Word Order in Japanese: Adverbs #2

This is a sequel to the previous entry.

We've talked about the first two rules in the previous entry.
Here is the third one:
An adverb should appear closer to the word(s) it is modifying. 

Let's look at the first picture. (Click it to see a bigger picture.)

I used some dashed arrows with すこし, "a little". It could come in the beginning if you want to emphasise it, but it is not very natural. It should come closer to the word "wine" or "drink" because it shows the amount of wine or how much you do the action.
It is not because that word is less important than the preceding words but because it has stronger connection to the latter words "wine" or "drink".

Perhaps you may wonder why すこし can come before こうえん. Okay, let's look at the second picture.

Grammatically speaking, the adjective form of すこし should be すこしの.
(e.g. すこしのワイン)
However, when used to modify a noun with a verb as in the sentences in the picture, すこし is more natural. This is because, in my personal sense of the language, the noun is perceived as a part of the predicative word-group. It can be said that "a little" is not modifying the noun "the park" but the phrase "to run in the park".

The adjective すこしの sounds like a written word. We often omit particles in casual lines, and as for すこしの, it is natural to omit the の even in formal lines.

I hope this explanation makes sense!

Word Order in Japanese: Adverbs #1

In Japanese, the word order is somewhat flexible and not as important as it is in English. As for adverbs, though there are some "common" word order patterns, they are often flexible. It depends on the speaker's preference: how much you want to put a stress on them and to which word they have more relevance.

I've been thinking about this topic since yesterday and came up with several points.
Please note that what I'm going to write is not according to any experts or textbooks of the Japanese language, but is just based on a native speaker's personal sense of the language.

OK, here we go:

The basic rules of the word order of adverbs

1. Adverbs cannot appear at the end of the sentence.
2. Frequency precedes amount.
3. Adverbs should appear closer to the word(s) it is modifying.

The first rule is very easy.
A verb or a predicator must come at the end of the sentence in Japanese, so you can't put any other elements after that, unless you want to add something that you forgot to say. In that case, you need to use a punctuation mark after the predicator to show that the following word is just a supplemental detail.
e.g. わたしはテニスをしました、きのう。(I played tennis yesterday.)

As for the second rule, think of the sentence 私はときどき少し公園で走ります。（わたしは　ときどき　すこし　こうえんで　はしります。= I sometimes run in the park a little.)
The word "ときどき" indicates the frequency, how often you do it, and "すこし" shows the amount, how much you do it at a time. You can change their positions as in the picture below. As you can see, ときどき always comes before すこし.

This entry is getting a little long, so I'll continue this topic in another entry.
Hope you stay tuned! ;-)

Cats' Day

Today is Cats' Day in Japan! (=^・^=)

The number "2" is pronounced "ni" in Japanese and it sounds similar to "nya", the onomatopoeia (imitative word) in Japanese for the crying sound that cats make.

The date February 22nd has the most occurrences of the number "2" out the year, so it is said that it's Cats' Day in Japan today!
(It's not an official one and you can't find it on the calender, though.)

The lovely cat in this picture is my sister Chuppi. 

She passed away a few years ago but she's still the most important cat to me. :)

Changed My Screen Name

Hi, it's Micarie, formerly known as "Micamelia".

I changed my screen name because "Micari" is how I'm called in real life and I feel more comfortable with it now.
Also, I'm kind of tired of being asked why I used such a strange long name... Haha.
Here is how I created that name: My real name is Mika, and I combined it with "Amelia", which a website called "British Name Generator" gave to me.

Okay, I think I should also explain my new screen name.
There are several Mikas around me and I needed to make up an alternative nickname.
I decided to use "Micari" since I liked how it sounded.
I added the last "e" this time because I thought it might be easier for English speakers to get a clue how to pronounce it. (If not, sorry!)

Though this video is very short, give me a "thumbs-up" if you like it. Thanks! :)