)がいなくて淋しいです。寂しい can also be used in this context, but I feel with 淋し, you're longing to meet the person, especially a loved one (e.g., fiance or fiancee).
Context helps, but I think the word you're looking for is 似てる.- I should've actually read the comments before sending my reply. Mog is right in his first reply.
- @Koukyoshi, So 寂しい and 淋しい have different meanings? They do still have the same reading though?
Although this is slightly off-topic, I was interested in that and had already tried to find that out, but didn't have much success.
I was also wondering about the "さみしい" reading versus "さびしい". I've always thought of it as さびしい, but knew about the other reading. I was wondering if one was for one kanji and one was for the other, but it didn't appear to be this way when I tried to look it up. - In regards to さびしい vs. さみしい, my JHS students indicated that さびしい was about being lonely or alone, whereas さみしい was about missing someone or someone specific not being in your life, like if they died.
Of course, the Japanese language teacher nearby said she'd never heard such drivel. I am researching further, making the first use of my J-J dictionary, which has a half-page dedicated to redirecting you to the correct version of さびしい or さみしい. :P - Apparently 淋しい OR 寂しい can be read either as さびしい or さみしい, and the meaning is pretty much the same. That being said, online Japanese sources indicate that since the kanji in 淋しい means "gonorrhea", use it carefully. 「使い方に注意が必要です。」
- Also, since 寂 is part of the 常用漢字, whenever さびしい or さびしい is written in texts, they're going to use that as it means you don't need to use furigana.
- @Arachkid, Interesting stuff. I noticed that 寂 (さび) is a word on its own, and is only read that single way. 淋 however isn't an individual word.
I think gonorrhoea is actually the meaning for 痳 (measles, leprosy) instead, but this kanji is not used and instead the word gonorrhoea is written as 淋病. 淋 is listed on Chinese sites as meaning "drenched, soaked", and there's also 沐 which means "wash, bathe".
寝淋しい (ねさびしい) is an expression listed on Jisho.org, which is listed only written using that kanji and only read that way. This expression is kind of intriguing given that earlier association to 淋 of gonorrhoea!... :P
Really going off topic now, oops. ^^; - It would be for an oral exam actually, we will have 3 topics, and I tried to write a sketch. This would be the whole story:
ある日、私は実家まで行きました。電車に座った時、弟から電話がありました。弟は一緒に映画館に行きたいと言っていました。私は私がいなくなると弟は寂しいんだなと思いました。映画館には人がたくさんいました。好きな女の子を見かけたので、突然弟の顔はびっくりした顔つきになりました。
映画の上映中、彼女は友達と私たちの後ろに座っていました。私と弟は似ていないので彼女は私たちが兄弟であることを知りませんでした。
あとで弟は彼女を映画に誘ったことを言っていました。でも彼女はもう友達と映画に行く約束をしていましたから弟は私を誘いました。彼女はちょっと嫉妬していました。
So I don't know... :/ - Does the oral exam have to be in formal Japanese? The stuff you're talking about just seems totally weird when you use the dictionary form, it would seem more natural if you were using the casual form. And again, talking about someone's feelings - or how they probably feel/felt - is weird in Japanese. You might try saying that your brother said he had missed you, for example? Whether that's the truth or not, it would be something that happened as opposed to something you are supposing about someone else. Just an idea. Even in daily Japanese conversation I rarely hear about anyone ever saying how someone else felt unless, again, it has to do with bullying specifically, but outside of school? No. In over five years of conversations in all sorts of situations, never have I heard how someone probably felt.
- I was trying to say that I thought my brother was missing me, and that's why he invited me to the cinema. But I guess, I'll just rewrite the whole.
- I understand perfectly what you were trying to say, it's not a problem with understanding you, it's... you just wouldn't say such a thing in Japanese very often, and definitely not in a format where you're using more polite Japanese. That's all. If you're not worried about whether it sounds odd, and that wouldn't be marked against you, by all means, go with your original plan.
