Densha de bangohan o tabeta.
[Train loc supper oj ate.]
I ate supper on the train.
but:
Nihon de sumu. <----Bad!
[Japan loc reside.]
I live in Japan.
It looks ok, right? But it isn't. Living isn't an active sort of action; it's just a
state of being that goes on for some span of time. Be wary of this.
A useful word - "koto"
Koto literally means "thing" in an abstract sense, as in "what kind of things to
you do at those meetings." It's not the kind of thing you can touch, hold or spit
on. In many cases, you can change a verb into a noun phrase by adding koto to
it. We'll just look at one use of it in this lesson.
Take a typical short sentence:
Sushi o taberu.
Eat sushi.
If we add "koto", it allows us to use the phrase as the subject of a larger sentence.
Sushi o taberu koto
The act of eating sushi
If we place a koto noun phrase before ga dekiru, we get a nifty way of saying
"can do..."
Watashi wa sushi o taberu koto ga dekiru.
I can eat sushi.
Sushi o taberu koto ga dekiru ka.
Can you/he/... eat sushi?
Now, if you're really observant, you might be saying, "hey! that first sentence
has two subjects," or "why would 'sushi eating' be performing the action in the
second sentence?" Here's your answer. Dekiru literally is closer to "is doable"
than to "can do..." So the wa in the first sentence doesn't mark the subject at all;
it just shows which topic we're discussing ("I" in this case).
Watashi wa sushi o taberu koto ga dekiru.
[As for me, sushi eating is doable.]
Useful words to add to your list!
Adjectives:
akai - red
chikai - near
mijikai - short (hair, etc)
nagai - long
oishii - tasty, delicious
takai - expensive
tooi - far
tsumetai - cold
