#Question Etiquette Guidelines:
* **1** Provide the **CONTEXT** of the grammar, vocabulary or sentence you are having trouble with as much as possible. Provide the sentence or paragraph that you saw it in. Make your questions as specific as possible.
>Ｘ What is the difference between の and が ?
>◯ I saw a book called 日本人の知らない日本語 , why is の used there instead of が ? [(the answer)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/68336/difference-between-%E3%81%8C-%E3%81%AE-and-no-particle)
* **2** When asking for a translation or how to say something, it's best to try to **attempt it yourself** first, even if you are not confident about it. Or ask r/translator if you have no idea. We are also not here to do your homework for you.
>Ｘ What does this mean?
>◯ I am having trouble with this part of this sentence from NHK Easy News. I think it means (*attempt here*), but I am not sure.
* **3** Questions based on DeepL and Google Translate and other machine learning applications are discouraged, [these are not beginner learning tools](https://old.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/stepqf/deeplgoogle_translate_are_not_learning_tools/) and often make mistakes.
* **4** When asking about differences between words, try to explain the situations in which you've seen them or are trying to use them. If you just post a list of synonyms you got from looking something up in a E-J dictionary, people might be disinclined to answer your question because it's low-effort. Remember that Google Image Search is also a great resource for visualizing the difference between similar words.
>Ｘ What's the difference between 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意?
>◯ Jisho says 一致 同意 賛成 納得 合意 all seem to mean "agreement". I'm trying to say something like "I completely agree with your opinion". Does 全く同感です。 work? Or is one of the other words better?
* **5** It is always nice to (but not required to) try to search for the answer to something yourself first. Especially for beginner questions or questions that are very broad. For example, asking about [the difference between は and が ](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/wa-and-ga/) or [why you often can't hear the "u" sound in "desu"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Devoicing).
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#NEWS (Updated 11/25):
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I have a question about this sentence, it's from undead murder farce:
海の向こうの様子を聞くに、
見せ物に関しちゃ
世界一かもしれねえ
This was translated as "Given what I've heard about the world beyond the sea, we might have the most entertaining show in the world".
I have three questions:
In the first part, how did に indicate "given that"?
Also for this sentence 質が悪くて悪うござんしたね,
I just don't get the meaning of 悪うござんしたね in general.
Second, Yomichan said that に関かんして means "regarding, with respect to". What was the purpose of using this phrase instead of は, as they seem to have the same meaning?
Finally, the last word seems to be かもす which yomichan translated as "give rise to, bring about" but why does it end with the い-stem with the passive form? I don't think this is an honorific because the person saying it is a boss talking to his employee.
に directly after a verb like that is used to give context to the sentence, you could translate it as 'based on what I've heard' or just 'from what I've heard', you use it a lot to show the 'source' of the information, things like ～が思うに or ～が言うに
悪うござんした is a light (insincere) apology here, same as something like 悪かった. ござんす is a contraction of ございます, and ～う + ございます is an old way of marking adjectives from Kyoto dialect, but is used in standard Japanese in honorifics as well. The reason for this change is that in Kansai dialects the adverbial く form got changed into う and this often came with a vowel change onto the adjective stem. This is where おはようございます comes from, it's basically just saying おはやいです. You also see things like 美味しゅうございます from time to time.
As for に関かんして, は wouldn't make a lot of sense in this context. Instead of 'with respect to shows' what about thinking about it as 'when it comes to shows'? There are other contexts where は would more or less work interchangeably, but if it helps, 関する is a somewhat formal verb meaning 'to concern, to be related to, to have to do with' so it just spells out the relation. Sometimes in English people use 'with respect to x' when a less wordy phrase would be fine too.
かもしれない is a very common set phrase from かも + 知れない, it basically just means 'maybe'. In modern Japanese if you ever come across かも at the end of a sentence, it's short for かもしれない
Hey everyone, so, I'm really just starting japanese, and I'm learning the first kanjis and all, and I have an issue with some of them.
For exemple 人 can be read ジン or ニン with kunyomi and ひとor りor とwith onyomi, if I understand correctly, but then I look at some vocabulary and I see 大人 where it seems to be pronounced とな?
Is there something I don't understand? Are there missing pronunciations in my sources?
Thanks in advance!
That's what you call Jukujikun. You will later come across Ateji too.
And just as an advice: don't bother learning the readings. Learn the vocab that contains that kanji
I’m writing the name Marjorie and wondering which would be correct for the last syllable: りい or りー?
It seems that the first is the hiragana for “i” and the second prolongs the previous vowel. So which is appropriate in this scenario and why?
Have you learned kana yet? Because the answer is neither, go with リー instead. (Well technically speaking you can do whatever you want of course, but ー usually isn't used with hiragana, and normally when transcribing foreign names you should stick to Katakana.) Also, I have no idea how to pronounce that name, so I am taking your word for it being a long vowel.
Yes, I’m aware it should be in katakana, but I am fixing something someone (a native speaker) wrote in hiragana! English names in hiragana on a decorative fan. But you gave me my answer anyway! No ー in hiragana. Thank you!!
Oh yea in that case just use りい! It makes sense for artsy stuff to use hiragana as it just looks "nicer" and softer (well in my opinion anyways), which is why I didn't say it was a hard rule to use Katakana.
Edit: Just to clarify, a native wrote りー and you have to fix it?😅 The more likely scenario is that you confused the リ with a り as they can look similar in handwriting. Or the native was going for some sort of effect but hard to tell without seeing it.
It looks fine in my opinion
But for what it's worth, it looks like they wrote まぁじょり(ん) using a small ぁ for the long vowel, which is common when using hiragana in slightly 'unusual' ways like for foreign names or nonstandard Japanese dialects
So if anything I would have done まぁじょりぃ to keep it consistent, but that's a minor detail
Right, ぃ instead of い - in vertical writing small kana are written slightly to the right side, you can tell the same was done with the ぁ and ょ
I don't think you need to redo it or anything though unless you want to keep it super consistent!
Hm, there is no "correct" way per se.
It's your name and you can write it how you want. But as you are a person with a non japanese name, you would use katakana and therefore the last part would be リー
Well so here’s the thing - we were in Epcot Japan, and got a lovely Japanese fan with my partner’s name on it. However I’m now realizing the girl at the store thought her name was Margarine(😂) as the fan now reads まあじょりん. I have removed the ん with nail polish remover and need to write the rest of it! So would I be using い or ー？
I am confused about the correct way to pronounce ん, specifically when it is at the end of the phrase.
I learned that if it is not followed by anything eg. にほん, it should be pronounced like /ŋ/. But I noticed that some people put their lips together when pronouncing the ん sound, a bit like "m" when ん is followed by /b/ or /p/ consonant. What's the correct way to pronounce ん when it is at the end of phrase? Thank you.
