Do they both mean "next"?
Tonari and rai?
kungfoolai
September 19, 2009
kungfoolai
September 19, 2009
because on lesson 2.5 Visiting History
kenny said that "rai" means next ?
Sayaka-Matsuura
September 21, 2009
kungfoolai-san,
Excellent question.
*TONARI* is the word used to say "next" in reference to something else, such as yourself, your house, a shop. For example, you can say, WATASHI NO TONARI meaning "next to me". While WATASHI NO IE NO TONARI means "next to my house." As you can see, TONARI is used as an independent word.
*RAI* on the other hand cannot be used independently - WATASHI NO RAI doesn't make sense. RAI is a *__prefix__* (a tack-on word that is added before other words) which indicates "next". It is combined with words like "week," "month," and "year" and end up with - RAINEN "next year", RAISHU "next week", RAIGETSU "next month."
-Sayaka :P
kungfoolai
September 24, 2009
very detailed explanation definatley helped me clear things up ^^
Sayaka-Matsuura
September 24, 2009
kungfoolai-san,
I am glad it cleared things up!
-Sayaka :P
CatPanda
September 27, 2009
Things like this happen a lot in Japanese and it's very nice to know the difference between the two...
Sayaka-Matsuura
September 30, 2009
Derek-san,
Yes, that is true! Which makes the Japanese language more challenging and... exciting! (I hope :P )
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