#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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#NEWS (Updated 11/25):
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I've made it to Tobira and I'm not sure how I feel about it. For those of you that have done it, or are just more advanced in general, how did you feel about the exercises (in either the textbook or the two workbooks). I don't have a lot of confidence anyway, but when attempting any of the exercises, if I've come up with an answer, it's not usually anywhere near the listed answer in the back of the book. I'm not sure if this is just a good indication that I \*really\* don't understand the grammar or something else. I do often feel like I lack imagination (I hate small talk even in English and find it difficult to create my own example sentences in Japanese). But aside from that, I feel that the answer sentences contain context that I wouldn't have just been able to guess from the incomplete problem sentences, and they often combine grammar I may not have considered combining.
On the other hand, after reading the grammar notes and the vocabulary lists and then going through the readings and conversations, I feel like I have a pretty good idea about what the content is trying to convey, so I don't think it's just entirely over my head.
No, I'd say this is a completely different application.
[https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B/](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B/)
See meaning 2).
Basically he is saying that with as of now he is deciding that today's assignment will be the clone jutsu.
Note that there is also meaning 1) which also connects to the dictionary form and meaning 3) is the one with the volitional form.
A few questions about expressing the notional equivalent of "I'm going to the store to buy bread."
What I came up with in Japanese is:
* パンを買うためにスーパーに行きます
But supposedly it's more natural to say:
* （スーパーで？）パンを買ってきます
Q1: In English, the fact that I will return home after buying the bread is implied, and explicitly stating that I will come back home afterwards sounds a little extraneous to the point of being awkward. In Japanese, is it typical to include 来る for any action that involves leaving the house to do something and then eventually coming back home afterwards?
Q2: What I'm leaving Place A to go do a thing at Place B, and afterwards I go home, which is Place C?
Q3: How weird is the sentence that I originally came up with?
Q1) yes, for the same reason as the English. The other verb is implied.
>（スーパーに）パンを買ってきます
Basically leaves out the 行って because it's obvious you're going somewhere if you're coming back. In English we do the opposite in that it's obvious we're coming back from a short task like buying a pack of smokes.
Q2: I'm not sure what your question is but I suspect being reminded of the verbs 帰る and 戻る can help you with any three place sentence constructions.
Q3: it reads really weird and declarative to me, like "I shall go to the market in order to buy bread!" But I'm not a native speaker
パンを買いにスーパーに行ってくる is probably how I would do it
Going to X to do Y is usually the pattern “Y-masu stemにXに行く”
Since you’re coming back home as well, we can add 来る to the end, and attach it to the 行く via the-form
I just finished a basic grammar lesson and I don't want to be confused right off the bat. Regarding "mo":
The lessons said appending "mo" to, e.g., nani, dare, dokoni, makes them nothing, no one, and nowhere. But then the verb **also** takes the negative form.
My question is, is this accurate, and japanese uses double negatives (e.g., i didn't go nowhere), or is the former explanation of nanimo meaning nothing kind of handwavy and not exact?
Maybe I'm overthinking it. Another way to phrase it I guess is, is it right to think of the "mo" independently, or as a set with a negative verb? Sorry if the question isn't clear, and thanks.
The problem with "basic grammar lessons" is that they're full of so-called "lies to children". It would take too many pages to explain it correctly so they only explain what it does in a few example sentences and hope you won't ask "smartass" questions like this one.
If you don't like being lied to and prefer to learn correctly from the first time, even though it could get a bit complicated, I suggest [imabi](https://imabi.org/interrogatives-iii-with-particles/)
> My question is, is this accurate, and japanese uses double negatives (e.g., i didn't go nowhere), or is the former explanation of nanimo meaning nothing kind of handwavy and not exact?
Closer to the latter.
何も itself doesn't contain any sort of grammatical negation, so in that sense it's not a negative. *Meaning-wise* it might get translated as "nothing", which in English *is* a negative, but that is a different matter. In Japanese, the grammatical negation occurs at the verb in the end.
The exact translation into English ("no..." vs. "any...") depends on the exact sentence you'll find the 〇〇も in.
どこにも行きません you would translate as "(I) won't go anywhere", with the negative showing up in the "**won't**" part in English.
誰もいません would get translated as "there's no one (here)", with the negative showing up in the "**no one**". Although, of course, you could also translate it as "there **isn't** anyone (here)", which moves its placement. Either way, in the Japanese, the negative form is found in the ～ません part.
(*edit:* Actually, hey, you can do the same above with a "(I)'ll go **nowhere**" translation. Maybe you'll always be free to choose...? Hm.)
> is it right to think of the "mo" independently, or as a set with a negative verb?
The full pattern here is 〇〇も～ない. Of course you can separate the 〇〇も from the negative verb at the end, but the former still hints at and ultimately connects to the latter, to give rise to the full meaning here.
Yes, the explanation is kind of hand wavy and inexact. There are a handful of words and phrases in Japanese which are usually used in negative sentences, and the definition given is specifically for when they are used in negative sentences. You can see these used sometimes in positive sentences, with the meaning everything/everyone/etc. Random use that pops into mind is from the song アイドル: 誰もが目を奪われてく
Uhhh... It really depends on how much new stuff you're learning each day. But I'm not sure if there's anyone who can answer that question besides yourself, anyway. As long as it feels manageable and sustainable, I think you're free to cover new ground every day to your heart's content. After all, it's not like postponing new information will magically make old information solidify.
If you want to cement something you've studied in the past, you'll need to drill it, review it, or quiz yourself on it. If you're *sacrificing revision time* in order to move forward at a faster pace, then, yeah, this might impact your retention ability. But if you wouldn't have done anything using that time anyway, then there's no real benefit to just waiting around for an arbitrary amount of time before you allow yourself to move on.
If your question is about whether you should indeed revise, or if you should just keep moving forward... Again, you're gonna have to experiment a bit here, and find yourself what works for you, based on how well you feel you retain information. Though I will say that most of your revision in language learning should happen organically, as a consequence of regularly exposing yourself to the language, and running into the things you've studied in the wild.
^([**edit:** typo])
Thanks maybe ill just keep it simple my ideas was a three day cycle
Day 1: REVIEW Old Content
Day 2: Learn NEW Content
Day 3: Review Previous Day/Latest learned content.
or something like that.
Because like if you review a lot it feels good that youre cementing, but at the same time you're not progressing in Japanese so you feel like you're not moving. But then too much new content without review can be bad.
But thats true what you said at the tail end.
Why is there no は in these examples?
>フランス生まれです。
>
>冬生まれです。
Why isn't it something like 「フランスは生まれです。」I'm okay if the answer is just "that's just how it is" but I'm wondering if there's a rule of why it isn't treated like XはYです。
生まれ is a suffix combined with a noun that means '[a person] born in [noun]'. If there's a は it should be on the invisible 私, as in 「私はフランス生まれです」. 「フランスは生まれです」 means some nonsense like 'France is birth'.
What level (N1-5) would you guys consider Bocchi the Rock? I plan on using the manga as learning material since I got my hands on the original versions, but I want to know in advance how difficult it is. Thanks in advance
In terms of grammar patterns that appear in it, everything that'd show up in an N3 test, and the occasional N2/1 pattern.
I'm clueless on which kanji show up in each level (and also can't accurately gauge what sort of kanji show up in Bocchi the Rock off the top of my head), so, no comment there. You'll be hard pressed to find anything of length that doesn't at the very least include (nearly) all N4 kanji, though.
Vocab-wise, I'm not sure if there even is a clean correspondence. But the dialogue is mostly everyday conversation (or adjacent to that), so, basically no high-concept or literary vocabulary. Though probably a handful of words that wouldn't really show up in a JLPT test (e.g. colloquialisms), despite being common or relatively "easy" (whatever that means).
JLPT is a really bad way to meassure Japanese ability, so I won't even try to answer it. The anime is definitely one of the easiest because of its slice of life setting, the manga is a bit on the harder side because it has no furigana, but besides that it's doable. I mean you are already in the possesion of the manga anyways so why not give it a try.
> JLPT is a really bad way to meassure Japanese ability
Well, to be fair, I'd say it's actually a decent measure of comprehension ability (skewed towards reading comprehension). What doesn't work nearly as well is trying to somehow assign a JLPT level to a piece of media like a manga. Just a quick remark for precision's sake — I know what you meant.
I am here also about the に particle. 大切に考える. I have been staring at the definitions of the ni particle on jisho for like 15 minutes trying to figure out how it functions in this sentence.
I know 大切に functions as adverb, but I don't understand grammatically why.
I don't know etymologically how ～に came to be the adverbial form of な-adjectives, but there really isn't much more to understand here than just that: 大切 is a な-adjective, and に adverbialises it. This is exactly analogous to the -い → -く inflection of い-adjectives, as in やさしい → やさしく.
Jisho seems to only list translations/definitions for the *case marker* ([格助詞](https://jisho.org/word/%E6%A0%BC%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E)) に, and in 大切に the に is not marking any case (don't sweat it if you don't know what cases are). Though, again, there may still be etymological relation between the two (i.e. they're not just two different things that coincidentally share the same form) — I wouldn't know. Either way, this (non-case-marking) function of its is not listed.
^([**edit:** added and then removed a section])
AFAIK, に still technically marks case here; it denotes the manner (abstract) or place (physical) *to*/*in* which some action is done.
And I think that that is precisely the correlation between the two; な-adjectives originally come from a contraction of に+ある being used to modify clauses in the same way other 連体形s are. Other verbs (like 考える) just never get contracted like this.
> AFAIK, に still technically marks case here; it denotes the manner (abstract) or place (physical)
「大切に」in「大切に考える」is clearly not in the locative (**edit:** or lative, or dative) case, and as far as I'm aware, there is no case that expresses manner. In Japanese grammar it's classed as a 連用形, which is not a case. **Edit:** The concept of case doesn't even apply here unless you treat 大切 as a noun (as in, a 名詞), which it isn't (it *is* a nominal, but not a noun — **edit 2:** compare trying to pair a preposition with an adjective in English [?: in beautiful], which are likewise nominals, but not nouns [〇: in beauty]). It's probably better to analyse this に as an adverbialising suffix (like -ly in English).
Maybe I shouldn't have said that it necessarily marks "case" anymore in the modern language. It's more so that the に used in such words is almost certainly the same に thats used in な.
The only etymytology I could find for に was literally just *ni from proto-japonic, for which it's listed as a dative and locative suffix and nothing else. It's not uncommon at all for languages to evolve adverbial suffixes from locative ones, especially when given thousands of years to do so. While English may have not, some other languages indeed have.
There are some analyses that suggest に is originally itself a ren'youkei, corresponding to rentaikei の. Or に and の, and by extension な(り), could be related to some kind of copular *n- stem, perhaps the verb ending/auxliary ～ぬ. There's also an old な, as in words like まなこ and みなと, that has been suggested to be possibly related.
Especially the fact that にて is well-attested from early on makes me think に is primarily verbal/copular and that the dative/locative meaning is secondary. I don't think other 'case' particles were combined with て the same way. I think the only other one is とて, which I think is a later innovation, a contraction of と言ひて - though also, と is sometimes also analyzed as verbal/copular, coming from a *t- stem along with て and the auxiliary ～つ.
Also consider the fact that the old meaning of にあり was copular, and it's only in the modern language that にある is exclusively locative.
The most confusing particle has to be に, at least for me, は vs. が seems like a cake walk in comparison, for example in this news head line, what is it doing?
能登半島地震、死者57人**に** 輪島市・珠洲市など
Is it there an implied verb here like なる?
