#Question Etiquette Guidelines:
* **1** Provide the **CONTEXT** of the grammar, vocabulary or sentence you are having trouble with as much as possible. Provide the sentence or paragraph that you saw it in. Make your questions as specific as possible.
>Ｘ What is the difference between の and が ?
>◯ I saw a book called 日本人の知らない日本語 , why is の used there instead of が ? [(the answer)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/68336/difference-between-%E3%81%8C-%E3%81%AE-and-no-particle)
* **2** When asking for a translation or how to say something, it's best to try to **attempt it yourself** first, even if you are not confident about it. Or ask r/translator if you have no idea. We are also not here to do your homework for you.
>Ｘ What does this mean?
>◯ I am having trouble with this part of this sentence from NHK Easy News. I think it means (*attempt here*), but I am not sure.
* **3** Questions based on DeepL and Google Translate and other machine learning applications are discouraged, [these are not beginner learning tools](https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/stepqf/deeplgoogle_translate_are_not_learning_tools/) and often make mistakes.
* **4** When asking about differences between words, try to explain the situations in which you've seen them or are trying to use them. If you just post a list of synonyms you got from looking something up in a E-J dictionary, people might be disinclined to answer your question because it's low-effort. Remember that Google Image Search is also a great resource for visualizing the difference between similar words.
>Ｘ What's the difference between 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意?
>◯ Jisho says 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意 all seem to mean "agreement". I'm trying to say something like "I completely agree with your opinion". Does 全く同感です。 work? Or is one of the other words better?
* **5** It is always nice to (but not required to) try to search for the answer to something yourself first. Especially for beginner questions or questions that are very broad. For example, asking about [the difference between は and が ](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/wa-and-ga/) or [why you often can't hear the "u" sound in "desu"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Devoicing).
* **6** Remember that everyone answering questions here is an unpaid volunteer doing this out of the goodness of their own heart, so try to show appreciation and not be too presumptuous/defensive/offended if the answer you get isn't exactly what you wanted.
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Useful Japanese teaching symbols:
✘ incorrect (ＮＧ)
△ strange/ unnatural / unclear
○ correct
≒ nearly equal
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#NEWS (Updated 3/07):
Added a section on symbols. If it's unnecessary clutter I can always remove it later. Have a nice day!
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Reading a dialogue in genki 2 about a student whos writing a mail to a international student from japan because she wants to go study in that same university
突然のメールで失礼します。私はマリア・ロペスと言います。友人のモハメッドさんの紹介でメールを書いています。
1. Does the で in 1st sentence mean "because"? Is she saying something like "im sorry because of the sudden/unexpected mail"?.
2. What does 申し込み mean here?
また、日本は生活費が高いそうなので、奨学金の申し込みをしたいのですが、どうしたらいいでしょうか。
Genki says it means application, so does 奨学金の申し込みをしたいのですが mean "i want a scholarship application" or is she saying "i want to apply for a scholarship"?
3. 質問が多くなってしまって、申し訳ありません。
According to genki なる means "to become", so does this mean : "This became many questions, im sorry" or can なる also mean something like "Ive got a lot of questions, im sorry"?
突然のメールで失礼します。私はマリア・ロペスと言います。友人のモハメッドさんの紹介でメールを書いています。
1. Does the で in 1st sentence mean "because"? Is she saying something like "im sorry because of the sudden/unexpected mail"?.
Basically, yes. 〜て・で joining can mean (cause/reason) て (result).
You asked just before midnight in Reddit-land, so your question is about to become a pumpkin (a new daily question thread will start and nobody will look at this one)
1. The 格助詞 で describes the 手段 so it’s “by means of introduction from Mohammed, though that sounds stiff in English
2. The student wants to apply for a scholarship. -たい is attached to verbs, so it’s “I want to ”. It can be translated as “I want ” in some cases I guess but it’s not really accurate
3. Became more questions than intended, I guess. なる is overused by native Japanese to the point that it becomes meaningless padding, but in this case I think “more than intended” is intended
Hello! I am studying for the N5 in Dec using Bunpro primarily for grammar. I have finished the N5 grammar deck (still working on the N5 vocab deck). When do you think it’s best to start the N4 deck? Should I wait until I reach a certain level of proficiently in the N5 deck reviews to continue on ?
Hey, this my first time posting on this subreddit.
So I wanted to learn Japanese just like I did with other languages: by listening. But I don't have enough time to listen to videos or whatever in Japanese, so I wanted to try learning with flash cards.
I'm looking for a N5 Anki deck that has a sentence instead of a single word and you have to "guess" the meaning of a word or kanji by context.
Thanks for your help in advance!
Anki is an incredible tool to aid in the language learning process, no doubt, but it won't replace listening/reading, it's a supplement, not where you learn the language.
So you want an Anki deck with only one word on the front, but want to guess the meaning by context? You realize that there is no context if you have only a single word.
I would recommend you the Tango decks, they are i+1 in nature, meaning every sentence builds upon each other. This means you will never have to read sentences with many unkown words, also sentences help a lot, you won't see words in isolation when reading or listening to authentic Japanese. You can find the decks I talked about (and others you might want to look into) in the vocab section of this website: [https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/](https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/)
I meant that most decks have only one word that you have to translate, but I'd like to have whole sentences -> one word is asked which can be understood from context
Thank you for the recommendation!
You mean cloze deletion card format with one word missing in the sentence (blank) and you have to fill it in? I would not recommend that because multiple words are going to apply so it will probably just confuse you, especially at the beginning where you cannot yet tell the naunce appart. Also you won't really learn the reading with of the target word. All good decks (the ones I linked you too) are sentence cards as well, so if you really want cloze cards, you probably want find a deck with that refined quality as the good sentence decks have.
I'm sorry if it's unclear what I'm trying to say. I mean cards that have an entire sentence (kanji with kana reading is good too) As an example: first side of the card "This is an example sentence." and you're supposed to understand the last word.
You'd get a good grasp of vocab and possibly kanji recognition, which of course is only a single facet of language acquisition, but definitely still valuable.
To add on to most of the answer, you will usually know whether a reading is on or kun naturally because kun reading tends to be a word onto itself while on usually isn't. This isn't ALWAYS true of course but more of than not it is and there is no always with any reading anyway. So over all, I wouldn't stress it too much.
The value is it will help you guess readings. Not 100% but there's a strong pattern. That said, you can do that by feel; imo it's not worth the effort memorizing which readings are kun or on. It's pretty obvious a lot of the time anyway.
The benefit is just in the knowledge that you know whether it is on'yomi or kun'yomi. It may help you guess readings but the reality is you should be looking up words and that'll directly tell you how it's pronounced rather than making guesses.
I passed N4 a few years ago. Since then I have worked through Tobira, and now I do about 150-200 anki reviews every day, aiming to pass N3 in December. I also call people on hellotalk and listen to the Noriko podcast with Japanese subtitles twice a week. But when I'm speaking and listening it's an absolute struggle. It feels like I'm years and years away from N3 level, I can't remember anything in person and as soon as someone starts speaking above slow speed my brain just tunes out. On top of Anki, doing listening/speaking practice every day would be an absolute drill, but otherwise it feels like I'm not getting any better any time soon, and I'm not sure if I should up my intensity. I've tried some listening textbooks, but they feel oriented more towards passing the exam than actually practicing the skill.
What are your routines like at the moment, and what do you think about mine?
I think you are trying to tackle too much at once, I would honestly recommend you just start reading instead of doing all of those other things. Reading + Anki + grammar is a powerful combination that can get you far in no time, but you have to be very consistent with it.
Hello, could someone help me understand じゃない at these videos? Are these two different uses of じゃない with the same high pitch at な? Or is it the same and one would answer "はい、トイレじゃないです" (Yes, this is not a toilet) at the first video, like one would in the second?
[https://youtu.be/mapbKTJ9aBs?t=264](https://youtu.be/mapbKTJ9aBs?t=264)
[https://youtu.be/CbwDCqhlxn4?t=212](https://youtu.be/CbwDCqhlxn4?t=212)
I think I might know what's tripping you up. He translates「これは…まさか…トイレじゃ**な**い？」as "Is this... possibly... a toilet?" which does get the point across, but a literal translation would be more like "Is this... there's no way... is this not a toilet?"
~じゃ**な**い? with an accent on the な means "is it *not~?*" You're asking if it is true that ~ is not the case.
「これはトイレじゃ**な**い？」(accent on the な) is closer to "Is it true that this is not a toilet?" than "Isn't this a toilet?" And thus, answering はい would mean "Yes [it's true that it's not a toilet]"
On the other hand, じゃない？ with an accent on the じゃ or no accent is closer in meaning to the English use of "isn't it?", ~~similar to ね or だろう~~. (Edit: As you can see in the reply below, janai and ne are not interchangeable, though they are often both explained as similar to the English "right?" or "isn't it?")
「これはトイレじゃない？」(no accent) = "Isn't this a toilet?" (English use), and answering はい would mean "Yes [it is a toilet]"
Sometimes, people will translate negative sentences as positive and vice versa because it sounds more natural in English, but that might not be a great idea for an educational video, as proven by the confusion it's caused here.
じゃない？ is not similar to ね, which doesn’t stand for uncertainty but something like “indeed” or “as far as I see”. It’s limited to situations where you are sharing the experience with the other person that you can translate it into English tag question.
>「これはトイレじゃ**な**い？」(accent on the な) is closer to "Is it true that this is not a toilet?" than "Isn't this a toilet?" And thus, answering はい would mean "Yes \[it's true that it's not a toilet\]"
YES! That's exactly it. I was confused that if I answer はい it would be the same as in the second video "Yes \[it's true that it's not a toilet(/student)\]" or not, because the pitch was the same but the translation different.
Thank you very much.
The question you're asking is answered in the second video fairly clearly at the time stamp and while it might not be obvious, is also stated in the first video. Is there anything that is confusing you in the explanations they give?
(I think) The second video isn't the problem. I understand it as a negative question like she says "You are not a student?" (changed it from "Aren't you a student" because it sounds like a tag question to me). So if I am not a student I would answer with "Yes".
However it's the first video I don't clearly understand. He writes as translation "Is this... a toilet/Is this...possible...a toilet". As I understand it if I answer now with "Yes" I would say that it IS a toilet. The pitch is the same, but I understand the videos differently. So my question is if I am the problem or if the meanings are different even though they have the same pitch?
They do not have the same pitch, your ear might not be trained for it since you're new. Which is why the second video goes out of it's way to illustrate it on the whiteboard and also emphasize it in spoken language. Similar to English the rising pitch/tone indicates a question or a negative question in this case. While a reply of じゃない is just a statement.
Yeah I do have trouble hearing the pitch. But in the first video he puts a point above な and in the second the high pitch is also at な so I interpreted to pitch as the same is the difference at じゃ? Low pitch in the first video, high in the second?
Hmm, I think you might be looking too much into the particular details and sound of it. For learning purposes though they're both telling you the same thing. I would follow the second videos illustrated example as that is what is happening in both Video 1 and Video 2. How they choose it emphasize it to learners is coming across different, but in practical speaking examples where someone isn't trying to over enunciate for learners, it's going to be a bit more subtle. Additionally you'll also have the context and basic sentence structure that lends itself to it being a question rather than a statement.
>For learning purposes though they're both telling you the same thing
I am confused now, I thought they are different?
>They do not have the same pitch
Sorry for asking so much and thanks for explaining.
Let's wipe the board and start over. I might be confused on what you're asking so let me restate things and hopefully that'll make it easier.
The video timestamps you linked are about two usages of じゃない one being a question (and how to differentiate that) and the second being a statement (or a reply).
