昔の作文発見！

[delacroix01]

Originally Posted by masaegu

When writing Japanese or any other language as a foreign language, one tends to translate from one's first language and this can lead to unnatural-sounding writing in the target language.

You're absolutely right. This is just exactly what my classmates always do. They are technically senior English major students, yet they still can't get rid of the idea of using Vietnamese structures when speaking or writing in English or French. It is their thinking that makes many of their sentences sound very grammatically incorrect and extremely unnatural (far worse than my bad English if you ask me).

That aside, it's great to see that you could write like that as a young boy. I could never write in my mother tongue at that level back when I was in high school.

[Columbine]

haha, that's cute, and really interesting to see so thank you for sharing!

[KyleGoetz]

OK here are my questions.

1. You start with ぼくの趣味. Does your use of ぼくの reflect your immaturity as a writer, or is it better to say ぼくの趣味 as opposed to just 趣味?

2. Were you expected to use ます form in this essay (or in all school assignments?), or is this what kids assume they should use in school? I ask because true "essays" of the scholarly kind I see all use 普通体. We don't have such a distinction in English, so the difference between true literary work and junior high work is only in vocabulary usage, more complicated content, and other signals that reflect the increased education of the author. Of course junior high kids in Japan know 普通体, so it can't be chalked up to "lack of education in how to use 普通体."

Perhaps it's like how children in elementary school in the US are taught cursive handwriting and then forced to use it in all assignments? Just used to reinforce a skill by having it used everywhere possible...

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

OK here are my questions.

1. You start with ぼくの趣味. Does your use of ぼくの reflect your immaturity as a writer, or is it better to say ぼくの趣味 as opposed to just 趣味?

2. Were you expected to use ます form in this essay (or in all school assignments?), or is this what kids assume they should use in school? I ask because true "essays" of the scholarly kind I see all use 普通体. We don't have such a distinction in English, so the difference between true literary work and junior high work is only in vocabulary usage, more complicated content, and other signals that reflect the increased education of the author. Of course junior high kids in Japan know 普通体, so it can't be chalked up to "lack of education in how to use 普通体."

Perhaps it's like how children in elementary school in the US are taught cursive handwriting and then forced to use it in all assignments? Just used to reinforce a skill by having it used everywhere possible...

1. In most elementary schools (like all of them), you are simply required to refer to yourself as ぼく if you are a boy and わたし if you are a girl in both writing and speaking in class. Outside of class, like during the breaks, many boys use おれ and the teachers usually pay little attention to it.

For the title of a writing, the first-person pronoun is very often a must. If you title your compo as 「趣味」, no native speaker would think it would be a discussion of your own hobbies. It would be a very strange composition title but one would expect a discussion of what hobbies are to human beings in general.

2. By 普通体, you mean the dictionary form, don't you? If so, no, we (kids or adults) do not use 普通体 nearly as often as Japanese-learners seem to think. It would sound too bloodless and indifferent. In poetry and article-type writing, we do use it. You will see lots of です/ます endings in compositions by elementary school kids because that is the first style of writing we learn in school, which is mostly why I have kept stating on JF that we do not perceive です/ます as being particularly polite even though we may call it "polite" in name.
__________

I was thinking someone might ask about こっぴどく from the last paragraph but no question is a good question.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by masaegu

1. In most elementary schools (like all of them), you are simply required to refer to yourself as ぼく if you are a boy and わたし if you are a girl in both writing and speaking in class. Outside of class, like during the breaks, many boys use おれ and the teachers usually pay little attention to it.

For the title of a writing, the first-person pronoun is very often a must. If you title your compo as 「趣味」, no native speaker would think it would be a discussion of your own hobbies. It would be a very strange composition title but one would expect a discussion of what hobbies are to human beings in general.

2. By 普通体, you mean the dictionary form, don't you? If so, no, we (kids or adults) do not use 普通体 nearly as often as Japanese-learners seem to think. It would sound too bloodless and indifferent. In poetry and article-type writing, we do use it. You will see lots of です/ます endings in compositions by elementary school kids because that is the first style of writing we learn in school, which is mostly why I have kept stating on JF that we do not perceive です/ます as being particularly polite even though we may call it "polite" in name.
__________

I was thinking someone might ask about こっぴどく from the last paragraph but no question is a good question.