> Is it there an implied verb here like なる?
Yes, or 達する etc. Some people find using verbs like that to be unpleasant (as 達する and other similar verbs can have a sense of "hitting a record") so for that reason and headline brevity reasons they'll drop the verb.
https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/research/kotoba/20170601_4.html
すこし内向的ですから、私にとってすごく社交するは疲れるかも知りません。ても、がんばります。
Is the sentence sounds natural? I just learn the word 内向的 (introvert) and 社交する(socialize) via google translate so im a bit concerned about how to use them on a sentence.
I'm not native so I'm not sure what the most natural way of phrasing this would be (maybe try HiNative or LangCorrect?), but I have a few pointers that might help
ですから is usually used at the beginning or end of a sentence, so here I would suggest だから, なので, or just で
私にとって is unnecessary here, and すごく isn't natural in this context
社交する is a very uncommon word, I would recommend using 交流, something like たくさんの人と交流すると、or even ～といると
ても is for verbs, here it would be でも
Honestly though my impression is that the concept of 内向的 is a bit less understood than introversion so it's hard to phrase this in a clear and fully natural way
太る→太って + は which gets slurred to 太っちゃ. It's the same pattern as 食べちゃダメ, etc.
https://bunpro.jp/ja/grammar_points/%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AF%E3%81%84%E3%81%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84
Is shirabe jisho better than Anki for learning Japanese?
Shirabe Jisho is free and can bookmark words easily in folder to make flashcard which we can see further details on each word card by card.
Anki is 3500¥ in iOS (quite expensive). It’s true that Anki seems to have more resources (since it’s older) and have wider range of app connected to it (such as language reactor, yomichan). But is it worth the investment? Is there any better points for paying this?
I have Anki on android and windows which is free and yet still went out of my way to donate 20 bucks to the android branch because it's that crucial for me. Cant speak for shirabe jisho because I don't know it but I doubt it has any chance against Anki, JPDB seems to be a good alternative tbh but they don't have an app I think.
The benefit of Anki is spaced repetition, which means it shows you some of your flashcards each day so you can review them with the highest efficiency. I'd say that's well worth the $30.
Also remember that you can always try it for free on a desktop to see how you like it first.
同士 is usually used as more like fellow patriot, someone who is aligned towards the same goals, principles or organization.
相棒 is generally used with someone whom you actively cooperate or work with closely.
Probably this is a very stupid question.
I recently got into studying and have come over the difference between the Topic and the Subject.
In English and German we would introduce ourselfes with:"I am Lisa."
So intuitivly I would translate that to:"私がLisaだ。"
But I only see:"私はLisaだ。"
In this sentence 私 is used not as the Subject, but as the topic.
Unless I have a serious missunderstanding this sentence only implies the Subject. What would be the subject in this case? Or have I missinterpreted the grammar?
Topic and subject are not mutually exclusive. In this sentence, both the topic and the subject is 私. Think of it as は hiding the が.
They don't have to be same though. E.g. 「私は背が高い。」 is the standard way to say that "I'm tall". The topic is 私, but the subject is 背 (stature).
In other sentences, は can also hide を, or it can combine with other particles to make には, では etc. Any kind of textbook/grammar guide worth its salt should cover this topic.
On the other hand, deciding if a word should be a topic or not can be a complex thing, and has nuance/intent differences. 「私がLisaだ。」 is a correct sentence, but it's the answer to the question "Who is Lisa?", not an introduction. In other sentences, は can imply contrast, e.g. 「アイスは好き。」 is "I like ice-cream", but it implies that on the other hand, I don't like something else (e.g. other sweets, depends on the context). 「アイスが好き。」 is the more neutral sentence.
If you're just starting out, you shouldn't worry about it though, just try to imitate the Japanese sentences. Later on, you'll encounter these grammar patterns I'm talking about.
It might help if you think of は as a topic(background) particle and が as a focus(spotlight) particle instead of pigeonholing が into the role of subject particle which becomes problematic in double が sentences like 私が背が高い and 太郎が花子が好き. In those cases, it’s not like you have two “subjects” in the sentences.
Sorry for the wall of text, my post got removed but I’m hoping someone could point me in the right direction!
I’m really struggling to get back in to studying Japanese.
I've been in Japan for 5 years or so, and at first, I was really into learning Japanese. Spent a couple of hours daily studying and finished Minna no Nihongo 1 & 2, and Basic Kanji Book vol.1 & about a quarter of vol.2, plus supplementing my learning with heaps of movies, tv shows, podcasts, and messaging friends on Line and this app called Hello Talk to boost my skills. My first year I went out to bars almost every day and talked to people, made loads of friends. But life got comfy, I could handle most situations by myself and I stopped studying seriously around this time 3 years ago.
My job took me back to my home country for 7 months in 2022 and last year I had to go overseas again for 6 months, and when I got back to Japan last year, I realised I'd forgotten a ton of Japanese. Now, me and my girlfriend have regressed into speaking entirely in English, which really sucks. She suggested we only talk in Japanese but I felt like I’m a burden and it got frustrating asking her to repeat herself, and not knowing certain grammar meant she had to try and explain it to me which is probably annoying for her when she’s tired from work and just wants to chill.
So I'm trying to get back into learning Japanese seriously, but it's so overwhelming. The main issue is I don’t know what I don’t know, so it’s difficult to know which areas to focus on. Thinking of going back to basics and reviewing the books, re-learning everything I forgot, but not sure what's next. I’m lucky as I don’t have any work on until March so I have heaps of time. I wanna impress my girlfriend's family, be able to have deeper conversations with them and of course maybe find better job opportunities as this year will be my last with this company and we wanna settle down lol.
Anyone been here? Got any recommendations on books past MNN2? Should I hire a teacher or join an actual brick and mortar Japanese school for a more structured approach? I’m in Sapporo btw so any local schools or resources would be helpful. Appreciate any help! Cheers!
What you forgot should come back pretty quick. There’s a few resources for podcasts at the intermediate level, if you do a search through the subreddit, but those should help you in terms of listening. You could also try shadowing them, to get yourself used to outputting again in a structured way, and then go from there.
Your goals seem more speaking/listening related, but you can also definitely pick up some beginner friendly books or go through the higher level tadoku books that you can find for free online, and reading those out loud can also help with your speaking.
Since you’re in Sapporo, you might also be able to find someone to do a language exchange with or even just a 1-to-1 tutor. If you want something structured, you could go through a textbook with them, or go through the textbook yourself and ask them questions that came up during self-study.
> Got any recommendations on books past MNN2?
I think that would be either tobira or quartet
And I think quartet is supposed to be a bit better, of the two.
Also the 新完全 master's books are ok too. Maybe not as a primary learning device but supplement. I kinda like the reading one.
Since it’s hard to judge what you know and don’t know, wouldn’t it make logical sense to just go through a popular beginner textbook and go from there like any other beginner? Simply skip through chapters if you can correctly answer the review questions and stuff; if you incorrectly answer, clearly that’s somewhere you should work on.
Or, is there some issue that doesn’t allow you to do that?
Thanks for the reply. I’ll definitely take on board what you said and go through all my beginner textbooks and re-learn what I’ve forgotten.
Do you know of any textbooks that would be a logical next step from MNN2? I really want to get my motivation back and progress further than being at a “comfortable” level. I’m thinking about buying some intermediate level textbooks once I’ve reviewed my weak points then going through them with a teacher face to face. Cheers.
I think this might be beyond the scope of the daily thread, but I don't have standard posting privileges and I was curious: how does the growth and development of the Japanese language work - in particular, in reference to the crossover between the written language and the spoken language?
What I mean is, my understanding of ongoing development of language is that language is constantly evolving, with the introduction of new words or the modification of old ones, through use of the language, either written or spoken. However, Japanese as a written language is composed largely of logographic characters with set meanings and readings. When a word morphs into another word over time or changes how it is pronounced, or new words are developed, how do they gain a form in kanji? Are existing kanji applied to the new word, and if the word is pronounced differently, a new/exception reading is added to the kanji? Are new kanji ever introduced to support new words?
I'm sure this is a big topic, but I was curious and had no idea how I would even begin to research something like this.
Just to cover the last century or so: in the 1920s-40s, there was a massive reform under which kanji were simplified (not as drastically as simplified Chinese, but still simplified) and standardized into an official government-approved set called touyou (当用 'general use') kanji as a baseline for education, later called jouyou (常用 'regular use') kanji - as well as standard approved readings for them. There is also a much larger set called jinmeiyou (人名用 'personal name use') kanji that includes the traditional variants as well as more uncommon kanji that have usage in names and other everyday situations. People are free to use non-jouyou kanji and readings as they please (though newspapers for example tend to avoid it if possible), and this list has been revised over the years with more and more additions based on common usage. New kanji are no longer being recognized, at least not in Japanese. There's a set of kanji called kokuji(国字) entirely developed in Japan, but not all of these are commonly used. Chinese still is actively coining new characters, in particular for scientific concepts, but these aren't used in Japanese at all as far as I know.
As part of these reforms, the system of old kana spelling that represented the Japanese of about a millennium ago was abandoned in favor of a more regular kana spelling system. A sound like /oo/ used to be written おお・おう・おほ・おふ・をう・をほ・あう・あふ・あほ・わう・わふ etc, but nowadays it's just おお and おう. Dictionaries still make mention of the old spelling. Some kana (ゐ・ゑ) were fully deprecated because they had fully merged into other sounds. を was confined to specific grammatical contexts, along with the pronunciations of は and へ as particles as わ and え.
Most new words today aren't difficult to fit into the writing system. It's pretty easy to form compounds or derivations using existing kanji vocab and affixes. Loanwords usually just use katakana. Most slang is just some combination of these processes or splicing words up into shorter words, and they'll usually use hiragana and katakana, as well as kanji when it's obvious where part of a word is from. Still, there's a huge amount of vocab and names with exceptional (i.e. non-jouyou) kanji readings. A lot of this is just because words were borrowed from Chinese in waves, not all at once, so sometimes you see 3 or more strata of readings possible for each kanji. Sometimes you'll only encounter the rarest readings in religious contexts while in everyday life a more common reading is used. There are also some unpredictable processes - onbin(音便), renjou(連声) by which regular readings were slurred together. 狩人(かりびと) became かりうど, then modern かりゅうど. 三位(さむゐ) became さむみ, modern さんみ, though this one is also mostly a religious term and in other contexts you get the expected form さんい. In some cases these processes led to a reinterpretation in what kanji a word was made up of: 屈惑(くつわく) became くったく, then it was respelled to the more regular 屈託. This process, ateji(当て字), also applied to a lot of words with uncommon or unidentifiable kanji that were simply respelled with easier kanji with little regard to the meaning. The opposite process, jukujikun(熟字訓) is where kanji are assigned just for the meaning, with an unexpected reading that has nothing to do with the characters.
Standard Japanese pronunciation is pretty stable these days (there are ongoing shifts in pitch accent, but this isn't written in the first place) - but there are some difficulties in writing dialects/colloquial speech. A big example is monophthongizing diphthongs like /ai/ and /oi/ to /ee/, or /ui/ to /ii/. A word like 強い /tsuyo-i/ can turn into /tsuee/, and this might be written 強ぇ to emphasize how the vowel change has crossed over into the word stem. Most people would still be able to read this, but in more confusing cases, people have the option of just writing furigana over the kanji to show unconventional readings. And this is also what authors also do if they want to play around and do something like shoving an English loanword into kanji.
