In english, if you fight, you are a fighter. If you dance, dancer. If you run, runner. Is there a Japanese equivalent to adding the *er* at the end of verbs?
Is there also a fast, fast*er* fast*est* Japanese equivalent?
> Is there also a fast, faster fastest Japanese equivalent?
There are a lot of ways to say this and depends on your sentence. I guess there is a word for “fastest” 最速 which is a noun but you may not want this as a noun you see. You can say 一番速い if you wanted an adjective, as you see it depends on what you are saying and who you are talking to and maybe even if you are writing or speaking.
no, there’s no one suffix. there isn’t in english either, as one who keeps accounts is an account***ant*** not an account***er***, for example
some that exist are 者 such as 医者 and 家 such as 画家 and 手 such as 選手 and 歌手 and 人 such as 役人 and 囚人, but it depends and there are plenty of exceptions
there’s no suffix for more and most, either. there’s XよりY（の）ほう for comparisons. for “most”, just tack on 一番, i.e. 一番高い
In linguistics, something like this would be called a “productive affix” — in other words, a prefix or suffix that, can be added to a word in order to create a new word that will still be understood by the majority of people, despite it being novel. English can do this with “un-,” “re-,” “-ish,” “-ness,” and a whole bunch of others.
However, you can’t do that with “-er” for the most part — most actions are already covered in English in that regard, and even if they aren’t, it’s far more likely to be understood if you say “person who does _________.”
I don’t have an exhaustive list of Japanese productive affixes, but I don’t believe there is one for this.
-er in Japanese can be found in Katakana Gairaigo, where it is 「ア段＋ー」
ファイト➡ファイター
ダンス➡ダンサー
ランニング➡ランナー
> Is there also a fast, faster fastest Japanese equivalent?
Japanese has no real comparative and superlative form of adjectives and a large part of it is context. “好きな料理” for instance usually means “The food I love the most.” or “favorite food” for emphasis one can use “一番好き” where “一番” means “first” so the most loved, but often this isn’t needed.
There are also things such as “もっと” , an adverb that means “more”, but it isn’t necessarily needed either. “成績がよくなった。” can mean “My marks have gotten better.” or “My marks have gotten good.” depending on context, but usually the former
There are contexts when it would sooner imply a comperative such as with use of “より” which means “over”, “rather than”, or “from”, as in “花より団子” literally meaning “*dango* over flowers”, a Japanese idiom meaning “function over aesthetics” but in a sentence such as “花より団子が美味い。”, it simply means “*Dango* taste better than flowers.”
Another common way to express this is using “ほう”, which literally means “direction”. So one can say “団子のほうが美味い。”, this literally means “The direction of *Dango* tastes good/better.” but it just means “*Dango* tastes better.”. These can be combined as well and “団子のほうが花より美味い。” is also fine. But it doesn’t always translate to a comparative, one can also say “お前のほうがそう言っただろ？” which means something like “You were the one who said that yeah?” It still “compares” as in what the speaker is saying “You said it, rather than I.” and it implicitly compares it with something else but there’s no comparative mood. Also, one can simply say “山のほうへ行った。” to mean “I went in the direction of the mountain.” as well
Finally, there’s also “以上”, this is a word that literally just means “above”, or “beyond” but it can also be used to create comparatives such as “あなたは私以上に美しい。” to mean “You’re more beautiful than I.”, as in literally “You’re beautiful above me.”, this word is directly suffixed to what it compares with as can be seen here, no “の” is used. So one could also say “団子は花以上に美味い。”
As can be seen, there isn’t really an inflexion of the adjective and in many of those cases it depends on context how it would be translated. “以上” does really mean “beyond” or “over”. The famous “it’s over 9000!” line by Vegeta would be “九千以上だ！” so it’s also frequently encountered outside of trying to make comparatives, such as “これ以上はダメだ” to mean “We can’t go any further than this.”
I think the verb stem is similar to the way we do this in English. Not necessarily “-er” though.