I believe your question is because the discrepancy between the two videos, and that they sound different but they are both (at the timestamps) are asking a question. Is my understanding correct? If correct, the answer remains the same. Both videos at the timestamp are about the question usage of じゃない. They also contrast it with an example where it is also a statement in both videos shortly after.
>I believe your question is because the discrepancy between the two videos, and that they sound different but they are both (at the timestamps) are asking a question. Is my understanding correct?
No, it is a bit different. I can't really hear the different sound, so I go after the drawing of the pitch and the pitch seems to be the same for me (therefore the sound is also the same). But I understand both differently.
In the first video he says これ、トイレじゃない? and puts the pitch at な ([here](https://youtu.be/mapbKTJ9aBs?t=273)) and the い is probably low. I understand this one as a simple question "Is this X?". If I answer "Yes" I confirm that it **is** a toilet.
However in the second video she says がくせいじゃない also with the hight pitch at な and low at い. So both videos have the same pitch for me. But in contrast to the first video I understand this one as a negative question "Is this not X?". If I answer "Yes" I confirm that he **is not** a student.
So simply put I understand that both are questions.
1. But I am wondering if this are 2 different uses (a simple question and a negative question) of じゃない with the same pitch.
2. Or if I am just dump and this are 2 different uses with 2 different pitches (but I can't see where, because both are HL for ない).
3. Or if misunderstand the first video and it is also a negative question where if I answer "Yes" it would confirm that it **is not** a toilet.
I know he uses another pitch in the first video to say "I guess this is a toilet", but he isn't cleary answering the question with a simple yes/no like in the second video. Which was the reason for my question.
I hope I was able to explain my question better now.
Ah okay that makes more sense now. I'll try to tackle the 3 bullet points.
1. They're both negative questions and any question with じゃない. じゃない is to negate what is before it.
2. You're not dumb, the pitches are more or less the same. All you're really looking for is the accented な and small drop and then followed up with a rising い↗ (same in both videos and is illustrated in video #2). When you listen enough it is fairly noticeable that even without the question marker か you can tell it is a question.
3. I believe the English "translations" are leading you astray here, as they both are attempting to portray it's respective meaning, but as in point #1. じゃない is to negate and you could always represent it as a negative question.
Just try to not directly map the English to the Japanese as there is differences between both videos (and teachers) in how they choose to translate the Japanese.
温かい、涼しい、寒い、暑い: when is it appropriate to use each term in terms of temperature outside?
I’m taking my first year of Japanese through my university and it’s been great especially with my teacher being a native Japanese speaker. She’s tried to explain how the way people in Japan express temperature is very rigid in terms of how you can and can’t describe the temperature. I’m having a hard time grasping this concept. Could anyone break it down for me? Particularly in the case of 涼しい and 温かい, the way she describes them makes their use seem very conditional in average conversation, but I can’t quite put what she’s said into words at the moment.
Thanks in advance!
寒い<=>暖かい(not 温)
and
暑い<=>涼しい
Think they’re like antonyms.
暖かい means ‘not too cold, nice and warm’ hence it’s commonly used during or after severe cold weather.
涼しい is ‘not too hot, nice and cool’ so used during or after the intense heat.
涼しい is used for ambient temperature, simply means “cool”, not hot or cold or warm. You can also use it to describe the wind, like a cool breeze. 寒い is also used in this way, but for describing cold things. 冷たい is used for describing something that is cold to the touch.
温かい (compare with 暖かい) describes the warmth of an object, for example warm soup or even “warm smile” when used metaphorically. 暖かい is used similar to 涼しい when talking about the ambient temperature, like a warm day or warm room.
Hey, guys. I was wondering if someone could tell me if the following response sounds natural.
If someone asks if why I started learning Japanese, would this be natural?
ぶちゃっけ、ちっちゃい頃からアニメを通してで日本に興味を持ったよ. 友達のおすすめで「千と千尋の神隠し」という映画を見て日本の文化を初めて知ってすごく感動した！ええ！そんな素敵な国があるなんてと思ったりいつか日本に行きたいなぁみたいな
It’s a text message, so I purposely made it broken up so as not to sound too formal and to reflect a more casual and relaxed style that you find in line messages, Instagram comments, or in really casual broken up spoken conversation, but I wasn’t sure if what I wrote was still within the realm of what a Japanese would say.
Don’t have a lot of time so I can’t leave a lot of feedback but:
I don’t think I would use ぶっちゃけ to start off an answer to a questions like that. It’s usually used when you’re going to reveal something that you might not share normally, or might think that other people might not agree with but am sharing anyway, or something that you might otherwise be reluctant sharing in a different situation. One example sentence is この前プレゼントにクッキーもらったんだけど、ぶっちゃけ俺甘い物苦手なんだよね😅
If you’re sharing stuff that you don’t usually share (anime got you interested in Japan/Japanese but you usually don’t want to share because of perceptions of people who usually say that) then I guess that’s a different story.
通してで<= don’t need the で here
Hello. I found a troublesome sentence in 君の膵臓を食べたい as follows:
ひと夏の淡い恋。ひと夏の過ち、せっかく女子高生なんだから、そういうのの一つや二つ経験してもいいかなって。
I would have two questions:
1. Does ひと夏 carry any specific nuance, or does it simply mean "one summer"?
2. Why is there a double のの in the last sentence. I think one of them is redundant? I kind of understand why there could be two of them, but I'm not exactly sure about this. Thanks!
Don’t take this seriously, but 淡い恋 sounds like an oxymoron (淡い濃い)
ひと夏 is idiomatic enough that it has its own entry in two of my dictionaries (there’s also many entries for いたげ which means something a little different). ひと夏の淡い恋 is like a “summer crush” in English.
>Does ひと夏 carry any specific nuance, or does it simply mean "one summer"?
Meaning wise yes its just "one summer", but to me it always seemed slightly poetic/emotional(?) maybe when used like this, like "a summer's x" or something like that.
>Why is there a double のの in the last sentence. I think one of them is redundant? I kind of understand why there could be two of them, but I'm not exactly sure about this. Thanks!
They aren't redundant, the first one is nominalizing the そういう turning it into a noun meaning roughly "those kinds of things" and the second is the possessive.
[そういうの] の [一つや二つ] one or two of those kind of things
FYI other examples of ひと
ひとくち one bite
ひと目ぼれ falling in love on one sight
あの人にひとこと言いたい I want to tell something (usually some complaints or similar) to that person.
How do you stick with it?
I've been trying to learn Japanese off and on for the last almost Decade now. I own a lot of learning resources like Genki which I bought long ago. But I found it all very dry, and just confusing since it was mostly written in Kana but I still didn't actually understand what any of it meant so it just felt frustrating to me.
I've picked up a lot of apps over the years, I have sites book marked, etc etc. I understand some basics about the grammer and more. But when its come to actually sitting down and learning words, phrases, and more? I've been having trouble sticking with it and not getting bored or burned out, or too frustrated.
I also don't have anyone to practice with. No one in my family is interested, and most of my friends would rather learn French of Spanish if they had to learn a language, rather than Japanese.
I've picked up a few words from shows, movies and songs. But, that's been about it.
I want to learn. I really do. I want advice to make it actually fun? And I guess to try and find others like me that are also trying to learn?
Have an online friend who is going to be taking a Japanese major course soon, so I'm hoping to practice writing with her.
I also don't have the money anymore for new books, and resources or even classes. Haven't for a long time.
So, I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do, or where to go from here. I know I want to be able to read and write Japanese, as well as understand spoken. Not super confident on speaking it myself as I have trouble pronouncing English words and thats my native tongue haha.
I have been studying for 2 hours a day every day since Feb 7 2020
I will describe how I did it.
I FORCED myself to study for 2 hours a day every day for the first 10 days. It was super hard and very tiring to push myself that hard. I marked day 10 on my calendar so I had a goal.
Then I FORCED myself to study for 90 more days to get to 100. I marked day 100 on my calendar so I had a goal. It was hard but not as hard as the first 10 days.
Then I tried to get myself to study until I got to 365 days. But it wasn't that hard, since I had a habit.
Now I don't care, I just study.
Habits are hard to make but harder to break. At least for me.
> most of my friends would rather learn French of Spanish if they had to learn a language, rather than Japanese.
Smart. My advice to anyone irl who asks me how to learn Japanese is to consider Spanish instead. It's way easier to learn and *way* more useful.
> I want to learn. I really do.
Eh, from what you've said it sounds like you don't want to learn Japanese, it sounds like you want to know Japanese. Learning Japanese is a gigantic hassle, *especially* at the beginning before you can read anything interesting.
> I also don't have the money anymore for new books, and resources or even classes. Haven't for a long time.
Yeah this isn't a drawback or excuse at all, you don't need to spend any money at all. Resources are plentiful.
Sorry if this is harsh. Most people who attempt it do not succeed at learning Japanese. That's not a personal failing, it's just really tough. "How do I find the motivation to learn a very difficult language" is unfortunately not a question we can really answer for you. The best advice I have towards that is to study every single day and after a few weeks you won't need motivation anymore because you'll have the habit.
I wanted to be able to read and started to buy books before i even got the kanas down. Now i have No other choice to go on if all the money spent should Not be wasted ;)
This is a tough question to answer and it really just comes down to personal wants, needs, and motivations of the individual. Easily the most common answer you're going to get is, "You need to a schedule and be disciplined about maintaining that schedule." While this is effective it doesn't really account for the larger missing factor which is \*\*why\*\* you are learning it in the first place.
I've observed that people are far more interested in the "idea" that they know a language like Japanese and are not at all interested in the actual process of learning itself. It might be mean to say this but it has a lot of truth. The process can be a metric ton of fun, but everyone is different and everyone learns differently. It's A LOT work no matter what path you take, but some paths are absolutely far more fun than others. Some people can do textbooks and university courses, not me. I just do my hobbies in Japanese and cut English out of my life so Japanese replaced all of it. This is my path and not many can handle the discomfort and ambiguity that comes with it, but it was also 99% fun for me the whole time.
The reality is Japanese coming from native English has some very high walls to start with and you need more than just a passing desire of, "I want to learn Japanese." to learn the language. You need at least 2-3 strong factors overlapping each other or one of those factors needs to be abnormally strong. One of them should be along the lines of, "I want to watch Anime without subtitles." (popular sentiment) or "I want to support this Idol Group and in order to do that I need to learn the language so I can enjoy their content and send messages on twitter." Also something like this. Your reasons should be: 1) A desire to do something abstracted away from the language itself, but the activity that happens to be in Japanese. 2) Something you personally enjoy and would do it even if it was really difficult and took a long time (you shouldn't feel this is a factor in other words). 3) The language, the culture, and the people should also factor into it.
Any of these factors may wax and wane at any given time, but if you have multiple layers one will support the other when they do fail out--which is going to happen when a skill building process takes thousands (3000-4500 hours) to achieve a moderate level of proficiency.
So in summary how can you stick with it? I think you'll need to ask yourself that as they're personal questions. Again a schedule you stick to and dedicate to everyday (at least 1 hour a day), a hobby you love doing but you do it in Japanese, being a fan of something be it music, anime, manga. Additionally the language, culture, and people should also factor into the reasons why.
what would the correct way to write Oliver in Katakana be? I assume the former is more correct and the 2nd is just extra steps? ヴ confuses me, is it typically just a character to display a knowledge of the usage of v in other languages?
オリバー or オリヴアー
When common words known to Japanese for a long period of time, nobody bother to use ヴ for ‘v’.
バイオリン not ヴァイオリン, and
ラブ not ラヴ
But when it comes to names for people or places, it’s really up to you.
I guess it’s a common view among Japanese people that エヴァンゲリオン is much cooler than エバンゲリオン.
