omiting 'ka' particle from a question.

[yukio_michael]

What are the rules when omiting ka from a question, I imagine it would be less formal obviously... You can ask someone if they are alright with a simple, "daijoubu??"... in movies I've heard this phrased as "daijoubu da??"... rather rough male speech.

How often is this done, if, and in what circumstances can you do this without the grammar sounding clipped? I've had plenty of people ask me simply, "oishii??"... rather than "oishii desu ka?"

But... I am amerikajin of course ;)

[RockLee]

From what I know it's just less polite :S Between friends or family, I suppose this would get u fired when talking to your boss like that :P

[Damicci]

If you do this with FRIENDS AND FAMILY only you leave off the ka and put a "?" at the end. in speech you would simply raise the tone of your voice to give a questioning tone. if you do neither it will be assumed your making a statement.

I think there is another ending that makes a Japanese sentence into a question but i don't remember it. probably an older form of speaking......meh disregard this rant!

[yorkii]

From what I know it's just less polite :S Between friends or family, I suppose this would get u fired when talking to your boss like that :P
it certainly wont get you fired if you just dropped the "ka" from the end of a sentance. the japanese drop lots of little things from sentances that you are taught to say in textbooks. no one seems to mind.

[Glenn]

Dropping か gives a softer tone in informal speech. As far as I know it's rarely dropped in formal speech, so when talking to your 課長 you would say 何かを召し上がりますか and not 何かを召し上がります？

In informal speech it's dropped quite often to soften the tone. So you can drop it any time you don't want to sound too direct.

[yukio_michael]

Thanks for all the input!

I think there is another ending that makes a Japanese sentence into a question but i don't remember it. probably an older form of speaking......meh disregard this rant!You can also use no as particle for a question: doushita no? though i'm unsure as to all valid sitatuations.

[Glenn]

It's not really a question particle, though. It's the same の as のだ, it's just that you omit the copula. In formal speech the above would be どうしたんですか, where clearly the question particle is か.

[Elizabeth]

Dropping か gives a softer tone in informal speech. As far as I know it's rarely dropped in formal speech, so when talking to your 課長 you would say 何かを召し上がりますか and not 何かを召し上がります？
In informal speech it's dropped quite often to soften the tone. So you can drop it any time you don't want to sound too direct.
少し砕けても、店員、上司、客などに使うにも、『何か 召し上がりますか？」という言い方のほうが多いですね 。これでも十分丁寧です。もちろんもっと丁寧に言うな ら「何かお召し上がりになりますか？」といえます。

[Bucko]

I believe 'kai' and 'dai' are other question markers, but only used by old men. I asked my teacher the difference between the following three sentences:

銀行へ行きますか。 - polite/formal question form
銀行へ行くか。 - grammatically correct but often comes off strong, although I'm not 100% sure. Maybe one of the more advanced jrefers can explain the nuance of 'ka' with a plain form verb?
銀行へ行く？(raised at the end) Casual question between friends.

There's also 'no' or just 'n' which is used both when asking for a reason and giving a reason.

[Elizabeth]

I believe 'kai' and 'dai' are other question markers, but only used by old men.
These are only used by older men :? I always heard both were used by men in general as less formal or more intimate varients of "ka" and "da."　Kai sometimes heard when talking with women, children or social inferiors and dai more as a question word exclusively with other men.

「だい」」は男言葉で、仲の良い友人同士でも会話に限 られるとおもったんです。
「かい」も男性の言葉で、女性、子供に話しているとき に使う場合があるかな？

[yukio_michael]

While we are on the subject of omiting particles, I've also read that you can omit particles like wa... for example, from Don't Cry, Tanaka-kun:

これ　カノジョ　に　あんで　もらった セーター　なん　だ。

[KrazyKat]

While we are on the subject of omiting particles, I've also read that you can omit particles like wa... for example, from Don't Cry, Tanaka-kun:
これ　カノジョ　に　あんで　もらった セーター　なん　だ。

In informal speech you can omit all of the particles you want,　especially wa and wo, as long as its clear what you mean. You will see それは　and これは abbreviated to そりゃ　こりゃ, and other abbreviations in that kind of style too.

[Bucko]

In informal speech you can omit all of the particles you want

This isn't 100% true. The particles 'de', 'to', and 'ni' (excluding the directional 'ni iku') cannot be ommitted. 'wo', 'wa', and 'ga' and the 'ni' in 'ni iku' can be ommitted.

[KrazyKat]

whoops. Sorry, I was a bit misleading there. Thanks for the correction.

[Mike Cash]

You weren't misleading.

In his enthusiasm Bucko neglected to read to the end of your sentence.

[Elizabeth]

This isn't 100% true. The particles 'de', 'to', and 'ni' (excluding the directional 'ni iku') cannot be ommitted. 'wo', 'wa', and 'ga' and the 'ni' in 'ni iku' can be ommitted.
'Mo' and 'to' are two others also omitted a lot.

[Bucko]

You weren't misleading.

In his enthusiasm Bucko neglected to read to the end of your sentence.

*confused*--

[JimmySeal]

You weren't misleading.