Understood. I think I've got a good handle on when to use 普通体 (yes, I meant plain form—in English we use "dictionary form" only to refer to the present tense of the plain form since it's the form found in the dictionary) in speaking. Writing? Not so much. I know in letter writing, you use ます form. In newspapers, 普通体. Wasn't sure about school composition assignments. Thanks for the lesson.

I guess I could ask a question about こっぴどい. Is it the type of word you should use in an essay for school, or does it sound slangy? My non-native ear thinks it's slangy because of the こっ at the beginning and it changes the ひ to a ぴ, resulting in a harsher, stronger sound like I've noticed nice Japanese writing likes to avoid. I mean by that higher level writing uses something like 〜に行き、〜 instead of 〜に行って、〜 and my theory is that better writers subconsciously avoid harder sounds (think T, K, P) as much as possible.

Oh, another example is the difference between やはり and やっぱり.

[TBox]

On the second line you use 見せてもらい and just after the こっぴどく you use 叱られてしまい. What does it mean when you use just the stem like that?

Do ことです and ことがあります work the same as のです/んです?

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

I guess I could ask a question about こっぴどい. Is it the type of word you should use in an essay for school, or does it sound slangy? My non-native ear thinks it's slangy because of the こっ at the beginning and it changes the ひ to a ぴ, resulting in a harsher, stronger sound like I've noticed nice Japanese writing likes to avoid. I mean by that higher level writing uses something like 〜に行き、〜 instead of 〜に行って、〜 and my theory is that better writers subconsciously avoid harder sounds (think T, K, P) as much as possible.

Oh, another example is the difference between やはり and やっぱり.

Your understanding is correct. Words with the "tough guy" prefixes should generally be avoided in school compositions as they do sound slangy. Admittedly, I do not remember why I used it. I was probably trying to be humorous towards the end or simply trying to emphasize on how mad my mother was. Either way, I recommend that Japanese-learners not use these words in their writings for school.

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by TBox

On the second line you use 見せてもらい and just after the こっぴどく you use 叱られてしまい. What does it mean when you use just the stem like that?

It is the continuative form. Think of it as the more formal version of the te-form. The te-form sounds quite conversational (and Japanese-learners use it way too often. ).

見せてもらい　＝　見せてもらって
叱られてしまい　＝　叱られてしまって

Do ことです and ことがあります work the same as のです/んです?

No, they do not. At least the two groups are not interchangeable if that is what you are asking.

「ぼくの趣味は（　）です。」
Only a noun or noun phrase can fill the ( ). The easiest way to change 切手を集める, which is a verb phrase, into a noun phrase is to add こと to it. Had I been a few years older, I would have used 切手の収集 or 切手収集.

～～ことがあります is very different from ことです. It means "There are times when ~~."

のです/んです is totally different as well. It is most often used to inform someone of something that you are sure that he did not know.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by masaegu

Had I been a few years older, I would have used 切手の収集 or 切手収集.

Well that answers the question I forgot to ask!

Sort of like someone jumping from "stamp collecting" to "philately" in English.

[TBox]

Originally Posted by masaegu

It is the continuative form. Think of it as the more formal version of the te-form. The te-form sounds quite conversational (and Japanese-learners use it way too often. ).

That's because they teach us て form in the second semester and in the first two semesters they never talk about the continuative outside attaching ます.

Originally Posted by masaegu

「ぼくの趣味は（　）です。」

That one I understood right away. It actually made me laugh pretty hard since, minus what's being collected, it's word for word the first line in a song I'm fond of.
It was the second one that threw me. I re-read it and I'm fine now, turns out the sentence got too long for me and I more or less forgot the topic. I'm always so embarrassed at these points.

Originally Posted by masaegu

～～ことがあります is very different from ことです. It means "There are times when ~~."

For the two sentences you use it in, could you have used ときがあります? If so, how do you choose between ときが and ことが? If not, for what kind of sentences do you use ときが?