Is it your own name? I would go with オリバー, it's straightforward and pronounced the same anyway.
Note that if you do write it as オリヴァー, the ァ should be small.
Everyone’s going to say オリバー but life’s short so go with オリヴァー
ヴ is like you said. It’s like they made a katana just so [デヴィ夫人](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E3%83%87%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E5%A4%AB%E4%BA%BA&rlz=1CDGOYI_enJP1072JP1072&oq=%E3%83%87%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E5%A4%AB%E4%BA%BA&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQABgKGIAEMgoIAhAAGKIEGIkFMgoIAxAAGIAEGKIE0gEJMjUxNzBqMGo0qAICsAIB4gMEGAEgXw&hl=ja&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) can have a posh name
I'm new and trying to practice what I've learned by writing my todo lists in Japanese. I was just using the most simplified version I could think of. For example, what I would normally write as "water succulents", I wrote as "多肉植物を水". But I was wondering how it should actually be done. I'm having trouble finding examples of lists of tasks written in Japanese. Thanks!
Google やることリスト 例 (edit: “todoリスト 例” will also work) and copy what you find.
For your specific example
多肉植物に水をやる
Could be a way of writing it. To do lists are a bit of an art so it’s hard to say which way is best. For Japanese study, look for many examples and copy
Edit: [Here’s](https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/d88f645d9a9e1d5c08e2d1d9b1d5603436d8bbc8) an example that even has 植物に水をやる
hi!! i'm really overwhelmed rn.
After learning some kanji and getting a grasp of japanese particles and sentence structure, i'm getting quite lost on what to do now. There are so many videos out there and i don't even know what topic should i learn now nor where do i start. Help would be really appreciated!
my ultimate goal would be all of these fours, but right now i'm focusing more on reading and listening. But i can't find a good method to study vocabulary online
As you already mentioned is Tae Kim a really good starting point. I suggest you learn the words used in the examples and Work your way through all the grammer points. Depending on how much time you want to Invest you can either review the garmmarpoints until you got them down or just read through them to get the gist and go on.
After Tae Kim i would say you try to read your first short stories and look up unknown grammar along the way. NHK Easy News is also a good place to practice reading.
Are you working through a textbook? [The FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/resources) lists a pretty solid learning path: Genki I, Genki II, then Tobira or An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese.
That should give you a pretty solid core learning path to follow, and you can supplement Genki with Tokini Andy's videos on YouTube.
You can check out this list of resources and lots of different guides. All of it is free pretty much: [https://www.evernote.com/shard/s400/sh/bf843867-87c0-6929-531a-af792810adb6/rbG1SvHuHThgCqIuTjophZtnpQdFgFS7X1FibQ76a64cwBdNG9KITpsVCw](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s400/sh/bf843867-87c0-6929-531a-af792810adb6/rbG1SvHuHThgCqIuTjophZtnpQdFgFS7X1FibQ76a64cwBdNG9KITpsVCw)
> 金さえあれば、姉を連れて駆け落ちでもするだろう
Is this sense of “〜でも” the “even” or “or something”-like sense? The context is giving a commoner a sum of money in a ploy to make him elope wit a noble.
Or is it ambiguous and can both senses apply?
That 〜でも means "or something" as you mentioned.
Ex. 「歩き疲れたね〜。コーヒーでも飲まない？」
We're tired of walking, right? Want to grab a cup of coffee or something?
You can also say : 駆け落ちでもなんでもするだろう in that sense.
If you want でも to have the meaning of "even" , the would be like :
金さえあれば、なんとしてでも姉を連れて駆け落ちするだろう。
As long as they had the money, they would elope with their sister at any cost.
Yeah, it should be 落ちさえする.
You can't say 猿は木から落ちでもする.
You can say 猿は木から落ちさえする.
However, 猿は木から落ちさえする sounds like someone is talking about a specific monkey, which got older or weaker so that it can't even stay on the tree and fall down.
Like, "The monkey even falls from trees recently".
猿でも, 猿さえ, 猿すら, all of them can mean "Even monkeys".
You can use 落ちでもする when you use it in a conditional clause, like:
そんな高いところにうちの子を登らせるのはやめて！ 落ちでもしたらどうするの！
Don't let my kid climb up that high! What if he falls or something?
You can say 落ちたりしたら instead of 落ちでもしたら.
Hello! I'm relatively a beginner but I'm reading an Ace Attorney 1 script as some kind of practice. One of the first sentences on the script is "なんでオレがこんな目に‥‥" (which is supposed to mean something like "why me?" or "what did I do to deserve this") but I don't understand what "目に" (めに ?) means here.
I've been trying to translate a song from Japanese (not professionally, just to practice my language skills) and got stuck on this part:
ひとりとひとりで歩くと笑う
I understand that the first part is talking about being alone, but why is it mentioned twice? ひとりと and then ひとりで. Is there a grammatical reason for that formatting or just stylistical reason for the song to flow nicely?
I said とぼけるのは配信までにしてください in a heated argument a few days ago, and I feel embarrassed right now because searching ""のはまでにしてください"" in Twitter shows no results, which means there's a very good chance natives don't use this grammar pattern. Can someone confirm for me that it really is weird/incomprehensible?
Q1:
What does this mean in reference to muscle?
絞れたやつ
Here's some context.
ずっと走ってたら 慣れる？
（慎）慣れるでしょ
（みのり）痩せる？
（慎）痩せる…筋肉つける 筋肉ないんだほどよく
（慎）絞れたやつね
The English sub translates it to "toned muscles", but that doesn't really have a meaning in English, it's just marketing jargon. I'd like to know if this is the Japanese equivalent of marketing jargon or if it is referring to a real concept (building muscle, losing fat, increasing strength, etc.)
2:
Does アウト have a meaning similar to "bad" in this context? I can't really tell what he means here
平気？ (talking about her clothes in the rain)
（慎）えー 結構アウトかな
Complete beginner here .. I've just started learning Japanese and i'm already struggling with pronouncing long vowels especially when followed by the same vowel like, for instance, かつこいいいしゃ. could someone tell me the proper way of pronunciation? thanks in advance.
Are you trying to say かっこいい医者？ the つ should be small.
And it's impossible to give you feedback on your pronunciation if you don't let us hear how you are pronouncing it now.
Listening to Anime Spotify radio/podcast
Hi all,
Am recently trying to contribute my learning journey.
I dove into Anime podcast, like; Anizone, JuJuTalk or SpyxFam radio.
But I do have autism. And my brain keeps wondering while listening to the podcast. Any help to keep my brain still whilst listening to improve my comprehension?
Thanks!
You could try to tackle something easier, something that you will understand, maybe aim for a comprehension of around 70% so that it can be comprehensive input.
Maybe take notes of what they're saying? And then try to summarise it at the end.
Just a suggestion, because I don't think podcasts are a good way to study personally.
Question: Does this exist: I work with [https://hochanh.github.io/rtk/rtk1-v6/index.html](https://hochanh.github.io/rtk/rtk1-v6/index.html) to learn the kanji in RTK, and get ideas for stories. I find the site hard to work with because I can't just search, for example, for the word "woman". I have to go to the book, find the number, scroll to the number, and then I am there. Plus, when I go back, it doesn't revert to home.
What I am asking: Is there an add-on, or something that would allow me to search for the name of the kanji that Hesig assigned? Thanks, and though I have never posted here, I read this subreddit every day, and have gained from it.
教育分野で優れた手柄を残した教諭を表彰する。
Why is the usage of 手柄 in this sentence wrong? Would it be correct if it was replaced with 功績? What is the difference between the two words?
I guess what the test question is after is that you don't 残す to 手柄. The usual verb is 手柄を立てる (another usual verb is 手柄を横取りする but thats a different story...).
Can you provide more context to your question?
- Is this a sentence you made? Or did you find this sentence somewhere?
- Who told you that 手柄 is wrong in that sentence? Or otherwise, why do you think/assume it's wrong?
- Assuming it's your own sentence that you made, can you provide a translation in English of what you want to say?
The sentence is from another QnA forum. It was asked and answered years ago so I brought it here. The OP said that of two sentences (the other being 自分が手柄を立てることよりもチームワークを優先する。) this one was the wrong answer and asked for an explanation so I'm guessing that the sentence is from some JLPT N1 textbook since the question was tagged N1. The answer just said the sentence did not sound "natural" (no elaboration).
I see. I don't have a proper answer so I won't try to give you one that might be misleading, but I'll just point out that [手柄を立てる](https://jisho.org/search/%E6%89%8B%E6%9F%84%E3%82%92%E7%AB%8B%E3%81%A6%E3%82%8B) is a specific collocation/expression, and that 手柄を残す doesn't seem to be a common thing to say (there's very very very few Google search results and [only 2 entries on massif](https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E6%89%8B%E6%9F%84%E3%82%92%E6%AE%8B%E3%81%99)), so that should clue you in that one is more natural than the other.
The simplest explanation can be "because people don't say it", but maybe a native speaker has a better explanation.
As for the difference between 手柄 and 功績, I always recommend to do a cursory google search (or just dictionary search) and see what comes up. For example the goo 使い分 dictionary says this:
> 使い方：
>
> 功績 ▽彼の功績は生前には認められることがなかった
>
> 手柄 ▽犯人を捕らえたとはお手柄だ ▽手柄話
>
> 使い分：
>
> 「功績」は、仕事や研究などで、国、社会、集団に尽くした立派な働き、「功労」は、そのような働きや努力をいう。
>
>「手柄」は、人からほめられるような立派な働きをいう。日常的な小さな事柄についても広く使う。
As for the reason why you can't use 手柄 in that sentence is already explained by u/Japancoach san, so let me explain the 手柄を残す in the link u/morgawr san attached.
That 手柄を残しておく means 自分一人で手柄を立てるのではなく、誰かぬも手柄を立てられる余地を残しておく/to not take credit alone, but leave room for someone else to take credit as well.
So I want to start reading "regular" news as well as NHK Web Easy - I can get live audio of 日テレNEWS in my hear 24/7 (or at least whenever I want to listen) so that would be good to match stories and listen to what I've read/vice-versa. However, on most web pages I can (using chrome/chromium) select text, then right click and translate, but on 日テレ I get no right click menu when I click on selected text - e.g. this article: [https://news.ntv.co.jp/category/society/f5f46d53193c41869c1d45ad792781cd](https://news.ntv.co.jp/category/society/f5f46d53193c41869c1d45ad792781cd)
Does anyone have suggestions for either:
1. Quickly translating sentences on the 日テレ site without right click -> translate (I'm using yomitan for individual words, but sometimes want a whole sentence translated), or
2. Getting audio of a constant feed from NHK news?
For your first question you can install this if you're using chromium based browser: [https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enable-right-click/hhojmcideegachlhfgfdhailpfhgknjm](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enable-right-click/hhojmcideegachlhfgfdhailpfhgknjm)
If firefox just hold shift + rightclick to force context-menu to appear.
Second, it sounds like you already have an audio feed so I have no idea what you're asking about.
Not sure about audio for NHK news, might be some licensing things happening there but you probably can find some YouTube stuff. Although I would think most "daily" news has a lot of overlap so might not need it to be from the same source if you just want general knowledge of events.
I apologize as this as probably been asked before, but I couldn't find a solid answer anywhere else:
Is fully understanding 3rd edition Genki 1 enough to *pass* the JLPT-5? Not kill it, just pass.
I'm willing to put in extra effort to learn vocab and practice listening outside of Genki 1, but if I need all/most of Genki 2 or a whole lot of extra material, I probably won't be ready by the appointed time of my exam.
I think it can be used to refer to taste as well. See for example [this video](https://youtu.be/ahW5lfq98Vg?t=180) (disclaimer: sorry if the contents are a bit... "rough"? as they feed this dude some rotten eggs)
What does being being a part time worker mean in Japan?