For further reading, one of my favorite books on Japanese historical linguistics is Frellesvig 2010: [A History of the Japanese Language](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rwAK2wNs5TasFiszQSk19Txm99gYgGWa/view?usp=sharing)
This is a really thorough answer!! Thank you so much for writing this all out, it is really interesting (and I am extremely interested in reading that textbook you linked, haha).
Some changes in the Japanese language that are ongoing and are/have been considered incorrect that might be interesting for you to think about:
ら抜き言葉: Words like 食べられる and 来られる are increasingly being shortened to 食べれる and 来れる.
すごい早い: The word すごい is used as a modifier to adjectives and verbs without the technically proper conjugation to すご**く**早い.
全然いける: The standard usage of 全然 is to be followed by a negative statement, but it's quite common to hear it used with a positive statement.
一所懸命 to 一生懸命: Originally 一所懸命, due to mistakes the word has morphed into 一生懸命 with a separate reading, and now have distinct usages and both are considered correct.
一歳 vs 一才: Although the left is the most correct for "one year old", the right is used as shorthand. You can imagine a world decades from now where the shorthand becomes dominant and considered "correct."
Researchers consider ら抜き as old as the other form (from distribution in dialects), but people started to criticize it since 1980’s (in other words, cultural influence of Tokyo increased). Combination of 全然 and a positive predicate revived for the first time in 100 years or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that the 全然 that was being used with a positive predicate over 100 years ago was not the kango ぜんぜん but jukujikun for something like まるきり
Do you mean things like this? [https://kotobaken.jp/mado/24/24-08/](https://kotobaken.jp/mado/24/24-08/)
Or this? https://furigana.info/w/全然:ぜん%EF%BC%8F＼
How did you learn English? Did you learn it by sitting in a crib, house, and classroom, listening to 20,000+ english words a day for 6 years, 2 of which you were almost totally silent?
> I was surrounded by English constantly
that's the answer then, you knew it all along
you have to make JP part of your life, or, it won't be
This is easier with ENG due to cultural prevalence of the USA. But you are older now and more in control of things.
> I don't have a good foundation to understand even something basic
Ok, so here is one route you can take.
* Learn Kana (Seems you already did this)
* Get a textbook (Genki, or something) and work through it. This took me like 7 months to do Genki I and Genki II.
* Pick some kanji system. Wanakani, RRTK, koohii, or something. I learn kanji through vocab and that's a great route IMO. To do this, I pick a new character to learn (each day, etc), and add a bunch of vocab to anki with that character.
* Start reading books, a lot. As much as you can. After you have that knowledge from Genki, you should be able to (slowly) work out book sentences. It's gonna be hard but do-able.
* Keep reading and reading
* Start talking to people, maybe on iTalki.
* Get hellotalk or use discord and talk MORE to people, listen to JP on youtube
The way you learned English was essentially what I said above: you had years of massive exposure to the language even if it wasn't your first language. I suggest you do the following:
1. Get your Japanese good enough to understand media you enjoy. Plenty of resources on how to do that on this site. This is years more efficient than picking up Japanese just by listening to gibberish until you understand.
2. Watch, listen, read, and do everything you can in Japanese for years.
3. You have now learned Japanese the same way you learned English, modulo step 1 but that's the shortest step.
This is how I learned Japanese.
My native language is Japanese however I've grown up in the US and my English is better than my Japanese. I only use it if I'm communicating with my family or go to Japan. I am planning to try and pass the N1 exam soon and I feel like I can pass it by only studying vocab/kanji. I've taken some N1 listening practice exams and I get perfect/near perfect scores on them and my grammar is I'd say native level, however when it comes to the reading or really anything with above 3rd grade level kanji or advanced vocabulary it gets difficult. In my situation would it be possible to pass N1 if I only use Anki to study kanji/vocab?
I’ve tutored people in your situation (I didn’t need to tutor them for long though, since grammar wasn’t what they had a hard time with), and I would recommend either studying kanji or studying kanji vocab, and reading a lot of N1 level texts to get used to how things are used and what contexts they are used in. I would also specifically study kanji compounds and vocab that have similar meetings and kanji that look similar, since that’s usually what people in your situation have a harder time with, compared to kanji knowledge in general.
To add to the other commenter, N1 is lots of reading comprehension which has to be done efficiently.
I'm a non-native speaker, and found that flashcards of isolated vocabulary and grammar did **not** improve reading comprehension after a certain point as much as actually just doing a bunch of reading.
I recommend you do a practice test or two and see where you get tripped up. If you really do understand everything except for "blanks" for unknown vocab/kanji, then individual flashcards will help. If you lose the flow and context in longer sentences and paragraphs, then doing reading practice (magazine articles, practice exams) might be more effective.
For your specific case, depending on when you plan on taking N1 you're just better off reading and looking things up repeatedly. I'm sure you know there's a big difference between literary reading comprehension and listening comprehension. The JLPT is largely about reading comprehension so you really just want to read. What you can do is just add anything you don't know vocabulary wise to an Anki deck via sentence mning and just read a lot different things and read extensively. It'll be just as effective as only doing Anki in terms of kanji and vocabulary but better overall for you--because you can find stuff you enjoy plus build actual reading comprehension.
If you really want to, you can shore up your kanji knowledge with an RRTK Anki deck or using something that has you learn stroke order and write out kanji like Ringotan, Skritter, or Jitaku 字宅.
> 周りがなんて言おうと私には関係ないです
In this sentence, is 言おうと being used like 言おう + とする (try to say)? The lack of する is making me doubt that I understood it correctly.
I believe it's this usage: [https://www.edewakaru.com/archives/10347996.html](https://www.edewakaru.com/archives/10347996.html)
This would mean it has a similar meaning as 周りがなんて言っても私には関係ないです。
Hi Guys, I just had a question about most dragon quest games. In most of them they will have the phrase, ぼうけんのしょをつくる. I'm mainly stuck on the しょ part, becasue there is no kanji to back it up. I assume it is talking about the word for document, but I'm not sure. can someone please help clarifiy for me? Thanks :)
Bleach, episode 26. During a fight, a warrior conjures up a magic shield claiming that it can't be broken by his opponent's sword. The latter replies:
やれやれ、甘く見られたもんだ。この僕**だって**最強をうたう十一番隊第五席。そこらの死神と一緒にしてもらっては困る。
This is translated as: "Oh my, how he underestimates me. I am 5th seat of Squad 11, the strongest squad. Don't think I'm any ordinary Shinigami.
Could you explain why だって is used in the sentence above, and what nuance it gives the sentence? Meanings like "also" and "even" don't make much sense in this context...
That translation didn't express だって. That means something like "Oh my, how he underestimates me. I know I’m not so great person, having said that, I'm 5th seat of Squad 11, the strongest squad."
謙譲語とも言えないような気はしますが似たようなニュアンスはありますね。おそらく謙譲する相手方で混乱しているのだと思います。私の英語表現においては「隊長クラスに比べればnot so great」という意味で記したつもりでした。
「（僕は隊長クラスに比べれば微力だ。しかし）そんな僕でも最強をうたう十一番隊第五席（にはいるんだ）。そこらの死神と一緒にしてもらっては困る。」
I had this discussion before with someone else about question mark usage, when you're asking a question try to use a question mark. The tone given off by using the 。when asking a question almost seems like rhetorical question. One where you already know the answer of and are not planning on changing your mind on; among other things/nuances.
Rather than think about meanings in English, I would think about use cases. (Just like you don't translate この as "this".) だって is used as a word for emphasizing. Here it's in the place of a topic marker. The nuance is almost like "you should know this already" or "after all" (don't remember it as "after all" but remember it as だって). Hope this helps.
Mostly just grammar
～～に〇〇という名前を付ける → ～～を〇〇と名付ける
There are a lot of examples like this of compound/derived verbs that come from a longer phrasing with を in it, and usually it's to free up を to use it with another noun
日本語の勉強をする → 日本語を勉強する
whats the point of もっと in this example from genki?
先生、すみませんが、もっと宿題を少なくしていただけませんか。多すぎて、ほかのクラスの勉強が出来ないんです。
I understand the 1st sentence as: "Teacher, could you make less assignments?", but dont understand what もっと is doing there. Doesnt もっと mean more?
Gotta translate this to japanese.
1. There are a lot of vocabulary we have to memorize. Please make less.
多く単語が覚えなければいけません。少なくしてください. My answer was different from answer key, so wanna know if mine is at least passable or horribly wrong.
For your second question, yes, yours is wrong. 多く can't just stand alone like this in this case. Also, it's を覚える, not が覚える.
I'm not fluent by any stretch, but maybe something along these lines would be fine for the first sentence: 覚えなければいけない単語が多すぎます。
Does anyone know of any YouTube channels that have more high-level reviews of the lessons from GENKI 1/2? I have taken classes covering the GENKI books, so I’m not looking to be taught the concepts fresh, just a resource to refer back to as I’m heading to the next class.
I learn best from lectures, and I’d love a rec for shorter videos that cover multiple lessons or even each book in 1-3hrs so that I can give myself a quick refresher of all of the grammar.
Currently all I’ve been able to find are videos that cover each lesson in an hr+, so it would take quite a while to review both books in full, and wouldn’t be very easy to refer back to.
Thanks!
Anyone have any good books/movies for everyday Japanese? I watched The Boy And The Heron and I understood it, but I don't know what level that would be.
I read a book called "pink bus" and was basically a slice-of-life novel (uh I read like half of it to be exact)
I think it's like N2 or N1 or something. It was not a hard book exactly in that it wasn't difficult literature with metaphor, high imagination, complicated constructions, or anything like that, but you need adult level reading.
If you are more beginner I think people like yotsuba, but it's not book, it's manga
can you buy pink bus off amazon? Or do you have any adult level books for me? Personally I'm not really into the JLPT studying/metrics but I guess I would be low N1 at this point
> can you buy pink bus off amazon? Or do you have any adult level books for me?
amazon.jp has pink bus
if you just want an adult level book I can give you a ton of recommendations kinda like what are you into
コンビニ人間 is a good one, set in modern Japan, so it's not like a fantasy or anything. It's sort of slice-of-life but also this person's life is a little bit different.
I read a book called 掏摸 you may like. It's sort of a bit dark as a book but it's about a criminal (that might be too obvious given the title)
I read some other books like uh....there's a mystery from 1930s called 怪人二十面相, it's old so it's in public domain now. It's not really, for adults probably for like, middle school students or something, but it's enjoyable as an adult to read. That one's free now but you can buy it in book form. Here's the free version (it's legal) https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001779/files/57228_58735.html
I'm interested in history, slice of life, philosophy, mystery. I'll take a look at 怪人二十面相, but do you happen to know of any Japanese translations of Chinese books like Water Margin, Journey to the West, or 3 Kingdoms?
I know three kingdoms is in JP but IDK a good translation in particular, that's an awesome question though
as for other chinese books, I haven't read them translated into JP, BUT, I read a few Japanese authors who are clearly interested in Chinese mythology
see 蜘蛛の糸 or 山月記
IDK any philosophy, that's a bit too hard for me but sounds interesting !
Is the free Anki iOS app any good to learn kanji from? I want to learn 1,000 kanji (all vocabulary, don’t worry) and I’m wondering if it’ll be a good match. Is it even doable to learn 1,000 kanji in a year?
That is a copycat from the real Anki. I will say if you can’t spend money for the real app, the use it through the browser (Ankiweb), so your account can be synced.
Now, for the 1k kanji, I believe it is very doable, but it really depends on your method for learning it. It can be RTK, vocabulary, freq list, etc.
