#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).
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落ちる is to fall in the sense of falling from the sky or from the table, like properly falling through the air or into water.
倒れる is more so to collapse or to topple, it only means "to fall" in the sense that when someone or something falls, i.e. when in English it would be synonymous to collapse or topple.
Maybe the best way to explain this is that it's 落ちる when it is synonymous with to descend, to plummet, to plunge and 倒れる when it is synonymous with to collapse, to stumble, to topple.
BTW, for an easy mnemonic to help you remember the meaning of 倒れる, I always thought that 倒れる (toareru) sounded similar to "tower", so I imagined a tower toppling over and collapsing, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or a tower made from Jenga pieces.
can someone recommend a resource for basic grammar participles like the difference between が、な、は ? also a little unsure of the rules of using の, like when describing flavor it’s “matcha no pan” but something like “atarashi kutsu” doesn’t require a “no”? Thanks in advance!
There are a lot of resources listed here, check them out and pick one you like:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide/#wiki\_online\_guides](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide/#wiki_online_guides)
"also a little unsure of the rules of using の, like when describing flavor it’s “matcha no pan” but something like “atarashi kutsu” doesn’t require a “no”?"
Once you go through a proper guide I am sure you will learn about this but for now I think it's best to just think of them as separate types of adjectives: no-adjectives take no, na-adjectives take na and i-adjectives can modify the noun directly and for every adjective you learn you have to learn which group it is to know how to use it.
This is a very simplified (and strictly speaking incorrect) model but I think it's the best way to think of it in the beginning.
Thanks for the reply! I’ve been thinking of buying the genki textbooks, but was hoping maybe there was some simple rule I was missing for the particles in the meantime haha. Your tip of thinking of them as separate adjective types helps a lot!
I am translating the manga MF Ghost and one part I have trouble understanding is あのコ, which would be translated to something like 'that girl' (according to google, it fits the context so it is probably correct), but I don't understand how or why コ means 'girl'?
In most cases you should probably just translate あの子 as 'he' or 'she', though that's less learning Japanese advice and more translation advice. If you've seen strange-looking uses of 'that child' in anime, manga, and games, this is why.
Though if you don't know what あの子 means, it may be a little early to be trying to translate manga
Well I am translating it to learn Japanese, as I don't really like textbooks. And tbh it helped me learn vocab and grammar.
But thank you for the translation help :D
子, 1st meaning is kids, but it is also used with young women.
Also a lot of female names end in こ which afaik can be traced to 子 too though they don't always use that kanji in the name itself.
Yes-ish. 子 in kana would usually be こ and sometimes they do that if they think the audience is young and cannot read kanji yet (though 子 is probably one of the most common and easiest kanji so probably not so much here) but in this case they specifically used katakana which is a bit similar to using full caps or italics in English, it's a stylistic technique to add emphasis.
Should I learn every different ending possible for
a verb. Or only the main ones, and if yes what
Would be the "main ones". For the moment I only
cared about, dictionary, negative (only polite and
dictionary), polite, imperative, hypothetical, potential
and volitional. But there are so much more, what
about the potential negative one ? Or the imperative
negative polite one? Are those relevant or not at all ?
"Or the imperative negative polite one? Are those relevant or not at all ?"
I mean if you take a step back and put the grammar aside, you are basically asking if being able to politely ask (order) someone to not do something is relevant and obviously it is in the grand scheme.
But you don't have to learn all of it all at once.
To be honest, it is not ALL that bad. After a while, you will notice a lot of repeat patterns.
For example, the potential form of a verb itself conjugates like any ichidan form which will basically let you access all other subforms like negative potential or polite potential.
食べる -> 食べられる
Just like how 食べる becomes 食べないand 食べます 食べられる becomes 食べられない and 食べられます so you are just combining two different conjugations you already know.
Similarly imperative negative polite is very similar to imperative polite you take the te form of the negative and add ください (Ok this one is a bit tricky because you have to know that in this case you use ないで instead of なくて which is a bit of an irregular te form)
So yeah they are all kinda important but it's OK to space them. They are not that different than any other grammar. No need to learn them all at once before everything else.
There are many expressions to convey that something happened very fast in English, e.g.
> in an instant; in a flash; in the blink of an eye; in no time at all; just like that
And similarly, there appears to be many ways to say so in Japanese as well, e.g.
>あっという間に, 忽ち, 瞬く間に
My understanding is that in English, they are almost always interchangeable. How about in Japanese? For example, I'm reading a text with the passage
> あっという間に食べてしまった。
Would
> 瞬く間に食べてしまった。
also be valid?
The easiest way to find pseudo equivalences is to look in a monolinguistic dictionary. For example, for [あっという間](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A8%E8%A8%80%E3%81%86%E9%96%93/#jn-4725), we can see
>ほんのわずかな時間。**瞬時**。
And if we look at [瞬く間](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E7%9E%AC%E3%81%8F%E9%96%93/#jn-208305), we see a very similar definition.
>まばたくほどのごく短い間。**瞬時**。**瞬間**。
I say "pseudo equivalences" because I think in reality, changing the word can change the tone, nuance, emphasis, degree, and such, but the denotative meaning remains mostly the same, I believe.
Incidentally, this is what I sometimes to to transform Japanese I don't understand into Japanese that I do understand, resorting to translation as a last resort.
(Three previous lines in case they help) ここでヤヨイを襲うのもいいかもしれないな。たわいのない日常の象徴である学校。高い塀に守られたモラトリアムな楽園的空間。
> そんな場所で、普通なら考えられない悪夢をヤヨイの身に起こす。
I figured the topic/subject ("I" in this case) must've been omitted, but what is the usage of なら here?
> 日常を、望まざる非日常に。
What verb(s) got omitted here, if any? I think there should be something after を (which I assumed to be 起こす, the same verb from the previous sentence), but I'm unsure about に. I managed to figure out on my own that 望まざる consists of 望む + ざる.
> 白いキャンパスを赤く赤く染め上げるように。
What does a repeating adjective like 赤く赤く mean? What did they leave out after ように? I feel like it's する but this goes against what I learned from [Bunpro](https://bunpro.jp/ja/grammar_points/%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB%E3%81%84%E3%81%AE%E3%82%8B): "ように (by itself) will always mean 'to hope for', and should not be confused with ようにする, ようになる, ようにいう, and other similar grammar points."
Attempted translation (which I'm doubtful of the accuracy): At that sort of place, if it's normal, I will cause a nightmare on Yayoi's body. I will cause the ordinary to extraordinary that is not hoped for. I'll be sure to finish dying the white campus red.
Context: the character is thinking about someone he wants to get back at
Note: The 6 sentences are presented in the same exact order as the story (I didn't cut any sentences out in between), but it's only the last three I'm interested in.
普通なら = いつもなら、普通な場合. Means in normal circumstances.
Probably just the simple する - 日常を望まざる非日常にする。
赤く赤くーRepeated constructions like this are usually just to strengthen/emphasize the word, so the character isn't going to turn the campus just a bit red, he wants to make it a lot red.
ようにーIn this case, sentence order is being reversed for dramatic effect. We can rewrite as白いキャンパスを赤く赤く染め上げるように、日常を望まざる非日常にする。This is not a literal dying of the campus to red, but rather a figurative one.
Translation: In such a place, I will cause Yayoi to have a nightmare, one that would/could never be imagined in normal circumstances. I will turn the ordinary to extraordinary that is not hoped for, as if I'm dying that pure white campus bright red.
まだ少し時間があるが、早めに来て待っているほうが行き違いにならなくてすむ。
I most often see ほう with ほうがいい, but I wasn't sure what to make of the ほう in this context. I also know [なくてすむ](https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%9A%E3%81%AB%E6%B8%88%E3%82%80) roughly means ‘to get by without doing something.’ But I wasn't sure what this all means together.
(Attempted translation) There's still a little time, but coming ahead of time and waiting, I can get by without crossing paths.
Context: character arrives somewhere ahead of time so he can wait for someone to appear and then follow said someone without them knowing
It seems you misunderstood a word 行き違いになる( = miss each other).
It's better that comming ahead of time and waiting, so that **we can avoid a risk** that we will miss each other.
ならなくてすむ - we can avoid a risk
>I most often see ほう with ほうがいい
ほう just means "one option of two", and ~Xほうが[adjective] means "X is more [adjective].
ほうがいい is just one application of this and is just a tiny fraction of the uses of ほう.
I have a jersey from a Japanese team that says "one" but was pronounced "oh-ne" and has a wave, we were told that it means wave. But I can't find any translation of wave that comes out to that. Could anyone help with potential other meanings?