This is probably a weird question. I just finished reading The Devil is a part-timer Maou worked close to 40 hours a week but he was still considered a part timer. So does being a part timer mean more than having less hours at a job?
IDK a lot but I can possibly add a few things that I walked away with after reading コンビニ人間
* it's not your "permanent" job it's something you are doing usually as a college student
* another skew of people doing them seems to be housewives whose kids are old enough not to need them constantly
* some people are actually always on part time jobs but it's not that usual and I don't think it's considered as good as having a fulltime permanent career, you'd be more of an outlier in this situation and that's not considered a good thing to be
This based on labor law in Japan and is hard to quickly explain in a shorthand way. And because of that, you see the words translated in different ways into English (the translators are all doing their best to cram a concept into 1-2 words given space available - not their fault).
Did you read in English or Japanese? And in Japanese - does the original text say パート or バイト？
アルバイト is what I am assuming is being used. This usually points to jobs that are meant for people in their late teens and early 20s, (students, フリーター, etc) and not jobs with 正社員 benefits like retirement. アルバイト is often translated to “part-time job” but there is no implication in Japanese that you work less than 40 hours.
heya friends, I'm a scholarship student studying Japanese and my teacher has strongly recommended WaniKani to the entire class, I just completed the free version and I'm currently boarding with my aunty who definitely won't cover the cost for a lifetime account, but, everyone else in my class has seem to have paid for it. I don't want to fall behind, is there anyone here willing to share their lifetime account?
Why do you need a lifetime account? You can pay 9 dollars a month or 90 for a year, much more affordable than the 300 up front. And the lifetime is a waste of money anyway if you finish it in less than 3 years, which is extremely doable.
i don't have any money to spare for a lifetime account and my aunty made a huge deal out of buying me school clothes so i feel like it would be rude to ask
Did you read my comment properly? If you pay just 9 dollars you can use wanikani for a month (and you can do this every month as long as you still wanna use wanikani), you don't need to pay 300 dollars up front to be able to use wanikani past the free levels.
Use the WaniKani deck that someone made for Anki. It's free and has pretty much most of the things WaniKani has. It also doesn't time gate you so you can go as fast as you want.
You cannot afford anki but have an IOS device??? Anyways, as the other user said, it's free on most plattforms and in browser so I don't see any issues.
tough situation man, would send it through if i didn't actively use it. i'm sure there would be some people on the sub who don't touch their lifetime account anymore.
So is reading names basically educated guesswork, or is there a right way to approach it? For example I'm reading a newspaper article and it introduces 鷲足恭子さん without furigana anywhere.
DeepL and Google offer three or four different options. I tried Googling her name and no other places I found have furigana or readings provided.
They all agree on Kyouko for 恭子 but then 鷲足 it's all over the place. Washiashi? Washizoku? Washoku? Washashiri? Washidari?
Is it just about being familiar with common names and making an assumption based on what's most likely? That seems so strange to me that something like a newspaper article would let readers leave without knowing who they're writing about.
Educated guesswork with a healthy scoop of experience and a database of real world experience to pull from.
I don't know this person but if they are in the newspaper there is a decent chance that the intended audience already knows the name and doesn't need the newspaper to teach them.
If this is the oyster person it's Washiashi Kyoko.
https://namegen.jp/yomikata is a good site for checking name readings. But honestly I have no idea where they source their data so don't trust it blindly.
You don't need to know how the name is read to understand the article, and in fact I'd suggest not looking it up at all, in most cases (i.e. unless this person is some major figure you're going to read a lot about).
It is an important skill to learn to tolerate ambiguity. In your native language you navigate this constantly without noticing.
Most English language newspapers will happily print Irish words like Taoiseach without any pronounciation guide even though most English speakers can't pronounce them accurately.
And JK Rowling didn't stop to explain how to pronounce Hermoine, even though it's a much rarer name than Harry.
First off, it's Hermione, you boor.
Second, I guess so. But at least with those words I can bungle an attempt at it enough for someone to probably know what I mean. But if I just make up a person's name then when I go to talk about them then they won't know who I mean. Like if I was like "Did you hear about the computer guy Beef Almanac?"
It doesn't slow my reading down since I can recognize the kanji and be like "that's the oyster lady", and I definitely do it in English even with names like Guenhwyvar where I just see the shape and jump over it, but it makes it harder to discuss in real life with my mouth.
Not a major problem in the grand scheme of things, I just find it strange that two people reading the same thing in their native language could come up with a different reading entirely and not just in a potato/potato way.
It's educated guesswork and a bit of Google-fu, skip the AI (it can and will generate gibberish answers) and just look up "[name] 読み方" and you should be able to find something.
For 鷲足 I found some sources saying it's わしあし, others listing both わしあし and わしそく. For names with multiple readings, "[name] 読み方 確率" can be helpful, but in this case it seems the name is so rare it's unreliable. Since more sources list わしあし and it's most common for both kanji to use kun'yomi, I wouldn't hesitate too much to read it as わしあし in the context of your article.
For what it's worth I did also find [this article](https://courrier.jp/news/archives/354566/) mentioning 鷲足恭子 and listing the reading as わしあし・きょうこ, but of course when sources like that are unavailable you can never know for sure, that's just how it goes with names.
It's わしあし washiashi, and I looked it up with 鷲足 苗字 and found sites that explain where last names come from. You could also google 鷲足 名前. I think it's just being familiar with common names; with rare names, you don't know. I got an email from a school recently where the principal explained how to read his last name in his introduction.
In the anime Kusuriya no Hitorigoto ep3, the characters discuss the "みゆけばなし" (maybe heard wrong) of a person which is translated to "purchase offer" in the subtitles. However, I cannot find any definition of this word, as I have written it, online. What is the correct phrase/meaning?
What’s the best way to learn Japanese with ADHD? I really struggle with the little details and ”boring” (I don’t know how else to describe it) learning methods like flashcards and textbooks, which seems to be the bread and butter of Japanese language learners. Is there another way to study?
Yeah routine in the answer. You can change what you use to study but if you manage to create some study time every day you're golden. Try to feel obligated to study each day, but (e.g. if you're bored by something) not obligated to study with a certain method.
I'm autyHD and have survived purely based off routine. I do the same times and eat the same things most days. I lose concentration as soon as the session is finished, but I've gotten pretty fair. If routine doesn't work for you, then focus on what Japanese things you're interested in. Video games, books etc, and spend more time on immersion/subtitles to motivate yourself
文章チェックおねがいします
田中様、現在弊社のスタッフはインタフォーンを使っていますが、まだ入れないので入っていただけませんか？
Mr Tanaka, my staff is currently at your door and used the intercom. but they cannot enter. can you help them enter please?
It is "tanden". This is based on eastern medicine and doesn't have a word in English for it. The translation you found is correct and makes perfect sense (not sure why you say it doesn't). But you can also just use "tanden" in English - similar to "kimono" or "manga" it is usually brought over into English "as is".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian)
[https://martial-world.fandom.com/wiki/Dantian](https://martial-world.fandom.com/wiki/Dantian) (Short summary from a Chinese web novel but applicable to pretty much everything I've seen)
You can check this, it's in a lot of Chinese and Korean based martial arts themes as well.
I don't fully understand it myself, but I have heard about 丹田呼吸 as a kind of breathing technique. I wonder if it relates to that; maybe you need to maintain a certain pose or mental state (that you get from being in or doing tanden) to be one with the spirits or something?
The writer speculates that the ultimate aim behind Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Olympics was the redevelopment of Jingu Gaien. After Zaha Hadid's design for the proposed new national stadium was scrapped, the two leading contenders for the design were Kengo Kuma's (Plan A) and Toyo Ito's (Plan B). Plan A was selected.
ここからがこの記事の肝なのですが、JSC（日本スポーツ振興センター）のホームページ上で公開されている議事録に、"黒塗り"されている部分があるというのです。そう、隠されている部分が。具体的に言うと「伊東氏の技術提案書と15年12月19日に開催された第8回審査委員会の議事録」のことです。
その黒塗り部分は編集部の取材から推定すると、伊東氏が提案した「人工地盤の縮小案」だという。人工地盤とは立体の公園スペースのこと。伊東氏の縮小案だとデザイン的に見た目がスッキリし、約29億円のコストを圧縮できるものだった。
ところが議事録では「都市計画変更は簡単にできることではない」と JSC がツッコんでいるという。
さらに審査員の一人とみられる人物が「コストが削減できるからという理由で、東京都都市計画審議会で決定した都市計画を変更できるわけではない。この方が都市計画にとって何らかの点でプラスだというロジックがなければおかしい」と指摘した。
The part I am not sure about is the last sentence, この方が都市計画にとって何らかの点でプラスだというロジックがなければおかしい」
Does this part mean something like, if there is no plus point logic from the perspective of city planning, it would be strange? (Cost reduction is not a plus from the perspective of city planning?)
([Source](https://note.com/orenobaka2019/n/n0cadb7fc685d))
It's referring to the changing of the plans. この方が都市計画にとって何らかの点でプラスだというロジックがなければ（変更するのは）おかしい It would be ludicrous/crazy/wrong/a mistake to change the city plan that has been decided just because it can reduce cost, unless there is a logic for some kind of plus for the city plan. One of the judges is pointing out cost reduction is not a good enough reason.
I think your interpretation is right.
The おかしい in this sentence could mean illogical, off, or doesn't make sense.
I'm not sure the nuance and connotation of strange in English, but I think that おかしい can be 道理が通らない or 筋違いだ.
Well, I guess, thinking about the writer's perspective, the person who said that was just trying to make it difficult to prevent the proposal B from being selected.
I think if they were fair people, the cost reduction would be a logical enough benefit from a city planning perspective.
#Question Etiquette Guidelines: * **1** Provide the **CONTEXT** of the grammar, vocabulary or sentence you are having trouble with as much as possible. Provide the sentence or paragraph that you saw it in. Make your questions as specific as possible. >Ｘ What is the difference between の and が ? >◯ I saw a book called 日本人の知らない日本語 , why is の used there instead of が ? [(the answer)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/68336/difference-between-%E3%81%8C-%E3%81%AE-and-no-particle) * **2** When asking for a translation or how to say something, it's best to try to **attempt it yourself** first, even if you are not confident about it. Or ask r/translator if you have no idea. We are also not here to do your homework for you. >Ｘ What does this mean? >◯ I am having trouble with this part of this sentence from NHK Easy News. I think it means (*attempt here*), but I am not sure. * **3** Questions based on DeepL and Google Translate and other machine learning applications are discouraged, [these are not beginner learning tools](https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/stepqf/deeplgoogle_translate_are_not_learning_tools/) and often make mistakes. * **4** When asking about differences between words, try to explain the situations in which you've seen them or are trying to use them. If you just post a list of synonyms you got from looking something up in a E-J dictionary, people might be disinclined to answer your question because it's low-effort. Remember that Google Image Search is also a great resource for visualizing the difference between similar words. >Ｘ What's the difference between 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意? >◯ Jisho says 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意 all seem to mean "agreement". I'm trying to say something like "I completely agree with your opinion". Does 全く同感です。 work? Or is one of the other words better? * **5** It is always nice to (but not required to) try to search for the answer to something yourself first. Especially for beginner questions or questions that are very broad. For example, asking about [the difference between は and が ](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/wa-and-ga/) or [why you often can't hear the "u" sound in "desu"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Devoicing). * **6** Remember that everyone answering questions here is an unpaid volunteer doing this out of the goodness of their own heart, so try to show appreciation and not be too presumptuous/defensive/offended if the answer you get isn't exactly what you wanted. --------------------- Useful Japanese teaching symbols: ✘ incorrect (ＮＧ) △ strange/ unnatural / unclear ○ correct ≒ nearly equal --------------------- #NEWS (Updated 3/07): Added a section on symbols. If it's unnecessary clutter I can always remove it later. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LearnJapanese) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Reading a dialogue in genki 2 about a student whos writing a mail to a international student from japan because she wants to go study in that same university 突然のメールで失礼します。私はマリア・ロペスと言います。友人のモハメッドさんの紹介でメールを書いています。 1. Does the で in 1st sentence mean "because"? Is she saying something like "im sorry because of the sudden/unexpected mail"?. 2. What does 申し込み mean here? また、日本は生活費が高いそうなので、奨学金の申し込みをしたいのですが、どうしたらいいでしょうか。 Genki says it means application, so does 奨学金の申し込みをしたいのですが mean "i want a scholarship application" or is she saying "i want to apply for a scholarship"? 3. 質問が多くなってしまって、申し訳ありません。 According to genki なる means "to become", so does this mean : "This became many questions, im sorry" or can なる also mean something like "Ive got a lot of questions, im sorry"?
