That really exists

Today we've got a big lesson. In fact it's the first part in a 3 parter. When we're done this sentence (which spans the next two lines of the manga) we'll be done the first page. It's taken us a long time to get to the end of the first page, but don't worry. Things will speed up!

Let's get to the book!

それ が 現実(げんじつ) に 存在(そんざい) する

If you remember 2 lessons ago, we discussed あの, その(sono), and この(kono). Just to refresh your memory those mean "that (thing) (over there)", "that (thing)", and "this (thing)". All three of these words are adjectives, meaning that they need to be in front of nouns.

I also mentioned that there is a different word for the noun "that". As it turns out, there is a noun form for each of these adjectives. They are あれ(are), それ(sore), and これ(kore). They mean "that (over there)", "that", and "this" respectively. And luckily, we are using one of those words today - それ(sore).

In this case, the それ(sore) refers to the thing we just talked about, namely disociative identity disorder. Can you guess why we don't use あれ (are) in this case? It's because the author just talked about it, so the concept is near you, the reader. He's not talking about some general "that", but a specific "that" that he's just mentioned. That is why he uses the word それ (sore).

Also, previously, we learned that nouns (and noun phrases) are usually followed by a particle. We aren't dissapointed here. In fact, if you have been doing your reading (you have, haven't you?) you may have noticed that it is the が(ga) particle. が(ga) is the "identifier particle". In this case it answers the question "what".

But, you say you haven't seen any questions? It's a bit tricky to wrap your head around at first, but the concept isn't difficult. Sometimes we write sentences that answer implicit questions. For example, "The cow jumped over the moon". I'm not simply making a statement about the cow. Because of the emphasis on "the cow", I'm implicitly answering the question "What jumped over the moon". Of course, the question was never asked, but because of the tone of my voice, you know that I'm answering the unstated question.

One of the things that makes Japanese such an interesting language is that it has words for almost everything that English uses tone of voice for. This makes the written Japanese language much more expressive than the written English language. It's one of the reasons why it is much better to read manga in the original Japanese. The english translation often looks dull and flat because much of the undertones of meaning have been necessarily stripped out.

The next word in the sentence is 現実(げんじつ)(genjitsu). This means "reality". There is another particle that follows, に (ni), which you haven't seen before. This particle is used in many, many, many different ways. However, when it follows a word like "reality" or "truth" it conveys the feeling "in reality" or "in truth". We will be covering the に(ni) particle in much greater detail later, but for now make sure you don't get the idea the に(ni) means "in". A better translation for げんじつ(genjitsu) に(ni) is "really", for our purposes.

The next word is 存在(そんざい)(sonzai), which means "existance". It's a normal noun, but it has one special property which it shares with many other nouns. If you append the verb する(suru), "to do", to the end of it, it becomes a verb. In this case the verb means "to exist". Not all nouns act like this, but many do. Usually there is an indication in the dictionary whether a noun can be turned into a verb by appending the verb する(suru). It's a bit like the ending "-ize" in English. "Terrorize" is "to create terror".

So we have a whole sentence "This really exists". Well, in fact, we don't have the whole sentence. This is just a clause in a sentence. It is very common in Japan to use clauses. You might say "That this really exists, is the reason I'm studying it". Or any variety of other sentences. Next lesson we'll discuss how to create a noun clause out of this so we can use it in a full sentence.

Surprisingly, we have a lot of characters to learn today. Fully half of the characters in the lesson are new. Oh well, you've been getting off easy recently. This is your penence.

As usual, be mindful of the characters with diacritical marks, since the writing animation doesn't show them. These are the characters ざ and げ.

There's only one other special character which needs attention. ん is pronounced much like the English "n" sound. However, just like every other character in Japanese, it is pronounced for one full beat. Don't short-change this character or else your rhythm will be off and people won't be able to understand you at all.

There is a fairly large selection on vocabulary today. All of it is pretty common too, so that's a bonus.

The grammar section is unusually large today. Normally there won't be so much to learn on a single day. But we were lucky enough to have 3 simple points in one sentence fragment.

The point of the first example is to understand that while 存在（そんざい） means "existance" (a noun), it can be transformed into a verb by tacking する on the end. We will see this a lot over time. It's best to get used to it.

The second example indicates one way to look at how が works. Rather than focussing on the stress of the word, keep in mind that it is answering the question "what exists". Later, when we see the rest of the sentence you'll understand why が is used in this particular sentence.

The last example indicates the operation of the に particle on the word 現実（げんじつ）. It transforms the word from "reality" to "really". Of course, this is different from the "really" in "really big". That's why the grammar points are being memorized as example sentences. Grammar is nothing without context. So you have to remember the context of the words when memorizing the grammar point.

Today's Mnemosyne file. 14 new items to learn today, bringing our grand total to 60. Not bad for 6 days. That's 10 items a day. I hope you're finding it relatively simple to keep up to the review. It might seem like a small amount to do every day (and it is), but continued and constant application will get you to an impressive amount of material is a surprisingly short time. However, as we move forward, the amount of reading to do will be reduced somewhat, and the amount of memorization will increase.

There's one page to read in the additional reading: Adjectives. Well, we've only come across one adjective so far (あの), and it's an odd one (it doesn't follow the rules). But you might as well learn the rules now before we get to another one.

If you're particularly astute, you will notice that all the "learning" in these lessons is being provided either by your own effort or from Tae Kim's grammar guide. This guide is acting exactly as it's name suggests it should: as a guide. It's a way to take the text in the manga and link it to other resources that let you figure out how to understand it. As we move further and further ahead this guide will explain how to do a lot of this linking yourself.

Remember that the goal of this guide is not to teach you Japanese. It's to help you learn to teach yourself how to read manga. This guide is only a map. Getting to your destination is up to you. At the beginning there is some necessary bootstrapping where I will explain things in more detail. But as time goes on, these explanations will be reduced because they will be unnecessary. Eventually this entire guide will be unnecessary and you will be able to progress completely on your own.

That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll learn about making noun clauses!