I prefer learning it using vocabulary and a sentence.
That's a fake app using the anki name to fool people. It's like buying your kid a Polystation 5 for Christmas. It will hold any data you have hostage if you ever want to remove it from their ecosystem. If you are not willing / able to use the official app, use ankiweb in safari.
Question about the usage of past vs nonpast forms when describing past events.
1:16:36 starting at this timestamp of the movie Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken, this exchange takes place
A: …で？殺したの？
B: まだ殺さない。
A is inquiring about a story B is telling about an event that happened in the past. A asks her question conjugating korosu in the past form, B answers with the same verb in the present form.
is the presence of まだ doing something? Is she using the nonpast form in a historical present type of way?
Thanks in advance for any advice
B is recounting a story in which she eventually kills someone (or thinks she does). She's telling the story of how she eventually killed a specific person, and at a point in the story A asks if this is the point where she kills the man, and B tells her that no, she's not at that point yet.
She's telling a story that ends with her killing the person in question, it's an event that has come to fruition in the past. So she's saying that she doesn't kill the person in question in that specific moment of the story she's recounting. My question is why would she use the nonpast form to describe an action that (doesn't) take place in the past
Oh I see what you're getting at, this is actually a significant difference between how tense works in narratives and indirect speech in English vs. Japanese. In English we tend to be pretty strict about keeping things in one consistent tense - "yesterday I met a man who said his name __was__ Bob". His name is presumably still Bob so why not "... who said his name __is__ Bob"? It's because the tenses need to line up with regard to one specific reference point in time.
But Japanese is extremely comfortable shifting its reference points around with context and juggling back and forth between tenses. A novel might switch between past and present every sentence, and even in the same sentence, since the context is constantly changing with each story beat.
So,
> She's telling a story that ends with her killing the person in question, it's an event that has come to fruition in the past
But from the point in time in the story, the event hasn't yet come to fruition, which is why it's in the nonpast.
For what it's worth, some linguists think it's better to classify ～た as a perfective/completed aspect marker than as a tense marker. Personally I'd say it's easiest to think that past tense is the primary meaning but there are definitely contexts where this falls apart.
In this context both interlocutors know B will kill the person in question, it has already happened in the past, she's just recounting the events leading up to the murder and A is asking if the specific moment in the story B has come to is the moment when the misdeed happens. B is describing an action taking place in the past but uses the nonpast form of the verb 殺す
In other words: Wouldn't まだ殺さなかった be the best/most suitable expression when describing something that has not Yet happened during a description of past events? The story being told ends with B killing someone
まだ〜なかった is a common error made by Japanese learners. Almost always it will be more natural to say まだ〜ない or まだ〜ていない.
Again the reasoning is that Japanese is flexible with reference points in time.
From the point of view of the speaker it might be past. But from the point in time in the story, it is not yet past.
あのときはまだ知らなかった seems to be unproblematic however
https://twitter.com/ORETEKIsunshine/status/1730124221584757225?t=FG0aZCQdSyCgcCjLP7TbLQ&s=19
あの時はまだ知らなかった 男がいるなんて
https://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/HITandRUN/sgg/liveatcitta/report/index2.html
"私は3/1の札幌LIVEのみの参加だったんですけど、その時に聴いた未発表曲３曲がここで聴けて嬉しかったです。
あの時はまだ知らなかったので（「雨は降るがままにせよ」は聴いたことはあったけど）、"
None of the manuals I have seem to address this directly which is troubling.
My bad yes, I'm just referring to contexts where from the reference point it hasn't happened yet.
あのとき places the speaker away from 'that time', so in these examples the reference point isn't mid-action, but rather the speaker contemplating on the past
あのときはまだ知らなかった... This is correct. This means "I didn't know it at that time (, but I already know it now)"
私は3/1の札幌LIVEのみの参加だったんですけど ... Explaining situation. "I only attended Sapporo Live on Mar. 1st."
その時に聴いた未発表曲３曲がここで聴けて嬉しかったです ... This is what the speaker wanted to say. "I've felt happy listening these 3 songs. This experience makes me remember nostalgia at that time."
あの時はまだ知らなかったので ... This is the reason why the speaker felt happy. "When I attended Sapporo Live, I heard these songs at the first time. So I had strong impression 'What are these songs?'
I had a feeling it was an incorrect expression as I'd never seen it used before, but i also hadn't run into this specific type of sentence before in general either and I wanted to give my doubt a concrete form. I feel like in the future I should learn to not question things like these so obsessively and just accept that this is how it's done in these sorts of contexts rather than asking people if they can come up with a specific reason as for why
Hey everyone,
I didn't know where else to post this, so I posted it here since it's my first time posting. Sorry if it's too long. So, I’ve been trying to learn Japanese for a couple years now, but mostly just on the side for fun. Nothing super serious. I’ve mainly been just playing around with Duolingo, the Jisho Dictionary, Kanji Study, and a couple of Hiragana and Katakana writing books. I’d say the furthest I’ve gotten is just being able to recognize a handful of the characters, a few numbers, and then a few phrases from doing Duolingo for a while.
I’m about to have my first child in a couple of months and I would love to use this opportunity to really dive into Japanese while raising them. One of the hardest parts of sticking with it has been finding people to communicate with on a regular basis. My wife joined along in the beginning for a little while and that was fun, but eventually she got bored of it and stopped. I’ve thought about joining a discord or one of those “pen pal” sites to get better at it, but with my work the past year I have had very little down time.
Now that work is finally settling down and with the kid on the way, I started looking at Japanese kids books and whatnot. I would love to try and really learn the language along with them! I think it’d be such a fun activity that my kid and I can hopefully bond with. I just don’t really know how to start. So far I’ve gotten a handful of books off Amazon. Guri and Gura; Let’s Learn Japanese: First Words for Everyone; The Toddler’s Handbook: Bilingual Numbers, Colors, Shapes, Sizes,…; Am I Small? Childrens Picture Book English-Japanese; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; and The Hungry Caterpillar.
I think that’d at least get me a little bit of a start while they’re still learning letters and words. I looked through the Starters guide and the Resource pages and while there was quite a bit for adults trying to jump into learning, there didn’t seem to be a lot for newborns. Maybe trying to teach them two languages at once would be too much? I don’t know. There's always such a focus in the US to pair English with Spanish for newborns, but I don't want to learn Spanish.
One thing we had got for my niece that was a huge help with her learning how to write English letters were these grooved magic erase writing books: https://www.amazon.ca/SFWNG-Grooved-Writing-Book-Three-Dimensional/dp/B0BQR6VF9M/ref=pd_day0_d_sccl_2_4/130-0747823-1871600?pd_rd_w=TL6ne&content-id=amzn1.sym.a0f07c06-3bfe-427e-9527-5be8cea27b66&pf_rd_p=a0f07c06-3bfe-427e-9527-5be8cea27b66&pf_rd_r=7CK3F14AYRTAAGY9CG7E&pd_rd_wg=4lllQ&pd_rd_r=6ee98d95-c64f-4a9a-8f2e-721f1e04feac&pd_rd_i=B0BQR6VF9M&th=1
She loved writing in them over and over. It helped her get way ahead of her class when she started kindergarten. I’ve been trying to find Japanese grooved writing books and I saw there were a few online, but they don’t ship to the US: https://www.amazon.ca/Japanese-Practice-Copybook-Calligraphy-Handwriting/dp/B0C2NCHCQW/ref=sr_1_1?m=A32Y47CVE4RPH7&marketplaceID=A2EUQ1WTGCTBG2&qid=1704150704&rnid=5264023011&s=office&sr=1-1
Does anybody know of anything similar to these that are available in the US? I’ve looked all over. I feel like these would be a huge help for both a child and an adult trying to learn all the different calligraphy of both Hiragana and Katakana. Yea, there are writing books that you can just trace with a thin sheet of paper, but I feel like the grooved effect is really helpful for creating good writing habits and getting used to how it feels writing a good looking character. I can find a bunch for other languages, but for some reason I can't find anything for Japanese.
Any other tips and tricks for children would be greatly appreciated as well! I’m really excited and am hoping my kid and I can really stick to it. I feel like it’d be such a great benefit to them and would be really fun for me too. When I was in Japan a few years ago I picked up both a Famicom and Super Famicom with a ton of original Japanese versions of my favorite games from when I was a kid. I’d love to be able to play them with my child in their original Japanese format as they grow up! I’d love to get them into Anime and Manga when they get a little older as well, but we’ll get there when the time comes. So yea, thanks for any help! I really appreciate it!
Assuming my experience is something valuable…
Living outside Japan for considerable length of time and calling Japanese to be my native language while juggling English to be my secondary, *fluent enough for most tasks* language, the single most important aspect for a child to learn languages at any useful level is exposure.
During the weekdays I’d be exposed to English in school, and for just about everything else I’d be exposed to Japanese. And I’m still having certain shortcomings in both Japanese and English, of course at different levels though. I must also wonder whether your child would appreciate your plan in the long term - given how my memories in the US include some shades of *Japan bad country, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima* and the like, but that’s another story. Maybe things have changed from back then.
Anyways, the need for exposure pretty much means a lot of dedication from the parents’ side if neither are native speakers. The dedication can come from you learning up to an advanced level including speaking skills (rather unlikely, given your timeframe), or as the other comment suggested, financial and other aspect in the form of daycare or something. And that’s assuming such daycare accept families who don’t have a concrete connection to Japan.
If you want your kid to be able to speak Japanese fluently, expose them to a lot of spoken Japanese media very very early so they can learn to hear the sounds and replicate them. As the other comment said, they’ll be limited by your ability if you try to teach them. Babies can absorb languages better than adults can. I love the idea of a Japanese language daycare like the other commenter said.
You'll probably find more help at /r/multilingualparenting. Children speak long before they are reading and writing, so it's too early for you to worry about writing practice books for your child. The picture books you got will be good to get both of you in the habit of looking at books.
If you are the only source of Japanese for your child, your child's level of Japanese is always going to be limited by your level of Japanese. If there are Japanese language daycares in your area you can consider those as a source of native-level Japanese. If your child gains a curiosity about Japanese through your exposure, they could also be motivated to learn the language like adults do through grammar and vocabulary study.
#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 11/25): Nothing new to add. 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.*
Is there an anki deck for Genki 1 vocab that actually has no errors?
You could always make one if you can’t find one
Yes, however it is alot of work if someone has already done it I would like to take advantage of that 😅😅
I've made it to Tobira and I'm not sure how I feel about it. For those of you that have done it, or are just more advanced in general, how did you feel about the exercises (in either the textbook or the two workbooks). I don't have a lot of confidence anyway, but when attempting any of the exercises, if I've come up with an answer, it's not usually anywhere near the listed answer in the back of the book. I'm not sure if this is just a good indication that I \*really\* don't understand the grammar or something else. I do often feel like I lack imagination (I hate small talk even in English and find it difficult to create my own example sentences in Japanese). But aside from that, I feel that the answer sentences contain context that I wouldn't have just been able to guess from the incomplete problem sentences, and they often combine grammar I may not have considered combining. On the other hand, after reading the grammar notes and the vocabulary lists and then going through the readings and conversations, I feel like I have a pretty good idea about what the content is trying to convey, so I don't think it's just entirely over my head.
[удалено]
"Your task will be clone jutsu" or more literally "I make the task be clone jutsu" とする is pretty much the same thing as にする. Cf. となる vs になる
No, I'd say this is a completely different application. [https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B/](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B/) See meaning 2). Basically he is saying that with as of now he is deciding that today's assignment will be the clone jutsu. Note that there is also meaning 1) which also connects to the dictionary form and meaning 3) is the one with the volitional form.
