e.g. “I don’t want to be tied down” is shibararetakunai, which at first … 

But!
shibaru: to tie down
shibarareru: to be tied down
shibararetai: to want to be tied down
shibararetakunai: to not want to be tied down!!!
I find this just absurdly satisfying.
-
-
Replying to @samuel_wade
You may have a... higher tolerance for difficult grammar than I!
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @isaiahmschrader
I *hate* grammar. I never know where I am with it. With Chinese, I feel like I'm wafting gas about; with Latin or Russian I could never remember what the hell was going on … but once it clicks, Japanese is just *clear*. Those modules (re, tai, nai) become easy to recognise.
1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes -
Replying to @samuel_wade @isaiahmschrader
I will actually co-sign this, and it’s a lot more tolerable in writing than in a conversational context. It’s a different kind of Lego than Chinese grammar and it sticks together in different ways, but it’s manageably modular.
0 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
This Tweet is unavailable.
-
Replying to @samuel_wade @isaiahmschrader
I’m not in the habit of saying anything positive about Japanese, or at least not without immediately qualifying it with something really damning.
1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes -
As someone who came from Japanese to Chinese, I can say the work that goes into expressing the same thought as a non-native speaker is far smaller for the latter because you're not under the same pressure to try and tailor every aspect of each sentence to an exact situation.
2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes -
“Wait, is the person I’m talking to better than me, or worse?”
2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes -
-
Replying to @Pinboard @KangHexin and
Unironically, yes! Chinese is just not that hard!
6 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
*Chinese is just not that hard 了。
-
-
Compared to old Chinese, yes it’s not that hard la…
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.