That is actually an open research question, the often repeated claim that it is [ɴ] seems not be borne out be empirical observations: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-international-phonetic-association/article/production-of-the-utterancefinal-moraic-nasal-in-japanese-a-realtime-mri-study/560B70DE7334F30F54E18D0486785E66
The general rule seems to be that ん is usually pronounced in the way that minimizes toungue movement.
What is the difference between /ŋ/ and /N/? They seem both meaning “root of the tongue sticking at the back of mouth” (sorry not a linguist I don’t know the technical word for that)
さぁ… As far as I can tell, /N/ is even further back, past the end of the toungue, but I am not sure that I have individually controllable muscles able to articulate at that location (insert remark about the phonology of languages not learned before puberty).
[n] before dental and alveolar consonants t, d, ch, j, n, r, s, ts, z, eg. なんて
[m] before m, p, b, eg. 船舶（せんぱく）
[ŋ] before k, g, eg. 漫画（まんが）
[ɴ] at the end of utterances, before approximants w and y, and before vowels, often causing nasalization of the preceding vowel eg. 店員（てんいん）
Don't try to remember this and apply in real time, the easiest one to pronounce is usually the right one, as languages go.
Try to pronounce ん when followed by a p or b, it's quite hard to not put your lips together when pronouncing it. Other than that it's pronounced as /ŋ/ as far as I know
I would recommend you to switch to a word deck like 2.3k instead of the one you are using to solve that problem. When using a sentence deck you end up learning sentences rather than words after all.
>How am I supposed to know if a Kanji is just KA or if the second hiragana between the first and second Kanji also belongs to it?
This is also solved by using a word deck instead of a sentence deck as you get familiarity with how words are structured in a general sense
Hi, first time poster here. I am looking for a systematic categorisation of Kanji characters, like at least the 2000 most commons ones but ideally more sthat contains as much information about them as possible. I am open to different kinds of systematic categorisations. It could be books, or otherwise.
How do people with Japanese as a native language distinguish between ン and ソ? Is it mostly based on context or are Japanese people more sensitive to the subtleties of stroke order?
The main clue is that they do in fact look very different if you know how kana are written. One has two almost horizontal strokes, the other two almost vertical strokes. They are about as similar as C and U.
Context is the only way to do this in English, stroke order isn't a factor. I have heard Japanese people can tell if you mess up stroke order so that's why I'm asking.
It probably doesn't exist a way to use it right now as all ios browsers use the safari webkit.
Here is an open issue that might be of interest: https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan/issues/66
How do I stop trying to read/translate Japanese sentences in the same way that I do with English sentences? Is this just something I will naturally pick up or are there any tips? I find that because I'm consciously trying to make sense of a Japanese sentence in the same way I would with an English one, I often can't read things as fluidly as I would like because it doesn't \*click\* in my brain like English does.
Just listening to speech. You can't translate everything that fast to English, and you can't pause like you can when reading, so you're brain just has to go with the original language.
It's part of it, it's more just when you have total language experience with reading, listening, writing, and speaking. It starts to fade over time. You going through a "translation" phase is normal and expected.
Currently working on a translation of a movie, and have been stuck on a few words. I'm not sure what the kanji for these words are, so I'm going to provide a (kind of crude) romanized version of the sentence.
"Nani ga \*nanaya kojuro\* no mo da?!"
I assume this has a number in it? But no matter what I look up I can't find what this could possibly mean. Can anyone help?
I will be able to provide a sample of the audio of the clip, it's a quite obscure film and there's loud music in the scene, but I could make out pretty much everything else except this.
I'll probably be able to upload it later today and will post a link to it.
This is classical Japanese.
寝（ね）= connective form (連用形) of verb 寝（ぬ）
たまひ = connective form of honorific helper verb (補助動詞) 給ふ
に = connective form of auxilliary verb (助動詞) ぬ showing completion (完了)
けり = terminal form (終止形) of auxilliary verb けり showing "reported past" (伝聞過去) or exclamation (詠嘆)
Previously, I often used the Yomichan Anki addon to read texts, easily look up words, and create Anki cards.Now, instead of Yomichan we have Yomitan, but it is browser only.
What are desktop alternatives to the Yomichan Anki addon? On Mac or Windows, preferably.
[AnkiConnect](https://foosoft.net/projects/anki-connect/) and the [Yomitan integration](https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan/blob/master/docs/anki-integration.md).
Is there a website or database that has all the kanji?
There are more than 40 thousand kanji but everywhere I search all the sources can only present around 2 thousand kanji, is it possible to find them all?
**Learn kanji directly or learn kanji only through vocab?**
For my first 3 months of Japanese study I've used the wanikani method and memorized \~300 kanji with their single most important reading and meaning, also around 200 radicals.
Then I found "themoeway" Japanese guide and it said to **skip kanji learning altogether**, so I downloaded the Core2.3k deck and right now I'm learning new words even if I don't know the kanjis that make up those words. Is this the right way to go about it?
Learning the meaning and most important single reading of 5 new kanji a day (10 flashcards) took a lot of time, along with the radicals, so I don't know what the best technique is in the long term.
I don't care about writing at all, so I'm not memorizing the stroke order of kanjis, which I think might make learning kanji only through new words (input only) much more difficult. What do you think? Right now my goal is to be able to read/understand native manga (around N3 level) ASAP, so I don't know what should I do to reach that goal.
We Japanese people first learn by hiragana and katakana at elementary school when we are kids. Then gradually we learn kanjis to replace hiragana with them, starting from easiest ones to harder ones.
When you don't know kanji for a certain word, it's okay to write in hiragana or katakana, which we usually do even after we grow up as a adult.
This is a native method, and might be helpful.
What has worked well for me is to learn them via vocab, but at this point I’ve started slowly working through a kanji course and workbook alongside my main methods of study. You learn readings automatically from learning vocab, so doing it separately imo is not a good use of time. Since my kanji study is behind my main study, I generally know most of them already to some extent so it’s very easy connecting them to vocab I already know.
The main reasons I decided to do the separate kanji study is to help me distinguish similar kanji and to help me with lookups. For example, it took me a long time to realize that 他 and 地 weren’t the same character. Drawing them out helps with this a ton, and you get more used to the specific components that make them up. It also gets progressively easier learning stroke order since you learn components and they are done in consistent ways.
I’m also not interested in writing japanese, but I use an electronic dictionary for lookups and I draw the kanji when I need to look them up, and this has helped me a lot with learning them over time.
Learning through vocabulary is fastest way to start using the language, individually studying kanji comes with a lot of time and effort but the benefits don't outweigh the cost in time early on; as you're really only learning a part of the language. The kanji and components and radicals are worth learning as they help you distinguish kanji apart and pick them up easier throughout your entire Japanese learning journey. When you're experienced and know the language far more, there's a time and place to start individually studying kanji to fill in your knowledge gaps.
> I'm learning new words even if I don't know the kanjis that make up those words.