お使い = messenger (“handler” may more closely reflect the verb 使う that it comes from)
痛み止め = pain killer
見張り = guard, lookout (“watcher” if you will)
お守り = charm, or “protector”( it refers to little “charms” that protect you or bring you luck and stuff)
There’s more that I’ve noticed throughout the years but this is off the top of my head. Lots of these are established, common uses so I’m not sure you can just make your own to describe something you forgot the name of, like “The digger” for shovel or something lol
I thought this was like -er the Chinese suffix and I was gonna comment -chan might work
Sometimes 屋 (や) can be used like English -er. Mostly works for professions, even for invented ones. Often 〜さん is added at the end. The use of 何とか屋さん in this way can sound childish, so there’s that, but here’s some examples anyway.
車屋さん car dealer
魚屋さん fish seller
and my favorite, that my child invented
シャンプー屋さん shampoo washer (?)
etc.
People persist in answering no to this question every time it comes up for some reason, but there is, and it is the stem form.
People might be overcomplicating your first question. Maybe not that precise but as a beginner you could get away with simply qualifying a noun with a verb. You use the short form of the verb before the noun. So people would know what you mean if you say:
踊るひと (おどるひと）Dance person
走る人（はしるひと）Run person
Although probably more precise to say the proper noun if you know it. For example,
歌う人 （うたうひと）Sing person. Especially if they are professional you would say the noun 歌手 (かしゅ）for “singer”。
On your second question, that is pretty straight forward.
早い （はやい）is **fast**.
のほうが早い is **faster** (relative to something else).
もっと早い is literally “more fast” so also means **faster** but lacks the relativity. Might be an instruction or something. もっと早い走ってください (run faster please).
一番早い （いちばんはやい）the **fastest** (literally number 1 fast!).
Others here are better at this than me. Does the above look correct?
Weird example but I’ve heard a native speaker refer to a serial licker (jojos) as a ベロリスト so -ist might be understood depending on context
People in the comments are being obtuse but the answer is yes.
者 (sha/mono) is a person who does a thing 機/器 (ki) is a device that does a thing
As with English there are a lot of others (屋, 家、房、人、手 etc) but basically the answer is yes.
12 comments
maybe 者[しゃ]
走者 runner
医者 doctor
記者 reporter
学者 scholar
患者 patient
著者 author of a book
賢者 wise man (it’s じゃ here)
勇者 hero in dragon quest 🙂
> Is there also a fast, faster fastest Japanese equivalent?
There are a lot of ways to say this and depends on your sentence. I guess there is a word for “fastest” 最速 which is a noun but you may not want this as a noun you see. You can say 一番速い if you wanted an adjective, as you see it depends on what you are saying and who you are talking to and maybe even if you are writing or speaking.
no, there’s no one suffix. there isn’t in english either, as one who keeps accounts is an account***ant*** not an account***er***, for example
some that exist are 者 such as 医者 and 家 such as 画家 and 手 such as 選手 and 歌手 and 人 such as 役人 and 囚人, but it depends and there are plenty of exceptions
there’s no suffix for more and most, either. there’s XよりY（の）ほう for comparisons. for “most”, just tack on 一番, i.e. 一番高い
In linguistics, something like this would be called a “productive affix” — in other words, a prefix or suffix that, can be added to a word in order to create a new word that will still be understood by the majority of people, despite it being novel. English can do this with “un-,” “re-,” “-ish,” “-ness,” and a whole bunch of others.
However, you can’t do that with “-er” for the most part — most actions are already covered in English in that regard, and even if they aren’t, it’s far more likely to be understood if you say “person who does _________.”
I don’t have an exhaustive list of Japanese productive affixes, but I don’t believe there is one for this.
-er in Japanese can be found in Katakana Gairaigo, where it is 「ア段＋ー」
ファイト➡ファイター
ダンス➡ダンサー
ランニング➡ランナー
> Is there also a fast, faster fastest Japanese equivalent?
Japanese has no real comparative and superlative form of adjectives and a large part of it is context. “好きな料理” for instance usually means “The food I love the most.” or “favorite food” for emphasis one can use “一番好き” where “一番” means “first” so the most loved, but often this isn’t needed.
There are also things such as “もっと” , an adverb that means “more”, but it isn’t necessarily needed either. “成績がよくなった。” can mean “My marks have gotten better.” or “My marks have gotten good.” depending on context, but usually the former
There are contexts when it would sooner imply a comperative such as with use of “より” which means “over”, “rather than”, or “from”, as in “花より団子” literally meaning “*dango* over flowers”, a Japanese idiom meaning “function over aesthetics” but in a sentence such as “花より団子が美味い。”, it simply means “*Dango* taste better than flowers.”
