Questions on using "んお" instead of "の"?

[512kb]

Well, i'm taking Japanese classes and yesterday it came to my mind to use んお instead of の. I just have a question. First, is this considered grammatically incorrect? Considering how they're basically the same, this is slightly confusing :? .
If anyone can shed some light on this for me, that would be great.

[hebiichigo]

Using it how? As a particle?
I don't think you can change の to んお at all. It's hard for me to explain but the pronunciation of んお is different than の because of the ん. んお is two syllables, の is one. It's just.. not right.

[Buntaro]

の and んお are completely different. They are not interchangeable at all.

Take the word kuni. Where do you divide the syllables? Is it (1) く + に or is it (2) くん + い? You will see the second type of syllable-division in Japanese. When it is the second type, you cannot use に.

Does anyone have any examples? I cannot think of any off the top of my head.

[GaijinPunch]

There are no real words that start with ん, plain and simple. You might see the occasional grunt in a manga or something, but that's it.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Hello 512k! We meet again! I tried to post earlier but for some reason the computer wouldn't let me. :(
の and んお are completely different. They are not interchangeable at all.
This is true. It has to do with the fact that in Japanese, the number of syllables in a word is extremely important for understanding, and the whole idea of syllables is quite different in Japanese than say English.

Take the words, きた(kita)　and きった(kitta). I will assume for the moment that you agree that these are completely different. The former has 2 syllables き and た, whereas the latter has 3 syllables き,　っ, and　た.

の　is one syllable. ん　is also one syllable. お is yet another syllable. So for the same reason that　きた[2 syllables] and きった[3 syllables] are completely different, の[1 syllable] and んお[2 syllables] are also completely different.

I have one example of how this distinction completely changes the meaning of a word.

離農　りのう Quitting the agricultural profession and findind work in some other field.

輪王　りんおう　Name of an ancient wise Indus king.

Hope this helps! I'd write more, but I don't have the time right now! If you want further explanation, just let me know! :)

[Mikawa Ossan]

There are no real words that start with ん, plain and simple. You might see the occasional grunt in a manga or something, but that's it.
This is not 100% true. I know of one word in the Japanese language (ンジャメナ or N'djamena, the capitol of Chad) that starts with ン. Granted it's not a word native to Japanese.

[Glenn]

There's also an issue of pronunciation. の is [no], but んお is the nasalized version of the vowel that precedes ん and [o]. For example, if there were a series like わんお, it would be pronounced [waa〜o], whereas わの would be [wano]. You may not want to think about this too much for now, but I just wanted to illustrate another difference between the two.



This forum is really bad for displaying and inputting diacritics. That second "a" was supposed to look like the Spanish "enye" letter. i.e., the swung tilde was supposed to be above the second "a."

Also, minor terminology correction: it should be "mora," not "syllable."

[Elizabeth]

There are no real words that start with ん, plain and simple. You might see the occasional grunt in a manga or something, but that's it.
There's also the distinction within words and between kanji of the ん on the end of a sound blurring into に of the next syllable or mora. Like the totally unrelated word pairs たにん　and たんいん or せきにん、ほにん and ほんいん、
じにん、じんいん etc. But basically we've answered the original question and this may all be a little overwhelming at such an early stage. :relief:

[Mikawa Ossan]

Also, minor terminology correction: it should be "mora," not "syllable."
You are absolutely correct, of course, but I decided that given a choice of being understandable and 100% accurate, I'd go with understandable. If you look at my other "explanation" posts, you'll see that I do this quite consistantly. Sometimes as a teacher or mentor, being accurate makes you less coherent to the person(s) you are trying to help.

I would rather that the person I'm trying to help understands the overall language point and only then move on to more specificity and accuracy. That's why I specifically choose the word "syllable" over "mora". Forgive me if I'm wrong 512kb, but I assumed you didn't know that word, and it would just get in the way to explain it.:bow:

[Glenn]

Sorry, I can be a bit of a stickler for accuracy, and since the concept was so clearly explained, I thought that introducing a new word wouldn't be that big of a deal.

[Mikawa Ossan]

No problem here! I'm just concerned because 512kb hasn't posted again yet stating whether he understands or not. :? That's all. :bow:

[Elizabeth]

No problem here! I'm just concerned because 512kb hasn't posted again yet stating whether he understands or not. :? That's all. :bow:
I don't know how we could have been any clearer. The original poster not following up is not the slightest bit unusual, distinguishing "n" from other sounds will involve developing an ear for the language over the next one to two years.

[GaijinPunch]

This is not 100% true. I know of one word in the Japanese language (ンジャメナ or N'djamena, the capitol of Chad) that starts with ン. Granted it's not a word native to Japanese.

I stand corrected... sort of.

[Mikawa Ossan]

I don't know how we could have been any clearer.
Yeah, but I remember when I was beginning how sometimes I got information overload and the answers I'd get to similar questions made me more confused than I originally was. That's all. Sorry if I sound like a nanny or something. I just feel a lot of responsibility for someone when I try to help him or her. Maybe I could have said it better?:blush: