blahblahblah -tte

[BigPants]

Hey everyone,

While I'm slowly learning the language the best I can, I've been running into things on websites that is just 'tte' (with the chiisai tsu before the 'te' (sorry I can't input in hiragana on this computer)).

So, I've been looking over the Nintendo DS Pictochat website (here) (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/dpct/question/index.html) and I saw the sentence:

Pikutochatto tte nani?

I'm guessing that's "What does Pictochat do?" but is it as simple as that? Is that what the -tte on its own means?

Any advice or website featuring an explanation would be most helpful!

'tte' is basically the same as quotation marks. You can use it to quote an entire sentence or the like, as in "Imooto wa atama ga itai tte" = "My sister said she has a headache". In the example you gave, it's used more like a topic marker, and means "What's 'Pictochat?'" or "This 'Pictochat', what is it?". This is probably the more common way to use 'tte', to refer to something the other person was saying and ask for clarification.

[BigPants]

[ QUOTE ]
BonnKansan said:
'tte' is basically the same as quotation marks. You can use it to quote an entire sentence or the like, as in "Imooto wa atama ga itai tte" = "My sister said she has a headache". In the example you gave, it's used more like a topic marker, and means "What's 'Pictochat?'" or "This 'Pictochat', what is it?". This is probably the more common way to use 'tte', to refer to something the other person was saying and ask for clarification.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahhhhh! OK!

I thought I had heard the thing about using it as "so and so said this", but when I saw how it was used on the Pictochat site, I thought that maybe I read something wrong.

But that helps loads. /images/graemlins/happy.gif Thanks BonnKansan!

[hakootoko]

-tte is a contraction of 'to iu'

There are quite a few uses of it, but at least knowing what its a contraction of should help you look it up.

Pikutochatto to iu no ga nan desu ka? = a helpful way to ask questions about Japanese, when you are faced with a word you don't know.

hakootoko

[KK1]

You'll hear "-tte" in place of "to" alot but I also have a book that says it can also be(along with -ttara) a substitute for "wa".
Here's the example from the book:

Boku wa dame da ne. -> Boku tte dame da ne.

[quenelf]

You can certainly use it in some sentences instead of 'wa', but I don't think it really means quite the same. Admittedly, the distinction is pretty hair-thin (i.e. I can't express it, I don't think the 'literal' translation "the person called me" is any use in this context either) but in the example, I think maybe the tte one is more emphatic/expresses more disgust at yourself.

I could very certainly be wrong, please feel free to tell me I am.

(Also I dunno about the other post with tte being a contraction of to iu, yes it means the same but I don't see the contraction thing? Maybe it is, I just dunno...)

--quen

[BigPants]

[ QUOTE ]
quen said:
You can certainly use it in some sentences instead of 'wa', but I don't think it really means quite the same

[/ QUOTE ]

I noticed this when watching Marmalade Boy earlier. Where I thought the characters would say 'wa' they stuck 'tte' in instead.

Thanks for the help everyone! /images/graemlins/happy.gif