Reasons - Using し　instead of から
 

For teaching myself Japanese, I'm using the Genki textbooks (which are quite wonderful, btw), but there are some times where the examples don't quite help out as much as I would like them to.

So, instead of using から for one reason of something happening, we've now gone to し for saying that there are multiple reasons.

But... I fail to understand how a verb conjugates for this, or how adjectives do as well. I'm trying to go with the examples and the practice, but no matter how long (or intensely) I stare at it, it's not sinking in.

Help, please? D:

Hi. I may be too old or something but I (a Japanese speaker) am having a hard time figuring out what kind of し you're speaking of that has to do telling "reasons".

Could you give us an example?

I am thinking that the hint here is the "multiple reasons". Perhaps they have mistaken the し used to indicate multiple things as being limited to reasons? Without an example I can`t make a guess either...

遅いし、眠いし、例がないとなんとも言えないし・・・ （笑）

Oh man, I knew this would be hard.. How to explain it better... Dx That's all the book really describes it as, is multiple things as reasons for something.

Like.. 'I can't go to the party because of ____, and ______.' Or the use to imply that there is more than one reason.

I'm going to apologize now for a most likely very terrible example, but I'm trying. ;-;

しゅくだいがとてもむずかしいし、にほんごがへたし、しゅくだいをしませんでした。

Does this help at all? Dx

You need だ there: にほんごがへただし.
I don't really understand what the problem is, :eek: the し is coming after a "mini sentence" so you can just string a bunch of weak reasons together in the form of "mini sentences" using し to join them.

The difference, which you seem to understand anyway, is that し is used for multiple reasons and the から is used for a direct single reason.

Well, I was asking more about how things conjugate when followed by し, since there are multiple verbs.. Like..for verbs and adjectives, how do they change? Like.. you pointed out with adding だ after へた, is that the same for all adjectives that have な at the end, and you leave the い for adjectives that end with it? @__@

Yes, that's right. It's just a sub-sentence or mini-sentence. What goes before the し is what goes before 。 in other words.

Oh, okay. Thanks so much. :3

This book can be really confusing sometimes when they give really weird examples. Dx

genki isnt the best book out there but usually it gives decent samples, apart fomr repatingitself a milliontimes over with the verb taberu eg.

i was told that Shi "mainly" is used when listing things or properties of the subject at matter like; 彼女はかわいいし、やさしし... and also mainly when you want to put a lot of things together ;p i think of it as a substitute for _and_

but overusing it makes you look like a kid ;p

I'm sure it's not *the* best, but one of the better ones available in my area... ^^; I have one book where I'm not too sure that even half of it is correct. >___>;

And thanks for the tip!

Everyone, thank you SO much for your help. It was totally driving me nuts! xD

the best is getting yourself a japanese girlfriend/boyfriend and second to that is japanese friends ^^

xDD Well, I'll try to find both of those soon.