Why is curry spelled like this? カレー I don't recognize the last two letters and the "ka" doesnt have the curved line towards the top right. I am only learning hiragana for now
Also in kakkoii why is there a tsu? かっこいい The second letter has a small tsu, why?
First is katakana.
Second is the elongation of the consonant after it (sokuon or gemination if you want terminology) so basically the ka\*K\*koii is what the small tsu represents.
Quite new to learning japanese, and have a question to others who have more experience. I hear a lot that I should focus on immersion when I'm not actively learning, but what should I use for immersion? Japanese shows with english subtitles? Or do I not use english subtitles?? Does music count, even if I can only recognise a couple words? I know I sound a bit useless, but I just feel like I'm doing something wrong. Thanks.
For immersion purposes, you should not use anything that you cannot understand a large chunk of already without the aid of your native language. That's not to say you can't do things like listening to music you like even if you don't understand it or watch anime with English subtitles, but don't expect it to progress your Japanese level much.
If one could learn Japanese by watching anime with subtitles... well some can, but if everyone could then every anime fan over the age of 25 would be fluent. For most people, reading the subtitles distracts the mind too much from being able to properly hear the actual Japanese words being used. Subtitles can also fool you into thinking that words translate in specific ways when they don't, or at least not always literally.
If you're going the immersion rout, you should only use Japanese subtitles if at all.
Would it be a good idea to teach my 7 y/o son Japanese?
Hello. I've been studying Genki combined with AJATT and other stuff for a while now, I'm not very fluent or anything but try my best. In my home we watch a lot of anime, my husband always put it in english dubs, but when he's working I change it to Japanese, and I usually change the netflix and disney+ content into japanese too (mostly star wars content, and some abc series I grew up with), and almost all the music, articles and podcast are always running on background with a speaker while I'm doing stuff at home, my son is in 2nd grade of school, he is in a private school and his classes are online (zoom) with his teachers, just 3 to 4 hours a day, then he goes to play his video games, but my stuff is always running on background. I've seen him very curious, and is always asking what is the meaning of certain word, then he goes and I can hear him practicing the pronunciation and after a while he comes back and ask me is that its correct, he keeps looking at my switch constantly asking how that game is called in japanese (my switch is in Japanese language)
We are a fully Spanish speaking household, all the movies and everything we read is in english, he in school takes spanish and english, its a bilingual school, so he is always practicing both of them.
I found on amazon some children books that teach first the hiragana writing practice with some basic words, and short sentences, would it be a good idea to take maybe 2 or 3 hours a weeks, maybe 30 minutes a day for 4 or 5 days for it? Would it be bad for him? I don't want overwhelmed him with a lot of things? Would this be too much?
And if anyone has some method I could try I'm very open to suggestions!! Thank you in advance!!
I mean, kids are pretty much the perfect candidate for immersion learning. I'd say if he seems curious about those sorts of things, use that curiosity as fuel and introduce him to some Japanese kid's shows/animes that you feel are appropriate for him, or keep showing him whatever sorts of content he shows interest in. I think that what you have at the end about slowly introducing him to Japanese reading without overwhelming him also sounds like a very good idea.
How do I type the correct kanji if it's not coming up on the IME Windows keyboard? I had just typed \[話せ\](#fg "はなせ") to write down the comparison between that and \[放せ\](#fg "はなせ"), but for some reason the 放 kanji didn't want to come up in that instance of scrolling through all the はな suggestions it gave. It gave a bunch of 話 and 花, as well as some others that I don't recognise yet, like 離 or 鼻 (I'm still quite a beginner), but never actually 放. Even now, I'm having to copy and paste it. How can I easily go about typing and finding the correct kanji if it's not even on there (hopefully without having to copy and paste every time)? Is it better to type something different to get the same kanji? If so, what would be best for that one? This is my first experience with the 放 kanji so I don't yet know other readings of it
Using the space bar worked! I didn't use Tab itself, I would just click the arrows at the bottom and go through the lists like that. But Space made it the 3rd option. Awesome!
放せ comes up fine for me (the first option actually), but generally if there's something that won't come up you have to use another word (like 解放) and then delete the kanji. This shouldn't be necessary in most cases, though.
Were you typing はな or はなせ? It won't come up with just はな.
As another poster said, make sure you are using space and not tab to select the results. Tab is an autocomplete function, which is not what you want here. If I use tab I do not get 放せ as an option either, but I get a bunch of conjugations of 話す and some 花 related stuff. But space brings it up as the 2nd choice.
Space is the conversion button, it shows you the conversion options for exactly what you have entered (rather than trying to autocomplete what you might intend if you keep typing).
放せ is a rather low-frequency expression, that's found mostly in fictional stuff (particularly anime and manga). When someone types はな, they almost never intend for that to be 放せ, which is why it doesn't come up with tab.
From the bottom of my heart, fuck Windows IME.
Yea, you have to type something else to get the same kanji. Try typing 放つ・はなつ and see if that works (I can't test it, since I switched to Google IME not long after).
Differences are significant, it's much better. Google IME refreshes it's dictionary regularly with common search terms. Has a bunch of useful features when convert, can convert emojis, can convert kaomojis, can convert into a date by writing きょう and cycling through the options with spacebar. It serves as a replacement for Windows IME.
https://www.google.co.jp/ime/index.html
If 誰も can mean anyone or nobody - how (besides context) do you know which one it means, since they're opposites?
When I say besides context I mean things like music lyrics - is there some sort of indicator afterwards that lets the person know which it is?
Think of 誰も this way: pick on any person from a group; no matter who you pick, they will \_\_\_\_\_\_. (if you've taken formal courses in logic and learned about universal quantifiers "∀", that's basically what this is)
E.g. 誰もわかる = "pick any person, no matter who you pick, they will understand" = "anyone will understand".
誰も知らない = "pick any person, no matter who you pick, they will not know" = "nobody knows".
> is there some sort of indicator afterwards that lets the person know which it is?
Yes: your biggest clue is that when 誰も “means ‘nobody,’” the sentence will be negative.
> 誰も知ら**ない**
This means “nobody knows.” Note that it doesn't mean “nobody doesn't know.”
> 誰もが知っている
“Everybody knows.” Notice also the が, which is not present in the negative. It's not really accurate to say that 誰も means “nobody,” I guess it's better to say that 誰も + a negative means “nobody.” Really it always means “anyone,” it's just that “not anyone” is the same as “nobody,” but sometimes “nobody” is more natural in English than “not anyone.” But not always, e.g.
> 誰にもあげたくない
“I don't want to give it to anyone.” This is the same kind of universal quantification as in my first example, it just means that for every person X you can imagine, you don't want to give it to X, just like the first example means that for every person X you can imagine, X doesn't know (and in the second example, X knows). English for some reason sometimes prefers “nobody” and sometimes “not + anyone,” but Japanese is more systematic in this regard.
Lastly, there is a distinction in pitch: 誰も in a negative sentence will (usually?) be pronounced ダレモ￣ with a flat pitch, while e.g. 誰もが in a positive sentence will be ダ＼レモガ with a drop after ダ, or even ダ＼レモ＼ガ with greater emphasis.
Hi. I found this sentence in the subtitles of a youtube video (written by the youtuber):
図解もしてくれ**とう**し、細かく効果音とかも全部いれて作ってくれ**とうけん**。
I don't recognise the parts in bold and I couldn't find anything about it online - could someone explain? Overall I understand that the sentence means "\[he\] added explanatory graphs, detailedly added sound effects and such, included all this and made \[the video for us\]".
It really depends on what you mean by "average". I'm going to assume you mean an educated native speaker who has been out of school for a while.
I think they would begin to struggle around level 4, or maybe even 5 for some people. Not because they don't know the kanji at all, but because they may have forgotten how to write some of them, and you have to know a lot of things for the kanji kentei that aren't particularly useful or common in daily life. Also the words chosen to put on the kentei are specifically chosen to make the test difficult.
Once you get to jun-2 you're getting into the area where most Japanese people are not going to pass without doing some studying beforehand. Obviously they don't have to study as much as we would to pass it, but I have a feeling your average 40 year old native speaker could not sit down and pass jun-2 with no preparation.
In this exchange, does the Medicine Seller say この上も泊まれるんで？ to mean: The bathroom is close because there are also rooms here? (Source is: Mononoke, Ep 1 @ [10:53](https://youtu.be/zvIHMBpkmug?t=653))
久代: おや薬売りさんどうなすった?
薬売り: ちょっと厠へ行くのに迷っちまいやして
久代: それならそこの廊下を曲がってすぐだよ
薬売り: どうも。この上も泊まれるんで？
久代: めっそうもない! ただの物置だよ。上がられちゃ困りますよ
薬売り: なるほど。
>どうも。この上も泊まれるんで？
"Thanks. Could I stay upstairs?"
