Today I learned the correct way to say and mean DOU IU KOTO? which basically means “what do you mean?” or “what are you saying?”
I hear this a lot in Japanese. I’ve found myself having to say “what do you mean?” a lot (and also hear it often being said to me! :P) while chatting online with Japanese friends and others learning Japanese, so it was something I naturally adapted into my vocabulary pretty quickly.
However, I started saying it myself a good while before ever really knowing how to write it correctly, so I was actually saying it wrong. (I was saying “DOU YO KOTO?” which is incorrect.)
Here is a short story on what led me to correctly learning this phrase today:
Today I was watching a Japanese prank show and their target was some cute girl who I think was famous or something. Probably a singer, I have no idea. Anyhow they set up a fake interview in the evening in some kind of poorly-lit apartment, with the sliding balcony door in the background and they would fly a fake UFO across the sky behind her to make her think she was catching a real UFO out the corner of her eye. She takes the bait and they all head outside to the balcony. The pranksters proceed to put on a fake UFO landing about a half mile away to make her think she was witnessing something for real (even though you can totally tell it was fake! Haha). Anyways, long story short they eventually had a few guys dressed in alien suits bust through a paper wall to the side of her (Japanese seem to enjoy busting through paper walls :P) and replayed her reaction from about 3 or 4 different angles. She screamed as the aliens yelled a bunch of stuff to her and after they got done shouting whatever it was, she gave them a frightened and puzzled look and after a second of silence she said “dou iu koto?” They put in subtitles at the bottom when she said that and that’s when I instantly realized I was saying this phrase wrong this whole time! But I think that what I was used to saying was close enough to where it sounded more correct than incorrect so maybe in retrospect I wasn’t sounding too stupid! Hahaha.
Cool story bro…
So now that I know how to correctly write this phrase, naturally I wanted to find out exactly how this phrase was constructed and quickly got to searching Google. I learned it contains the verb IU (言う) which is “to say”. Ah, I’m starting to see now how this phrase means “what are you saying?”!!!
So what about the DOU part?
I found this page where someone basically says DOU is kinda like the question form of SOU (sort of):
http://thejapanesepage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3850#p2749
Nice. Never knew that! Ok moving along.
What about KOTO?
After a minute or two of searching, I found this page where I’m given a good explanation of KOTO (as well as DEKIMASU):
http://ww8.tiki.ne.jp/~tmath/language/jpverbs/lesson31.htm
I think I’ve come across this page before maybe a year or two ago. I kind of remember reading through it and learning how KOTO turns a Japanese verb into a thing. Kind of how -ing in English works:
Read-ing YOMU KOTO / Drink-ing NOMU KOTO
I like reading. YOMU KOTO GA SUKI DESU.
I like drinking water. MIZU WO NOMU KOTO GA SUKI DESU.
Now to add a little bonus to my lesson today, I got some good examples on how to use the verb DEKIRU (can do).
I can read Japanese. WATASHI WA NIHONGO WO YOMU KOTO GA DEKIMASU.
I couldn’t drink beer yesterday. KINOU WATASHI WA BIIRU WO NOMU KOTO GA DEKIMASEN DESHITA.
Here are the same two sentences above, but using the plain (casual) form of DEKIRU in both present and past tense and in both affirmative and negative ways:
I can read Japanese. WATASHI WA NIHONGO WO YOMU KOTO GA DEKIRU.
I can’t read Japanese. WATASHI WA NIHONGO WO YOMU KOTO GA DEKINAI.
I was able to read Japanese. WATASHI WA NIHONGO WO YOMU KOTO GA DEKITA.
I wasn’t able to read Japanese. WATASHI WA NIHONGO WO YOMU KOTO GA DEKINAKATTA.
I can drink beer. WATASHI WA BIIRU WO NOMU KOTO GA DEKIRU.
I can’t drink beer. WATASHI WA BIIRU WO NOMU KOTO GA DEKINAI.
I was able to drink beer yesterday. KINOU WATASHI WA BIIRU WO NOMU KOTO GA DEKITA.
I couldn’t drink beer yesterday. KINOU WATASHI WA BIIRU WO NOMU KOTO GA DEKINAKATTA.
Here is a good page on how to conjugate the verb DEKIRU in all tenses:
http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/Japanese/dekiru.html
やった！！