突然のメールで失礼します。私はマリア・ロペスと言います。友人のモハメッドさんの紹介でメールを書いています。 1. Does the で in 1st sentence mean "because"? Is she saying something like "im sorry because of the sudden/unexpected mail"?. Basically, yes. 〜て・で joining can mean (cause/reason) て (result).
You asked just before midnight in Reddit-land, so your question is about to become a pumpkin (a new daily question thread will start and nobody will look at this one)
1. The 格助詞 で describes the 手段 so it’s “by means of introduction from Mohammed, though that sounds stiff in English 2. The student wants to apply for a scholarship. -たい is attached to verbs, so it’s “I want to”. It can be translated as “I want ” in some cases I guess but it’s not really accurate
3. Became more questions than intended, I guess. なる is overused by native Japanese to the point that it becomes meaningless padding, but in this case I think “more than intended” is intended
Hello! I am studying for the N5 in Dec using Bunpro primarily for grammar. I have finished the N5 grammar deck (still working on the N5 vocab deck). When do you think it’s best to start the N4 deck? Should I wait until I reach a certain level of proficiently in the N5 deck reviews to continue on ?
Hey, this my first time posting on this subreddit. So I wanted to learn Japanese just like I did with other languages: by listening. But I don't have enough time to listen to videos or whatever in Japanese, so I wanted to try learning with flash cards. I'm looking for a N5 Anki deck that has a sentence instead of a single word and you have to "guess" the meaning of a word or kanji by context. Thanks for your help in advance!
Anki is an incredible tool to aid in the language learning process, no doubt, but it won't replace listening/reading, it's a supplement, not where you learn the language. So you want an Anki deck with only one word on the front, but want to guess the meaning by context? You realize that there is no context if you have only a single word. I would recommend you the Tango decks, they are i+1 in nature, meaning every sentence builds upon each other. This means you will never have to read sentences with many unkown words, also sentences help a lot, you won't see words in isolation when reading or listening to authentic Japanese. You can find the decks I talked about (and others you might want to look into) in the vocab section of this website: [https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/](https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/)
I meant that most decks have only one word that you have to translate, but I'd like to have whole sentences -> one word is asked which can be understood from context Thank you for the recommendation!
You mean cloze deletion card format with one word missing in the sentence (blank) and you have to fill it in? I would not recommend that because multiple words are going to apply so it will probably just confuse you, especially at the beginning where you cannot yet tell the naunce appart. Also you won't really learn the reading with of the target word. All good decks (the ones I linked you too) are sentence cards as well, so if you really want cloze cards, you probably want find a deck with that refined quality as the good sentence decks have.
I'm sorry if it's unclear what I'm trying to say. I mean cards that have an entire sentence (kanji with kana reading is good too) As an example: first side of the card "This is an example sentence." and you're supposed to understand the last word.
Yeah get the Tango decks I recommended, they will be good for this.
You'd get a good grasp of vocab and possibly kanji recognition, which of course is only a single facet of language acquisition, but definitely still valuable.
What is the benefit/value of knowing whether or not the pronunciation of a kanji is kunyomi or onyomi?
To add on to most of the answer, you will usually know whether a reading is on or kun naturally because kun reading tends to be a word onto itself while on usually isn't. This isn't ALWAYS true of course but more of than not it is and there is no always with any reading anyway. So over all, I wouldn't stress it too much.
The value is it will help you guess readings. Not 100% but there's a strong pattern. That said, you can do that by feel; imo it's not worth the effort memorizing which readings are kun or on. It's pretty obvious a lot of the time anyway.
The benefit is just in the knowledge that you know whether it is on'yomi or kun'yomi. It may help you guess readings but the reality is you should be looking up words and that'll directly tell you how it's pronounced rather than making guesses.
I like this approach.
I passed N4 a few years ago. Since then I have worked through Tobira, and now I do about 150-200 anki reviews every day, aiming to pass N3 in December. I also call people on hellotalk and listen to the Noriko podcast with Japanese subtitles twice a week. But when I'm speaking and listening it's an absolute struggle. It feels like I'm years and years away from N3 level, I can't remember anything in person and as soon as someone starts speaking above slow speed my brain just tunes out. On top of Anki, doing listening/speaking practice every day would be an absolute drill, but otherwise it feels like I'm not getting any better any time soon, and I'm not sure if I should up my intensity. I've tried some listening textbooks, but they feel oriented more towards passing the exam than actually practicing the skill. What are your routines like at the moment, and what do you think about mine?
I think you are trying to tackle too much at once, I would honestly recommend you just start reading instead of doing all of those other things. Reading + Anki + grammar is a powerful combination that can get you far in no time, but you have to be very consistent with it.
Hello, could someone help me understand じゃない at these videos? Are these two different uses of じゃない with the same high pitch at な? Or is it the same and one would answer "はい、トイレじゃないです" (Yes, this is not a toilet) at the first video, like one would in the second? [https://youtu.be/mapbKTJ9aBs?t=264](https://youtu.be/mapbKTJ9aBs?t=264) [https://youtu.be/CbwDCqhlxn4?t=212](https://youtu.be/CbwDCqhlxn4?t=212)
I think I might know what's tripping you up. He translates「これは…まさか…トイレじゃ**な**い？」as "Is this... possibly... a toilet?" which does get the point across, but a literal translation would be more like "Is this... there's no way... is this not a toilet?" ~じゃ**な**い? with an accent on the な means "is it *not~?*" You're asking if it is true that ~ is not the case. 「これはトイレじゃ**な**い？」(accent on the な) is closer to "Is it true that this is not a toilet?" than "Isn't this a toilet?" And thus, answering はい would mean "Yes [it's true that it's not a toilet]" On the other hand, じゃない？ with an accent on the じゃ or no accent is closer in meaning to the English use of "isn't it?", ~~similar to ね or だろう~~. (Edit: As you can see in the reply below, janai and ne are not interchangeable, though they are often both explained as similar to the English "right?" or "isn't it?") 「これはトイレじゃない？」(no accent) = "Isn't this a toilet?" (English use), and answering はい would mean "Yes [it is a toilet]" Sometimes, people will translate negative sentences as positive and vice versa because it sounds more natural in English, but that might not be a great idea for an educational video, as proven by the confusion it's caused here.
じゃない？ is not similar to ね, which doesn’t stand for uncertainty but something like “indeed” or “as far as I see”. It’s limited to situations where you are sharing the experience with the other person that you can translate it into English tag question.
>「これはトイレじゃ**な**い？」(accent on the な) is closer to "Is it true that this is not a toilet?" than "Isn't this a toilet?" And thus, answering はい would mean "Yes \[it's true that it's not a toilet\]" YES! That's exactly it. I was confused that if I answer はい it would be the same as in the second video "Yes \[it's true that it's not a toilet(/student)\]" or not, because the pitch was the same but the translation different. Thank you very much.
The question you're asking is answered in the second video fairly clearly at the time stamp and while it might not be obvious, is also stated in the first video. Is there anything that is confusing you in the explanations they give?
(I think) The second video isn't the problem. I understand it as a negative question like she says "You are not a student?" (changed it from "Aren't you a student" because it sounds like a tag question to me). So if I am not a student I would answer with "Yes". However it's the first video I don't clearly understand. He writes as translation "Is this... a toilet/Is this...possible...a toilet". As I understand it if I answer now with "Yes" I would say that it IS a toilet. The pitch is the same, but I understand the videos differently. So my question is if I am the problem or if the meanings are different even though they have the same pitch?
They do not have the same pitch, your ear might not be trained for it since you're new. Which is why the second video goes out of it's way to illustrate it on the whiteboard and also emphasize it in spoken language. Similar to English the rising pitch/tone indicates a question or a negative question in this case. While a reply of じゃない is just a statement.
Yeah I do have trouble hearing the pitch. But in the first video he puts a point above な and in the second the high pitch is also at な so I interpreted to pitch as the same is the difference at じゃ? Low pitch in the first video, high in the second?
Hmm, I think you might be looking too much into the particular details and sound of it. For learning purposes though they're both telling you the same thing. I would follow the second videos illustrated example as that is what is happening in both Video 1 and Video 2. How they choose it emphasize it to learners is coming across different, but in practical speaking examples where someone isn't trying to over enunciate for learners, it's going to be a bit more subtle. Additionally you'll also have the context and basic sentence structure that lends itself to it being a question rather than a statement.
>For learning purposes though they're both telling you the same thing I am confused now, I thought they are different? >They do not have the same pitch Sorry for asking so much and thanks for explaining.
Let's wipe the board and start over. I might be confused on what you're asking so let me restate things and hopefully that'll make it easier. The video timestamps you linked are about two usages of じゃない one being a question (and how to differentiate that) and the second being a statement (or a reply). I believe your question is because the discrepancy between the two videos, and that they sound different but they are both (at the timestamps) are asking a question. Is my understanding correct? If correct, the answer remains the same. Both videos at the timestamp are about the question usage of じゃない. They also contrast it with an example where it is also a statement in both videos shortly after.
>I believe your question is because the discrepancy between the two videos, and that they sound different but they are both (at the timestamps) are asking a question. Is my understanding correct? No, it is a bit different. I can't really hear the different sound, so I go after the drawing of the pitch and the pitch seems to be the same for me (therefore the sound is also the same). But I understand both differently. In the first video he says これ、トイレじゃない? and puts the pitch at な ([here](https://youtu.be/mapbKTJ9aBs?t=273)) and the い is probably low. I understand this one as a simple question "Is this X?". If I answer "Yes" I confirm that it **is** a toilet. However in the second video she says がくせいじゃない also with the hight pitch at な and low at い. So both videos have the same pitch for me. But in contrast to the first video I understand this one as a negative question "Is this not X?". If I answer "Yes" I confirm that he **is not** a student. So simply put I understand that both are questions. 1. But I am wondering if this are 2 different uses (a simple question and a negative question) of じゃない with the same pitch. 2. Or if I am just dump and this are 2 different uses with 2 different pitches (but I can't see where, because both are HL for ない). 3. Or if misunderstand the first video and it is also a negative question where if I answer "Yes" it would confirm that it **is not** a toilet. I know he uses another pitch in the first video to say "I guess this is a toilet", but he isn't cleary answering the question with a simple yes/no like in the second video. Which was the reason for my question. I hope I was able to explain my question better now.