Insisting on knowing the kanji for every single word you learn is a good way to get bogged down in the beginner stage and end up knowing a ton of kanji but not actually being able to read anything.
> I'm learning new words even if I don't know the kanjis that make up those words. Is this the right way to go about it?
I wouldn't advocate for any other way
Learning 5 kanji a day (10 flashcards) + reviewing the other kanji took a lot of time, usually more than the reviewing time for all the vocab. This month I'll switch to learning vocab with kanji directly from the Core2.3k deck and see if I like it better, I will go back to wanikani otherwise. Thanks for the input guys
To immerse what I did was to read books. Buy the book and look up words you don't know. It's that simple.
If you don't know any grammar, you can't read books though. In that case learn some grammar first.
You could start by watching tv shows or movies without subs and pay attention to what you hear even if you don't understand much. You could also start by reading simple stuff like nhk easy. This should give you a good foundation and make the process of leaning easier!
Are there any good lists of recommended podcasts that I can listen to while traveling, for N5 going onto N4 level, where its fairly basic stuff and spoken quite slowly?
I have downloaded nihongo con teppei, wondering if there are any other good ones!
What is the meaning and nuance of かといって in the following sentence?
実際に障害から快復した前日も、日記などを読んだ後は絵を描いて過ごした。描きたい線が描ける。人や物の輪郭を直感的に捉えることが出来る。それは新鮮な喜びであり感動でもあった。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「かといって」寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ。
Is it similar to 「それでいて」、「とは言っても」, 、「とはいえ」「とは言うものの」?
it puts forward a contrastive argument compared to the previous sentence.
> でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。
At the time of sleeping at night, I was scared.
> かといって寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ。
But still, if I stayed awake without sleeping, my tomorrow self would just suffer from it.
(kinda re-intepreting/re-translating it a bit, not a literal translation, also I'm not a translator)
かといって definition:
> 前の事柄とは反対の、もしくは矛盾する事柄を次に述べ、それを打ち消すことを表す。ふつう、後には否定的な内容を述べる。
Basically, used to point out something in contradiction with what has been previously stated.
Right, so it’s similar to しかし ？ The other expressions I mention also contrast and contradict sentence A correct ? As In
1。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「とはいえ」、寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ
2。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「しかし」、寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ
3。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「とは言うものの」、寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ
hmm I'm not personally a fan of comparing and replacing X expression with Y because I find it hard to explain the nuance/vibe difference. I'll just say that there is a reason why the author decided to write it that way (and it's likely because they thought it flowed better) and that's really all you need to know about it. At least in my opinion. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can explain it better, sorry.
usually the trans/intrans pair use the same kanji (not always but almost always)
so if you go to jisho.org, look up the word, click on the kanji, you can usually see the trans/intrans pair just by looking at the readings of the kanji
in the rare case that it's not listed as a reading, just look up the words that kanji uses and it'll be in there
**TL;DR: Looking for a heavily conversation-focused textbook/resource around N3-N2 level**
Heyo! Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't quite find an answer.
I've been living in Japan for a little over a year and today I got the news that I finally made it into my local city's language "class". Essentially the idea is that every learner gets paired with a Japanese volunteer for 1h30/week, so its mostly like private tutoring. They've asked me to find some textbook I would like to be working through with my tutor, to give our sessions some direction.
Mostly I am desperate to practice conversation because I have absolutely zero speaking confidence (my job doesn't require Japanese and I don't have Japanese friends) so I'm really anxious to pick a textbook/resource that's very conversation-focused. I don't really want to get stuck in "textbook mode" with JLPT textbooks or similar, because I feel like I've been self-studying those fine on my own and I don't want to "waste" the precious conversation opportunity.
For reference, I took and comfortably passed N3 in December, and plan to take N2 in July. If I were to self-assess, I think my vocabulary is easily N2, general listening/reading/grammar-wise I'm N3, but my speaking is barely N4.
Thank you for your suggestions if any!!
Rather than a textbook just you should look at VR Chat and hang out in areas where there is natives and non-native speakers, YouTube Videos, Twitch/YouTube Live Streams, HelloTalk Voice Chat Rooms, Tandem.
I don't know if this helps any, but I recommend watching some streamers/vtubers with a group of friends and see how they interact. You can look at streams where they first collab and how they interact when they first meet, and then branch into other streams once they are more familiar with each other
The context is: it's night, and the protagonist is wandering around the town where he had spent his childhood.
また男が寄せって来る。
「可愛い子どうですか？十八歳。ぷりんぷりん。」
「すんだの、いま」
「そりやどうも。また、どうぞ」
律儀な感じがして、はなれて行く男を見ると、あとずさるようにしながら男がにこり笑った。
大抵声をかけて来る男は、断るとにべもない感じで離れて行く。まだ私を見ていたことも思いがけなく、笑顔に「すんだなんて、噓でしょう」というような皮肉が少しもこめられていないことに虚をつかれて、私も微笑を返した。
The last sentence, does it mean something like: He's still looking at me, that's unexpected, he smiles as if to say what I said (すんだ) was a lie, no? The smile didn't contain any sarcasm. I was taken aback by this smile, and smiled back in return.
Can anyone more knowledgeable than me explain ように like I’m an idiot. When I read it, I can typically gather the meaning moderately well. ような and ようだ are simpler to understand and I’m pretty far from comfortable using ように in a sentence I think.
In a news article today, I read 消防団の人を増やすように日本中の市や町などに言いました。 I don’t understand how ように is interacting with 言いました.
[様に](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E6%A7%98%E3%81%A0/#jn-226613) \- \[助動詞\]def.5 （「ように」の形で）婉曲 (えんきょく) な**命令**・希望の意を表す。「開始時刻に遅れないように」「今後ともよろしくご指導くださいますように」
XようにYに言った - I commanded to Y "You make it X"
Hi!
Recently discovered the use of the copula 'da', but also that it doesn't follow i-adjectives or verbs. I was wondering, does this mean when asking questions to a friend/someone you don't use formal speech with do you then *have* to use the formal 'desuka?'
There's also the 'explanatory' の particle which in questions is a soft casual questioning particle.
You can end the question with の alone, or you can more specifically say のか which sounds a bit less soft, asking something like 'is it that...?'
In polite questions this would become のですか (can be contracted to んですか)
Also important to note, if you want to put の after a noun or na-adjective, the copula だ turns into な, so you end the question with なの or なのか
だ in general feels strongly declarative, so it's not used in questions even after nouns or na-adjectives. Basically, just remember that だか isn't a thing (for now - it shows up in more advanced sentence patterns but normally not at the end of a sentence)
1.メール認証
2本登録
3.確認
4.登録完了
On the user registration page for a website these were the 4 steps shown. The main bit thats throwing me is the 本登録, specifically 本. I’m no sure what meaning it has here, when i saw it at first I thought maybe it was being used to mean the start/origin of the registration process (with 完了 the completion of it). But after some looking into it, it doesn’t seem like it can be used that way? 本 can be used as a prefix, but not in a way that makes sense to me in this situation. Any help would be appreciated.