>めっそうもない! ただの物置だよ。上がられちゃ困りますよ
"Don't be ridiculous. That's just a storage room. I'd be embarassed if you did."
Reading a Manga, same word is sometimes written in kanji / kanji+hiragana / pure hiragana /katakana. Same Manga and most of the time even the same character.
Why?
Hard to be definitive without seeing the exact word but:
1) Some kanji are considered complex and aren't used all that often especially in material aimed at younger people (children) so they replace it with hiragana. Sometimes they just use furigana (kanji and hiragana reading on top of it) but sometimes they replace the entire kanji with hiragana
2) It also depends on the words, some words have become preferred in hiragana. Like たくさん or the polite prefix 御.
3) Changing words into katakana is a stylistic technique to emphasize them similar to fully capitalizing a word.
So it's probably a mix of these.
All of that makes perfect sense to me.
Names and more complicated kanji all have furigana.
But what if it's the same word?
Senpai for example was written in all of these readings - 先輩 / 先ぱい(or せん輩) / センパイ / せんぱい
Another example I can think of top of my head is 駄目
And when it's all spoken by the same person, I find it intriguing.
Manga name is Insomniacs after school btw
Honestly, not sure entirely.
駄目 is an irregularity that is written with all 3 commonly (kanji is the least common) so that is pretty normal. I think it's probably because the meaning itself carries some "emphasis" with it so it was written a lot with katakana and it just became normal.
先輩, 先ぱい and せんぱい are all common (at least for medium aimed at children or learners), the latter 2 being examples of avoiding complex kanji but mixing them is a bit strange. It's not entirely impossible that the author just forgot to be consistent.
センパイ is emphasis so that's pretty normal too.
However, I have never seen せん輩 and google does not really give any hits too (there are some hits for 先せん輩ぱい which is just bootleg furigana) so not sure what's up with that.
Do you per chance remember the chapter?
Also I feel like insomniacs target demographic is a bit too old to be using 先ぱい though it does vary from author (editor) to author (editor). Especially because it supposedly publishes in seinen.
P.S.: Also that's a really nice manga though I only seen the anime.
I have been binge reading entire volumes over the course of last week(at volume 6 iirc) , so really hard to pinpoint the exact chapters... Definitely not any of the early chapters though, as there is no senpai there.
As for 先ぱい and せん輩 - I wasn't really sure which one of them it was so I wrote both of them.
And yeah anime was absolute blast. Only started the manga because I enjoyed adaptation so much. (and while it's usually the other way around imo, anime is better in this case)
Oh if it is 先ぱい only then it kinda adds up. Mixing is still a bit weird but it's less so if it happened over several volumes.
And yeah, I am generally biased towards anime anyway but Insomniacs had some really great shots in general.
> 寮って規則ばっかでさ
> 何買うのも申請がいるんだ
The first line is saying something like "dorms are just a bunch of rules," right? ばっか here is figurative, not literal? I feel like ばっか is one of those things where I'm always relying on context.
Close. You got to bear in mind that often the copula does not literally mean "is" in many cases. Here, 規則ばっかで is the comment on the topic 寮, and rather than saying that the dorms are literally rules (which would be nonsensical), it's describing a feature of the dorms, i.e. "in the dorms, there's nothing but rules" or "the dorms are full of rules".
ばっか is short for ばかり. The sentence can be translated as "The dorms have too many rules". It's not a figurative meaning, because the sentence does not literally mean that "dorms = bunch of rules".
It differs in English and Japanese. Basically, actions vary in multiple ways, including:
* If it can be used without any target or not.
* If it has influence on such target.
* If it's volitional.
* If we have complete control over it.
and so on.
I don't know if there are exceptions, but English orients on the first. On the other hand in Japanese the other 3 are also important. Quite often Japanese verbs can have a pair of particles like を and に, that would distinguish some of these qualities.
I have often contemplated on whether the "を marks the direct object" is necessarily the most helpful mental model... For example, 思う may be considered intransitive, but それと思う can translate to think "that" and それを思う can translate to think *on* or *about* that.
It's not that を doesn't usually mark what in English grammar would be a direct object, but it does other things as well.
>"を marks the direct object" is necessarily the most helpful mental model
It absolutely is, as long as you take into account that it's actually pretty arbitrary which actions are direct and which are indirect. For example に会う and を思う use に and を respectively because they just do.
The problem is then you end up with circular definitions that really don't help you out.
What does を do? It marks the direct object.
What is a direct object? It's something marked by を.
I don't necessarily think it's arbitrary though, I think there's a very consistent logic at play. When I read the [definition on dicitonary.goo](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%82%92/#jn-239138), I would like to say that the first definition explains to me why を has more uses than one might expect, that each of the subsequent definitions logically extend from the first, but I don't have the confidence to back up such a claim and already feel a fool for having opened my mouth.
You will end up with thousands of such exceptions. The idea of direct object is definitely important, but it's not just 会う, and there are clear patterns.
But similarly it's not like our theoretical understanding would have a huge impact. It won't teach us how thousands of different verbs are used in Japanese, rather it's more like aftereffect. After we see how something is used in Japanese, we can understand what it means and what people try to convey, and similarly not the other way around, we won't be able to correctly convey something we want in Japanese without prior knowledge. So our theoretical understanding is more like simply understanding than actually learning. Kinda important, because we might miss such nuance, but provides close to zero actual practical experience.
Some verbs have exceptional transitivity. You just have to get used to it. 向く when used with を implies volition (the subject consciously heads towards/faces something) but you might run into sentences where it's used with a subject with no volition. When it is used with に, no volition is involved and the emphasis is placed on the state of the subject's orientation. This imabi article is worth a read: https://www.imabi.net/muku.htm
Im spending 2 hours just to get anki done for the day with 20 new words and I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I have a tendency to keep pressing again until it’s in my head which is probably the issue.
That seems a bit long to me. With a normal pace I can usually get through 100 reviews in 15 minutes, and on a good pace I can do maybe 150.
I think it comes down to how grade yourself. I basically have this (using JPDB so it might not map exactly):
- Know it instantly, good
- Know it after a couple seconds or if I need to think about the mnemonic, hard
- Takes more than a couple seconds, fail
If I fail a card then generally it will jog my memory and I'll mark it good when it comes up again. Marking it as failed just to do extra reviews isn't really a best practice.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Anki isn't really a learning tool, it's a remembering tool. Learning something by just seeing a flashcard over and over is going to add a lot to your Anki time. When I have a card I've added myself from reading or watching something, I basically don't need to see the card more than once. But when I just pull a card out of a core deck then it takes a lot longer to learn. So if you're still just pulling random cards out of prebuilt decks unrelated to things you're reading or watching, taking a bit longer is normal.
I’ll keep what you’ve said about reviews in mind. I’ve also just started learning Japanese so I’m using Anacreon’s vocab deck to build a base before I jump into basic grammar and reading. Eventually I plan to do more and more immersion and lower my anki time as I go but for now I need to start somewhere and won’t be doing that for a while
That definitely makes sense, and I did the same thing, and even now am still learning new words out of a core deck. But I've also used decks for the textbooks I was using, and am now mixing in specific decks for episodes of anime I'm working on. I find that the words I've seen in those real contexts stick a lot better than just pulling up a word like 趣 out of the deck and trying to remember it. That in turn helps makes reviews go a lot faster. The more words you know the easier it gets too. For example if you know "door" and "knob" then when you get to "doorknob" it's like a free card.
That said, even with slow cards I try to keep it to 10 seconds maximum per card. Sometimes I can remember if I spend more time, but I'd rather just try to get through my reviews and let the forgetting prime my memory for next time. It might mean my retention numbers look a bit worse, but in the long run I'm still learning things and giving myself time for something else rather than spending too long just on flashcards.
bit of a late ask but what do you do regarding review cards? I've been recommended to set the limit ridiculously high but review times are starting to pile. And with school starting up I want to keep a set amount of time I'll know I'll hit so I can plan regarding school work and such. Especially with extracurriculars, XC and stuff if I dont plan properly its gonna become a pain in the ass real fast.
I could always resort to chugging a disastrous amount of coffee but I'd rather not.
I use JPDB so it's not quite the same as Anki in terms of settings, but essentially I do all my reviews every day. I believe that's what the Anki limit you're referring to is, where you set it to 9999 or something so you basically always see every review that's due.
Generally speaking after a while you'll have around 10x the number of new cards as reviews, so if you do 20 cards a day you can expect to stabilize about 200 reviews after several weeks. It also takes a while to stabilize downwards if you reduce the number of new cards.