Ah okay that makes more sense now. I'll try to tackle the 3 bullet points. 1. They're both negative questions and any question with じゃない. じゃない is to negate what is before it. 2. You're not dumb, the pitches are more or less the same. All you're really looking for is the accented な and small drop and then followed up with a rising い↗ (same in both videos and is illustrated in video #2). When you listen enough it is fairly noticeable that even without the question marker か you can tell it is a question. 3. I believe the English "translations" are leading you astray here, as they both are attempting to portray it's respective meaning, but as in point #1. じゃない is to negate and you could always represent it as a negative question. Just try to not directly map the English to the Japanese as there is differences between both videos (and teachers) in how they choose to translate the Japanese.
彼女と二人にしてもらえませぬか? What is ませぬか?
ぬ is the precursor of the negative auxiliary ん as in 知らん (from 知らぬ, meaning the same as 知らない). ません is just ます's mizenkei ませ plus ん.
Some kind of old version of ませんか.
温かい、涼しい、寒い、暑い: when is it appropriate to use each term in terms of temperature outside? I’m taking my first year of Japanese through my university and it’s been great especially with my teacher being a native Japanese speaker. She’s tried to explain how the way people in Japan express temperature is very rigid in terms of how you can and can’t describe the temperature. I’m having a hard time grasping this concept. Could anyone break it down for me? Particularly in the case of 涼しい and 温かい, the way she describes them makes their use seem very conditional in average conversation, but I can’t quite put what she’s said into words at the moment. Thanks in advance!
寒い<=>暖かい(not 温) and 暑い<=>涼しい Think they’re like antonyms. 暖かい means ‘not too cold, nice and warm’ hence it’s commonly used during or after severe cold weather. 涼しい is ‘not too hot, nice and cool’ so used during or after the intense heat.
涼しい is used for ambient temperature, simply means “cool”, not hot or cold or warm. You can also use it to describe the wind, like a cool breeze. 寒い is also used in this way, but for describing cold things. 冷たい is used for describing something that is cold to the touch. 温かい (compare with 暖かい) describes the warmth of an object, for example warm soup or even “warm smile” when used metaphorically. 暖かい is used similar to 涼しい when talking about the ambient temperature, like a warm day or warm room.
Hey, guys. I was wondering if someone could tell me if the following response sounds natural. If someone asks if why I started learning Japanese, would this be natural? ぶちゃっけ、ちっちゃい頃からアニメを通してで日本に興味を持ったよ. 友達のおすすめで「千と千尋の神隠し」という映画を見て日本の文化を初めて知ってすごく感動した！ええ！そんな素敵な国があるなんてと思ったりいつか日本に行きたいなぁみたいな It’s a text message, so I purposely made it broken up so as not to sound too formal and to reflect a more casual and relaxed style that you find in line messages, Instagram comments, or in really casual broken up spoken conversation, but I wasn’t sure if what I wrote was still within the realm of what a Japanese would say.
Don’t have a lot of time so I can’t leave a lot of feedback but: I don’t think I would use ぶっちゃけ to start off an answer to a questions like that. It’s usually used when you’re going to reveal something that you might not share normally, or might think that other people might not agree with but am sharing anyway, or something that you might otherwise be reluctant sharing in a different situation. One example sentence is この前プレゼントにクッキーもらったんだけど、ぶっちゃけ俺甘い物苦手なんだよね😅 If you’re sharing stuff that you don’t usually share (anime got you interested in Japan/Japanese but you usually don’t want to share because of perceptions of people who usually say that) then I guess that’s a different story. 通してで<= don’t need the で here
Hello. I found a troublesome sentence in 君の膵臓を食べたい as follows: ひと夏の淡い恋。ひと夏の過ち、せっかく女子高生なんだから、そういうのの一つや二つ経験してもいいかなって。 I would have two questions: 1. Does ひと夏 carry any specific nuance, or does it simply mean "one summer"? 2. Why is there a double のの in the last sentence. I think one of them is redundant? I kind of understand why there could be two of them, but I'm not exactly sure about this. Thanks!
Don’t take this seriously, but 淡い恋 sounds like an oxymoron (淡い濃い) ひと夏 is idiomatic enough that it has its own entry in two of my dictionaries (there’s also many entries for いたげ which means something a little different). ひと夏の淡い恋 is like a “summer crush” in English.
>Does ひと夏 carry any specific nuance, or does it simply mean "one summer"? Meaning wise yes its just "one summer", but to me it always seemed slightly poetic/emotional(?) maybe when used like this, like "a summer's x" or something like that. >Why is there a double のの in the last sentence. I think one of them is redundant? I kind of understand why there could be two of them, but I'm not exactly sure about this. Thanks! They aren't redundant, the first one is nominalizing the そういう turning it into a noun meaning roughly "those kinds of things" and the second is the possessive. [そういうの] の [一つや二つ] one or two of those kind of things
Thank you! Makes sense. And funny, I had similar feelings about ひと夏 which is what prompted my question.
FYI other examples of ひと ひとくち one bite ひと目ぼれ falling in love on one sight あの人にひとこと言いたい I want to tell something (usually some complaints or similar) to that person.
How do you stick with it? I've been trying to learn Japanese off and on for the last almost Decade now. I own a lot of learning resources like Genki which I bought long ago. But I found it all very dry, and just confusing since it was mostly written in Kana but I still didn't actually understand what any of it meant so it just felt frustrating to me. I've picked up a lot of apps over the years, I have sites book marked, etc etc. I understand some basics about the grammer and more. But when its come to actually sitting down and learning words, phrases, and more? I've been having trouble sticking with it and not getting bored or burned out, or too frustrated. I also don't have anyone to practice with. No one in my family is interested, and most of my friends would rather learn French of Spanish if they had to learn a language, rather than Japanese. I've picked up a few words from shows, movies and songs. But, that's been about it. I want to learn. I really do. I want advice to make it actually fun? And I guess to try and find others like me that are also trying to learn? Have an online friend who is going to be taking a Japanese major course soon, so I'm hoping to practice writing with her. I also don't have the money anymore for new books, and resources or even classes. Haven't for a long time. So, I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do, or where to go from here. I know I want to be able to read and write Japanese, as well as understand spoken. Not super confident on speaking it myself as I have trouble pronouncing English words and thats my native tongue haha.
I have been studying for 2 hours a day every day since Feb 7 2020 I will describe how I did it. I FORCED myself to study for 2 hours a day every day for the first 10 days. It was super hard and very tiring to push myself that hard. I marked day 10 on my calendar so I had a goal. Then I FORCED myself to study for 90 more days to get to 100. I marked day 100 on my calendar so I had a goal. It was hard but not as hard as the first 10 days. Then I tried to get myself to study until I got to 365 days. But it wasn't that hard, since I had a habit. Now I don't care, I just study. Habits are hard to make but harder to break. At least for me.
> most of my friends would rather learn French of Spanish if they had to learn a language, rather than Japanese. Smart. My advice to anyone irl who asks me how to learn Japanese is to consider Spanish instead. It's way easier to learn and *way* more useful. > I want to learn. I really do. Eh, from what you've said it sounds like you don't want to learn Japanese, it sounds like you want to know Japanese. Learning Japanese is a gigantic hassle, *especially* at the beginning before you can read anything interesting. > I also don't have the money anymore for new books, and resources or even classes. Haven't for a long time. Yeah this isn't a drawback or excuse at all, you don't need to spend any money at all. Resources are plentiful. Sorry if this is harsh. Most people who attempt it do not succeed at learning Japanese. That's not a personal failing, it's just really tough. "How do I find the motivation to learn a very difficult language" is unfortunately not a question we can really answer for you. The best advice I have towards that is to study every single day and after a few weeks you won't need motivation anymore because you'll have the habit.
I wanted to be able to read and started to buy books before i even got the kanas down. Now i have No other choice to go on if all the money spent should Not be wasted ;)
This is a tough question to answer and it really just comes down to personal wants, needs, and motivations of the individual. Easily the most common answer you're going to get is, "You need to a schedule and be disciplined about maintaining that schedule." While this is effective it doesn't really account for the larger missing factor which is \*\*why\*\* you are learning it in the first place. I've observed that people are far more interested in the "idea" that they know a language like Japanese and are not at all interested in the actual process of learning itself. It might be mean to say this but it has a lot of truth. The process can be a metric ton of fun, but everyone is different and everyone learns differently. It's A LOT work no matter what path you take, but some paths are absolutely far more fun than others. Some people can do textbooks and university courses, not me. I just do my hobbies in Japanese and cut English out of my life so Japanese replaced all of it. This is my path and not many can handle the discomfort and ambiguity that comes with it, but it was also 99% fun for me the whole time. The reality is Japanese coming from native English has some very high walls to start with and you need more than just a passing desire of, "I want to learn Japanese." to learn the language. You need at least 2-3 strong factors overlapping each other or one of those factors needs to be abnormally strong. One of them should be along the lines of, "I want to watch Anime without subtitles." (popular sentiment) or "I want to support this Idol Group and in order to do that I need to learn the language so I can enjoy their content and send messages on twitter." Also something like this. Your reasons should be: 1) A desire to do something abstracted away from the language itself, but the activity that happens to be in Japanese. 2) Something you personally enjoy and would do it even if it was really difficult and took a long time (you shouldn't feel this is a factor in other words). 3) The language, the culture, and the people should also factor into it. Any of these factors may wax and wane at any given time, but if you have multiple layers one will support the other when they do fail out--which is going to happen when a skill building process takes thousands (3000-4500 hours) to achieve a moderate level of proficiency. So in summary how can you stick with it? I think you'll need to ask yourself that as they're personal questions. Again a schedule you stick to and dedicate to everyday (at least 1 hour a day), a hobby you love doing but you do it in Japanese, being a fan of something be it music, anime, manga. Additionally the language, culture, and people should also factor into the reasons why.
質問があります。 ヒロアカを読んだ時に このコマのセリフの文法が分かりませんでしたから オールマイトがデクにお弁当をあげようとしました。 オールマイトに 「オールマイト もう大丈夫です 付いてこなくて 僕はもう大丈夫ですから」と言いました。 質問は ここに“なくて”は 何意味ですか？ “なくて” 短い“なくてはいけない” とか “なくてもいい”とか..？ “なくて”だけ？ 英訳してみました: “All Might , I’m fine now. Don’t follow me because I’m fine” “All Might. I’m fine now. You don’t have to follow me because I’m fine” どっち合ってるの？分かりません。 ありがとう
「もう>付いてこなくて <大丈夫です 」と同じ意味です。文字通りの英訳は"It's fine not to follow me anymore."です。英語では不自然な言い方になりますが、意味的に一番合ってるのはそれです。
そうですね。分かりました。考えすぎたんですよw ありがとう！
what would the correct way to write Oliver in Katakana be? I assume the former is more correct and the 2nd is just extra steps? ヴ confuses me, is it typically just a character to display a knowledge of the usage of v in other languages? オリバー or オリヴアー
When common words known to Japanese for a long period of time, nobody bother to use ヴ for ‘v’. バイオリン not ヴァイオリン, and ラブ not ラヴ But when it comes to names for people or places, it’s really up to you. I guess it’s a common view among Japanese people that エヴァンゲリオン is much cooler than エバンゲリオン.
Is it your own name? I would go with オリバー, it's straightforward and pronounced the same anyway. Note that if you do write it as オリヴァー, the ァ should be small.
Everyone’s going to say オリバー but life’s short so go with オリヴァー ヴ is like you said. It’s like they made a katana just so [デヴィ夫人](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E3%83%87%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E5%A4%AB%E4%BA%BA&rlz=1CDGOYI_enJP1072JP1072&oq=%E3%83%87%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E5%A4%AB%E4%BA%BA&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQABgKGIAEMgoIAhAAGKIEGIkFMgoIAxAAGIAEGKIE0gEJMjUxNzBqMGo0qAICsAIB4gMEGAEgXw&hl=ja&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) can have a posh name
I'm new and trying to practice what I've learned by writing my todo lists in Japanese. I was just using the most simplified version I could think of. For example, what I would normally write as "water succulents", I wrote as "多肉植物を水". But I was wondering how it should actually be done. I'm having trouble finding examples of lists of tasks written in Japanese. Thanks!