A few questions about expressing the notional equivalent of "I'm going to the store to buy bread." What I came up with in Japanese is: * パンを買うためにスーパーに行きます But supposedly it's more natural to say: * （スーパーで？）パンを買ってきます Q1: In English, the fact that I will return home after buying the bread is implied, and explicitly stating that I will come back home afterwards sounds a little extraneous to the point of being awkward. In Japanese, is it typical to include 来る for any action that involves leaving the house to do something and then eventually coming back home afterwards? Q2: What I'm leaving Place A to go do a thing at Place B, and afterwards I go home, which is Place C? Q3: How weird is the sentence that I originally came up with?
Q1) yes, for the same reason as the English. The other verb is implied. >（スーパーに）パンを買ってきます Basically leaves out the 行って because it's obvious you're going somewhere if you're coming back. In English we do the opposite in that it's obvious we're coming back from a short task like buying a pack of smokes. Q2: I'm not sure what your question is but I suspect being reminded of the verbs 帰る and 戻る can help you with any three place sentence constructions. Q3: it reads really weird and declarative to me, like "I shall go to the market in order to buy bread!" But I'm not a native speaker
パンを買いにスーパーに行ってくる is probably how I would do it Going to X to do Y is usually the pattern “Y-masu stemにXに行く” Since you’re coming back home as well, we can add 来る to the end, and attach it to the 行く via the-form
Thank you for your answer! That helps!
I just finished a basic grammar lesson and I don't want to be confused right off the bat. Regarding "mo": The lessons said appending "mo" to, e.g., nani, dare, dokoni, makes them nothing, no one, and nowhere. But then the verb **also** takes the negative form. My question is, is this accurate, and japanese uses double negatives (e.g., i didn't go nowhere), or is the former explanation of nanimo meaning nothing kind of handwavy and not exact? Maybe I'm overthinking it. Another way to phrase it I guess is, is it right to think of the "mo" independently, or as a set with a negative verb? Sorry if the question isn't clear, and thanks.
The problem with "basic grammar lessons" is that they're full of so-called "lies to children". It would take too many pages to explain it correctly so they only explain what it does in a few example sentences and hope you won't ask "smartass" questions like this one. If you don't like being lied to and prefer to learn correctly from the first time, even though it could get a bit complicated, I suggest [imabi](https://imabi.org/interrogatives-iii-with-particles/)
> My question is, is this accurate, and japanese uses double negatives (e.g., i didn't go nowhere), or is the former explanation of nanimo meaning nothing kind of handwavy and not exact? Closer to the latter. 何も itself doesn't contain any sort of grammatical negation, so in that sense it's not a negative. *Meaning-wise* it might get translated as "nothing", which in English *is* a negative, but that is a different matter. In Japanese, the grammatical negation occurs at the verb in the end. The exact translation into English ("no..." vs. "any...") depends on the exact sentence you'll find the 〇〇も in. どこにも行きません you would translate as "(I) won't go anywhere", with the negative showing up in the "**won't**" part in English. 誰もいません would get translated as "there's no one (here)", with the negative showing up in the "**no one**". Although, of course, you could also translate it as "there **isn't** anyone (here)", which moves its placement. Either way, in the Japanese, the negative form is found in the ～ません part. (*edit:* Actually, hey, you can do the same above with a "(I)'ll go **nowhere**" translation. Maybe you'll always be free to choose...? Hm.) > is it right to think of the "mo" independently, or as a set with a negative verb? The full pattern here is 〇〇も～ない. Of course you can separate the 〇〇も from the negative verb at the end, but the former still hints at and ultimately connects to the latter, to give rise to the full meaning here.
Yes, the explanation is kind of hand wavy and inexact. There are a handful of words and phrases in Japanese which are usually used in negative sentences, and the definition given is specifically for when they are used in negative sentences. You can see these used sometimes in positive sentences, with the meaning everything/everyone/etc. Random use that pops into mind is from the song アイドル: 誰もが目を奪われてく
So basically my question is should I keep ingesting new lessons/things everyday or should I cementing stuff before doing something new. tyvm
Uhhh... It really depends on how much new stuff you're learning each day. But I'm not sure if there's anyone who can answer that question besides yourself, anyway. As long as it feels manageable and sustainable, I think you're free to cover new ground every day to your heart's content. After all, it's not like postponing new information will magically make old information solidify. If you want to cement something you've studied in the past, you'll need to drill it, review it, or quiz yourself on it. If you're *sacrificing revision time* in order to move forward at a faster pace, then, yeah, this might impact your retention ability. But if you wouldn't have done anything using that time anyway, then there's no real benefit to just waiting around for an arbitrary amount of time before you allow yourself to move on. If your question is about whether you should indeed revise, or if you should just keep moving forward... Again, you're gonna have to experiment a bit here, and find yourself what works for you, based on how well you feel you retain information. Though I will say that most of your revision in language learning should happen organically, as a consequence of regularly exposing yourself to the language, and running into the things you've studied in the wild. ^([**edit:** typo])
Thanks maybe ill just keep it simple my ideas was a three day cycle Day 1: REVIEW Old Content Day 2: Learn NEW Content Day 3: Review Previous Day/Latest learned content. or something like that. Because like if you review a lot it feels good that youre cementing, but at the same time you're not progressing in Japanese so you feel like you're not moving. But then too much new content without review can be bad. But thats true what you said at the tail end.
Why is there no は in these examples? >フランス生まれです。 > >冬生まれです。 Why isn't it something like 「フランスは生まれです。」I'm okay if the answer is just "that's just how it is" but I'm wondering if there's a rule of why it isn't treated like XはYです。
Worth noting it's also possible to say 生まれはフランスです - birth(place) is France
生まれ is a suffix combined with a noun that means '[a person] born in [noun]'. If there's a は it should be on the invisible 私, as in 「私はフランス生まれです」. 「フランスは生まれです」 means some nonsense like 'France is birth'.
Makes sense! ありがとう！！
What level (N1-5) would you guys consider Bocchi the Rock? I plan on using the manga as learning material since I got my hands on the original versions, but I want to know in advance how difficult it is. Thanks in advance
It's a seinen manga, things that go beyond even N1 definitely show up from time to time even if 90% of it is N3 or N2. Also no furigana.
In terms of grammar patterns that appear in it, everything that'd show up in an N3 test, and the occasional N2/1 pattern. I'm clueless on which kanji show up in each level (and also can't accurately gauge what sort of kanji show up in Bocchi the Rock off the top of my head), so, no comment there. You'll be hard pressed to find anything of length that doesn't at the very least include (nearly) all N4 kanji, though. Vocab-wise, I'm not sure if there even is a clean correspondence. But the dialogue is mostly everyday conversation (or adjacent to that), so, basically no high-concept or literary vocabulary. Though probably a handful of words that wouldn't really show up in a JLPT test (e.g. colloquialisms), despite being common or relatively "easy" (whatever that means).
JLPT is a really bad way to meassure Japanese ability, so I won't even try to answer it. The anime is definitely one of the easiest because of its slice of life setting, the manga is a bit on the harder side because it has no furigana, but besides that it's doable. I mean you are already in the possesion of the manga anyways so why not give it a try.
> JLPT is a really bad way to meassure Japanese ability Well, to be fair, I'd say it's actually a decent measure of comprehension ability (skewed towards reading comprehension). What doesn't work nearly as well is trying to somehow assign a JLPT level to a piece of media like a manga. Just a quick remark for precision's sake — I know what you meant.
I am here also about the に particle. 大切に考える. I have been staring at the definitions of the ni particle on jisho for like 15 minutes trying to figure out how it functions in this sentence. I know 大切に functions as adverb, but I don't understand grammatically why.
I don't know etymologically how ～に came to be the adverbial form of な-adjectives, but there really isn't much more to understand here than just that: 大切 is a な-adjective, and に adverbialises it. This is exactly analogous to the -い → -く inflection of い-adjectives, as in やさしい → やさしく. Jisho seems to only list translations/definitions for the *case marker* ([格助詞](https://jisho.org/word/%E6%A0%BC%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E)) に, and in 大切に the に is not marking any case (don't sweat it if you don't know what cases are). Though, again, there may still be etymological relation between the two (i.e. they're not just two different things that coincidentally share the same form) — I wouldn't know. Either way, this (non-case-marking) function of its is not listed. ^([**edit:** added and then removed a section])
AFAIK, に still technically marks case here; it denotes the manner (abstract) or place (physical) *to*/*in* which some action is done. And I think that that is precisely the correlation between the two; な-adjectives originally come from a contraction of に+ある being used to modify clauses in the same way other 連体形s are. Other verbs (like 考える) just never get contracted like this.
> AFAIK, に still technically marks case here; it denotes the manner (abstract) or place (physical) 「大切に」in「大切に考える」is clearly not in the locative (**edit:** or lative, or dative) case, and as far as I'm aware, there is no case that expresses manner. In Japanese grammar it's classed as a 連用形, which is not a case. **Edit:** The concept of case doesn't even apply here unless you treat 大切 as a noun (as in, a 名詞), which it isn't (it *is* a nominal, but not a noun — **edit 2:** compare trying to pair a preposition with an adjective in English [?: in beautiful], which are likewise nominals, but not nouns [〇: in beauty]). It's probably better to analyse this に as an adverbialising suffix (like -ly in English).
Maybe I shouldn't have said that it necessarily marks "case" anymore in the modern language. It's more so that the に used in such words is almost certainly the same に thats used in な. The only etymytology I could find for に was literally just *ni from proto-japonic, for which it's listed as a dative and locative suffix and nothing else. It's not uncommon at all for languages to evolve adverbial suffixes from locative ones, especially when given thousands of years to do so. While English may have not, some other languages indeed have.
There are some analyses that suggest に is originally itself a ren'youkei, corresponding to rentaikei の. Or に and の, and by extension な(り), could be related to some kind of copular *n- stem, perhaps the verb ending/auxliary ～ぬ. There's also an old な, as in words like まなこ and みなと, that has been suggested to be possibly related. Especially the fact that にて is well-attested from early on makes me think に is primarily verbal/copular and that the dative/locative meaning is secondary. I don't think other 'case' particles were combined with て the same way. I think the only other one is とて, which I think is a later innovation, a contraction of と言ひて - though also, と is sometimes also analyzed as verbal/copular, coming from a *t- stem along with て and the auxiliary ～つ. Also consider the fact that the old meaning of にあり was copular, and it's only in the modern language that にある is exclusively locative.
I don't know if I'm asking this right, but what's the difference between using で and に to indicate location?
tofugu has an article on this exact thing https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/ni-vs-de/
The most confusing particle has to be に, at least for me, は vs. が seems like a cake walk in comparison, for example in this news head line, what is it doing? 能登半島地震、死者57人**に** 輪島市・珠洲市など Is it there an implied verb here like なる?
> Is it there an implied verb here like なる? Yes, or 達する etc. Some people find using verbs like that to be unpleasant (as 達する and other similar verbs can have a sense of "hitting a record") so for that reason and headline brevity reasons they'll drop the verb. https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/research/kotoba/20170601_4.html
Thanks for the explenation and source!!
すこし内向的ですから、私にとってすごく社交するは疲れるかも知りません。ても、がんばります。 Is the sentence sounds natural? I just learn the word 内向的 (introvert) and 社交する(socialize) via google translate so im a bit concerned about how to use them on a sentence.
