I wasn’t sure how to word a google search for what I was wondering, so I thought I could ask it here instead.
Can I just add 「者」to the end of na-adjectives or nouns to turn them into “person/people who X”? Or are there particular rules for what can/can’t be changed like that that I should be taking into account?
I was under the impression that nouns and na-adjectives function similarly a lot of the time so I figured that it would work for both if it worked for one. I don’t know if it can be done to i-adjectives… maybe it can?
I learned that 勝者 is “winner/victor” and 傷者 is “wounded person” (both spelled like 「しょうしゃ」but sounding slightly different from what I can tell). “Win person” and “wound person”. Can I write pretty much anything-person and have it be correct Japanese? Or does it sound awkward?
I also heard an example where it seemed like the -ます at the end of a verb was replaced by もの to just become “people that do X verb”. Is that something that can be done with just about any verb either? Or is there nuance here that I don’t know about? Maybe it’s only transitive verbs? I know about 「たべもの」and 「のみもの」as food and beverage; can those also mean “people that eat / people that drink” if the 「もの」is 「者」instead of 「物」?
I’m sorry if I’m wording this question in a sort of stupid way. I think what I’m asking is similar to the usage of those clauses that are like, “*just-finished-a-soccer-game-woman* is eating lunch” where it’s like a whole sentence inside the sentence describing attributes of the subject and that that’s normal to do.
*TLDR: can someone explain in really basic terms when you can add 「もの」or 「しゃ」to something to say “person/people who do/are like X” and have it sound normal?*
I don’t know if this is something really straightforward that I’m getting lost about, or if it’s actually something complex that I’m oversimplifying.
Thank you.
3 comments
Until you gain intuition, the best way would be to learn full vocabulary.
There are some rule-of-thumb to the usage of 者 as a suffix but by and large, it’s easier to study the full vocabulary as the other post suggests. Just like in English, you can add -er to a verb to indicate that the person it a doer of the verb but it doesn’t apply to everything (e.g., typer vs. typist or assister vs. assistant).
Not all suffixes are productive, that is, not everything works to create new words. Some things are common patterns in existing words, but it doesn’t mean you can use them on any verb and be a) understood and b) sound natural.
e.g. 勝ち者 vs 勝者, the latter is normal. Why? Idk it just is.
Similarly in English you can say worker and speaker for people but not generally cooker for someone who cooks. Why?
Learner but not studyer, instead it is student. Why?
Nobody can give you a simple rule, other than “don’t use it if you haven’t seen/heard native speakers use it”