〜で (de) - by means of, by, at a place
--- Examples ---
車で来ました。
(I) came by car.
ひとりで行きますか。
Are you going by youself?
ペンで書く。
I write with a pen.
町角で
At the corner of the street
食料品店でそれを買いました。
I bought it at the grocer's shop.
彼女はその市で働いている。
She works in that city.
海で泳ぐのが好きです。
I like swimming in the sea.
通りで遊ぶ。
Play in/on the street.
この店は八時で閉店です。
This store closes at eight o'clock.
私は三回目で試験に合格しました。
I passed the test on on the 3rd time.
彼は八十歳で亡くなりました。
He passed away at the age of 88.
二、三日で帰るつもりです。
I plan to return home in two or three days.
ナイフで肉を切るのは本当に難しい。
Cutting meat with a knife is really difficult.
みずほでお勤めですか。
Do you work at at Mizuho?
--- Comments ---
As with である, I do not see why this has it's own page. で is the
'て-form' of だ and as such operates largely the same way any て-form
would. For example: そのペンを使って書いた。- 'I wrote it
using that pen'. The fragment 'using that pen' is equivalent to the
fragment 'by car' in the example given by the author. This simply means
that when だ's て-form is used (で) with a noun, we add 'by', whereas in
the case of a different verb's て-form, that verb + ing suffices in
expressing the means by which something is done. When critically analyzing
the fundamental grammatical structure of this Japanese without applying our
English-based perceptions to it, で should not be distinguished from だ
on a separate page. It's colloquial interpretations according to
English-based perceptions might just be sidenotes on that page.
(contributor: Eeker)
Eeker, why don't you make a new entry? (contributor: anon)
I think that convoluted explanation proves why 'de' needs its own separate
page. While the explanation may be correct, it's too labyrinthine to be
usefully instructive when 'de' pops up in Japanese study (quite early).
'De' functions as a particle, regardless of its roots, and it's too comon a
term to be stuck as a footnote to 'da'. It deserves its own page.
(contributor: Synonymous)
I find it most helpful to have the convoluted explanation and the
technically redundant but simpler entry in the same place. Thanks Amatuka
and Eeker. (contributor: denzil)
This might be a result of applying the English-based (or foreign-based in
general) perceptions, but most of the people reading this are actually
English speakers trying to learn Japanese and articles like this one make
the learning easier, especially in the early stage, when you don't
necesarily know about て-forms. (contributor: balrog-kun)
Eeker, thanks for the explanation. Suddenly です as 「-で
あります」starts to make much more sense. (contributor: 9000)
Sometimes a で is just a で.........
if you bring up that first explanation to an average japanese person,
they`d probably look at you like you were nuts!!!! (contributor: gren)
I agree with dezil and 9000--lights and bells went off after I read Eeker's
entry. That said, I'm rarely a purist, and I think a separate entry is
merited for the JLPT 2/3 levels (including at least a pointer to Eeker's
entry). Thanks everyone for your contributions.
(contributor: jameserb)
I put many usages of the word de up on my site where I teach Japanese
www.freewebs.com/kanjiwebs/ as this is not near enough of examples for
people to know what de is. At least 1 example for each usage and that is
not near as what is shown here. (contributor: IMABI)
--- View this entry online ---
http://www.jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=de
No comments:
Post a Comment