Why in and not on?…
Shumpei has just made a good point-
Why is it get on the plane, get on the bus, get on the train and get on the bike etc
but
get IN the car?
Anyone care to explain- then I can give him an answer other than ” sou iu mon da yo” which basically translates as ” just because it is” .
My other response to his questions English language related questions include “because English is stupid, that`s why” (I said that in English actually and he asked why I put “why” at the end of the sentence because shouldn`t it be in the beggining?) or “Ask your English teacher when you start school next week”….Please don`t think I am been cruel because seriously those are the kind of responses he gives me when I ask Japanese grammar questions (Ok well he says “eeehhh…sou iu mon da yo” a lot at least)
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eee… nande daro.
That is interesting… Ryo asks the same kind of questions!!! And honestly i don’t have the answers either!! So greatful English is my native language though!
I’d like to hear more about Shumpei’s english adventures!! I’m so bad.. I should encourage Ryo to use more English but its just so cute I end up laughing most of the time!!
sou iu mon da yo ne
“On” is used for modes of transports which you board and is mainly used when speaking of boarding though it can be used in either situations where you are inside or getting on. That’s why you need to say, “get on the plane now” to tell passengers to board, but it’s okay to say, “everyone in (or on) the plane was watching the movie”.
In general, “on” is used for modes of public transport (boats, planes, buses, elevators) which a lot of people are sharing. “In” is used for personal transport (taxis, cars) which you can be enclosed within.
I love these types of questions. They’re interesting to ponder.
i’m guessing it has to do with the fact that it started off with us “boarding” a ship/train/plane? those big things being for many people maybe?
as for the bike there is no “inside” so you cant get in a bike.
maybe its a scale thing?
English is one of the most difficult languages to learn because there are more exceptions than there are rules. There’s just so much that doesn’t make any sense when you start thinking about it within the confines of rules.
Other than that commentary, I don’t really have any advice to make the English lessons easier.
Everyone has said was I was thinking!
More basically, you’re ‘on’ it because you’re not steering it.
You’re ‘in’ a car because you’re in charge of it.
You can’t be in a bike because there is no ‘in’ :o)
Not that it is likely to make it any easier to understand - I don’t know that my way of thinking is the best!
cho muchakucha
My hubby asked me similar questions the other day. He asked why we say “on the TV” and not “in TV”, and why it is “at the table” and not by the table. It was so tricky, but after a few minutes of pondering, I tried to explain to him by saying that it all has to do with the shape of the object. For instance, with the TV, we dont see it as a box, but a flat (screen) that the image is projected on, therefore it is on. For at, I tried to explain that when we sit at the table, and made some crazy thing up about our bodies fitting the table when we sit with our legs under, our arms over, and the rest of our bodies beside it so it is netiher on nor by, but at… He seemed to totally get it at the time, and I am glad he didnt probe any further cos the more I thought about my explanation, the more I started to wonder myself…
Yeah..Japanese sentance structure is so different from English..I don’t blame him..Grammar is really hard…no doubt he’ll learn about it at school and from his textbooks.
you’ve already gotten your answer to the grammar question so I won’t go there.
My husband STILL tries to tell me “we don’t have a word for that in Japanese” when I ask him to translate an odd word here or there for me. sigh. right. Japan has no word for sinusitus. Or bookshelf. I wish he’d either just say, “I don’t know, check a dictionary (in the case of example #1) or say, “not right now, I’m busy doing xxxxxxx.” (in the case of example #2.)
English is so twisted though–we get off rather easy with the answer, “just because” as actually, that is often actually the truth!
Laura
this reminds me that there’s also a difference in regional english here in the states. in the midwest we say “get IN line” and here in NY and the eastern states, they say “get ON line.” then in britain i have heard “queue” used instead of “line”.
but then again, japanese has lots of regional differences too. my first japanese teacher was from osaka and her speech patterns and styles differed from all of my other japanese teachers that were from tokyo
In “That’s why”, the “why” is a noun and not an interrogative. Note that “That is why” is not a question. Other interrogatives follow the same pattern:
“What did you put in the soup?”
“Pepper, that’s what”.
The use of prepositions is very idiomatic and often follow no logic, so your answer “because that’s the way it is” for the in/on problem is correct. In fact, different languages use different prepositions for the same phrase. For example, in German you say “zu Fuss” = “to Foot” for “on Foot”, and you say “mit dem Zug”= with the train for “by Train”. Why? Just because it is, that’s why!
Oh yeah english is a stupid language. We have so many words that sound the same and mean different like their, there, they’re. Seriously I am glad I don’t have to learn it as a 2nd language it would do my nut in.
i always explain the difference by saying think about the action. with a taxi or a car (which you get ‘in’) you just open the door and plonk your bum down. with modes that you on (bus, boat, train, etc) you have to enter and then walk before you can sit down.
or something like that!
Yeah- Told my students that if you are able to physically stand up, then you are ‘on’ , if you can’t physically stand up, you are ‘in’. This is good because it covers the whole ‘on’ a bicycle dilemma too.