A few small questions... Help please!

[catwang0]

1) What does sochira mean in this context: Sochira wa? Doesn't sochira mean 'in your direction?'

2) This was from a conversation I'm trying to understand:

Areekusu: Anoo, koko no kata desu ka. Apparently kata can have many different meanings, and I think direction best suits the context, but I'm not so sure. So I think Alex is asking where he is.

3) FINALLY, what does Iie, iie mean? I asked this before but no one answered me. Can someone please tell me what it means?

[Toritoribe]

1)
そちら can be a personal pronoun. Although I don't think that そちら is appropriate to use in that context, since そちら is more close to "your side". If I were 石田, I would just say はい、そうですが。 or はい、そうですが、何かお困りですか？ instead.

2)
方 is a (polite) personal pronoun.

3)
I would translate "No, no. No problem."


I highly recommend to post these questions in this thread. The full conversation is essential to answer your questions.

[catwang0]

1) I'm going to write it in romaji just to make sure I am reading it correctly, but this is what I got:

Hai, sou desu ga. & Hai, sou desu ga, nani ka o困 ri desu ka. I'm not so sure what 困 is, and I've been trying to get used to Wakan (I just downloaded it) and know how to work it.

2) So I'm right? He's asking where he (Alex, himself) is?

3) Thank you!

Is there a way to change the title? Because it's not really what I want now.

[Glenn]

1) nanika o-komari desu ka. That's an honorific form of komaru.

2) No, he's asking if Ishida is someone belonging to the school in some capacity. It's kind of like "are you from around here?" Kata here means "person". It's also honorific.

[Toritoribe]

Is there a way to change the title? Because it's not really what I want now.

No. It's impossible as far as I know.

[Glenn]

A moderator/advisor/admin should be able to do it. If you're not in one of those user groups I don't think you can, though, definitely not if you're a normal user/regular member.

[Toritoribe]

Yeah, it must be so. I meant "as a regular member".

[Glenn]

I wonder if I can, though... (my own, of course. I know I can't change other people's.)

[catwang0]

1) nanika o-komari desu ka. That's an honorific form of komaru.

2) No, he's asking if Ishida is someone belonging to the school in some capacity. It's kind of like "are you from around here?" Kata here means "person". It's also honorific.

1) So 困 is the koma part. & What is komaru?

What does Hai, sou desu ga mean? And I thought it was with a ka instead of a ga? Or does it not matter?

I'm new to Japanese so nanika o-komari desu ka makes me think that someone is asking about what something is... Since there's a nani but I'm just really not sure.

2) Ohh, I get it now!

[Glenn]

Komaru means "have trouble" or "be in trouble" or something like that. Nanika means "something". The sentence means something like "is something the matter?" and is used like "do you need help?"

Ga means "but" here. Hai, sou desu ga -> "Yes, I am, but..." It's used to invite the listener to explain themselves in these sorts of situations when you're identifying yourself. It can be used on the phone, too. Moshi moshi. Hai, Glenn desu ga... (nanika go-you demo aru'n desu ka?) (Hello, this is Glenn (but, is there something I can help you with?)).

[Mike Cash]

Slow down. Calm down. Quit expecting to understand everything. Do some lessons. After having done lessons, then seek help with parts that give you trouble. Dashing to a website and asking questions about each and every little thing is not only an ineffective way to learn anything it also very quickly becomes as annoying as a two year old child.

[catwang0]

I see.

So when I'm learning to understand Japanese sentence one by one, should I dissect the sentence and understand every part of it, or should I just go with the flow and try to comprehend it as a whole? I am tempted to take it apart. Like, for the sentence I just asked:

Hai, sou desu ga, nanika o-komari desu ka.

I don't know what sou means, I will probably search it and put it back in the sentence and try to make sense of it. And like nanika o-komari desu ka, since I now know that nanika means something, and komari/komaru means "have trouble/be in trouble," and since o indicates that it's, like, the direct object, kind of (well that's what I learnt so far), it makes me think to have trouble with something. Like the something is being troubled. So it's asking them, is there something you're having trouble with? Is that pretty close to "is something the matter/do you need help?"?

So ga can be used in a lot of different ways, not only for a topic the listeners don't know about?

Wait, you kind of lost me at the dialogue on the phone. Nanika go-you demo aru'n desu ka? It sounds kind of slangy with the aru'n. There's already another but because demo means but too, right?

[Toritoribe]

I have to agree with Mike-san, I'm afraid.

komari/komaru means "have trouble/be in trouble,"

Have you leaned verb conjugations? What the difference between "komaru" and "komari"? That's a huge difference.

and since o indicates that it's, like, the direct object,

No. This "o" is a polite prefix, and not the particle "wo".

Just like these, you need decent knowledge of grammar to interpret this coversation, first of all.

[Mike Cash]

That's the purpose of lessons. You use material which has been carefully selected, prepared, introduced, and explained.

Attempting to get outside (or ahead) of lessons, especially in the very early stages, just leads to confusion and chaos. After a while, not so much, but you're a long way from that yet.

You're not going to learn the language in a day or two. It's a years-long slog.

[catwang0]

K. I'm going to use Tae Kim's introduction to Japanese Grammar and go slowly.

[adragast]

I completely agree with Toritoribe and Mike Cash, you should not ask for the translation of every word of a lesson. If the lesson is not clear enough to you (after having taken the time to study it), you should probably try another website/blog/textbook that may fit you better.

When it comes to learning as a whole or trying to dissect every part of a sentence, I think it is an interesting question. Learning each part of a sentence will definitively give you a better understanding of the Japanese language but on the other hand, word-by-word translation should be avoided as the Japanese is completely different to English. If you were to learn French, for example, you would probably have an easier time understanding each word of a sentence.

Anyway, good luck learning Japanese!