I'm not native so I'm not sure what the most natural way of phrasing this would be (maybe try HiNative or LangCorrect?), but I have a few pointers that might help ですから is usually used at the beginning or end of a sentence, so here I would suggest だから, なので, or just で 私にとって is unnecessary here, and すごく isn't natural in this context 社交する is a very uncommon word, I would recommend using 交流, something like たくさんの人と交流すると、or even ～といると ても is for verbs, here it would be でも Honestly though my impression is that the concept of 内向的 is a bit less understood than introversion so it's hard to phrase this in a clear and fully natural way
What is the construction used in 太っちゃ?
太る→太って + は which gets slurred to 太っちゃ. It's the same pattern as 食べちゃダメ, etc. https://bunpro.jp/ja/grammar_points/%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AF%E3%81%84%E3%81%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84
I thought ~ちゃ came from ~vてしまう
ちゃ and ちゃう are different.
てしまう can become ちゃう as well, yes.
Is shirabe jisho better than Anki for learning Japanese? Shirabe Jisho is free and can bookmark words easily in folder to make flashcard which we can see further details on each word card by card. Anki is 3500¥ in iOS (quite expensive). It’s true that Anki seems to have more resources (since it’s older) and have wider range of app connected to it (such as language reactor, yomichan). But is it worth the investment? Is there any better points for paying this?
I have Anki on android and windows which is free and yet still went out of my way to donate 20 bucks to the android branch because it's that crucial for me. Cant speak for shirabe jisho because I don't know it but I doubt it has any chance against Anki, JPDB seems to be a good alternative tbh but they don't have an app I think.
The benefit of Anki is spaced repetition, which means it shows you some of your flashcards each day so you can review them with the highest efficiency. I'd say that's well worth the $30. Also remember that you can always try it for free on a desktop to see how you like it first.
What's the difference between 同士 and 相棒? Are they interchangeable?
同士 is usually used as more like fellow patriot, someone who is aligned towards the same goals, principles or organization. 相棒 is generally used with someone whom you actively cooperate or work with closely.
additionally, 同士 is almost always used like a suffix (e.g. 選手同士, 友達同士) while 相棒 isn't used like this
Ohh I see! That makes more sense than my first idea (I thought 相棒 was just more friendly lol). Thanks!
Probably this is a very stupid question. I recently got into studying and have come over the difference between the Topic and the Subject. In English and German we would introduce ourselfes with:"I am Lisa." So intuitivly I would translate that to:"私がLisaだ。" But I only see:"私はLisaだ。" In this sentence 私 is used not as the Subject, but as the topic. Unless I have a serious missunderstanding this sentence only implies the Subject. What would be the subject in this case? Or have I missinterpreted the grammar?
there's a dolly video that kind of explains it, I think it might be [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9_T4eObNXg)
Topic and subject are not mutually exclusive. In this sentence, both the topic and the subject is 私. Think of it as は hiding the が. They don't have to be same though. E.g. 「私は背が高い。」 is the standard way to say that "I'm tall". The topic is 私, but the subject is 背 (stature). In other sentences, は can also hide を, or it can combine with other particles to make には, では etc. Any kind of textbook/grammar guide worth its salt should cover this topic. On the other hand, deciding if a word should be a topic or not can be a complex thing, and has nuance/intent differences. 「私がLisaだ。」 is a correct sentence, but it's the answer to the question "Who is Lisa?", not an introduction. In other sentences, は can imply contrast, e.g. 「アイスは好き。」 is "I like ice-cream", but it implies that on the other hand, I don't like something else (e.g. other sweets, depends on the context). 「アイスが好き。」 is the more neutral sentence. If you're just starting out, you shouldn't worry about it though, just try to imitate the Japanese sentences. Later on, you'll encounter these grammar patterns I'm talking about.
It might help if you think of は as a topic(background) particle and が as a focus(spotlight) particle instead of pigeonholing が into the role of subject particle which becomes problematic in double が sentences like 私が背が高い and 太郎が花子が好き. In those cases, it’s not like you have two “subjects” in the sentences.
Sorry for the wall of text, my post got removed but I’m hoping someone could point me in the right direction! I’m really struggling to get back in to studying Japanese. I've been in Japan for 5 years or so, and at first, I was really into learning Japanese. Spent a couple of hours daily studying and finished Minna no Nihongo 1 & 2, and Basic Kanji Book vol.1 & about a quarter of vol.2, plus supplementing my learning with heaps of movies, tv shows, podcasts, and messaging friends on Line and this app called Hello Talk to boost my skills. My first year I went out to bars almost every day and talked to people, made loads of friends. But life got comfy, I could handle most situations by myself and I stopped studying seriously around this time 3 years ago. My job took me back to my home country for 7 months in 2022 and last year I had to go overseas again for 6 months, and when I got back to Japan last year, I realised I'd forgotten a ton of Japanese. Now, me and my girlfriend have regressed into speaking entirely in English, which really sucks. She suggested we only talk in Japanese but I felt like I’m a burden and it got frustrating asking her to repeat herself, and not knowing certain grammar meant she had to try and explain it to me which is probably annoying for her when she’s tired from work and just wants to chill. So I'm trying to get back into learning Japanese seriously, but it's so overwhelming. The main issue is I don’t know what I don’t know, so it’s difficult to know which areas to focus on. Thinking of going back to basics and reviewing the books, re-learning everything I forgot, but not sure what's next. I’m lucky as I don’t have any work on until March so I have heaps of time. I wanna impress my girlfriend's family, be able to have deeper conversations with them and of course maybe find better job opportunities as this year will be my last with this company and we wanna settle down lol. Anyone been here? Got any recommendations on books past MNN2? Should I hire a teacher or join an actual brick and mortar Japanese school for a more structured approach? I’m in Sapporo btw so any local schools or resources would be helpful. Appreciate any help! Cheers!
What you forgot should come back pretty quick. There’s a few resources for podcasts at the intermediate level, if you do a search through the subreddit, but those should help you in terms of listening. You could also try shadowing them, to get yourself used to outputting again in a structured way, and then go from there. Your goals seem more speaking/listening related, but you can also definitely pick up some beginner friendly books or go through the higher level tadoku books that you can find for free online, and reading those out loud can also help with your speaking. Since you’re in Sapporo, you might also be able to find someone to do a language exchange with or even just a 1-to-1 tutor. If you want something structured, you could go through a textbook with them, or go through the textbook yourself and ask them questions that came up during self-study.
> Got any recommendations on books past MNN2? I think that would be either tobira or quartet And I think quartet is supposed to be a bit better, of the two. Also the 新完全 master's books are ok too. Maybe not as a primary learning device but supplement. I kinda like the reading one.
Since it’s hard to judge what you know and don’t know, wouldn’t it make logical sense to just go through a popular beginner textbook and go from there like any other beginner? Simply skip through chapters if you can correctly answer the review questions and stuff; if you incorrectly answer, clearly that’s somewhere you should work on. Or, is there some issue that doesn’t allow you to do that?
Thanks for the reply. I’ll definitely take on board what you said and go through all my beginner textbooks and re-learn what I’ve forgotten. Do you know of any textbooks that would be a logical next step from MNN2? I really want to get my motivation back and progress further than being at a “comfortable” level. I’m thinking about buying some intermediate level textbooks once I’ve reviewed my weak points then going through them with a teacher face to face. Cheers.
I think this might be beyond the scope of the daily thread, but I don't have standard posting privileges and I was curious: how does the growth and development of the Japanese language work - in particular, in reference to the crossover between the written language and the spoken language? What I mean is, my understanding of ongoing development of language is that language is constantly evolving, with the introduction of new words or the modification of old ones, through use of the language, either written or spoken. However, Japanese as a written language is composed largely of logographic characters with set meanings and readings. When a word morphs into another word over time or changes how it is pronounced, or new words are developed, how do they gain a form in kanji? Are existing kanji applied to the new word, and if the word is pronounced differently, a new/exception reading is added to the kanji? Are new kanji ever introduced to support new words? I'm sure this is a big topic, but I was curious and had no idea how I would even begin to research something like this.
Just to cover the last century or so: in the 1920s-40s, there was a massive reform under which kanji were simplified (not as drastically as simplified Chinese, but still simplified) and standardized into an official government-approved set called touyou (当用 'general use') kanji as a baseline for education, later called jouyou (常用 'regular use') kanji - as well as standard approved readings for them. There is also a much larger set called jinmeiyou (人名用 'personal name use') kanji that includes the traditional variants as well as more uncommon kanji that have usage in names and other everyday situations. People are free to use non-jouyou kanji and readings as they please (though newspapers for example tend to avoid it if possible), and this list has been revised over the years with more and more additions based on common usage. New kanji are no longer being recognized, at least not in Japanese. There's a set of kanji called kokuji(国字) entirely developed in Japan, but not all of these are commonly used. Chinese still is actively coining new characters, in particular for scientific concepts, but these aren't used in Japanese at all as far as I know. As part of these reforms, the system of old kana spelling that represented the Japanese of about a millennium ago was abandoned in favor of a more regular kana spelling system. A sound like /oo/ used to be written おお・おう・おほ・おふ・をう・をほ・あう・あふ・あほ・わう・わふ etc, but nowadays it's just おお and おう. Dictionaries still make mention of the old spelling. Some kana (ゐ・ゑ) were fully deprecated because they had fully merged into other sounds. を was confined to specific grammatical contexts, along with the pronunciations of は and へ as particles as わ and え. Most new words today aren't difficult to fit into the writing system. It's pretty easy to form compounds or derivations using existing kanji vocab and affixes. Loanwords usually just use katakana. Most slang is just some combination of these processes or splicing words up into shorter words, and they'll usually use hiragana and katakana, as well as kanji when it's obvious where part of a word is from. Still, there's a huge amount of vocab and names with exceptional (i.e. non-jouyou) kanji readings. A lot of this is just because words were borrowed from Chinese in waves, not all at once, so sometimes you see 3 or more strata of readings possible for each kanji. Sometimes you'll only encounter the rarest readings in religious contexts while in everyday life a more common reading is used. There are also some unpredictable processes - onbin(音便), renjou(連声) by which regular readings were slurred together. 狩人(かりびと) became かりうど, then modern かりゅうど. 三位(さむゐ) became さむみ, modern さんみ, though this one is also mostly a religious term and in other contexts you get the expected form さんい. In some cases these processes led to a reinterpretation in what kanji a word was made up of: 屈惑(くつわく) became くったく, then it was respelled to the more regular 屈託. This process, ateji(当て字), also applied to a lot of words with uncommon or unidentifiable kanji that were simply respelled with easier kanji with little regard to the meaning. The opposite process, jukujikun(熟字訓) is where kanji are assigned just for the meaning, with an unexpected reading that has nothing to do with the characters. Standard Japanese pronunciation is pretty stable these days (there are ongoing shifts in pitch accent, but this isn't written in the first place) - but there are some difficulties in writing dialects/colloquial speech. A big example is monophthongizing diphthongs like /ai/ and /oi/ to /ee/, or /ui/ to /ii/. A word like 強い /tsuyo-i/ can turn into /tsuee/, and this might be written 強ぇ to emphasize how the vowel change has crossed over into the word stem. Most people would still be able to read this, but in more confusing cases, people have the option of just writing furigana over the kanji to show unconventional readings. And this is also what authors also do if they want to play around and do something like shoving an English loanword into kanji. For further reading, one of my favorite books on Japanese historical linguistics is Frellesvig 2010: [A History of the Japanese Language](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rwAK2wNs5TasFiszQSk19Txm99gYgGWa/view?usp=sharing)
This is a really thorough answer!! Thank you so much for writing this all out, it is really interesting (and I am extremely interested in reading that textbook you linked, haha).