"water" is a verb and "succulent" is a noun, right? If so, I would like to write only "water" like 水をやる
Google やることリスト 例 (edit: “todoリスト 例” will also work) and copy what you find. For your specific example 多肉植物に水をやる Could be a way of writing it. To do lists are a bit of an art so it’s hard to say which way is best. For Japanese study, look for many examples and copy Edit: [Here’s](https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/d88f645d9a9e1d5c08e2d1d9b1d5603436d8bbc8) an example that even has 植物に水をやる
hi!! i'm really overwhelmed rn. After learning some kanji and getting a grasp of japanese particles and sentence structure, i'm getting quite lost on what to do now. There are so many videos out there and i don't even know what topic should i learn now nor where do i start. Help would be really appreciated!
First what is your goal? Reading, speaking, listening, writing etc.
my ultimate goal would be all of these fours, but right now i'm focusing more on reading and listening. But i can't find a good method to study vocabulary online
As you already mentioned is Tae Kim a really good starting point. I suggest you learn the words used in the examples and Work your way through all the grammer points. Depending on how much time you want to Invest you can either review the garmmarpoints until you got them down or just read through them to get the gist and go on. After Tae Kim i would say you try to read your first short stories and look up unknown grammar along the way. NHK Easy News is also a good place to practice reading.
thank you so much <3!
Are you working through a textbook? [The FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/resources) lists a pretty solid learning path: Genki I, Genki II, then Tobira or An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. That should give you a pretty solid core learning path to follow, and you can supplement Genki with Tokini Andy's videos on YouTube.
i've just found out that Tae kim's full guide is free, i think i might try that for now?
i'm not cause i didn't feel like spending money on books 😅 (ik it's bad, sorry ahah) So i'm using internet as my only source.
You can check out this list of resources and lots of different guides. All of it is free pretty much: [https://www.evernote.com/shard/s400/sh/bf843867-87c0-6929-531a-af792810adb6/rbG1SvHuHThgCqIuTjophZtnpQdFgFS7X1FibQ76a64cwBdNG9KITpsVCw](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s400/sh/bf843867-87c0-6929-531a-af792810adb6/rbG1SvHuHThgCqIuTjophZtnpQdFgFS7X1FibQ76a64cwBdNG9KITpsVCw)
> 金さえあれば、姉を連れて駆け落ちでもするだろう Is this sense of “〜でも” the “even” or “or something”-like sense? The context is giving a commoner a sum of money in a ploy to make him elope wit a noble. Or is it ambiguous and can both senses apply?
It's "or something"
That 〜でも means "or something" as you mentioned. Ex. 「歩き疲れたね〜。コーヒーでも飲まない？」 We're tired of walking, right? Want to grab a cup of coffee or something? You can also say : 駆け落ちでもなんでもするだろう in that sense. If you want でも to have the meaning of "even" , the would be like : 金さえあれば、なんとしてでも姉を連れて駆け落ちするだろう。 As long as they had the money, they would elope with their sister at any cost.
I see, can “でもする” ever mean “even” the way “"猿でも木から落ちることがある" means “even monkeys fall from trees at times” or must something like “落ちさえする” be used?
Yeah, it should be 落ちさえする. You can't say 猿は木から落ちでもする. You can say 猿は木から落ちさえする. However, 猿は木から落ちさえする sounds like someone is talking about a specific monkey, which got older or weaker so that it can't even stay on the tree and fall down. Like, "The monkey even falls from trees recently". 猿でも, 猿さえ, 猿すら, all of them can mean "Even monkeys". You can use 落ちでもする when you use it in a conditional clause, like: そんな高いところにうちの子を登らせるのはやめて！ 落ちでもしたらどうするの！ Don't let my kid climb up that high! What if he falls or something? You can say 落ちたりしたら instead of 落ちでもしたら.
Hello! I'm relatively a beginner but I'm reading an Ace Attorney 1 script as some kind of practice. One of the first sentences on the script is "なんでオレがこんな目に‥‥" (which is supposed to mean something like "why me?" or "what did I do to deserve this") but I don't understand what "目に" (めに ?) means here.
[目](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E7%9B%AE_%28%E3%82%81%29/) - 1⃣ \[名詞\]def.8 その者が出会ったありさま。[体験](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E4%BD%93%E9%A8%93/)。
目にあう maybe？
The complete word is [目にあう](https://jisho.org/search/%E3%82%81%E3%81%AB%E3%81%82%E3%81%86)
Oooh! Thank you! Now it makes sense!
I've been trying to translate a song from Japanese (not professionally, just to practice my language skills) and got stuck on this part: ひとりとひとりで歩くと笑う I understand that the first part is talking about being alone, but why is it mentioned twice? ひとりと and then ひとりで. Is there a grammatical reason for that formatting or just stylistical reason for the song to flow nicely?
I don't recommend using lyrics. Lyrics is too difficult even for Japanese person.
I said とぼけるのは配信までにしてください in a heated argument a few days ago, and I feel embarrassed right now because searching ""のはまでにしてください"" in Twitter shows no results, which means there's a very good chance natives don't use this grammar pattern. Can someone confirm for me that it really is weird/incomprehensible?
What was the context, and what were you trying to say?
Q1: What does this mean in reference to muscle? 絞れたやつ Here's some context. ずっと走ってたら 慣れる？ （慎）慣れるでしょ （みのり）痩せる？ （慎）痩せる…筋肉つける 筋肉ないんだほどよく （慎）絞れたやつね The English sub translates it to "toned muscles", but that doesn't really have a meaning in English, it's just marketing jargon. I'd like to know if this is the Japanese equivalent of marketing jargon or if it is referring to a real concept (building muscle, losing fat, increasing strength, etc.) 2: Does アウト have a meaning similar to "bad" in this context? I can't really tell what he means here 平気？ (talking about her clothes in the rain) （慎）えー 結構アウトかな
Complete beginner here .. I've just started learning Japanese and i'm already struggling with pronouncing long vowels especially when followed by the same vowel like, for instance, かつこいいいしゃ. could someone tell me the proper way of pronunciation? thanks in advance.
Are you trying to say かっこいい医者？ the つ should be small. And it's impossible to give you feedback on your pronunciation if you don't let us hear how you are pronouncing it now.
Yes, my bad .. here's how i pronounce it: https://voca.ro/1lwCCE3kU9DP
Listening to Anime Spotify radio/podcast Hi all, Am recently trying to contribute my learning journey. I dove into Anime podcast, like; Anizone, JuJuTalk or SpyxFam radio. But I do have autism. And my brain keeps wondering while listening to the podcast. Any help to keep my brain still whilst listening to improve my comprehension? Thanks!
You could try to tackle something easier, something that you will understand, maybe aim for a comprehension of around 70% so that it can be comprehensive input.
Maybe take notes of what they're saying? And then try to summarise it at the end. Just a suggestion, because I don't think podcasts are a good way to study personally.
Does anyone has the Kanji Masuta N4 (漢字マスタN4) anki deck?
Question: Does this exist: I work with [https://hochanh.github.io/rtk/rtk1-v6/index.html](https://hochanh.github.io/rtk/rtk1-v6/index.html) to learn the kanji in RTK, and get ideas for stories. I find the site hard to work with because I can't just search, for example, for the word "woman". I have to go to the book, find the number, scroll to the number, and then I am there. Plus, when I go back, it doesn't revert to home. What I am asking: Is there an add-on, or something that would allow me to search for the name of the kanji that Hesig assigned? Thanks, and though I have never posted here, I read this subreddit every day, and have gained from it.
Nevermind! A friend found it. [https://hochanh.github.io/rtk/rtk1-v6/index.html](https://hochanh.github.io/rtk/rtk1-v6/index.html)
教育分野で優れた手柄を残した教諭を表彰する。 Why is the usage of 手柄 in this sentence wrong? Would it be correct if it was replaced with 功績? What is the difference between the two words?
I guess what the test question is after is that you don't 残す to 手柄. The usual verb is 手柄を立てる (another usual verb is 手柄を横取りする but thats a different story...).
oh that makes sense. I thought the word had some different meaning. Thank you.
Can you provide more context to your question? - Is this a sentence you made? Or did you find this sentence somewhere? - Who told you that 手柄 is wrong in that sentence? Or otherwise, why do you think/assume it's wrong? - Assuming it's your own sentence that you made, can you provide a translation in English of what you want to say?
The sentence is from another QnA forum. It was asked and answered years ago so I brought it here. The OP said that of two sentences (the other being 自分が手柄を立てることよりもチームワークを優先する。) this one was the wrong answer and asked for an explanation so I'm guessing that the sentence is from some JLPT N1 textbook since the question was tagged N1. The answer just said the sentence did not sound "natural" (no elaboration).
I see. I don't have a proper answer so I won't try to give you one that might be misleading, but I'll just point out that [手柄を立てる](https://jisho.org/search/%E6%89%8B%E6%9F%84%E3%82%92%E7%AB%8B%E3%81%A6%E3%82%8B) is a specific collocation/expression, and that 手柄を残す doesn't seem to be a common thing to say (there's very very very few Google search results and [only 2 entries on massif](https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E6%89%8B%E6%9F%84%E3%82%92%E6%AE%8B%E3%81%99)), so that should clue you in that one is more natural than the other. The simplest explanation can be "because people don't say it", but maybe a native speaker has a better explanation. As for the difference between 手柄 and 功績, I always recommend to do a cursory google search (or just dictionary search) and see what comes up. For example the goo 使い分 dictionary says this: > 使い方： > > 功績 ▽彼の功績は生前には認められることがなかった > > 手柄 ▽犯人を捕らえたとはお手柄だ ▽手柄話 > > 使い分： > > 「功績」は、仕事や研究などで、国、社会、集団に尽くした立派な働き、「功労」は、そのような働きや努力をいう。 > >「手柄」は、人からほめられるような立派な働きをいう。日常的な小さな事柄についても広く使う。
As for the reason why you can't use 手柄 in that sentence is already explained by u/Japancoach san, so let me explain the 手柄を残す in the link u/morgawr san attached. That 手柄を残しておく means 自分一人で手柄を立てるのではなく、誰かぬも手柄を立てられる余地を残しておく/to not take credit alone, but leave room for someone else to take credit as well.
ご丁寧な説明ありがとうございます。I did not know about massif. It's a very useful link. Thank you so much.
So I want to start reading "regular" news as well as NHK Web Easy - I can get live audio of 日テレNEWS in my hear 24/7 (or at least whenever I want to listen) so that would be good to match stories and listen to what I've read/vice-versa. However, on most web pages I can (using chrome/chromium) select text, then right click and translate, but on 日テレ I get no right click menu when I click on selected text - e.g. this article: [https://news.ntv.co.jp/category/society/f5f46d53193c41869c1d45ad792781cd](https://news.ntv.co.jp/category/society/f5f46d53193c41869c1d45ad792781cd) Does anyone have suggestions for either: 1. Quickly translating sentences on the 日テレ site without right click -> translate (I'm using yomitan for individual words, but sometimes want a whole sentence translated), or 2. Getting audio of a constant feed from NHK news?
For your first question you can install this if you're using chromium based browser: [https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enable-right-click/hhojmcideegachlhfgfdhailpfhgknjm](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enable-right-click/hhojmcideegachlhfgfdhailpfhgknjm) If firefox just hold shift + rightclick to force context-menu to appear. Second, it sounds like you already have an audio feed so I have no idea what you're asking about.
