July 7, 2007

How long are you going to stay in Japan?

Donokurai Nippon ni taizai shimasuka . : How long are you going to stay in Japan?
donokurai / dorekurai : how long, how much, how many, how far
dono : literally means "which"
kurai : grade,degree,
Nippon / Nihon : Japan
ni : at, in, to
taizai : stay(noun)
taizai suru : stay (verb)
suru : do
(shi-nai,shi-masu,suru,suru-toki,sure-ba,shiro,shiyou,shita)

"donokurai" is used for asking quantity, distance,degree,grade and so on in an interrogative sentence.
To be precise, some other explanatory word should be added to "donokurai", but in our colloquial that kind of explanatory words are usually omitted.

In above case, "donokurai" is questioning period you stay(days/months / years).
So "Donokurai no nissuu" Nippon ni taizai shimasuka" is also correct.
nissuu : the number of days
no : in terms of
Donokurai (no nissuu) Nippon ni taizai shimasuka : how,in terms of days, Japan, in, stay, do you: How long are you going to stay in Japan?

Koko kara toshin made wa donokurai desuka : How far is it from here to downtown?
koko : hire
kara : from
toshin : downtown
made : to, upto
donokurai : how far, how much

Koko kara toshin made wa donokurai (no jikan) desuka : here, from, downtown, to , how far, is? : How far is it from here to downtown.
jikan : time

Koko kara toshin made wa donokurai (no jikan) kakarimasuka : How long will it take to get downtown from here?
kakaru : take(time)
(kakara-nai,kakari-masu,kakaru,kakaru-toki,kakare-ba,kakare,kakarou,kakatta)
Koko kara toshin made wa donokurai kakarimasuka : here,from,downtown,to,how long,take?: How long will it take to get downtown from here?

"donokurai no jikan " can be substituted for " donokurai jikan ga".
Koko kara toshin made wa donokurai jikan ga kakarimasuka : How long will it take to get downtown from here?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seeing these kind of posts reminds me of just how technology truly is everywhere in this day and age, and I can say with 99% certainty that we have passed the point of no return in our relationship with technology.


I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Ethical concerns aside... I just hope that as memory gets cheaper, the possibility of downloading our memories onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I daydream about almost every day.


(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://kwstar88.livejournal.com/491.html]R4i[/url] DS ccPost)

Unknown said...

gucci replica bags h98 u7t99n4w34 replica wallets s01 z2s00z5n04 Louis Vuitton fake Bags c31 f4c09v4h71