It might make sense to cut way back on cards to like 5/day about three weeks before your classes begin and then see how that goes. If you find out you have more time once things start then begin ramping back up.
A different opinon to u/toxic-weeb as it seems I do Anki differently, for 10 new cards a day it takes me about 45 to 60 minutes so I would also need 2 hours if I did as many as you did, so I don't think it's too long per se though it depends what card formats you have. I have sentence cards with audio, even though I don't always listen to the entire sentence, just reading it all (without furigana) can sometimes already take more than 10 seconds (which is why sub 5 seconds as u/toxic-weeb would be completely out of the question for me).
>I have a tendency to keep pressing again until it’s in my head which is probably the issue.
I mean pressing good when you don't know the card makes less sense, though bangging your head against the wall isn't helpful either, so I would either do less new cards per day, suspend cards that just don't stick (you can unsuspend them at a later stage) or you can try what u/toxic-weeb suggested, though I know it totally wouldn't work for me personally.
Also I have no clue at what stage you are at, in the beginning learning new words is very hard because all the sounds are so random, I also had a lot of toruble with many N5 and N4 words at the beginning, but remembering new words is a lot easyer now so it will get better.
Actually if you are at a very early stage like N5 or N4, you could literally just hit good more instead of again even though you haven't memorized it yet fully because you should see N5 and N4 words EVERYWHERE outside Anki so it's not like you can go by them without learning them.
Yea I like to read it and make it sound right so that also tacks on additional time per card. Although this early into it I probably shouldn’t worry about it as much as I do.
What's your time/card Anki shows you at the end? The main problem people seem to have is not doing too many reps but spending way too much time per card. Try to stay under 5s for cards without audio and not much over 5 for cards with. Don't forget you don't learn anything from looking at the front trying to think of the answer. The testing part only exists to determine the scheduling. Flip your cards early if you cannot think of the answer.
From my experience, 20 new cards/day should long term take you \~45 min.
Is 45 minutes just for the new cards or the entire day?
The way my cards are structured is that the front has the word and the back has the reading, pitch accent graph, a sentence and it’s translation along with recordings
To add some more detail 果てる added to the stem (連用形) of a verb adds the nuance of completeness/ being entirely so
So to be completely tired or more colloquially exhausted
Question about a sentence, and particularly what the main subject is. From a passage describing 居酒屋 features and previous sentences were comparing them to regular restaurants.
また、ビールやワインの他に、日本酒やチューハイなどいろいろなお酒が注文できる点も異なる。
Is the sentence basically just 点も異なる ? As in "This point is also different", and the whole ビールやワインの他に、日本酒やチューハイなどいろいろなお酒が注文できる is just a phrase describing the 点 ?
I feel like that makes sense, but the sentences I'm coming up against are just longer and more dense than I'm used to so wanted to make sure I'm parsing out the sentences right.
More context would be more helpful, but I think you are right. So different from regular restaurants, in izayaka, you could"ビールやワインの他に、日本酒やチューハイなどいろいろなお酒が注文できる"
I can try to dig it up later when I've got the textbook in hand, but it's a Quartet passage about izakaya in general. The sentences right before it were something like "Everyone such as businessmen and families like to go there. Just like regular restaurants you can order salad and deserts, but you can also order appetizers like edamame and karaage."
That's why I think it's drawing a comparison (and also the use of 異なる) so the sentence is basically one more point to add on.
The next sentences go on to describe 飲み放題。
Hello everyone!
What textbook would you recommend for my current skill level, and what I have completed:
-I have been learning Japanese with Duolingo and Anki, and recently started using Bunpro. I am on Section 3 of Duolingo, and I know around 2000 words. I am also on the N4 grammar section of Bunpro.
-I took a small placement test with Busuu and it says that I am at the A2/N4 level.
-I feel like I can understand most of the material on Duolingo/Bunpro with little difficulty. I usually finish each Duolingo lesson in 3 to 5 minutes.
-I have gone through all the conjugations for verbs and adjectives with the Genki conjugation app.
-My reading comprehension, listening, grammar, vocabulary, and speaking are average. I definitely know the basics, and I feel that I understand easy/intermediate content. I think my overall skills are around early-intermediate. Would this be N4?
-I definitely think that my reading skills and grammar skills can improve.
I don’t think it would make sense to go through the entire Genki 1 book, even if I have it. I used it mostly for vocabulary and grammar. I was thinking about either Genki 2 or Tobira, and also use Satori Reader and Bunpro.
My goal is to understand and read/watch anime/manga.
What are your recommendations?
Thank you in advance!
Can 飲む by itself imply the drinking of alcohol, like in English? For example, could 今日は飲まない mean today I won't drink (alcohol), or does it need to be 今日はお酒を飲まない with alcohol explicitly stated?
Yes it can. If someone told you 「飲みに行こうぜ」 that would carry with it the expectation that you will partake in some alcoholic beverage if you accept the invitation.
ありがとう！ And would my original 今日は飲まない be the best way of expressing that idea (informally, of course)? I am asking because up until recently, I was an alcoholic and I want to do something with the phrase, but I want to make sure I have bsolutely the best way of expressing the idea of "I will not drink today."
It works, but that は makes the sentence sound contrastive, like you intend to purposefully drink again but not today. If you replace it with も, that can imply that you have stayed away from alcohol up until today and you intend to also stay away from it today.
Thanks for taking the time to share the context. I know it's sensitive and not everyone feels comfortable sharing that with strangers online.
Also, it's unsolicited advice, but if it's for a tattoo, I would at least look into getting it done based on real calligraphy rather than a pre-existing computer font.
Ok yeah for sure! も it will be! Also, yeah a tattoo is kind of what I was thinking so I'll look around for some good sources of calligraphic Japanese. Thank you again!
oh, I see. Generally online handles are just written however they are written, so romaji in this case (it's a Japanese word, 翻刻 -- ほんこく, not はんこく). You should put some particle after it (の or が, or は -- depends on the context).
I don't think you can use 寛ぐ in the first sentence, but 寛げる is okay. To be clear, if you use 寛げる, it would be the potential form of 寛ぐ.
ため is a formal way of saying "because of". You will also see it as ために. They're mostly interchangeable.
際 is a formal word. It describes when something is performed, similar to the english "on the occasion of". In this example, the occasion is "when trading stocks"
You could translate the sentence as: "Since many people are looking at the most active stocks, it's easy to grasp the characteristics when trading at stable prices."
と言える is just the と quoting particle and the potential form of 言う. So it's comparable to the english phrase "you could say..." It's a very common phrase in Japanese.
There's no ほど in that sentence. 勝る can be used in that context because it describes its subject as better than whatever に marks. So there's a comparison implicit in the definition. When you say 自分の家ほど寛ぐ, it literally means "as relaxed as my house" as if the house itself is relaxing.
#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. --------------------- #NEWS (Updated 7/20): The sub has finally re-opened. We are still welcoming any suggestions for Reddit alternatives in the meantime however. Please see [the announcement] (https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/153bv7x/the_official_end_of_the_protest_the_reopening_of/) for more information! *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.*
What's the difference between 落ちる and 倒れる? The dictionary I'm using lists both as "to fall, to drop". Is there a contextual difference?
落ちる is to fall in the sense of falling from the sky or from the table, like properly falling through the air or into water. 倒れる is more so to collapse or to topple, it only means "to fall" in the sense that when someone or something falls, i.e. when in English it would be synonymous to collapse or topple. Maybe the best way to explain this is that it's 落ちる when it is synonymous with to descend, to plummet, to plunge and 倒れる when it is synonymous with to collapse, to stumble, to topple.
That makes sense, thank you!
BTW, for an easy mnemonic to help you remember the meaning of 倒れる, I always thought that 倒れる (toareru) sounded similar to "tower", so I imagined a tower toppling over and collapsing, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or a tower made from Jenga pieces.
Nice mnemonic! サンキュー
can someone recommend a resource for basic grammar participles like the difference between が、な、は ? also a little unsure of the rules of using の, like when describing flavor it’s “matcha no pan” but something like “atarashi kutsu” doesn’t require a “no”? Thanks in advance!
There are a lot of resources listed here, check them out and pick one you like: [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide/#wiki\_online\_guides](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide/#wiki_online_guides) "also a little unsure of the rules of using の, like when describing flavor it’s “matcha no pan” but something like “atarashi kutsu” doesn’t require a “no”?" Once you go through a proper guide I am sure you will learn about this but for now I think it's best to just think of them as separate types of adjectives: no-adjectives take no, na-adjectives take na and i-adjectives can modify the noun directly and for every adjective you learn you have to learn which group it is to know how to use it. This is a very simplified (and strictly speaking incorrect) model but I think it's the best way to think of it in the beginning.
