certainty – Together With Japan https://jp.learnoutlive.com 日本と共に Fri, 09 Nov 2018 10:32:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 48482484 “I’ll Be Back” https://jp.learnoutlive.com/ill-be-back/ Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:00:27 +0000 https://jp.learnoutlive.com/?p=1091 Continue reading ]]> Here’s a phrase I randomly saw in a video game: “Kanarazu modotte kuru!!” This roughly means, “I’ll be back!” (though not with the same delivery as the Governator, above.)

For people into kanji, this is kanarazu (必ずかならず) . The kanji is used for many things requiring “certainty”; of these hitsuyou (必要ひつよう) for “absolutely required” (or must-have, as the case may be) is probably the one most people have seen in romaji.

This is a so-called “kun reading,” that is, a native Japanese word associated with a kanji (or Chinese character).

The compound verb is modotte kuru, from modoru (戻るもどる) for “to return” and kuru (来るくる) for “to come.” Fortunately, this is very easy to explain: this means to come back, in English phrasal verb terms.

So literally, “I will come back.”

Figuratively, “I’ll be back.”

This may be a short phrase, but it will strongly challenge early learners due to the presence of a compound verb and “kanarazu” not being one of the earliest things taught. – J

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