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Re: [Lingo] verb-iru



On 12.01.2009, at 16:59, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com> wrote:

Niels Kobschaetzki writes:

<snip>



Back to 知る - you can ask for it if you know it or if you are knowing
it (知りますか/知っていますか).
In English the answer would be "I know it" or "I am knowing it" while
the first one actually means "I am in the state of possessing the
knowledge about it".

Note that 知る is irregular in the sense that for practical purposes
the form 知っていません does not exist (except among gaijin ;-). It's
the only such verb.

You can't say まだ纔瘢韭絎竢躬?
Didn't know that (and it seems that the iPhone-sentence completion didn't either ;))





which we do not have really expressions for in English (like 懐 かしい -

"nostalgic", "familiar", and a couple dozen idiomatic forms.

Sure a lot of people are translating it that way but I think that it is not really the same. I've never heard someone saying "aah, nostalgic" or "that's familiar". Sure, you can say that but still nobody does in the way people use "懐かしい". I often hear it in the form of an exclamation but those mentioned words can't be really used as an exclamation, can say (at least the equivalent words in German can't be used as an exclamation and I never heard anything used in "natsukashii-situations" in that frequency neither in English nor in German)


Niels


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