おまえはもう死んでる。なにィ～！Nani in Japanese means What
何 or nani in Japanese means what by itself. 何 has more meanings though when you use it with other words and in sentences. It can mean how many, or when used with other words have other meanings. It also is shortened to nan often when used with other words. Let’s take a look
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Say Nan instead of Nani before da or desu
If you want to ask someone what something is, you could point and say the following
なにこれ？
What’s this?
But, this may be too casual in most situations so if you want to ask politely you would say,
それは何ですか?
what is that?
Here you can see that nani became nan. Whenever nani is used before desu or da, it becomes nan. When you say nani by itself like when someone says something you don’t hear, you would still say nani. Here, it would be incorrect to say nan.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/Nani becomes How Many with Counter words
Counter words in Japanese are characters that combine with numbers to count things. So, if you are counting flat things, you would use 枚. If you had 100 flat things you would say, 100枚. If you don’t know how many flat things you have you can ask,
何枚ですか？
How many flat things do you have?
Again, here when you use nani with most counter words it is pronounced as nan. Not all counter words make nani into nan. If you want to ask, which language.
何語？
which language?
Here you would say nanigo.
Nani Combines with several participles to make new words.
If you want to say something in Japanese you would say nani ka, or nothing would be nani mo. Another word, nan demo means anything. Nan raka means somewhat and nan to naku means for some reason. There are many more of these words also which have a range of meanings.
If you want to learn more Japanese vocabulary check out more posts here.
Also, If you want to learn more Japanese I reviewed a dictionary of grammar series which I personally recommend and use myself.