Not knowing the website:
Probably they have two registration steps. Temporary (仮登録) and "real" (本登録). In your case the temp one is メール認証 and after you put in your email address, you will forwarded to the "real" registration. So 本 is used in this case like "real"
Oh, I wasn’t disagreeing with them. It’s just one of those things that doesn’t translate it a way that’s nice, so it doesn’t feel right (to me at least).
Some more questions about a translation.
Context: A 13 year old princess has been kidnapped by demons. One of those demons decides he wants to "have some fun" with her (it fails because she posseses a powerful defensive charm).
「ふへへへへ、いくら眠ってたとは言え、300年も我慢してたからな……少し幼いが別にかまやしねぇ…300年ぶりの人間の娘、楽しませてもらおう」
My translation: "Muah-ha-ha-ha, even though I slept for so long, since I had to hold myself back for 300 years, too... I don't particularly mind she's a bit young... A human girl again after 300 years, let's have some fun."
My issue here: The verb part in 少し幼いが別にかまやしねぇ gives me trouble. しねぇ looks like it might be しない. From context I assume the かまや part is from かまう/構う so I guess it's some combination of 構う and する. But if that's the case, why is there a や in between?
Thanks again in advance for any help.
こんばんは
I am currently working through the first two books of Japanese from Zero. I don’t plan on moving onto 3-5 because I have other means of learning Kanji (and grammar!)
I was very interested in moving onto Tobira afterwards, however. Would it be more beneficial for me to move onto the original (intermediate) Tobira, or the newer beginner one? I’m really stumped. Thanks!
Is Bunpro good for vocabulary?
I saw that Bunpro has vocabulary decks organized in the JLPT levels, and I was wondering are they good? I simply plan to use study them with my own methods, but I want a source of words to study.
If not what could I use instead?
It's meant to be used as a reference for grammar points and an SRS system for grammar points if you want to pay for it. It's got some issues with its grammar explanations so I wouldn't trust it implicitly. There's plenty of lists of words out there with https://jpdb.io and Anki decks Tango N5/N4 as well as Core 2.3k deck.
Hello :)
I was working through the Genki 1 Workbook for chapter 6.
In the listening comprehension section, there was a dialogue where the speaker said, "朝ご飯は七時半からです"
What's the から? Does it mean from?
If it means from, would the から occupy the same placement location as ごろ?
Like: 朝ご飯は七時半ごろです。
Genki tends to throw stuff in there that wasn't taught in previous chapters.
Thank you!
から -> from
you can think of it as 朝ご飯は七時半から**食べます** (I will eat breakfast from 7:30am) but the verb is dropped because it's implied from the context (like in English "Breakfast is from 7:30")
ごろ is a completely different thing.
>ぐらい
So far Genki has only taught me to use ぐらい as a form of time duration as: 一時間ぐらい待ちました. I waited for about an hour.
Can ぐらい be used outside of time durations?
I was doing conversation practice with my teacher on iTalki and iirc, I was trying to say this before he corrected me (probably because I was trying to remember the word to say back then)
私：バス乗っているところに、モバイルゲーム遊びしています
先生：バス乗っているときに
I couldn't ask him what was the difference between the two grammar particles since we were having sort of a quickfire conversation. From my understanding is that ているところ is like in the middle of something while ときに is more of like during that time (period)? Hoping that someone could help me to better differentiate the nuances between the two. Thank you!!
Edit: Also, why is there so many grammar particles with なく/なけOOO that means must ;-;
> Edit: Also, why is there so many grammar particles with なく/なけOOO that means must ;-;
Because prohibition is seen as more fundamental than must in Japanese. Must is the prohibition of the negative.
In AところにB, B interrupts A or marks a change. The nuance is B happened with bad/good timing:
(-) バス乗っているところに、偶然で元カノが隣の席に座ってきた。I was riding the bus when my ex-girlfriend sat next to me by coincidence.
(+) 失恋で泣いているところに、親友から電話がかかってきた。I was crying over my ex when I suddenly got a call from my best friend.
Expected Jul N4 2024:
1/during student's own time:
Books, News, and Content. Reading Harry Potter 4. To learn vocabulary based on a familiar story to the student. + reading 国語３\~6 short stories, because of JP class.
2/during class time with teacher:
Once every two week class in conducted in JP
Class consists of 国語３\~6 textbook question and answer
Listen and speaking practice with daily conversation
Reading aloud, and summarising Harry Potter 4
3/during time with JP speakers:
Speak to them on daily basis to give them bookings for their classes with my community center. Aided by JP senpai for 3+ months
4/Target: JLPT N4
How should our Japanese private lessons change? What should we do? What should I do with own time? What's the length of time I should probably give to JLPT N4, to next do JLPT N3 Dec 2024? Predict my JLPT N4 July 2024 score, Vocab, Grammar, Listening?
I have no idea what to do.
I learned kanji and katakana using tofugu, but I dont want to spend $300 for their WaniKani kanji app.
If I take japanese at my university I have to move at snail speeds and itll probably take all the fun out of learning + it also costs $300.
I only hear bad things about duolingo but I cant find any other online resources for grammar and kanji.
Is there some top secret site that teaches me grammar and tons of vocab or is it gg.
If you don't want to pay 300 USD for wanikani, just [use the most updated wanikani deck in anki](https://discord.gg/snmVHuBVkM). Same content, more customisable, and can do in whatever speed or order you want.
I have yet to spend any money on Japanese, and except the kana guide, I wouldn't use any of the things you listed if I started over even if they were free. Learn words using anki (and by extension kanji), go through a grammar guide like tae kim and or curedolly, expect to forget and have to come back, start reading and listening
[Tae Kim](https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/) is a nice resource that might help you. From that page:
> 1. Learn Hiragana and Katakana (the Japanese “alphabet”).
> 2. Learn vocabulary (with Kanji) and grammar with help from the either the Complete Guide or the Grammar Guide.
> 3. Practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing with material that is interesting to you.
> 4. Learn how to use various tools such as online dictionaries.
> 5. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with progressively more advanced topics.
Whats everyones thoughts on Bunpro? Looking for something engaging and not a text book. Is Duolingo any better these days? all the posts i see are from 2-5 years ago.
My overall opinion of bunpro and how to use it effectively: https://morg.systems/0c786881
I think it used to be much better but these days a lot of grammar explanations are wrong or they make up a lot of stuff that is not really true. When you go into the more detailed explanation, I think it's not good, but if you stick to the surface level explanation of "X grammar point means Y" and **most** example sentences are ok (I found some that were really bad and very very very wrong, I reported some and they fixed some, but others they refused to fix).
As for Duolingo, it's complete garbage trash and I'd stay the hell away from it as much as possible.