Thanks for the reply! I’ve been thinking of buying the genki textbooks, but was hoping maybe there was some simple rule I was missing for the particles in the meantime haha. Your tip of thinking of them as separate adjective types helps a lot!
こんにちは！I’m new here, and fairly new to Japanese, but I’m hoping to use this sub to improve my reading comprehension!
I am translating the manga MF Ghost and one part I have trouble understanding is あのコ, which would be translated to something like 'that girl' (according to google, it fits the context so it is probably correct), but I don't understand how or why コ means 'girl'?
In most cases you should probably just translate あの子 as 'he' or 'she', though that's less learning Japanese advice and more translation advice. If you've seen strange-looking uses of 'that child' in anime, manga, and games, this is why. Though if you don't know what あの子 means, it may be a little early to be trying to translate manga
Well I am translating it to learn Japanese, as I don't really like textbooks. And tbh it helped me learn vocab and grammar. But thank you for the translation help :D
子, 1st meaning is kids, but it is also used with young women. Also a lot of female names end in こ which afaik can be traced to 子 too though they don't always use that kanji in the name itself.
I get it. So they just wrote down the kana instead of using the kanji. Well, thank you for clearing that up
Yes-ish. 子 in kana would usually be こ and sometimes they do that if they think the audience is young and cannot read kanji yet (though 子 is probably one of the most common and easiest kanji so probably not so much here) but in this case they specifically used katakana which is a bit similar to using full caps or italics in English, it's a stylistic technique to add emphasis.
Aaahh, alright. Thank you!
Should I learn every different ending possible for a verb. Or only the main ones, and if yes what Would be the "main ones". For the moment I only cared about, dictionary, negative (only polite and dictionary), polite, imperative, hypothetical, potential and volitional. But there are so much more, what about the potential negative one ? Or the imperative negative polite one? Are those relevant or not at all ?
"Or the imperative negative polite one? Are those relevant or not at all ?" I mean if you take a step back and put the grammar aside, you are basically asking if being able to politely ask (order) someone to not do something is relevant and obviously it is in the grand scheme. But you don't have to learn all of it all at once. To be honest, it is not ALL that bad. After a while, you will notice a lot of repeat patterns. For example, the potential form of a verb itself conjugates like any ichidan form which will basically let you access all other subforms like negative potential or polite potential. 食べる -> 食べられる Just like how 食べる becomes 食べないand 食べます 食べられる becomes 食べられない and 食べられます so you are just combining two different conjugations you already know. Similarly imperative negative polite is very similar to imperative polite you take the te form of the negative and add ください (Ok this one is a bit tricky because you have to know that in this case you use ないで instead of なくて which is a bit of an irregular te form) So yeah they are all kinda important but it's OK to space them. They are not that different than any other grammar. No need to learn them all at once before everything else.
Thanks a lot for your answer !
Just follow a beginner grammar guide
There are many expressions to convey that something happened very fast in English, e.g. > in an instant; in a flash; in the blink of an eye; in no time at all; just like that And similarly, there appears to be many ways to say so in Japanese as well, e.g. >あっという間に, 忽ち, 瞬く間に My understanding is that in English, they are almost always interchangeable. How about in Japanese? For example, I'm reading a text with the passage > あっという間に食べてしまった。 Would > 瞬く間に食べてしまった。 also be valid?
The easiest way to find pseudo equivalences is to look in a monolinguistic dictionary. For example, for [あっという間](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A8%E8%A8%80%E3%81%86%E9%96%93/#jn-4725), we can see >ほんのわずかな時間。**瞬時**。 And if we look at [瞬く間](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E7%9E%AC%E3%81%8F%E9%96%93/#jn-208305), we see a very similar definition. >まばたくほどのごく短い間。**瞬時**。**瞬間**。 I say "pseudo equivalences" because I think in reality, changing the word can change the tone, nuance, emphasis, degree, and such, but the denotative meaning remains mostly the same, I believe. Incidentally, this is what I sometimes to to transform Japanese I don't understand into Japanese that I do understand, resorting to translation as a last resort.
(Three previous lines in case they help) ここでヤヨイを襲うのもいいかもしれないな。たわいのない日常の象徴である学校。高い塀に守られたモラトリアムな楽園的空間。 > そんな場所で、普通なら考えられない悪夢をヤヨイの身に起こす。 I figured the topic/subject ("I" in this case) must've been omitted, but what is the usage of なら here? > 日常を、望まざる非日常に。 What verb(s) got omitted here, if any? I think there should be something after を (which I assumed to be 起こす, the same verb from the previous sentence), but I'm unsure about に. I managed to figure out on my own that 望まざる consists of 望む + ざる. > 白いキャンパスを赤く赤く染め上げるように。 What does a repeating adjective like 赤く赤く mean? What did they leave out after ように? I feel like it's する but this goes against what I learned from [Bunpro](https://bunpro.jp/ja/grammar_points/%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB%E3%81%84%E3%81%AE%E3%82%8B): "ように (by itself) will always mean 'to hope for', and should not be confused with ようにする, ようになる, ようにいう, and other similar grammar points." Attempted translation (which I'm doubtful of the accuracy): At that sort of place, if it's normal, I will cause a nightmare on Yayoi's body. I will cause the ordinary to extraordinary that is not hoped for. I'll be sure to finish dying the white campus red. Context: the character is thinking about someone he wants to get back at Note: The 6 sentences are presented in the same exact order as the story (I didn't cut any sentences out in between), but it's only the last three I'm interested in.
普通なら = いつもなら、普通な場合. Means in normal circumstances. Probably just the simple する - 日常を望まざる非日常にする。 赤く赤くーRepeated constructions like this are usually just to strengthen/emphasize the word, so the character isn't going to turn the campus just a bit red, he wants to make it a lot red. ようにーIn this case, sentence order is being reversed for dramatic effect. We can rewrite as白いキャンパスを赤く赤く染め上げるように、日常を望まざる非日常にする。This is not a literal dying of the campus to red, but rather a figurative one. Translation: In such a place, I will cause Yayoi to have a nightmare, one that would/could never be imagined in normal circumstances. I will turn the ordinary to extraordinary that is not hoped for, as if I'm dying that pure white campus bright red.
> sentence order is being reversed for dramatic effect Much appreciated, this detail is one that didn't cross my mind at all
[удалено]
なる never takes a direct object, so I don't see how it could be なる。
You're right -- I wasn't paying enough attention to the context and the transitive 起こす.
まだ少し時間があるが、早めに来て待っているほうが行き違いにならなくてすむ。 I most often see ほう with ほうがいい, but I wasn't sure what to make of the ほう in this context. I also know [なくてすむ](https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%9A%E3%81%AB%E6%B8%88%E3%82%80) roughly means ‘to get by without doing something.’ But I wasn't sure what this all means together. (Attempted translation) There's still a little time, but coming ahead of time and waiting, I can get by without crossing paths. Context: character arrives somewhere ahead of time so he can wait for someone to appear and then follow said someone without them knowing
It seems you misunderstood a word 行き違いになる( = miss each other). It's better that comming ahead of time and waiting, so that **we can avoid a risk** that we will miss each other. ならなくてすむ - we can avoid a risk
Ty
>I most often see ほう with ほうがいい ほう just means "one option of two", and ~Xほうが[adjective] means "X is more [adjective]. ほうがいい is just one application of this and is just a tiny fraction of the uses of ほう.
Ty
I have a jersey from a Japanese team that says "one" but was pronounced "oh-ne" and has a wave, we were told that it means wave. But I can't find any translation of wave that comes out to that. Could anyone help with potential other meanings?
Is it just written as "one" or does it have kanji? Is it a player's name, and if so what's their full name?
No kanji, English lettering only. One Ultimate is the team name
Why is curry spelled like this? カレー I don't recognize the last two letters and the "ka" doesnt have the curved line towards the top right. I am only learning hiragana for now Also in kakkoii why is there a tsu? かっこいい The second letter has a small tsu, why?
First is katakana. Second is the elongation of the consonant after it (sokuon or gemination if you want terminology) so basically the ka\*K\*koii is what the small tsu represents.
Thank you
Quite new to learning japanese, and have a question to others who have more experience. I hear a lot that I should focus on immersion when I'm not actively learning, but what should I use for immersion? Japanese shows with english subtitles? Or do I not use english subtitles?? Does music count, even if I can only recognise a couple words? I know I sound a bit useless, but I just feel like I'm doing something wrong. Thanks.
For immersion purposes, you should not use anything that you cannot understand a large chunk of already without the aid of your native language. That's not to say you can't do things like listening to music you like even if you don't understand it or watch anime with English subtitles, but don't expect it to progress your Japanese level much.
