Forum Rocket Japanese Japanese Grammar Lesson 2.7 Question, Nouns Used as Verbs?

Lesson 2.7 Question, Nouns Used as Verbs?

EarleyGrave

EarleyGrave

Sooo, this sentence in Lesson 2.7: 

私は 料理も 上手 です。 

(わたしは りょうりも も じょうず です。) 

…is translated as “I am good at (both) cooking and drawing.”

 

I'm not sure about that word for cooking, but I thought 絵 meant a painting or drawing (noun; with something like 描く being the verb to-draw), and here it's used as a verb and I feel like I'm missing something.

 

I know that some nouns can be made into verbs by adding します, such as 勉強します, but that doesn't seem to be happening here either. Heeeelp meeee! ;)

Emma-Rocket-Japanese-Tutor

Emma-Rocket-Japanese-Tutor

こんにちは (Konnichiwa) EarleyGrave, 

Thanks for your question. 

You're absolutely right! You can translate え (e) as "painting," "drawing" or "picture" and りょうり (ryōri) as "cooking" or "cuisine."

え (E) can mean "painting" or "drawing"  as in a completed piece of art, but it can also mean "drawing" or "painting," as in the art of making a drawing as a skill. Here it talks about this activity as a NOUN. If we want to talk about "drawing" or "painting" as a verb, we can use え を かく (e o kaku). 

りょうり (Ryōri) means "cooking" as in the art of cooking as a skill, not the verb "to cook." This means it is also a NOUN. The verb for "to cook" is りょうり する (ryōri suru). 

Since we can only use が じょうず (ga jōzu) with nouns, we need to use the noun forms here. 
So what this sentence is really saying is:
"I am good at (both the art of) drawing and (the art of) cooking." 

If you want to talk about the action (verb) of cooking and drawing specifically, you can use の が じょうず (no ga jōzu) instead. You can learn all about how to use this grammar in this lesson:
https://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/japanese/lessons/5184/7-8-Doing-Things-With-No

I hope this helped! Please let me know if you have any other questions.
べんきょう を がんばって ください! (Benkyō o ganbatte kudasai!)


 
EarleyGrave

EarleyGrave

Awesome. That does indeed help. ありがとう!

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