In his enthusiasm Bucko neglected to read to the end of your sentence.

I'm not so sure about that. If someone used the phrase "どこ買った？," it's pretty clear what it means and what particle is missing from the middle, but I can't picture anyone actually saying it.

[KrazyKat]

Well, Google does give about 1000 hits for どこ買った, so its not as if you can't say it.

[TwistedMac]

You weren't misleading.

In his enthusiasm Bucko neglected to read to the end of your sentence.
*confused*--

Mike is never one to divulge too much information.

In informal speech you can omit all of the particles you want,　especially wa and wo, as long as its clear what you mean.

[epigene]

I'm not so sure about that. If someone used the phrase "どこ買った？," it's pretty clear what it means and what particle is missing from the middle, but I can't picture anyone actually saying it.
I agree with Jimmy. My Google hits for どこ買った was less than 200, meaning that many are erroneous entries, written intentionally to be very, very casual talk or different combination such as "___doko" katta.

It's grammar error that is allowed/forgiven among young native speakers, (meaning that if my son spoke like that to me, I'd tell him to "add で" and also that he doesn't talk like that to me or his father).

If a Japanese language learner speaks that way, it's very likely that a Japanese will think it was said in error rather than intentionally.

[Elizabeth]

I agree with Jimmy. My Google hits for どこ買った was less than 200, meaning that many are erroneous entries, written intentionally to be very, very casual talk or different combination such as "___doko" katta.
It's grammar error that is allowed/forgiven among young native speakers, (meaning that if my son spoke like that to me, I'd tell him to "add で" and also that he doesn't talk like that to me or his father).
If a Japanese language learner speaks that way, it's very likely that a Japanese will think it was said in error rather than intentionally.
On the other hand, 「ここでは、それを見ました。」を「ここはそれを見ま した。」
と言う風に使えますか　
It's a very tricky question and I suppose what Bucko had in mind was "de" in the sense above or "ni" used as the indirect object (Kare (ni) tanjoubi iwai ni sake wo ageta). There are a lot of cases of omitting "ni" and "de" that are possible but still have slightly less emphasis or a change in nuance or where they have become so habitual that they are dropped even in more formal speech (after you ni, toki ni) for instance.

So basically all it comes down to is that it may be too much to ask us to answer properly without a more concrete example. :p

[undrentide]

I think that particle indicating the place or direction such as で, に cannot be omitted in a sentence, maybe one exception is when asking/answering just with one word like どこ instead of どこで？ or ここ instead of ここに, for insntance.

[Glenn]

About だい and かい, aside from what others have said, according to "Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" だい is only used with wh- questions, and かい is only used with yes-no questions. So:

*いまどこかい。
いまどこだい。
*明日行くだい。
明日行くかい。

(an asterisk marks an ungrammatical sentence)

They also say that だい cannot come after either verbs or i-adjectives, so you can't have V/Adjだい, you have to insert a の to nominalize it.

[jonny-mt]

I believe 'kai' and 'dai' are other question markers, but only used by old men. I asked my teacher the difference between the following three sentences:
銀行へ行きますか。 - polite/formal question form
銀行へ行くか。 - grammatically correct but often comes off strong, although I'm not 100% sure. Maybe one of the more advanced jrefers can explain the nuance of 'ka' with a plain form verb?
銀行へ行く？(raised at the end) Casual question between friends.
There's also 'no' or just 'n' which is used both when asking for a reason and giving a reason.

Sorry for the backtracking to an older post, but most of the little that I know has already been put up by other posters...those clever bastards :cool:

As for why 銀行へ行くか sounds brunt, this has to do with the fact that か is simply used to mark off a clause or indicate a question. In other words, it is a purely grammatical particle and is thus used without any emotion or investment by the speaker. It sounds all right in formal language because the whole purpose of polite language is create a sort of semantic distance between the speaker and the listener, but in plain form language, where the barrier is not supposed to exist, suddenly placing it at the end of a plain form verb, where it shouldn't really be necessary, sounds very sudden or harsh to the listener and interrupts the natural flow of the conversation.

This is not to say that it is completely inappropriate at all times in plain dialogue. It still retains the grammatical function of marking off clauses (i.e. 姉ちゃんはどうしてあんなやつと付き合ってるかはオレ に分からないよ), and if properly buffered with the inquisitive の can be used without problem at the end of a plain-form question (本当に結婚する気があるのか？)and with the inquisitive/invitational negative form (学校に行かないか？||ちょっと待ってくれないか？), although these last few sound slighly more proper than how I personally tend to speak to my friends.

Hopefully that cleared...something up. If not, then I await corrections :p

[Bucko]

great post johnny, you've cleared it up somewhat for me (although still a little out of my league).

[Elizabeth]

dialogue. It still retains the grammatical function of marking off clauses (i.e. 姉ちゃんはどうしてあんなやつと付き合ってるかはオレ に分からないよ),
It used to bug the stylist in me quite a bit to see か and のか used so inconsistently within sentences -- at times even the same one -- but I don't think it has the same implication of being either polite or blunt as a sentence ending particle....so I'm really trying not to let it get to me quite as much... :-)