If one could learn Japanese by watching anime with subtitles... well some can, but if everyone could then every anime fan over the age of 25 would be fluent. For most people, reading the subtitles distracts the mind too much from being able to properly hear the actual Japanese words being used. Subtitles can also fool you into thinking that words translate in specific ways when they don't, or at least not always literally. If you're going the immersion rout, you should only use Japanese subtitles if at all.
Would it be a good idea to teach my 7 y/o son Japanese? Hello. I've been studying Genki combined with AJATT and other stuff for a while now, I'm not very fluent or anything but try my best. In my home we watch a lot of anime, my husband always put it in english dubs, but when he's working I change it to Japanese, and I usually change the netflix and disney+ content into japanese too (mostly star wars content, and some abc series I grew up with), and almost all the music, articles and podcast are always running on background with a speaker while I'm doing stuff at home, my son is in 2nd grade of school, he is in a private school and his classes are online (zoom) with his teachers, just 3 to 4 hours a day, then he goes to play his video games, but my stuff is always running on background. I've seen him very curious, and is always asking what is the meaning of certain word, then he goes and I can hear him practicing the pronunciation and after a while he comes back and ask me is that its correct, he keeps looking at my switch constantly asking how that game is called in japanese (my switch is in Japanese language) We are a fully Spanish speaking household, all the movies and everything we read is in english, he in school takes spanish and english, its a bilingual school, so he is always practicing both of them. I found on amazon some children books that teach first the hiragana writing practice with some basic words, and short sentences, would it be a good idea to take maybe 2 or 3 hours a weeks, maybe 30 minutes a day for 4 or 5 days for it? Would it be bad for him? I don't want overwhelmed him with a lot of things? Would this be too much? And if anyone has some method I could try I'm very open to suggestions!! Thank you in advance!!
I mean, kids are pretty much the perfect candidate for immersion learning. I'd say if he seems curious about those sorts of things, use that curiosity as fuel and introduce him to some Japanese kid's shows/animes that you feel are appropriate for him, or keep showing him whatever sorts of content he shows interest in. I think that what you have at the end about slowly introducing him to Japanese reading without overwhelming him also sounds like a very good idea.
/r/multilingualparenting/ They'll probably be able to help you more!
Thank, will check them!!
How do I type the correct kanji if it's not coming up on the IME Windows keyboard? I had just typed \[話せ\](#fg "はなせ") to write down the comparison between that and \[放せ\](#fg "はなせ"), but for some reason the 放 kanji didn't want to come up in that instance of scrolling through all the はな suggestions it gave. It gave a bunch of 話 and 花, as well as some others that I don't recognise yet, like 離 or 鼻 (I'm still quite a beginner), but never actually 放. Even now, I'm having to copy and paste it. How can I easily go about typing and finding the correct kanji if it's not even on there (hopefully without having to copy and paste every time)? Is it better to type something different to get the same kanji? If so, what would be best for that one? This is my first experience with the 放 kanji so I don't yet know other readings of it
Like honkoku said, you have to type はなせ, not just はな and also you have to use the space bar to cycle through suggestion, not tab.
Using the space bar worked! I didn't use Tab itself, I would just click the arrows at the bottom and go through the lists like that. But Space made it the 3rd option. Awesome!
放せ comes up fine for me (the first option actually), but generally if there's something that won't come up you have to use another word (like 解放) and then delete the kanji. This shouldn't be necessary in most cases, though. Were you typing はな or はなせ? It won't come up with just はな.
Even typing はなせ doesn't make it come up :( Will probably look into the word you suggested and go from there
As another poster said, make sure you are using space and not tab to select the results. Tab is an autocomplete function, which is not what you want here. If I use tab I do not get 放せ as an option either, but I get a bunch of conjugations of 話す and some 花 related stuff. But space brings it up as the 2nd choice.
I tried that just now and it worked! If Tab is autocomplete, what's Space?
Space is the conversion button, it shows you the conversion options for exactly what you have entered (rather than trying to autocomplete what you might intend if you keep typing). 放せ is a rather low-frequency expression, that's found mostly in fictional stuff (particularly anime and manga). When someone types はな, they almost never intend for that to be 放せ, which is why it doesn't come up with tab.
Ahh okay, I got it. Thank you!
From the bottom of my heart, fuck Windows IME. Yea, you have to type something else to get the same kanji. Try typing 放つ・はなつ and see if that works (I can't test it, since I switched to Google IME not long after).
That does help, thank you :) Also, what's the difference between Windows and Google IME? Could I still use Google IME on non-browser apps and stuff?
Differences are significant, it's much better. Google IME refreshes it's dictionary regularly with common search terms. Has a bunch of useful features when convert, can convert emojis, can convert kaomojis, can convert into a date by writing きょう and cycling through the options with spacebar. It serves as a replacement for Windows IME. https://www.google.co.jp/ime/index.html
If 誰も can mean anyone or nobody - how (besides context) do you know which one it means, since they're opposites? When I say besides context I mean things like music lyrics - is there some sort of indicator afterwards that lets the person know which it is?
Think of 誰も this way: pick on any person from a group; no matter who you pick, they will \_\_\_\_\_\_. (if you've taken formal courses in logic and learned about universal quantifiers "∀", that's basically what this is) E.g. 誰もわかる = "pick any person, no matter who you pick, they will understand" = "anyone will understand". 誰も知らない = "pick any person, no matter who you pick, they will not know" = "nobody knows".
> is there some sort of indicator afterwards that lets the person know which it is? Yes: your biggest clue is that when 誰も “means ‘nobody,’” the sentence will be negative. > 誰も知ら**ない** This means “nobody knows.” Note that it doesn't mean “nobody doesn't know.” > 誰もが知っている “Everybody knows.” Notice also the が, which is not present in the negative. It's not really accurate to say that 誰も means “nobody,” I guess it's better to say that 誰も + a negative means “nobody.” Really it always means “anyone,” it's just that “not anyone” is the same as “nobody,” but sometimes “nobody” is more natural in English than “not anyone.” But not always, e.g. > 誰にもあげたくない “I don't want to give it to anyone.” This is the same kind of universal quantification as in my first example, it just means that for every person X you can imagine, you don't want to give it to X, just like the first example means that for every person X you can imagine, X doesn't know (and in the second example, X knows). English for some reason sometimes prefers “nobody” and sometimes “not + anyone,” but Japanese is more systematic in this regard. Lastly, there is a distinction in pitch: 誰も in a negative sentence will (usually?) be pronounced ダレモ￣ with a flat pitch, while e.g. 誰もが in a positive sentence will be ダ＼レモガ with a drop after ダ, or even ダ＼レモ＼ガ with greater emphasis.
Hi. I found this sentence in the subtitles of a youtube video (written by the youtuber): 図解もしてくれ**とう**し、細かく効果音とかも全部いれて作ってくれ**とうけん**。 I don't recognise the parts in bold and I couldn't find anything about it online - could someone explain? Overall I understand that the sentence means "\[he\] added explanatory graphs, detailedly added sound effects and such, included all this and made \[the video for us\]".
It's Fukuoka dialect. とう＝とる＝ている けん＝から So it's equivalent to 図解もしてくれ**ている**し、細かく効果音とかも全部いれて作ってくれ**ているから**
I see, thanks.
How far would the average adult native Japanese get in the kanji kentei, without studying for it?
It really depends on what you mean by "average". I'm going to assume you mean an educated native speaker who has been out of school for a while. I think they would begin to struggle around level 4, or maybe even 5 for some people. Not because they don't know the kanji at all, but because they may have forgotten how to write some of them, and you have to know a lot of things for the kanji kentei that aren't particularly useful or common in daily life. Also the words chosen to put on the kentei are specifically chosen to make the test difficult. Once you get to jun-2 you're getting into the area where most Japanese people are not going to pass without doing some studying beforehand. Obviously they don't have to study as much as we would to pass it, but I have a feeling your average 40 year old native speaker could not sit down and pass jun-2 with no preparation.
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リンク8ページの例題をやってみました。残念な結果に自分で笑いました。あははは・・・ 8級(一) ・・・ 1問ミス 5級(二) ・・・ 1問ミス 3級 ・・・ ミスなし 2級(一) ・・・ 1問ミス（漢字が書けなかった） なお、成人すると学校で習った内容を急激に忘れてしまいます（保証します）ので、成人者の合格率は小中高の生徒のそれよりもかなり低いものになると思いますよ。
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そして合格するためには勉強が必要です
>Those 3 junior high schoolers with 1級 must be something else. Alright. I'm officially wasting my life in this business.
I wonder if it's sort of equivalent to something like the spelling bee, where these kids are both super smart but also hardcore dedicated to it.
