Thursday, August 28, 2008

Time words and more verbs

Feeling kind of blah today, so not much writing. I'm not 100% confident with yesterday's words, but I'm going to add new ones today anyhow:

ototoi - the day before yesterday
asatte - the day after tomorrow
nomimasu - to drink
dakara - so, therefore
karimasu - to buy

And the hiragana of the day is け, which is ke.

I find it interesting that the Japanese have a word for the day before yesterday/day after tomorrow. I can't think of another language that expresses that concept so easily, at least not of Indo-European languages. I wonder if it's common in Asian languages? I wish English had an easier way of expressing it though. Obviously the concept exists, it just creates confusion and awkwardness in English. 

I feel like I might get these terms confused, though, because there doesn't seem to be a lot linking the words for tomorrow and day after tomorrow or yesterday and day before yesterday.
tomorrow - ashita 
day after tomorrow - asatte
yesterday - kinoo
day before yesterday - ototoi
The only connection I can see is that ashita and asatte both start with a... and kinoo and ototoi both have o and i sounds.. a tenuous link at best, but it may help. 

Other time words (review):
today - kyoo
every day - mainichi

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