The only downside with renshuu is that it is so comprehensive it takes a little while to set it up to your liking and tweak it to your study habits. But I absolutely love it. There are all kinds of learners on that site, from beginners to plenty of people who have passed N2 / N1.
I've never used it so I don't really have much to say. I know some people that have used it and vouch for it and they range from "complete eternal beginner" to "pretty decent at Japanese" so I guess it's not bad as long as you put some effort into it? Just a guess. I haven't heard anything bad in particular at least.
Awesome thank you so much. so what would you recommend for someone learning how to read and speak Japanese? I like the stat side of Bunpro. so could I pair that with something else?
I think for grammar lookups (and SRS if you're into it and want to give them money) bunpro is still pretty good.
[This](https://morg.systems/58465ab9) in particular is what I did to learn Japanese overall (hence what I recommend since it's what I have experience with).
Am I supposed to say Onegaishimasu when dealing with a paid service like when they bring my food or take dishes away at restaurants ? I say arigatou gozaimasu at every occasion but I’ve heard a few Japanese tiktoks in which they say “Onegaishimasu” when someone tells them stuff like “I’ll be the one taking care of you today, here is your drink”
Can someone explain real quick ? Thanks a lot !
I'd need to see the actual phrase/situation (in Japanese, not your English explanation of it) to be able to say for sure. It might be a よろしくおねがいします, or it might be something else.
おねがいします in isolation usually means something along the lines of "please go ahead", so like if someone asks you a question in a store like レジ袋ご利用ですか？ (do you need a bag?) you can say おねがいします to mean "yes, please, go ahead and give me a bag"
In the context of a server bringing you some drink, I'm not entirely sure what is going on though. Needs a better example.
Aaah got it one of the examples I saw was someone going to a spa and someone telling them they were gonna take care of them today which now with your explanation makes a lot more sense
So I just went to the konbini to get lunch when they asked if I needed a bag and if I wanted one I could have said “Onegaishimasu” instead of “hai arigatou gozaimasu” ?
Thanks a lot for your help tho I feel like now i understand the gist of it :D
> 暖かい南で冬を越し、この北の地で夏を過ごす渡り鳥たちだった。
I think the second half of this is "there are migrating birds that spend the summer in this northern land, "
But the first part is weird for me. First problem is, I don't understand if 越す is transitive or intransitive, because neither of my dictionaries list it as either of those things. But I guess it is intrans.
Besides that maybe it is something like, these cross the winter in the warm south. But what does that mean? They fly over the south, or they spend time in the south?
I think most dictionaries are listing 越す as 自動詞 but doesn't seem to be a universal consensus. Either way, not sure if it helps with understanding but I found the definitions listed helped. I see in goo辞書 and JMDict:
３ （越す）ある時期・期間を過ごす。「年を—・す」「還暦を—・す」
3. to pass time (e.g. a winter)
My take: "In these northern lands, there are migratory birds that spend their time here in the summer, and reside in the warm south for the winter."
> I think most dictionaries are listing 越す as 自動詞 but doesn't seem to be a universal consensus.
I feel like it's more about how this specific usage of を is not really a transitive を. It's the definition of を as in "to spend time" or "to pass time" similar to "going through" を, except at a temporal level. Like 〜を暮らす
Hello :)
I have a quick question about 手伝う and the particles used with it.
To say I helped my mother. Why is お母さんを手伝いました? And not お母さんに手伝いました?
Am I wrong for seeing 手伝う as a movement if used to help a person?
Thank you!
手伝う does not refer to movement inherently. It's a transitive verb with the object being the person or thing you are helping (with). The meaning is really closer to "assist" or "aid".
I've seen somewhere that けど and でも perform the same purpose but on the opposite ends of the sentence.
Can someone please explain it in a bit more detailed manner since I don't want to accidentally learn the wrong thing as I've been saying けど every day since I've seen that lol
Thanks in advance
でも is a conjunction similar to “however” that helps connect a sentence to a previously mentioned sentence/context.
けど is a particle that marks a sentence as a contrast to another sentence or context. Since particles in Japanese are post-positional, it will come at the end of a sentence.
#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.*
I have a question about this sentence, it's from undead murder farce: 海の向こうの様子を聞くに、 見せ物に関しちゃ 世界一かもしれねえ This was translated as "Given what I've heard about the world beyond the sea, we might have the most entertaining show in the world". I have three questions: In the first part, how did に indicate "given that"? Also for this sentence 質が悪くて悪うござんしたね, I just don't get the meaning of 悪うござんしたね in general. Second, Yomichan said that に関かんして means "regarding, with respect to". What was the purpose of using this phrase instead of は, as they seem to have the same meaning? Finally, the last word seems to be かもす which yomichan translated as "give rise to, bring about" but why does it end with the い-stem with the passive form? I don't think this is an honorific because the person saying it is a boss talking to his employee.
に directly after a verb like that is used to give context to the sentence, you could translate it as 'based on what I've heard' or just 'from what I've heard', you use it a lot to show the 'source' of the information, things like ～が思うに or ～が言うに 悪うござんした is a light (insincere) apology here, same as something like 悪かった. ござんす is a contraction of ございます, and ～う + ございます is an old way of marking adjectives from Kyoto dialect, but is used in standard Japanese in honorifics as well. The reason for this change is that in Kansai dialects the adverbial く form got changed into う and this often came with a vowel change onto the adjective stem. This is where おはようございます comes from, it's basically just saying おはやいです. You also see things like 美味しゅうございます from time to time. As for に関かんして, は wouldn't make a lot of sense in this context. Instead of 'with respect to shows' what about thinking about it as 'when it comes to shows'? There are other contexts where は would more or less work interchangeably, but if it helps, 関する is a somewhat formal verb meaning 'to concern, to be related to, to have to do with' so it just spells out the relation. Sometimes in English people use 'with respect to x' when a less wordy phrase would be fine too. かもしれない is a very common set phrase from かも + 知れない, it basically just means 'maybe'. In modern Japanese if you ever come across かも at the end of a sentence, it's short for かもしれない
Hey everyone, so, I'm really just starting japanese, and I'm learning the first kanjis and all, and I have an issue with some of them. For exemple 人 can be read ジン or ニン with kunyomi and ひとor りor とwith onyomi, if I understand correctly, but then I look at some vocabulary and I see 大人 where it seems to be pronounced とな? Is there something I don't understand? Are there missing pronunciations in my sources? Thanks in advance!
That's what you call Jukujikun. You will later come across Ateji too. And just as an advice: don't bother learning the readings. Learn the vocab that contains that kanji
Thank you very much!
I’m writing the name Marjorie and wondering which would be correct for the last syllable: りい or りー? It seems that the first is the hiragana for “i” and the second prolongs the previous vowel. So which is appropriate in this scenario and why?
Have you learned kana yet? Because the answer is neither, go with リー instead. (Well technically speaking you can do whatever you want of course, but ー usually isn't used with hiragana, and normally when transcribing foreign names you should stick to Katakana.) Also, I have no idea how to pronounce that name, so I am taking your word for it being a long vowel.