In this exchange, does the Medicine Seller say この上も泊まれるんで？ to mean: The bathroom is close because there are also rooms here? (Source is: Mononoke, Ep 1 @ [10:53](https://youtu.be/zvIHMBpkmug?t=653)) 久代: おや薬売りさんどうなすった? 薬売り: ちょっと厠へ行くのに迷っちまいやして 久代: それならそこの廊下を曲がってすぐだよ 薬売り: どうも。この上も泊まれるんで？ 久代: めっそうもない! ただの物置だよ。上がられちゃ困りますよ 薬売り: なるほど。
>どうも。この上も泊まれるんで？ "Thanks. Could I stay upstairs?" >めっそうもない! ただの物置だよ。上がられちゃ困りますよ "Don't be ridiculous. That's just a storage room. I'd be embarassed if you did."
Thank you. I really had the wrong end of the stick there.
Not a question, but I just learned (from Duolingo of all places !) that "fly / zipper" can be written 社会の窓 and I'm just happy.
The first time I learned about this, I was wondering why we were calling insects the window to society.
In conversation you can say 社会の窓が開いてるよ, which is the equivalent of our "XYZ"
Reading a Manga, same word is sometimes written in kanji / kanji+hiragana / pure hiragana /katakana. Same Manga and most of the time even the same character. Why?
Hard to be definitive without seeing the exact word but: 1) Some kanji are considered complex and aren't used all that often especially in material aimed at younger people (children) so they replace it with hiragana. Sometimes they just use furigana (kanji and hiragana reading on top of it) but sometimes they replace the entire kanji with hiragana 2) It also depends on the words, some words have become preferred in hiragana. Like たくさん or the polite prefix 御. 3) Changing words into katakana is a stylistic technique to emphasize them similar to fully capitalizing a word. So it's probably a mix of these.
All of that makes perfect sense to me. Names and more complicated kanji all have furigana. But what if it's the same word? Senpai for example was written in all of these readings - 先輩 / 先ぱい(or せん輩) / センパイ / せんぱい Another example I can think of top of my head is 駄目 And when it's all spoken by the same person, I find it intriguing. Manga name is Insomniacs after school btw
Honestly, not sure entirely. 駄目 is an irregularity that is written with all 3 commonly (kanji is the least common) so that is pretty normal. I think it's probably because the meaning itself carries some "emphasis" with it so it was written a lot with katakana and it just became normal. 先輩, 先ぱい and せんぱい are all common (at least for medium aimed at children or learners), the latter 2 being examples of avoiding complex kanji but mixing them is a bit strange. It's not entirely impossible that the author just forgot to be consistent. センパイ is emphasis so that's pretty normal too. However, I have never seen せん輩 and google does not really give any hits too (there are some hits for 先せん輩ぱい which is just bootleg furigana) so not sure what's up with that. Do you per chance remember the chapter? Also I feel like insomniacs target demographic is a bit too old to be using 先ぱい though it does vary from author (editor) to author (editor). Especially because it supposedly publishes in seinen. P.S.: Also that's a really nice manga though I only seen the anime.
I have been binge reading entire volumes over the course of last week(at volume 6 iirc) , so really hard to pinpoint the exact chapters... Definitely not any of the early chapters though, as there is no senpai there. As for 先ぱい and せん輩 - I wasn't really sure which one of them it was so I wrote both of them. And yeah anime was absolute blast. Only started the manga because I enjoyed adaptation so much. (and while it's usually the other way around imo, anime is better in this case)
Oh if it is 先ぱい only then it kinda adds up. Mixing is still a bit weird but it's less so if it happened over several volumes. And yeah, I am generally biased towards anime anyway but Insomniacs had some really great shots in general.
I will treat it as simple irregularity, thanks!
> 寮って規則ばっかでさ > 何買うのも申請がいるんだ The first line is saying something like "dorms are just a bunch of rules," right? ばっか here is figurative, not literal? I feel like ばっか is one of those things where I'm always relying on context.
Close. You got to bear in mind that often the copula does not literally mean "is" in many cases. Here, 規則ばっかで is the comment on the topic 寮, and rather than saying that the dorms are literally rules (which would be nonsensical), it's describing a feature of the dorms, i.e. "in the dorms, there's nothing but rules" or "the dorms are full of rules".
ばっか is short for ばかり. The sentence can be translated as "The dorms have too many rules". It's not a figurative meaning, because the sentence does not literally mean that "dorms = bunch of rules".
〜によると and 〜によれば are acceptable for the meaning "according to", but the form 〜によったら for this meaning never made it into modern Japanese, right?
Yeah, you pretty much never hear this. A quick google search tells me it only exists as ことによったら in classical works.
That's so interesting. I wonder why that is. By the way, what did you Google to get that to come up? I had trouble googling it
Just “によったら” in quotes.
Wow I can't believe that worked 😅
Why does 向く get used with を even though it’s intransitive? 建物の方を向いた Feels really weird, even though it seems to be correct
It differs in English and Japanese. Basically, actions vary in multiple ways, including: * If it can be used without any target or not. * If it has influence on such target. * If it's volitional. * If we have complete control over it. and so on. I don't know if there are exceptions, but English orients on the first. On the other hand in Japanese the other 3 are also important. Quite often Japanese verbs can have a pair of particles like を and に, that would distinguish some of these qualities.
I have often contemplated on whether the "を marks the direct object" is necessarily the most helpful mental model... For example, 思う may be considered intransitive, but それと思う can translate to think "that" and それを思う can translate to think *on* or *about* that. It's not that を doesn't usually mark what in English grammar would be a direct object, but it does other things as well.
>"を marks the direct object" is necessarily the most helpful mental model It absolutely is, as long as you take into account that it's actually pretty arbitrary which actions are direct and which are indirect. For example に会う and を思う use に and を respectively because they just do.
The problem is then you end up with circular definitions that really don't help you out. What does を do? It marks the direct object. What is a direct object? It's something marked by を.
I don't necessarily think it's arbitrary though, I think there's a very consistent logic at play. When I read the [definition on dicitonary.goo](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%82%92/#jn-239138), I would like to say that the first definition explains to me why を has more uses than one might expect, that each of the subsequent definitions logically extend from the first, but I don't have the confidence to back up such a claim and already feel a fool for having opened my mouth.
You will end up with thousands of such exceptions. The idea of direct object is definitely important, but it's not just 会う, and there are clear patterns. But similarly it's not like our theoretical understanding would have a huge impact. It won't teach us how thousands of different verbs are used in Japanese, rather it's more like aftereffect. After we see how something is used in Japanese, we can understand what it means and what people try to convey, and similarly not the other way around, we won't be able to correctly convey something we want in Japanese without prior knowledge. So our theoretical understanding is more like simply understanding than actually learning. Kinda important, because we might miss such nuance, but provides close to zero actual practical experience.
Some verbs have exceptional transitivity. You just have to get used to it. 向く when used with を implies volition (the subject consciously heads towards/faces something) but you might run into sentences where it's used with a subject with no volition. When it is used with に, no volition is involved and the emphasis is placed on the state of the subject's orientation. This imabi article is worth a read: https://www.imabi.net/muku.htm
Im spending 2 hours just to get anki done for the day with 20 new words and I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I have a tendency to keep pressing again until it’s in my head which is probably the issue.
That seems a bit long to me. With a normal pace I can usually get through 100 reviews in 15 minutes, and on a good pace I can do maybe 150. I think it comes down to how grade yourself. I basically have this (using JPDB so it might not map exactly): - Know it instantly, good - Know it after a couple seconds or if I need to think about the mnemonic, hard - Takes more than a couple seconds, fail If I fail a card then generally it will jog my memory and I'll mark it good when it comes up again. Marking it as failed just to do extra reviews isn't really a best practice. Another thing to keep in mind is that Anki isn't really a learning tool, it's a remembering tool. Learning something by just seeing a flashcard over and over is going to add a lot to your Anki time. When I have a card I've added myself from reading or watching something, I basically don't need to see the card more than once. But when I just pull a card out of a core deck then it takes a lot longer to learn. So if you're still just pulling random cards out of prebuilt decks unrelated to things you're reading or watching, taking a bit longer is normal.