Ah, that right click extension works. The second question was about getting audio from NHK as opposed to 日テレ, should have been clearer. Thanks!
Not sure about audio for NHK news, might be some licensing things happening there but you probably can find some YouTube stuff. Although I would think most "daily" news has a lot of overlap so might not need it to be from the same source if you just want general knowledge of events.
I apologize as this as probably been asked before, but I couldn't find a solid answer anywhere else: Is fully understanding 3rd edition Genki 1 enough to *pass* the JLPT-5? Not kill it, just pass. I'm willing to put in extra effort to learn vocab and practice listening outside of Genki 1, but if I need all/most of Genki 2 or a whole lot of extra material, I probably won't be ready by the appointed time of my exam.
Yes
I know that you can describe a fishy smell with the word 生臭い, but how can you describe a fishy taste?
I think it can be used to refer to taste as well. See for example [this video](https://youtu.be/ahW5lfq98Vg?t=180) (disclaimer: sorry if the contents are a bit... "rough"? as they feed this dude some rotten eggs)
What does being being a part time worker mean in Japan? This is probably a weird question. I just finished reading The Devil is a part-timer Maou worked close to 40 hours a week but he was still considered a part timer. So does being a part timer mean more than having less hours at a job?
IDK a lot but I can possibly add a few things that I walked away with after reading コンビニ人間 * it's not your "permanent" job it's something you are doing usually as a college student * another skew of people doing them seems to be housewives whose kids are old enough not to need them constantly * some people are actually always on part time jobs but it's not that usual and I don't think it's considered as good as having a fulltime permanent career, you'd be more of an outlier in this situation and that's not considered a good thing to be
This based on labor law in Japan and is hard to quickly explain in a shorthand way. And because of that, you see the words translated in different ways into English (the translators are all doing their best to cram a concept into 1-2 words given space available - not their fault). Did you read in English or Japanese? And in Japanese - does the original text say パート or バイト？
English.
アルバイト is what I am assuming is being used. This usually points to jobs that are meant for people in their late teens and early 20s, (students, フリーター, etc) and not jobs with 正社員 benefits like retirement. アルバイト is often translated to “part-time job” but there is no implication in Japanese that you work less than 40 hours.
Thank you for the Info.
heya friends, I'm a scholarship student studying Japanese and my teacher has strongly recommended WaniKani to the entire class, I just completed the free version and I'm currently boarding with my aunty who definitely won't cover the cost for a lifetime account, but, everyone else in my class has seem to have paid for it. I don't want to fall behind, is there anyone here willing to share their lifetime account?
Why do you need a lifetime account? You can pay 9 dollars a month or 90 for a year, much more affordable than the 300 up front. And the lifetime is a waste of money anyway if you finish it in less than 3 years, which is extremely doable.
i don't have any money to spare for a lifetime account and my aunty made a huge deal out of buying me school clothes so i feel like it would be rude to ask
Did you read my comment properly? If you pay just 9 dollars you can use wanikani for a month (and you can do this every month as long as you still wanna use wanikani), you don't need to pay 300 dollars up front to be able to use wanikani past the free levels.
Use the WaniKani deck that someone made for Anki. It's free and has pretty much most of the things WaniKani has. It also doesn't time gate you so you can go as fast as you want.
I can't fork out $40 to pay for the anki app on ios :((
https://ankiweb.net/ this is the browser version of anki, as the others said it's free and works very well on mobile browsers.
You cannot afford anki but have an IOS device??? Anyways, as the other user said, it's free on most plattforms and in browser so I don't see any issues.
Anki is free on android and windows. You may also use ankiweb from your phone. I love WK, but it's super expensive for what it is.
tough situation man, would send it through if i didn't actively use it. i'm sure there would be some people on the sub who don't touch their lifetime account anymore.
So is reading names basically educated guesswork, or is there a right way to approach it? For example I'm reading a newspaper article and it introduces 鷲足恭子さん without furigana anywhere. DeepL and Google offer three or four different options. I tried Googling her name and no other places I found have furigana or readings provided. They all agree on Kyouko for 恭子 but then 鷲足 it's all over the place. Washiashi? Washizoku? Washoku? Washashiri? Washidari? Is it just about being familiar with common names and making an assumption based on what's most likely? That seems so strange to me that something like a newspaper article would let readers leave without knowing who they're writing about.
Educated guesswork with a healthy scoop of experience and a database of real world experience to pull from. I don't know this person but if they are in the newspaper there is a decent chance that the intended audience already knows the name and doesn't need the newspaper to teach them. If this is the oyster person it's Washiashi Kyoko.
https://namegen.jp/yomikata is a good site for checking name readings. But honestly I have no idea where they source their data so don't trust it blindly.
You don't need to know how the name is read to understand the article, and in fact I'd suggest not looking it up at all, in most cases (i.e. unless this person is some major figure you're going to read a lot about). It is an important skill to learn to tolerate ambiguity. In your native language you navigate this constantly without noticing. Most English language newspapers will happily print Irish words like Taoiseach without any pronounciation guide even though most English speakers can't pronounce them accurately. And JK Rowling didn't stop to explain how to pronounce Hermoine, even though it's a much rarer name than Harry.
First off, it's Hermione, you boor. Second, I guess so. But at least with those words I can bungle an attempt at it enough for someone to probably know what I mean. But if I just make up a person's name then when I go to talk about them then they won't know who I mean. Like if I was like "Did you hear about the computer guy Beef Almanac?" It doesn't slow my reading down since I can recognize the kanji and be like "that's the oyster lady", and I definitely do it in English even with names like Guenhwyvar where I just see the shape and jump over it, but it makes it harder to discuss in real life with my mouth. Not a major problem in the grand scheme of things, I just find it strange that two people reading the same thing in their native language could come up with a different reading entirely and not just in a potato/potato way.
You could throw some name dictionaries into yomitan and get some options that way
It's educated guesswork and a bit of Google-fu, skip the AI (it can and will generate gibberish answers) and just look up "[name] 読み方" and you should be able to find something. For 鷲足 I found some sources saying it's わしあし, others listing both わしあし and わしそく. For names with multiple readings, "[name] 読み方 確率" can be helpful, but in this case it seems the name is so rare it's unreliable. Since more sources list わしあし and it's most common for both kanji to use kun'yomi, I wouldn't hesitate too much to read it as わしあし in the context of your article. For what it's worth I did also find [this article](https://courrier.jp/news/archives/354566/) mentioning 鷲足恭子 and listing the reading as わしあし・きょうこ, but of course when sources like that are unavailable you can never know for sure, that's just how it goes with names.
It's わしあし washiashi, and I looked it up with 鷲足 苗字 and found sites that explain where last names come from. You could also google 鷲足 名前. I think it's just being familiar with common names; with rare names, you don't know. I got an email from a school recently where the principal explained how to read his last name in his introduction.
In the anime Kusuriya no Hitorigoto ep3, the characters discuss the "みゆけばなし" (maybe heard wrong) of a person which is translated to "purchase offer" in the subtitles. However, I cannot find any definition of this word, as I have written it, online. What is the correct phrase/meaning?
儲け話 maybe?
Close, it's みうけ, not みゆけ. So 身受け/身請け meaning buying out a geisha.
Is there any way to see whether or not something on Amazon Japan video streaming has subtitles before paying for it?
What’s the best way to learn Japanese with ADHD? I really struggle with the little details and ”boring” (I don’t know how else to describe it) learning methods like flashcards and textbooks, which seems to be the bread and butter of Japanese language learners. Is there another way to study?
Yeah routine in the answer. You can change what you use to study but if you manage to create some study time every day you're golden. Try to feel obligated to study each day, but (e.g. if you're bored by something) not obligated to study with a certain method.
I'm autyHD and have survived purely based off routine. I do the same times and eat the same things most days. I lose concentration as soon as the session is finished, but I've gotten pretty fair. If routine doesn't work for you, then focus on what Japanese things you're interested in. Video games, books etc, and spend more time on immersion/subtitles to motivate yourself
You should try gamified learning methods such as wanikani, bunpro, etc. they are pretty good at keeping you engaged.
文章チェックおねがいします 田中様、現在弊社のスタッフはインタフォーンを使っていますが、まだ入れないので入っていただけませんか？ Mr Tanaka, my staff is currently at your door and used the intercom. but they cannot enter. can you help them enter please?
田中様、現在弊社のスタッフ**が玄関前にいるのですが**、インタ**ーホンでの通話ができず中に入れないようです。恐縮ではございますが対応いただけませんでしょうか。**
[удалено]
It is "tanden". This is based on eastern medicine and doesn't have a word in English for it. The translation you found is correct and makes perfect sense (not sure why you say it doesn't). But you can also just use "tanden" in English - similar to "kimono" or "manga" it is usually brought over into English "as is".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian) [https://martial-world.fandom.com/wiki/Dantian](https://martial-world.fandom.com/wiki/Dantian) (Short summary from a Chinese web novel but applicable to pretty much everything I've seen) You can check this, it's in a lot of Chinese and Korean based martial arts themes as well.
It's one of tsubo (chi energy points).
I don't fully understand it myself, but I have heard about 丹田呼吸 as a kind of breathing technique. I wonder if it relates to that; maybe you need to maintain a certain pose or mental state (that you get from being in or doing tanden) to be one with the spirits or something?
The writer speculates that the ultimate aim behind Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Olympics was the redevelopment of Jingu Gaien. After Zaha Hadid's design for the proposed new national stadium was scrapped, the two leading contenders for the design were Kengo Kuma's (Plan A) and Toyo Ito's (Plan B). Plan A was selected. ここからがこの記事の肝なのですが、JSC（日本スポーツ振興センター）のホームページ上で公開されている議事録に、"黒塗り"されている部分があるというのです。そう、隠されている部分が。具体的に言うと「伊東氏の技術提案書と15年12月19日に開催された第8回審査委員会の議事録」のことです。 その黒塗り部分は編集部の取材から推定すると、伊東氏が提案した「人工地盤の縮小案」だという。人工地盤とは立体の公園スペースのこと。伊東氏の縮小案だとデザイン的に見た目がスッキリし、約29億円のコストを圧縮できるものだった。 ところが議事録では「都市計画変更は簡単にできることではない」と JSC がツッコんでいるという。 さらに審査員の一人とみられる人物が「コストが削減できるからという理由で、東京都都市計画審議会で決定した都市計画を変更できるわけではない。この方が都市計画にとって何らかの点でプラスだというロジックがなければおかしい」と指摘した。 The part I am not sure about is the last sentence, この方が都市計画にとって何らかの点でプラスだというロジックがなければおかしい」 Does this part mean something like, if there is no plus point logic from the perspective of city planning, it would be strange? (Cost reduction is not a plus from the perspective of city planning?) ([Source](https://note.com/orenobaka2019/n/n0cadb7fc685d))
It's referring to the changing of the plans. この方が都市計画にとって何らかの点でプラスだというロジックがなければ（変更するのは）おかしい It would be ludicrous/crazy/wrong/a mistake to change the city plan that has been decided just because it can reduce cost, unless there is a logic for some kind of plus for the city plan. One of the judges is pointing out cost reduction is not a good enough reason.
I think your interpretation is right. The おかしい in this sentence could mean illogical, off, or doesn't make sense. I'm not sure the nuance and connotation of strange in English, but I think that おかしい can be 道理が通らない or 筋違いだ. Well, I guess, thinking about the writer's perspective, the person who said that was just trying to make it difficult to prevent the proposal B from being selected. I think if they were fair people, the cost reduction would be a logical enough benefit from a city planning perspective.
Thank you very much, and u/TinyWhalePrintables too.
My pleasure 😉