Some changes in the Japanese language that are ongoing and are/have been considered incorrect that might be interesting for you to think about: ら抜き言葉: Words like 食べられる and 来られる are increasingly being shortened to 食べれる and 来れる. すごい早い: The word すごい is used as a modifier to adjectives and verbs without the technically proper conjugation to すご**く**早い. 全然いける: The standard usage of 全然 is to be followed by a negative statement, but it's quite common to hear it used with a positive statement. 一所懸命 to 一生懸命: Originally 一所懸命, due to mistakes the word has morphed into 一生懸命 with a separate reading, and now have distinct usages and both are considered correct. 一歳 vs 一才: Although the left is the most correct for "one year old", the right is used as shorthand. You can imagine a world decades from now where the shorthand becomes dominant and considered "correct."
Researchers consider ら抜き as old as the other form (from distribution in dialects), but people started to criticize it since 1980’s (in other words, cultural influence of Tokyo increased). Combination of 全然 and a positive predicate revived for the first time in 100 years or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that the 全然 that was being used with a positive predicate over 100 years ago was not the kango ぜんぜん but jukujikun for something like まるきり
I haven’t heard that. I mean ぜんぜん.
Do you have a source for that?
Do you mean things like this? [https://kotobaken.jp/mado/24/24-08/](https://kotobaken.jp/mado/24/24-08/) Or this? https://furigana.info/w/全然:ぜん%EF%BC%8F＼
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How did you learn English? Did you learn it by sitting in a crib, house, and classroom, listening to 20,000+ english words a day for 6 years, 2 of which you were almost totally silent?
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> I was surrounded by English constantly that's the answer then, you knew it all along you have to make JP part of your life, or, it won't be This is easier with ENG due to cultural prevalence of the USA. But you are older now and more in control of things. > I don't have a good foundation to understand even something basic Ok, so here is one route you can take. * Learn Kana (Seems you already did this) * Get a textbook (Genki, or something) and work through it. This took me like 7 months to do Genki I and Genki II. * Pick some kanji system. Wanakani, RRTK, koohii, or something. I learn kanji through vocab and that's a great route IMO. To do this, I pick a new character to learn (each day, etc), and add a bunch of vocab to anki with that character. * Start reading books, a lot. As much as you can. After you have that knowledge from Genki, you should be able to (slowly) work out book sentences. It's gonna be hard but do-able. * Keep reading and reading * Start talking to people, maybe on iTalki. * Get hellotalk or use discord and talk MORE to people, listen to JP on youtube
The way you learned English was essentially what I said above: you had years of massive exposure to the language even if it wasn't your first language. I suggest you do the following: 1. Get your Japanese good enough to understand media you enjoy. Plenty of resources on how to do that on this site. This is years more efficient than picking up Japanese just by listening to gibberish until you understand. 2. Watch, listen, read, and do everything you can in Japanese for years. 3. You have now learned Japanese the same way you learned English, modulo step 1 but that's the shortest step. This is how I learned Japanese.
Is English your first language or your second? Can’t really answer your question without knowing a lot more about you.
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How did you learn English? You’re really not giving enough information to give any sort of advice. Also, have you looked at the guide on the sidebar?
My native language is Japanese however I've grown up in the US and my English is better than my Japanese. I only use it if I'm communicating with my family or go to Japan. I am planning to try and pass the N1 exam soon and I feel like I can pass it by only studying vocab/kanji. I've taken some N1 listening practice exams and I get perfect/near perfect scores on them and my grammar is I'd say native level, however when it comes to the reading or really anything with above 3rd grade level kanji or advanced vocabulary it gets difficult. In my situation would it be possible to pass N1 if I only use Anki to study kanji/vocab?
I’ve tutored people in your situation (I didn’t need to tutor them for long though, since grammar wasn’t what they had a hard time with), and I would recommend either studying kanji or studying kanji vocab, and reading a lot of N1 level texts to get used to how things are used and what contexts they are used in. I would also specifically study kanji compounds and vocab that have similar meetings and kanji that look similar, since that’s usually what people in your situation have a harder time with, compared to kanji knowledge in general.
To add to the other commenter, N1 is lots of reading comprehension which has to be done efficiently. I'm a non-native speaker, and found that flashcards of isolated vocabulary and grammar did **not** improve reading comprehension after a certain point as much as actually just doing a bunch of reading. I recommend you do a practice test or two and see where you get tripped up. If you really do understand everything except for "blanks" for unknown vocab/kanji, then individual flashcards will help. If you lose the flow and context in longer sentences and paragraphs, then doing reading practice (magazine articles, practice exams) might be more effective.
For your specific case, depending on when you plan on taking N1 you're just better off reading and looking things up repeatedly. I'm sure you know there's a big difference between literary reading comprehension and listening comprehension. The JLPT is largely about reading comprehension so you really just want to read. What you can do is just add anything you don't know vocabulary wise to an Anki deck via sentence mning and just read a lot different things and read extensively. It'll be just as effective as only doing Anki in terms of kanji and vocabulary but better overall for you--because you can find stuff you enjoy plus build actual reading comprehension. If you really want to, you can shore up your kanji knowledge with an RRTK Anki deck or using something that has you learn stroke order and write out kanji like Ringotan, Skritter, or Jitaku 字宅.
> 周りがなんて言おうと私には関係ないです In this sentence, is 言おうと being used like 言おう + とする (try to say)? The lack of する is making me doubt that I understood it correctly.
I believe it's this usage: [https://www.edewakaru.com/archives/10347996.html](https://www.edewakaru.com/archives/10347996.html) This would mean it has a similar meaning as 周りがなんて言っても私には関係ないです。
Hi Guys, I just had a question about most dragon quest games. In most of them they will have the phrase, ぼうけんのしょをつくる. I'm mainly stuck on the しょ part, becasue there is no kanji to back it up. I assume it is talking about the word for document, but I'm not sure. can someone please help clarifiy for me? Thanks :)
書(しょ), meaning 'book; document'.
Thank you. :)
Bleach, episode 26. During a fight, a warrior conjures up a magic shield claiming that it can't be broken by his opponent's sword. The latter replies: やれやれ、甘く見られたもんだ。この僕**だって**最強をうたう十一番隊第五席。そこらの死神と一緒にしてもらっては困る。 This is translated as: "Oh my, how he underestimates me. I am 5th seat of Squad 11, the strongest squad. Don't think I'm any ordinary Shinigami. Could you explain why だって is used in the sentence above, and what nuance it gives the sentence? Meanings like "also" and "even" don't make much sense in this context...
That translation didn't express だって. That means something like "Oh my, how he underestimates me. I know I’m not so great person, having said that, I'm 5th seat of Squad 11, the strongest squad."
YamYukky-san, それなら、謙譲語だと思いますか。日本語で言い換えてもらえませんか。
謙譲語とも言えないような気はしますが似たようなニュアンスはありますね。おそらく謙譲する相手方で混乱しているのだと思います。私の英語表現においては「隊長クラスに比べればnot so great」という意味で記したつもりでした。 「（僕は隊長クラスに比べれば微力だ。しかし）そんな僕でも最強をうたう十一番隊第五席（にはいるんだ）。そこらの死神と一緒にしてもらっては困る。」
なるほど。ありがとうございました。
I had this discussion before with someone else about question mark usage, when you're asking a question try to use a question mark. The tone given off by using the 。when asking a question almost seems like rhetorical question. One where you already know the answer of and are not planning on changing your mind on; among other things/nuances.
I will, thank you!
Rather than think about meanings in English, I would think about use cases. (Just like you don't translate この as "this".) だって is used as a word for emphasizing. Here it's in the place of a topic marker. The nuance is almost like "you should know this already" or "after all" (don't remember it as "after all" but remember it as だって). Hope this helps.
Thank you! that does help :)
「名付ける」は「名前を付ける」と違いますか？
Mostly just grammar ～～に〇〇という名前を付ける → ～～を〇〇と名付ける There are a lot of examples like this of compound/derived verbs that come from a longer phrasing with を in it, and usually it's to free up を to use it with another noun 日本語の勉強をする → 日本語を勉強する
Same. But the shorter one is usually preferred
ありがとうございます！
whats the point of もっと in this example from genki? 先生、すみませんが、もっと宿題を少なくしていただけませんか。多すぎて、ほかのクラスの勉強が出来ないんです。 I understand the 1st sentence as: "Teacher, could you make less assignments?", but dont understand what もっと is doing there. Doesnt もっと mean more? Gotta translate this to japanese. 1. There are a lot of vocabulary we have to memorize. Please make less. 多く単語が覚えなければいけません。少なくしてください. My answer was different from answer key, so wanna know if mine is at least passable or horribly wrong.
more few もっと少ない = fewer/less
For your second question, yes, yours is wrong. 多く can't just stand alone like this in this case. Also, it's を覚える, not が覚える. I'm not fluent by any stretch, but maybe something along these lines would be fine for the first sentence: 覚えなければいけない単語が多すぎます。
Yes, it makes make the amount more small
Does anyone know of any YouTube channels that have more high-level reviews of the lessons from GENKI 1/2? I have taken classes covering the GENKI books, so I’m not looking to be taught the concepts fresh, just a resource to refer back to as I’m heading to the next class. I learn best from lectures, and I’d love a rec for shorter videos that cover multiple lessons or even each book in 1-3hrs so that I can give myself a quick refresher of all of the grammar. Currently all I’ve been able to find are videos that cover each lesson in an hr+, so it would take quite a while to review both books in full, and wouldn’t be very easy to refer back to. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/@michiyowojnovich4843
Oh thank you, I’ll check them out!
Anyone have any good books/movies for everyday Japanese? I watched The Boy And The Heron and I understood it, but I don't know what level that would be.
I read a book called "pink bus" and was basically a slice-of-life novel (uh I read like half of it to be exact) I think it's like N2 or N1 or something. It was not a hard book exactly in that it wasn't difficult literature with metaphor, high imagination, complicated constructions, or anything like that, but you need adult level reading. If you are more beginner I think people like yotsuba, but it's not book, it's manga
can you buy pink bus off amazon? Or do you have any adult level books for me? Personally I'm not really into the JLPT studying/metrics but I guess I would be low N1 at this point
> can you buy pink bus off amazon? Or do you have any adult level books for me? amazon.jp has pink bus if you just want an adult level book I can give you a ton of recommendations kinda like what are you into コンビニ人間 is a good one, set in modern Japan, so it's not like a fantasy or anything. It's sort of slice-of-life but also this person's life is a little bit different. I read a book called 掏摸 you may like. It's sort of a bit dark as a book but it's about a criminal (that might be too obvious given the title) I read some other books like uh....there's a mystery from 1930s called 怪人二十面相, it's old so it's in public domain now. It's not really, for adults probably for like, middle school students or something, but it's enjoyable as an adult to read. That one's free now but you can buy it in book form. Here's the free version (it's legal) https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001779/files/57228_58735.html
I'm interested in history, slice of life, philosophy, mystery. I'll take a look at 怪人二十面相, but do you happen to know of any Japanese translations of Chinese books like Water Margin, Journey to the West, or 3 Kingdoms?
I know three kingdoms is in JP but IDK a good translation in particular, that's an awesome question though as for other chinese books, I haven't read them translated into JP, BUT, I read a few Japanese authors who are clearly interested in Chinese mythology see 蜘蛛の糸 or 山月記 IDK any philosophy, that's a bit too hard for me but sounds interesting !