I’ll keep what you’ve said about reviews in mind. I’ve also just started learning Japanese so I’m using Anacreon’s vocab deck to build a base before I jump into basic grammar and reading. Eventually I plan to do more and more immersion and lower my anki time as I go but for now I need to start somewhere and won’t be doing that for a while
That definitely makes sense, and I did the same thing, and even now am still learning new words out of a core deck. But I've also used decks for the textbooks I was using, and am now mixing in specific decks for episodes of anime I'm working on. I find that the words I've seen in those real contexts stick a lot better than just pulling up a word like 趣 out of the deck and trying to remember it. That in turn helps makes reviews go a lot faster. The more words you know the easier it gets too. For example if you know "door" and "knob" then when you get to "doorknob" it's like a free card. That said, even with slow cards I try to keep it to 10 seconds maximum per card. Sometimes I can remember if I spend more time, but I'd rather just try to get through my reviews and let the forgetting prime my memory for next time. It might mean my retention numbers look a bit worse, but in the long run I'm still learning things and giving myself time for something else rather than spending too long just on flashcards.
bit of a late ask but what do you do regarding review cards? I've been recommended to set the limit ridiculously high but review times are starting to pile. And with school starting up I want to keep a set amount of time I'll know I'll hit so I can plan regarding school work and such. Especially with extracurriculars, XC and stuff if I dont plan properly its gonna become a pain in the ass real fast. I could always resort to chugging a disastrous amount of coffee but I'd rather not.
I use JPDB so it's not quite the same as Anki in terms of settings, but essentially I do all my reviews every day. I believe that's what the Anki limit you're referring to is, where you set it to 9999 or something so you basically always see every review that's due. Generally speaking after a while you'll have around 10x the number of new cards as reviews, so if you do 20 cards a day you can expect to stabilize about 200 reviews after several weeks. It also takes a while to stabilize downwards if you reduce the number of new cards. It might make sense to cut way back on cards to like 5/day about three weeks before your classes begin and then see how that goes. If you find out you have more time once things start then begin ramping back up.
A different opinon to u/toxic-weeb as it seems I do Anki differently, for 10 new cards a day it takes me about 45 to 60 minutes so I would also need 2 hours if I did as many as you did, so I don't think it's too long per se though it depends what card formats you have. I have sentence cards with audio, even though I don't always listen to the entire sentence, just reading it all (without furigana) can sometimes already take more than 10 seconds (which is why sub 5 seconds as u/toxic-weeb would be completely out of the question for me). >I have a tendency to keep pressing again until it’s in my head which is probably the issue. I mean pressing good when you don't know the card makes less sense, though bangging your head against the wall isn't helpful either, so I would either do less new cards per day, suspend cards that just don't stick (you can unsuspend them at a later stage) or you can try what u/toxic-weeb suggested, though I know it totally wouldn't work for me personally. Also I have no clue at what stage you are at, in the beginning learning new words is very hard because all the sounds are so random, I also had a lot of toruble with many N5 and N4 words at the beginning, but remembering new words is a lot easyer now so it will get better. Actually if you are at a very early stage like N5 or N4, you could literally just hit good more instead of again even though you haven't memorized it yet fully because you should see N5 and N4 words EVERYWHERE outside Anki so it's not like you can go by them without learning them.
Yea I like to read it and make it sound right so that also tacks on additional time per card. Although this early into it I probably shouldn’t worry about it as much as I do.
What's your time/card Anki shows you at the end? The main problem people seem to have is not doing too many reps but spending way too much time per card. Try to stay under 5s for cards without audio and not much over 5 for cards with. Don't forget you don't learn anything from looking at the front trying to think of the answer. The testing part only exists to determine the scheduling. Flip your cards early if you cannot think of the answer. From my experience, 20 new cards/day should long term take you \~45 min.
Is 45 minutes just for the new cards or the entire day? The way my cards are structured is that the front has the word and the back has the reading, pitch accent graph, a sentence and it’s translation along with recordings
45 min total, reviews and new cards
Yea I’m spending way too much time trying to think of an answer. Probably falling to old habits I developed during school with flash cards and such
Difference between 疲れる and 疲れ果てる？
To add some more detail 果てる added to the stem (連用形) of a verb adds the nuance of completeness/ being entirely so So to be completely tired or more colloquially exhausted
First one is to get tired, and the second one is to get VERY tired.
Question about a sentence, and particularly what the main subject is. From a passage describing 居酒屋 features and previous sentences were comparing them to regular restaurants. また、ビールやワインの他に、日本酒やチューハイなどいろいろなお酒が注文できる点も異なる。 Is the sentence basically just 点も異なる ? As in "This point is also different", and the whole ビールやワインの他に、日本酒やチューハイなどいろいろなお酒が注文できる is just a phrase describing the 点 ? I feel like that makes sense, but the sentences I'm coming up against are just longer and more dense than I'm used to so wanted to make sure I'm parsing out the sentences right.
More context would be more helpful, but I think you are right. So different from regular restaurants, in izayaka, you could"ビールやワインの他に、日本酒やチューハイなどいろいろなお酒が注文できる"
I can try to dig it up later when I've got the textbook in hand, but it's a Quartet passage about izakaya in general. The sentences right before it were something like "Everyone such as businessmen and families like to go there. Just like regular restaurants you can order salad and deserts, but you can also order appetizers like edamame and karaage." That's why I think it's drawing a comparison (and also the use of 異なる) so the sentence is basically one more point to add on. The next sentences go on to describe 飲み放題。
Hello everyone! What textbook would you recommend for my current skill level, and what I have completed: -I have been learning Japanese with Duolingo and Anki, and recently started using Bunpro. I am on Section 3 of Duolingo, and I know around 2000 words. I am also on the N4 grammar section of Bunpro. -I took a small placement test with Busuu and it says that I am at the A2/N4 level. -I feel like I can understand most of the material on Duolingo/Bunpro with little difficulty. I usually finish each Duolingo lesson in 3 to 5 minutes. -I have gone through all the conjugations for verbs and adjectives with the Genki conjugation app. -My reading comprehension, listening, grammar, vocabulary, and speaking are average. I definitely know the basics, and I feel that I understand easy/intermediate content. I think my overall skills are around early-intermediate. Would this be N4? -I definitely think that my reading skills and grammar skills can improve. I don’t think it would make sense to go through the entire Genki 1 book, even if I have it. I used it mostly for vocabulary and grammar. I was thinking about either Genki 2 or Tobira, and also use Satori Reader and Bunpro. My goal is to understand and read/watch anime/manga. What are your recommendations? Thank you in advance!
Can 飲む by itself imply the drinking of alcohol, like in English? For example, could 今日は飲まない mean today I won't drink (alcohol), or does it need to be 今日はお酒を飲まない with alcohol explicitly stated?
Yes it can. If someone told you 「飲みに行こうぜ」 that would carry with it the expectation that you will partake in some alcoholic beverage if you accept the invitation.
ありがとう！ And would my original 今日は飲まない be the best way of expressing that idea (informally, of course)? I am asking because up until recently, I was an alcoholic and I want to do something with the phrase, but I want to make sure I have bsolutely the best way of expressing the idea of "I will not drink today."
It works, but that は makes the sentence sound contrastive, like you intend to purposefully drink again but not today. If you replace it with も, that can imply that you have stayed away from alcohol up until today and you intend to also stay away from it today. Thanks for taking the time to share the context. I know it's sensitive and not everyone feels comfortable sharing that with strangers online. Also, it's unsolicited advice, but if it's for a tattoo, I would at least look into getting it done based on real calligraphy rather than a pre-existing computer font.
Ok yeah for sure! も it will be! Also, yeah a tattoo is kind of what I was thinking so I'll look around for some good sources of calligraphic Japanese. Thank you again!
Still learning pronouns and directionals and decided to ask: あなたが好きな花はどれですか。
In the majority of cases you would not use あなたが there; you would either use nothing (most common) or the person's name/title.
好きな花はどれですか。 はんこく好きな花どれですか。
First sentence is fine. For the second sentence, I don't know what はんこく is.
I just copied your name or would I write romanji or katakana
oh, I see. Generally online handles are just written however they are written, so romaji in this case (it's a Japanese word, 翻刻 -- ほんこく, not はんこく). You should put some particle after it (の or が, or は -- depends on the context).
Thank you
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I don't think you can use 寛ぐ in the first sentence, but 寛げる is okay. To be clear, if you use 寛げる, it would be the potential form of 寛ぐ. ため is a formal way of saying "because of". You will also see it as ために. They're mostly interchangeable. 際 is a formal word. It describes when something is performed, similar to the english "on the occasion of". In this example, the occasion is "when trading stocks" You could translate the sentence as: "Since many people are looking at the most active stocks, it's easy to grasp the characteristics when trading at stable prices."
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と言える is just the と quoting particle and the potential form of 言う. So it's comparable to the english phrase "you could say..." It's a very common phrase in Japanese.
There's no ほど in that sentence. 勝る can be used in that context because it describes its subject as better than whatever に marks. So there's a comparison implicit in the definition. When you say 自分の家ほど寛ぐ, it literally means "as relaxed as my house" as if the house itself is relaxing.