ketaro

Hello there kiddies how are you today? Ok today uncle ketaro has a question for you all, if you find it stupid please bear with me ok .

You see, i was wondering what's up with the "desu" word, i hear it a lot in many anime shows specially that one called Rozen Maiden. There is one doll that says desu at the end of every sentence that comes out of her mouth. Its desu a real word is just another made up word that sounds kawaii! if you say it. What do you kiddies think?

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Abu Dhabi

um... i'm probably explaining it wrong, but this is what i remember from my Japanese class...

"de su" is kinda like a period, it's to show the ending of a sentence. the Japanese language also has the word "ka" which goes at the sentence to indicate a question.

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Hassun

I believe it's called a copula in English.

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zyta

you could also say that it is similar to the word "is".

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Hassun

That's because the verb "to be" is the major cupola of the English language.

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Luminous

You can most definately say that again.

I remember hearing the word fairly often in Galaxy Angel(usually Mint speaking...which usually led me to thinking that it was just used to sound cute). So, it is both used as a period and for the word "is"? Tis quite interesting how it has different uses like that.

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psychical

Yup. Gets said a lot. Almost said something about Suiseiseki there -- ah, the pitfalls of speed-reading sometimes.

If I remember correctly, it signifies the end of a declarative statement (and not a question). It's also formal. More casual or impolite versions include "da yo" and simply "da", I suppose.

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Shinku no kage

First of all let me state that I generally SUCK at giving explanations...but I'm gonna give it a try here.

"-desu" is basically a suffix that usually stands for "is". Hey, that wasnt bad at all. LOLs, but if you find that "explanation" to be unuseful try asking someone like tsurara or kedar if you really MUST know, they might be able to help you out more. LOLs...shame on me, I'm half Japanese yet I cant help with explanations on these type of matters. ^^;

As for your refferal to "Rozen Maiden", they've just given Suiseiseki an SERIOUS over usage of "-desu" to make it seem cute and to make it catch on...which they successfully did. I'm a Suiseiseki fan myself. LOLs, if you browse the net enough I'm sure you've come across parodies such as the "desu note"...an obvious parody of "Death Note", where they have a play on words as the word "Death" is pronounced "desu" in Japanese. LOL. Peach Pit and the Rozen Maiden staff must of had a blast with all the repetetive suffixes of the characters like Hinaichigo's "-nano" and Kanaria's "-kashira".

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