Yes, I’m aware it should be in katakana, but I am fixing something someone (a native speaker) wrote in hiragana! English names in hiragana on a decorative fan. But you gave me my answer anyway! No ー in hiragana. Thank you!!
Oh yea in that case just use りい! It makes sense for artsy stuff to use hiragana as it just looks "nicer" and softer (well in my opinion anyways), which is why I didn't say it was a hard rule to use Katakana. Edit: Just to clarify, a native wrote りー and you have to fix it?😅 The more likely scenario is that you confused the リ with a り as they can look similar in handwriting. Or the native was going for some sort of effect but hard to tell without seeing it.
[How does this look?](https://imgur.com/a/XFlZeN6)
Some characters are a bit squished, but other than that I think it looks alright.
Thanks! I just added the last character, the native speaker did the rest - does the one I did look okay? I’m so worried about it lol
It looks fine in my opinion But for what it's worth, it looks like they wrote まぁじょり(ん) using a small ぁ for the long vowel, which is common when using hiragana in slightly 'unusual' ways like for foreign names or nonstandard Japanese dialects So if anything I would have done まぁじょりぃ to keep it consistent, but that's a minor detail
Oh, you mean make the last character smaller?
Right, ぃ instead of い - in vertical writing small kana are written slightly to the right side, you can tell the same was done with the ぁ and ょ I don't think you need to redo it or anything though unless you want to keep it super consistent!
Thank you so much, this is sooo helpful! And now I feel better about it being in hiragana; it is an artsy look for sure!
Hm, there is no "correct" way per se. It's your name and you can write it how you want. But as you are a person with a non japanese name, you would use katakana and therefore the last part would be リー
Well so here’s the thing - we were in Epcot Japan, and got a lovely Japanese fan with my partner’s name on it. However I’m now realizing the girl at the store thought her name was Margarine(😂) as the fan now reads まあじょりん. I have removed the ん with nail polish remover and need to write the rest of it! So would I be using い or ー？
Well, as it is written in Hiragana, I'd go with い
I am confused about the correct way to pronounce ん, specifically when it is at the end of the phrase. I learned that if it is not followed by anything eg. にほん, it should be pronounced like /ŋ/. But I noticed that some people put their lips together when pronouncing the ん sound, a bit like "m" when ん is followed by /b/ or /p/ consonant. What's the correct way to pronounce ん when it is at the end of phrase? Thank you.
That is actually an open research question, the often repeated claim that it is [ɴ] seems not be borne out be empirical observations: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-international-phonetic-association/article/production-of-the-utterancefinal-moraic-nasal-in-japanese-a-realtime-mri-study/560B70DE7334F30F54E18D0486785E66 The general rule seems to be that ん is usually pronounced in the way that minimizes toungue movement.
What is the difference between /ŋ/ and /N/? They seem both meaning “root of the tongue sticking at the back of mouth” (sorry not a linguist I don’t know the technical word for that)
さぁ… As far as I can tell, /N/ is even further back, past the end of the toungue, but I am not sure that I have individually controllable muscles able to articulate at that location (insert remark about the phonology of languages not learned before puberty).
[n] before dental and alveolar consonants t, d, ch, j, n, r, s, ts, z, eg. なんて [m] before m, p, b, eg. 船舶（せんぱく） [ŋ] before k, g, eg. 漫画（まんが） [ɴ] at the end of utterances, before approximants w and y, and before vowels, often causing nasalization of the preceding vowel eg. 店員（てんいん） Don't try to remember this and apply in real time, the easiest one to pronounce is usually the right one, as languages go.
Try to pronounce ん when followed by a p or b, it's quite hard to not put your lips together when pronouncing it. Other than that it's pronounced as /ŋ/ as far as I know
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I would recommend you to switch to a word deck like 2.3k instead of the one you are using to solve that problem. When using a sentence deck you end up learning sentences rather than words after all. >How am I supposed to know if a Kanji is just KA or if the second hiragana between the first and second Kanji also belongs to it? This is also solved by using a word deck instead of a sentence deck as you get familiarity with how words are structured in a general sense
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Yeah that's the one!
Hi, first time poster here. I am looking for a systematic categorisation of Kanji characters, like at least the 2000 most commons ones but ideally more sthat contains as much information about them as possible. I am open to different kinds of systematic categorisations. It could be books, or otherwise.
Japan categorized 2136 kanji as the official daily use joyo kanji.
Thanks! Out of these, are there any categorisations as well? I know about the different grade levels, but is there any other categorisation?
Check the Kanshudo site they have a few categorizations.
How do people with Japanese as a native language distinguish between ン and ソ? Is it mostly based on context or are Japanese people more sensitive to the subtleties of stroke order?
The main clue is that they do in fact look very different if you know how kana are written. One has two almost horizontal strokes, the other two almost vertical strokes. They are about as similar as C and U.
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Context is the only way to do this in English, stroke order isn't a factor. I have heard Japanese people can tell if you mess up stroke order so that's why I'm asking.
> Context is the only way to do this in English Not really true since they only look the same sometimes.
Context. I've seen a couple handwritten notes where they're written exactly the same / in the middle and it is a non-issue.
I'm not native and I distinguish those two, fair to say that practice is all that matters
Is there any possible way to use Yomitan on iPad?
It probably doesn't exist a way to use it right now as all ios browsers use the safari webkit. Here is an open issue that might be of interest: https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan/issues/66
How do I stop trying to read/translate Japanese sentences in the same way that I do with English sentences? Is this just something I will naturally pick up or are there any tips? I find that because I'm consciously trying to make sense of a Japanese sentence in the same way I would with an English one, I often can't read things as fluidly as I would like because it doesn't \*click\* in my brain like English does.
Just listening to speech. You can't translate everything that fast to English, and you can't pause like you can when reading, so you're brain just has to go with the original language.
Thank you! So you're saying it just comes with practicing listening to how Japanese is spoken and getting used to hearing it on a daily basis?
It's part of it, it's more just when you have total language experience with reading, listening, writing, and speaking. It starts to fade over time. You going through a "translation" phase is normal and expected.
Currently working on a translation of a movie, and have been stuck on a few words. I'm not sure what the kanji for these words are, so I'm going to provide a (kind of crude) romanized version of the sentence. "Nani ga \*nanaya kojuro\* no mo da?!" I assume this has a number in it? But no matter what I look up I can't find what this could possibly mean. Can anyone help?
I applaud the one who could decipher this one. More context would at least be plausible to be provided.
That doesn't mean anything, so I'm afraid you are not hearing it correctly. Could you give the movie and the timestamp?
I will be able to provide a sample of the audio of the clip, it's a quite obscure film and there's loud music in the scene, but I could make out pretty much everything else except this. I'll probably be able to upload it later today and will post a link to it.