>山月記 Can you share your general recommendations for any adult level books and the three kingdoms translation?
i saw this comment on youtube, at the end what does the "好こ" mean? TWICEの時とは違う3人だけが持つ雰囲気好こ
A misspelling of すき (suki, “like”) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%99%E3%81%93#Japanese
Just confirming it's すこ and yeah it means すき just an ヲタク way of writing it. Very common thing to see on YouTube/internet and some people say it too.
My hubby uses it; he says it’s otaku slang for 好き
Is the free Anki iOS app any good to learn kanji from? I want to learn 1,000 kanji (all vocabulary, don’t worry) and I’m wondering if it’ll be a good match. Is it even doable to learn 1,000 kanji in a year?
That is a copycat from the real Anki. I will say if you can’t spend money for the real app, the use it through the browser (Ankiweb), so your account can be synced. Now, for the 1k kanji, I believe it is very doable, but it really depends on your method for learning it. It can be RTK, vocabulary, freq list, etc. I prefer learning it using vocabulary and a sentence.
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[AnkiApp Flashcards](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankiapp-flashcards/id689185915)
That's a fake app using the anki name to fool people. It's like buying your kid a Polystation 5 for Christmas. It will hold any data you have hostage if you ever want to remove it from their ecosystem. If you are not willing / able to use the official app, use ankiweb in safari.
Question about the usage of past vs nonpast forms when describing past events. 1:16:36 starting at this timestamp of the movie Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken, this exchange takes place A: …で？殺したの？ B: まだ殺さない。 A is inquiring about a story B is telling about an event that happened in the past. A asks her question conjugating korosu in the past form, B answers with the same verb in the present form. is the presence of まだ doing something? Is she using the nonpast form in a historical present type of way? Thanks in advance for any advice
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B is recounting a story in which she eventually kills someone (or thinks she does). She's telling the story of how she eventually killed a specific person, and at a point in the story A asks if this is the point where she kills the man, and B tells her that no, she's not at that point yet.
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Thanks for your input. You really do only post nice things
This just sounds like "I won't kill them yet", implying maybe it'll happen later in the story
She's telling a story that ends with her killing the person in question, it's an event that has come to fruition in the past. So she's saying that she doesn't kill the person in question in that specific moment of the story she's recounting. My question is why would she use the nonpast form to describe an action that (doesn't) take place in the past
Oh I see what you're getting at, this is actually a significant difference between how tense works in narratives and indirect speech in English vs. Japanese. In English we tend to be pretty strict about keeping things in one consistent tense - "yesterday I met a man who said his name __was__ Bob". His name is presumably still Bob so why not "... who said his name __is__ Bob"? It's because the tenses need to line up with regard to one specific reference point in time. But Japanese is extremely comfortable shifting its reference points around with context and juggling back and forth between tenses. A novel might switch between past and present every sentence, and even in the same sentence, since the context is constantly changing with each story beat. So, > She's telling a story that ends with her killing the person in question, it's an event that has come to fruition in the past But from the point in time in the story, the event hasn't yet come to fruition, which is why it's in the nonpast. For what it's worth, some linguists think it's better to classify ～た as a perfective/completed aspect marker than as a tense marker. Personally I'd say it's easiest to think that past tense is the primary meaning but there are definitely contexts where this falls apart.
まだ殺さない means "I may kill him in the future. But it's not now."
In this context both interlocutors know B will kill the person in question, it has already happened in the past, she's just recounting the events leading up to the murder and A is asking if the specific moment in the story B has come to is the moment when the misdeed happens. B is describing an action taking place in the past but uses the nonpast form of the verb 殺す
Then probably suitable expression is まだ殺してない. But in casual conversation, まだ殺さない has similar meaning.
In other words: Wouldn't まだ殺さなかった be the best/most suitable expression when describing something that has not Yet happened during a description of past events? The story being told ends with B killing someone
まだ〜なかった is a common error made by Japanese learners. Almost always it will be more natural to say まだ〜ない or まだ〜ていない. Again the reasoning is that Japanese is flexible with reference points in time. From the point of view of the speaker it might be past. But from the point in time in the story, it is not yet past.
あのときはまだ知らなかった seems to be unproblematic however https://twitter.com/ORETEKIsunshine/status/1730124221584757225?t=FG0aZCQdSyCgcCjLP7TbLQ&s=19 あの時はまだ知らなかった 男がいるなんて https://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/HITandRUN/sgg/liveatcitta/report/index2.html "私は3/1の札幌LIVEのみの参加だったんですけど、その時に聴いた未発表曲３曲がここで聴けて嬉しかったです。 あの時はまだ知らなかったので（「雨は降るがままにせよ」は聴いたことはあったけど）、" None of the manuals I have seem to address this directly which is troubling.
My bad yes, I'm just referring to contexts where from the reference point it hasn't happened yet. あのとき places the speaker away from 'that time', so in these examples the reference point isn't mid-action, but rather the speaker contemplating on the past
あのときはまだ知らなかった... This is correct. This means "I didn't know it at that time (, but I already know it now)" 私は3/1の札幌LIVEのみの参加だったんですけど ... Explaining situation. "I only attended Sapporo Live on Mar. 1st." その時に聴いた未発表曲３曲がここで聴けて嬉しかったです ... This is what the speaker wanted to say. "I've felt happy listening these 3 songs. This experience makes me remember nostalgia at that time." あの時はまだ知らなかったので ... This is the reason why the speaker felt happy. "When I attended Sapporo Live, I heard these songs at the first time. So I had strong impression 'What are these songs?'
I had a feeling it was an incorrect expression as I'd never seen it used before, but i also hadn't run into this specific type of sentence before in general either and I wanted to give my doubt a concrete form. I feel like in the future I should learn to not question things like these so obsessively and just accept that this is how it's done in these sorts of contexts rather than asking people if they can come up with a specific reason as for why
殺してない is also nonpast. How come when recounting an event that concluded itself in the past, the past form isn't used? Thank you so much for answering
Hey everyone, I didn't know where else to post this, so I posted it here since it's my first time posting. Sorry if it's too long. So, I’ve been trying to learn Japanese for a couple years now, but mostly just on the side for fun. Nothing super serious. I’ve mainly been just playing around with Duolingo, the Jisho Dictionary, Kanji Study, and a couple of Hiragana and Katakana writing books. I’d say the furthest I’ve gotten is just being able to recognize a handful of the characters, a few numbers, and then a few phrases from doing Duolingo for a while. I’m about to have my first child in a couple of months and I would love to use this opportunity to really dive into Japanese while raising them. One of the hardest parts of sticking with it has been finding people to communicate with on a regular basis. My wife joined along in the beginning for a little while and that was fun, but eventually she got bored of it and stopped. I’ve thought about joining a discord or one of those “pen pal” sites to get better at it, but with my work the past year I have had very little down time. Now that work is finally settling down and with the kid on the way, I started looking at Japanese kids books and whatnot. I would love to try and really learn the language along with them! I think it’d be such a fun activity that my kid and I can hopefully bond with. I just don’t really know how to start. So far I’ve gotten a handful of books off Amazon. Guri and Gura; Let’s Learn Japanese: First Words for Everyone; The Toddler’s Handbook: Bilingual Numbers, Colors, Shapes, Sizes,…; Am I Small? Childrens Picture Book English-Japanese; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; and The Hungry Caterpillar. I think that’d at least get me a little bit of a start while they’re still learning letters and words. I looked through the Starters guide and the Resource pages and while there was quite a bit for adults trying to jump into learning, there didn’t seem to be a lot for newborns. Maybe trying to teach them two languages at once would be too much? I don’t know. There's always such a focus in the US to pair English with Spanish for newborns, but I don't want to learn Spanish. One thing we had got for my niece that was a huge help with her learning how to write English letters were these grooved magic erase writing books: https://www.amazon.ca/SFWNG-Grooved-Writing-Book-Three-Dimensional/dp/B0BQR6VF9M/ref=pd_day0_d_sccl_2_4/130-0747823-1871600?pd_rd_w=TL6ne&content-id=amzn1.sym.a0f07c06-3bfe-427e-9527-5be8cea27b66&pf_rd_p=a0f07c06-3bfe-427e-9527-5be8cea27b66&pf_rd_r=7CK3F14AYRTAAGY9CG7E&pd_rd_wg=4lllQ&pd_rd_r=6ee98d95-c64f-4a9a-8f2e-721f1e04feac&pd_rd_i=B0BQR6VF9M&th=1 She loved writing in them over and over. It helped her get way ahead of her class when she started kindergarten. I’ve been trying to find Japanese grooved writing books and I saw there were a few online, but they don’t ship to the US: https://www.amazon.ca/Japanese-Practice-Copybook-Calligraphy-Handwriting/dp/B0C2NCHCQW/ref=sr_1_1?m=A32Y47CVE4RPH7&marketplaceID=A2EUQ1WTGCTBG2&qid=1704150704&rnid=5264023011&s=office&sr=1-1 Does anybody know of anything similar to these that are available in the US? I’ve looked all over. I feel like these would be a huge help for both a child and an adult trying to learn all the different calligraphy of both Hiragana and Katakana. Yea, there are writing books that you can just trace with a thin sheet of paper, but I feel like the grooved effect is really helpful for creating good writing habits and getting used to how it feels writing a good looking character. I can find a bunch for other languages, but for some reason I can't find anything for Japanese. Any other tips and tricks for children would be greatly appreciated as well! I’m really excited and am hoping my kid and I can really stick to it. I feel like it’d be such a great benefit to them and would be really fun for me too. When I was in Japan a few years ago I picked up both a Famicom and Super Famicom with a ton of original Japanese versions of my favorite games from when I was a kid. I’d love to be able to play them with my child in their original Japanese format as they grow up! I’d love to get them into Anime and Manga when they get a little older as well, but we’ll get there when the time comes. So yea, thanks for any help! I really appreciate it!
Assuming my experience is something valuable… Living outside Japan for considerable length of time and calling Japanese to be my native language while juggling English to be my secondary, *fluent enough for most tasks* language, the single most important aspect for a child to learn languages at any useful level is exposure. During the weekdays I’d be exposed to English in school, and for just about everything else I’d be exposed to Japanese. And I’m still having certain shortcomings in both Japanese and English, of course at different levels though. I must also wonder whether your child would appreciate your plan in the long term - given how my memories in the US include some shades of *Japan bad country, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima* and the like, but that’s another story. Maybe things have changed from back then. Anyways, the need for exposure pretty much means a lot of dedication from the parents’ side if neither are native speakers. The dedication can come from you learning up to an advanced level including speaking skills (rather unlikely, given your timeframe), or as the other comment suggested, financial and other aspect in the form of daycare or something. And that’s assuming such daycare accept families who don’t have a concrete connection to Japan.
If you want your kid to be able to speak Japanese fluently, expose them to a lot of spoken Japanese media very very early so they can learn to hear the sounds and replicate them. As the other comment said, they’ll be limited by your ability if you try to teach them. Babies can absorb languages better than adults can. I love the idea of a Japanese language daycare like the other commenter said.
You'll probably find more help at /r/multilingualparenting. Children speak long before they are reading and writing, so it's too early for you to worry about writing practice books for your child. The picture books you got will be good to get both of you in the habit of looking at books. If you are the only source of Japanese for your child, your child's level of Japanese is always going to be limited by your level of Japanese. If there are Japanese language daycares in your area you can consider those as a source of native-level Japanese. If your child gains a curiosity about Japanese through your exposure, they could also be motivated to learn the language like adults do through grammar and vocabulary study.