Another common way to express this is using “ほう”, which literally means “direction”. So one can say “団子のほうが美味い。”, this literally means “The direction of *Dango* tastes good/better.” but it just means “*Dango* tastes better.”. These can be combined as well and “団子のほうが花より美味い。” is also fine. But it doesn’t always translate to a comparative, one can also say “お前のほうがそう言っただろ？” which means something like “You were the one who said that yeah?” It still “compares” as in what the speaker is saying “You said it, rather than I.” and it implicitly compares it with something else but there’s no comparative mood. Also, one can simply say “山のほうへ行った。” to mean “I went in the direction of the mountain.” as well
Finally, there’s also “以上”, this is a word that literally just means “above”, or “beyond” but it can also be used to create comparatives such as “あなたは私以上に美しい。” to mean “You’re more beautiful than I.”, as in literally “You’re beautiful above me.”, this word is directly suffixed to what it compares with as can be seen here, no “の” is used. So one could also say “団子は花以上に美味い。”
As can be seen, there isn’t really an inflexion of the adjective and in many of those cases it depends on context how it would be translated. “以上” does really mean “beyond” or “over”. The famous “it’s over 9000!” line by Vegeta would be “九千以上だ！” so it’s also frequently encountered outside of trying to make comparatives, such as “これ以上はダメだ” to mean “We can’t go any further than this.”
I think the verb stem is similar to the way we do this in English. Not necessarily “-er” though.
お使い = messenger (“handler” may more closely reflect the verb 使う that it comes from)
痛み止め = pain killer
見張り = guard, lookout (“watcher” if you will)
お守り = charm, or “protector”( it refers to little “charms” that protect you or bring you luck and stuff)
There’s more that I’ve noticed throughout the years but this is off the top of my head. Lots of these are established, common uses so I’m not sure you can just make your own to describe something you forgot the name of, like “The digger” for shovel or something lol
I thought this was like -er the Chinese suffix and I was gonna comment -chan might work
Sometimes 屋 (や) can be used like English -er. Mostly works for professions, even for invented ones. Often 〜さん is added at the end. The use of 何とか屋さん in this way can sound childish, so there’s that, but here’s some examples anyway.
車屋さん car dealer
魚屋さん fish seller
and my favorite, that my child invented
シャンプー屋さん shampoo washer (?)
etc.
People persist in answering no to this question every time it comes up for some reason, but there is, and it is the stem form.
* 爪を切る→爪切り (to clip one’s nails, nail clipper)
* 髪を剃る→カミソリ (to shave [one’s hair], razor [hair shaver])
* 人を殺す→人殺し (to kill a person, murderer [person killer])
* 魔法を使う→魔法使い (to use magic, warlock [magic user])
* 痛みを止める→痛み止め (to stop pain, painkiller [pain stopper])
People might be overcomplicating your first question. Maybe not that precise but as a beginner you could get away with simply qualifying a noun with a verb. You use the short form of the verb before the noun. So people would know what you mean if you say:
踊るひと (おどるひと）Dance person
走る人（はしるひと）Run person
Although probably more precise to say the proper noun if you know it. For example,
歌う人 （うたうひと）Sing person. Especially if they are professional you would say the noun 歌手 (かしゅ）for “singer”。
On your second question, that is pretty straight forward.
早い （はやい）is **fast**.
のほうが早い is **faster** (relative to something else).
もっと早い is literally “more fast” so also means **faster** but lacks the relativity. Might be an instruction or something. もっと早い走ってください (run faster please).
一番早い （いちばんはやい）the **fastest** (literally number 1 fast!).
Others here are better at this than me. Does the above look correct?
Weird example but I’ve heard a native speaker refer to a serial licker (jojos) as a ベロリスト so -ist might be understood depending on context
People in the comments are being obtuse but the answer is yes.
者 (sha/mono) is a person who does a thing
機/器 (ki) is a device that does a thing
As with English there are a lot of others (屋, 家、房、人、手 etc) but basically the answer is yes.