Differences and Usages: いきる vs. すむ

I got a question from a Japanese learner about how to use 生きる (ikiru) and 住む (sumu) correctly.
Both can be translated as "to live" in English, but they are not exactly the same in Japanese.

(Old houses in Kawagoe, Japan)

生きる means "to lead a life" or "to survive," and its opposite word is 死ぬ (shinu), "to die".
1) 私たちは生きるために水が必要です。
(わたしたちは いきるために みずが ひつようです)
We need water to survive.
2) 彼は70歳まで生きました。
(かれは　ななじゅっさいまで　いきました)
He lived to be seventy.

On the other hand, 住む means "to reside" or "to settle."
It is usually used with the name of the place where one lives.
1) 私は日本に住んでいます。
（わたしは　にほんに　すんでいます）
I live in Japan.
2) 彼は住む場所がない。
（かれは　すむ　ばしょが　ない）
He has nowhere to reside.

If you use 生きる in the place of 住む in the example sentences above:
1) 私は日本で生きています sounds like "I'm surviving in Japan," but it doesn't sound as natural as the English translation.
2) 彼は生きる場所がない sounds like "He can't survive anywhere."


Is everything clear?
I hope this helps!

Happy New Year!

It might be a bit late, but I'd like to say New Year's greetings with my calligraphy!

I'm not sure if this can be called calligraphy, but I can't come up with a more appropriate word for it right now.

In Japanese, it's called アート書 (art sho), literally meaning "artistic letters" or "letter art", or デザイン文字 (design moji), which means "designed letters".

Have you got any other idea of what to call this kind of art?

Well, let me explain the letters in this work.

The word on the left is 新春 (shin-shun), and it means "a new spring."

--- SPRING??

Yes, it's spring in the Old Calendar.

Nowadays we call this season winter, but traditionally we use the word 春 (spring) for New Year's greetings.

I think it's not just because it's a tradition but also because Japanese people regard spring as the season of beginning and that matches the image of New Year.

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. :)

Micamelia's Handwriting Challenge!

In English:

In Japanese:

FYI: "Micamelia" is my old screen name.

The accent tag - Japanese

The accent tag - Japanese

Importance of Vowels in Japanese

PaPaPi Pa PePo Pa PuPi PePu.


This is a Japanese sentence made by substituting /P/ for each consonant.
Can you guess the original phrase?

If it is read with the right intonation, most native speakers of the Japanese language can easily guess what it means.
On the other hand, it's very difficult if it's read with different vowels.
It shows the importance of vowels in the Japanese language.


The original version of the sentence above is:
わたしは、ねこがすきです。
watashi wa neko ga suki desu. (= I like cats.)

You can substitute other consonants as well:
MaMaMi Ma MeMo Ma MuMi MeMu.
KaKaKi Ka KeKo Ka KuKi KeKu.


Stage actors and actresses often practice their lines with only vowels so that they can pronounce every word very clearly.
(e.g. "ああいあ、えおあういえう" for "わたしは、ねこがすきです".)

Therefore, I recommend you try to be conscious of vowels when you practice speaking Japanese. :)