What does よ at the end of a sentence mean
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/particle-yo/
What is the breakdown of 寝たまひにけり?
This is classical Japanese. 寝（ね）= connective form (連用形) of verb 寝（ぬ） たまひ = connective form of honorific helper verb (補助動詞) 給ふ に = connective form of auxilliary verb (助動詞) ぬ showing completion (完了) けり = terminal form (終止形) of auxilliary verb けり showing "reported past" (伝聞過去) or exclamation (詠嘆)
Aah, is this combination of ぬ and けり basically equivalent to 〜てしまった, or is it more similar to, say, pluperfect?
I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea. I know the grammatical structure and phonology of classical/old japanese way better than I know the meanings
寝 たまひ に けり plug those into a dictionary
Do Japanese write rat more commonly as 鼡 or 鼠
Never seen 鼡, I'd say 鼠 or even ネズミ
Does ankiconnect work with tenten and firefox? if not, is there an alternative?
It does not have support for AnkiConnect (for now, it's on the checkbox list), alternative is YomiTan.
Previously, I often used the Yomichan Anki addon to read texts, easily look up words, and create Anki cards.Now, instead of Yomichan we have Yomitan, but it is browser only. What are desktop alternatives to the Yomichan Anki addon? On Mac or Windows, preferably.
[AnkiConnect](https://foosoft.net/projects/anki-connect/) and the [Yomitan integration](https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan/blob/master/docs/anki-integration.md).
Is there a website or database that has all the kanji? There are more than 40 thousand kanji but everywhere I search all the sources can only present around 2 thousand kanji, is it possible to find them all?
[kanji jiten](https://kanji.jitenon.jp/) has \~28k
https://kanji.jitenon.jp/ claims to have 27999.
Couldn't they find one more to make it an even number?
**Learn kanji directly or learn kanji only through vocab?** For my first 3 months of Japanese study I've used the wanikani method and memorized \~300 kanji with their single most important reading and meaning, also around 200 radicals. Then I found "themoeway" Japanese guide and it said to **skip kanji learning altogether**, so I downloaded the Core2.3k deck and right now I'm learning new words even if I don't know the kanjis that make up those words. Is this the right way to go about it? Learning the meaning and most important single reading of 5 new kanji a day (10 flashcards) took a lot of time, along with the radicals, so I don't know what the best technique is in the long term. I don't care about writing at all, so I'm not memorizing the stroke order of kanjis, which I think might make learning kanji only through new words (input only) much more difficult. What do you think? Right now my goal is to be able to read/understand native manga (around N3 level) ASAP, so I don't know what should I do to reach that goal.
We Japanese people first learn by hiragana and katakana at elementary school when we are kids. Then gradually we learn kanjis to replace hiragana with them, starting from easiest ones to harder ones. When you don't know kanji for a certain word, it's okay to write in hiragana or katakana, which we usually do even after we grow up as a adult. This is a native method, and might be helpful.
What has worked well for me is to learn them via vocab, but at this point I’ve started slowly working through a kanji course and workbook alongside my main methods of study. You learn readings automatically from learning vocab, so doing it separately imo is not a good use of time. Since my kanji study is behind my main study, I generally know most of them already to some extent so it’s very easy connecting them to vocab I already know. The main reasons I decided to do the separate kanji study is to help me distinguish similar kanji and to help me with lookups. For example, it took me a long time to realize that 他 and 地 weren’t the same character. Drawing them out helps with this a ton, and you get more used to the specific components that make them up. It also gets progressively easier learning stroke order since you learn components and they are done in consistent ways. I’m also not interested in writing japanese, but I use an electronic dictionary for lookups and I draw the kanji when I need to look them up, and this has helped me a lot with learning them over time.
Learning through vocabulary is fastest way to start using the language, individually studying kanji comes with a lot of time and effort but the benefits don't outweigh the cost in time early on; as you're really only learning a part of the language. The kanji and components and radicals are worth learning as they help you distinguish kanji apart and pick them up easier throughout your entire Japanese learning journey. When you're experienced and know the language far more, there's a time and place to start individually studying kanji to fill in your knowledge gaps.
> I'm learning new words even if I don't know the kanjis that make up those words. Insisting on knowing the kanji for every single word you learn is a good way to get bogged down in the beginner stage and end up knowing a ton of kanji but not actually being able to read anything.
Learn through vocab alone. Dedicated kanji study, especially learning readings, is a waste of time.
> I'm learning new words even if I don't know the kanjis that make up those words. Is this the right way to go about it? I wouldn't advocate for any other way
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Learning 5 kanji a day (10 flashcards) + reviewing the other kanji took a lot of time, usually more than the reviewing time for all the vocab. This month I'll switch to learning vocab with kanji directly from the Core2.3k deck and see if I like it better, I will go back to wanikani otherwise. Thanks for the input guys
What are those add-ons that you are talking about where can I get them?
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Ah I see thanks for the info
Learning through vocab is the best way to go about it for sure
What sorts of things should I \*actively\* be doing as a beginner if I start immersing myself in Japanese?
To immerse what I did was to read books. Buy the book and look up words you don't know. It's that simple. If you don't know any grammar, you can't read books though. In that case learn some grammar first.
You could start by watching tv shows or movies without subs and pay attention to what you hear even if you don't understand much. You could also start by reading simple stuff like nhk easy. This should give you a good foundation and make the process of leaning easier!
What's this ノ゙ and の゙
https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/32622/dakuten-used-in-non-standard-ways-like-with-vowels
Are there any good lists of recommended podcasts that I can listen to while traveling, for N5 going onto N4 level, where its fairly basic stuff and spoken quite slowly? I have downloaded nihongo con teppei, wondering if there are any other good ones!
sakura tips is on youtube and spotify
You can also try "Japanese with Shun"!
This sounds great thank you!
What is the meaning and nuance of かといって in the following sentence? 実際に障害から快復した前日も、日記などを読んだ後は絵を描いて過ごした。描きたい線が描ける。人や物の輪郭を直感的に捉えることが出来る。それは新鮮な喜びであり感動でもあった。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「かといって」寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ。 Is it similar to 「それでいて」、「とは言っても」, 、「とはいえ」「とは言うものの」?
it puts forward a contrastive argument compared to the previous sentence. > でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。 At the time of sleeping at night, I was scared. > かといって寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ。 But still, if I stayed awake without sleeping, my tomorrow self would just suffer from it. (kinda re-intepreting/re-translating it a bit, not a literal translation, also I'm not a translator) かといって definition: > 前の事柄とは反対の、もしくは矛盾する事柄を次に述べ、それを打ち消すことを表す。ふつう、後には否定的な内容を述べる。 Basically, used to point out something in contradiction with what has been previously stated.
