Re: "I am not understood"

From: necoandjeff (spam_at_schrepfer.com)
Date: 07/11/04 

Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 04:43:16 GMT

"Charles Eicher" <ceicher@inav.net> wrote in message
news:ccpuci010ko@drn.newsguy.com...

> >That's AFAYK. For those of us who learned Japanese mostly through years
of
> >daily interaction in the language, Jeff's example is utterly normal.
People
> >say this kind of thing all the time.
>
> Even native speakers say ungrammatical things as a matter of routine.

So you presume to also correct native speakers based on what you learn from
your textbooks?

> >田中さんはどこにいますか。
> >わからない。
>
> But that particular usage should be wakaranai, not shiranai.
> If takanasan isn't around, his location is not something you
> could be expected to understand.

I've got more news for you. The answer to the above question can also be
shiranai, your "shoulds" and textbooks, notwithstanding. And what does it
mean to not "understand" where someone is, as opposed to not "knowing" a
telephone number? In order to maintain consistency with your earlier
incorrect assertions, you are still forcing 分かる into some unnatural
"literal meaning" based on what you have learned from dictionaries and
textbooks. As I pointed out at the beginning, 分かる can also be properly
understood as "know" and is quite often used that way.

> >Didn't those text books of yours teach you that it should be 知っている?
>
> My mistake, I was trying to copy the form from the previous, incorrect
> example. Let me quote from the bible, Makino's Dictionary of Basic
> Japanese Grammar, page 407:

Nevertheless, the mistake (not a mere typo) betrays the fact that you don't
seem to have enough experience to be making definitive statements on usage.

> Yamaguchi-san no denwabango o shitte imasu ka?
>
> I guess I was right, the phone example takes shiru not wakaru. I will
> accept Makino's authority over yours.

Do you suppose that, just because a textbook contains an example of how to
say something, it automatically excludes all other possible ways of saying
it? Does the textbook expressly say that you cannot use 分かる when asking
for someone's phone number?

The obvious problem here Charles is the same arrogance that permeates so
many of your other posts. You approach language as a purely academic subject
that can be mastered through textbooks. You believe there are clear "rights"
and "wrongs" rather than "what is actually used" and "what is not used" and
you refuse to listen to people like me, Sean, Paul and others who apparently
have a great deal more experience learning actual Japanese spoken by actual
native speakers.

Jeff

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