The word "or" doesn't seem to exist in Japanese.
Babelfish gives me または (mataha? sounds Indian). I almost never see anyone using this though.
A quick check through my various textbooks yields the following example:
Sushi to tenpura to dochira ga suki desuka.
(Which do you like better, sushi or tempura?)
My brick-and-mortar dictionary tells me the correct form is "bata ka soretomo magarin ka" (butter or margarine).
Then it proceeds to confuse me with an example sentence:
Kare wa miru koto mo kiku koto mo dekinai. (He cant't see or hear.)
And someone tells me "or else!" is "samonaito taihen dayo".
Help me, samonaito I am going to go crazy.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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4 comments:
Hey it's pronounced 'mataWA' and not 'mataha' - Not so Indian sounding anymore right? And for once Babelfish is not too far off the mark. The term does mean 'or' and isn't that uncommon.
'Dochira' is used when you're comparing only two items c.f. 'mo' for e.g. which theoretically doesn't limit the list.
I told him repeatedly about the ha=wa thing, but he doesn't like it. Lol
eh no you said particle is "wa". all other times it is "ha". i thought if it's going to be used as a sound, should be わ instead?
I think got miscom lah. What I meant was that whenever there is a "wa" sounding particle, it is actually "ha". Like in "watashi WA", the "wa" is actually a "ha". So in this case, "mata WA" is written as "mata ha".
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