Re: [Lingo] 遅過ぎる

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

s smith writes:

 > This is the 'masu stem', right?

Yes.  There's a technical Japanese term for it, but I don't remember
offhand.

 > Thank you Stephen.  I've noticed the pattern before and I'm sure it's 
 > been explaned to me before but it's finally starting to make sense.

These things don't make sense until you need them, I've discovered.
For each level of learning the language, there is a complex of skills
that must be learned in order to generate a sentence that expresses
your intended meaning.  So I guess at this point you're ready to
produce forms like "ososugiru", and something in the back of your head
is noting these patterns.

I *think* that when I was learning some of these things I was able to
speed up the process by immersion -- avoiding "bitch about Japan
gaijin parties" :-) and hanging out with the local musicians instead,
using a standard "New Kanji Dictionary" (ie, K->J, not K->E) and only
using J->E when I was really lost, using maps and guides written in
Japanese only, getting a Japanese girlfriend, etc.  But it took a huge
amount of effort to maintain that pace, and I think it would have been
impossible if I hadn't been living in Japan.