In my initial post about Japanese linguistics, we took a look at the important grammatical differences in emotional expression between English/French and Japanese languages. In the second post, we saw the differences in establishing viewpoint and perspective. Today, I’d like to talk about another difference: the time perception.
This can be a strange concept, since many assume time should be the same for everybody. However, the beauty of language is the ability to capture the nuance and complexity of the human experience including the unique ways we perceive things. There are even some differences between English and French when it comes to time perception, even though they are languages that are close grammar-wise. For example, the “imperfect tense” of French doesn’t exist in English in the same way, not to mention the “subjunctive mood” of French and Latin. In Japanese, there are even more essential differences.
This topic is fairly broad and deep, so I will elaborate more in future posts, but let’s go over some examples to get an idea how different it can be between languages.
The ますform (masu form) is often presented as a present tense, but it’s actually a present or a future, depending on the context. Personally, I would even say that it’s almost more a future than a present — at least for certain verbs.
If you say:
1) ワインを飲みます Wain wo nomimasu
Since there’s no explicit subject, here I am assuming it is “I” but of course depending on contexts, it could be “you” “he” etc. So, this phrase can mean “I drink wine” or “I’m going to drink wine” or “I will drink wine.” But it does not express that I drink wine now at the present moment. The “I drink wine” in Japanese means that “I usually drink wine” rather than I drink wine now. Even if you add the word “now” in Japanese, it will mean “I’m going to drink”.
For example:
今、ワインを飲みます Ima, wain wo nomimasu
= I’m going to drink wine now (right away).
In the question form ワインを飲みますか？(Wain wo nomimasu ka?), it can even mean “Would you like to drink wine?”. That’s because in Japanese, we don’t like to ask directly “do you want to drink?” so instead we ask “will you drink wine?”. That’s how we usually ask someone “would you like to do something.” Otherwise, it can sound condescending because we are forcing the person to “beg for it” by saying “do you want.” I will discuss this more when we look at the volitional form ～たい (~tai).
2) パリに住みます Pari ni sumimasu
This is a typical example where the masu form is not the equivalent of the present tense. This phrase doesn’t mean “I live in Paris (at the moment),” it means “I will live in Paris (in the future).” To say that we currently live in Paris, we have to use the ている form (teiru form).
Like this:
パリに住んでいます Pari ni sundeimasu
The teiru form is an interesting form, because it can be translated by a present (I do), a continuous present (I am doing), or a past perfect tense (I have done), for example with the verb “to do” する. Present and past in the same form, isn’t it strange? Rather than a tense, it is a form that expresses the fact that an action is repeated, a continuous state, or the result of a past action.
For example:
今、友達が家に来ています Ima tomodachi ga ie ni kiteimasu
A friend is at my place now.
Kiteimasu is the teiru form of the verb kuru which means “to come;” so logically it should mean “a friend is coming to my place now.” However in Japanese, with the teiru form, we focus on the result here: a friend has come to my place and still is here, so he is here now. If we want to say “a friend is coming right now to my place,” we say “友達が家に来ている途中です'” (tomodachi ga ie ni kiteiru tochuu desu).
And if we want to say “I haven’t read this book (and is still the case)” we have to say “この本を読んでいません” (kono hon wo yondeimasen) with the teiru form negative, and not the past form of masu. “この本を読みませんでした” (kono hon wo yomimasendeshita) means “I didn’t read the book (the other day, but maybe I have read it since then)” since we focus on the result here.
There is much more to say, and I will elaborate more in future posts, but that’s all for today.
Thank you for reading!