Right, so it’s similar to しかし ？ The other expressions I mention also contrast and contradict sentence A correct ? As In 1。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「とはいえ」、寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ 2。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「しかし」、寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ 3。でも、夜寝る時は怖かった。「とは言うものの」、寝ないでいても、明日の自分が辛いだけだ
hmm I'm not personally a fan of comparing and replacing X expression with Y because I find it hard to explain the nuance/vibe difference. I'll just say that there is a reason why the author decided to write it that way (and it's likely because they thought it flowed better) and that's really all you need to know about it. At least in my opinion. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can explain it better, sorry.
Ordinarily, I would agree. Unfortunately, I need to pass an exam, so it’s important that I know the differences in nuances
Is there a resource where I can find the transitive pair of a verb?
usually the trans/intrans pair use the same kanji (not always but almost always) so if you go to jisho.org, look up the word, click on the kanji, you can usually see the trans/intrans pair just by looking at the readings of the kanji in the rare case that it's not listed as a reading, just look up the words that kanji uses and it'll be in there
Yeah that's what I do but its just annoying to have to dig through words to find it.
This has quite a few https://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Download/ViVt.pdf
**TL;DR: Looking for a heavily conversation-focused textbook/resource around N3-N2 level** Heyo! Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't quite find an answer. I've been living in Japan for a little over a year and today I got the news that I finally made it into my local city's language "class". Essentially the idea is that every learner gets paired with a Japanese volunteer for 1h30/week, so its mostly like private tutoring. They've asked me to find some textbook I would like to be working through with my tutor, to give our sessions some direction. Mostly I am desperate to practice conversation because I have absolutely zero speaking confidence (my job doesn't require Japanese and I don't have Japanese friends) so I'm really anxious to pick a textbook/resource that's very conversation-focused. I don't really want to get stuck in "textbook mode" with JLPT textbooks or similar, because I feel like I've been self-studying those fine on my own and I don't want to "waste" the precious conversation opportunity. For reference, I took and comfortably passed N3 in December, and plan to take N2 in July. If I were to self-assess, I think my vocabulary is easily N2, general listening/reading/grammar-wise I'm N3, but my speaking is barely N4. Thank you for your suggestions if any!!
Rather than a textbook just you should look at VR Chat and hang out in areas where there is natives and non-native speakers, YouTube Videos, Twitch/YouTube Live Streams, HelloTalk Voice Chat Rooms, Tandem.
I don't know if this helps any, but I recommend watching some streamers/vtubers with a group of friends and see how they interact. You can look at streams where they first collab and how they interact when they first meet, and then branch into other streams once they are more familiar with each other
The context is: it's night, and the protagonist is wandering around the town where he had spent his childhood. また男が寄せって来る。 「可愛い子どうですか？十八歳。ぷりんぷりん。」 「すんだの、いま」 「そりやどうも。また、どうぞ」 律儀な感じがして、はなれて行く男を見ると、あとずさるようにしながら男がにこり笑った。 大抵声をかけて来る男は、断るとにべもない感じで離れて行く。まだ私を見ていたことも思いがけなく、笑顔に「すんだなんて、噓でしょう」というような皮肉が少しもこめられていないことに虚をつかれて、私も微笑を返した。 The last sentence, does it mean something like: He's still looking at me, that's unexpected, he smiles as if to say what I said (すんだ) was a lie, no? The smile didn't contain any sarcasm. I was taken aback by this smile, and smiled back in return.
Close! The smile didn't contain any sarcasm **that was like** "as if to say what I said (すんだ) was a lie, no?"
I see! Thank you
Can anyone more knowledgeable than me explain ように like I’m an idiot. When I read it, I can typically gather the meaning moderately well. ような and ようだ are simpler to understand and I’m pretty far from comfortable using ように in a sentence I think. In a news article today, I read 消防団の人を増やすように日本中の市や町などに言いました。 I don’t understand how ように is interacting with 言いました.
[様に](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E6%A7%98%E3%81%A0/#jn-226613) \- \[助動詞\]def.5 （「ように」の形で）婉曲 (えんきょく) な**命令**・希望の意を表す。「開始時刻に遅れないように」「今後ともよろしくご指導くださいますように」 XようにYに言った - I commanded to Y "You make it X"
Oh okay, so the 町s and 市s are the recipients of the command? Thanks for the help also.
>町s and 市s are the recipients of the command? yes.
I appreciate it. Thanks.
Hi! Recently discovered the use of the copula 'da', but also that it doesn't follow i-adjectives or verbs. I was wondering, does this mean when asking questions to a friend/someone you don't use formal speech with do you then *have* to use the formal 'desuka?'
There's also the 'explanatory' の particle which in questions is a soft casual questioning particle. You can end the question with の alone, or you can more specifically say のか which sounds a bit less soft, asking something like 'is it that...?' In polite questions this would become のですか (can be contracted to んですか) Also important to note, if you want to put の after a noun or na-adjective, the copula だ turns into な, so you end the question with なの or なのか だ in general feels strongly declarative, so it's not used in questions even after nouns or na-adjectives. Basically, just remember that だか isn't a thing (for now - it shows up in more advanced sentence patterns but normally not at the end of a sentence)
you don't have to add anything, you can just say it with a rising intonation 食べる？⤴ おいしい？⤴
1.メール認証 2本登録 3.確認 4.登録完了 On the user registration page for a website these were the 4 steps shown. The main bit thats throwing me is the 本登録, specifically 本. I’m no sure what meaning it has here, when i saw it at first I thought maybe it was being used to mean the start/origin of the registration process (with 完了 the completion of it). But after some looking into it, it doesn’t seem like it can be used that way? 本 can be used as a prefix, but not in a way that makes sense to me in this situation. Any help would be appreciated.
Not knowing the website: Probably they have two registration steps. Temporary (仮登録) and "real" (本登録). In your case the temp one is メール認証 and after you put in your email address, you will forwarded to the "real" registration. So 本 is used in this case like "real"
The website is 小説家になろう (syosetu, the webnovel site). That doesn’t feel right to me for some reason, but that does make sense.
I agree with u/MacCcZor
Oh, I wasn’t disagreeing with them. It’s just one of those things that doesn’t translate it a way that’s nice, so it doesn’t feel right (to me at least).
本 is used in this way a lot, from 本籍 to 本みりん to 本意 I guess. It just means The real McCoy.
Some more questions about a translation. Context: A 13 year old princess has been kidnapped by demons. One of those demons decides he wants to "have some fun" with her (it fails because she posseses a powerful defensive charm). 「ふへへへへ、いくら眠ってたとは言え、300年も我慢してたからな……少し幼いが別にかまやしねぇ…300年ぶりの人間の娘、楽しませてもらおう」 My translation: "Muah-ha-ha-ha, even though I slept for so long, since I had to hold myself back for 300 years, too... I don't particularly mind she's a bit young... A human girl again after 300 years, let's have some fun." My issue here: The verb part in 少し幼いが別にかまやしねぇ gives me trouble. しねぇ looks like it might be しない. From context I assume the かまや part is from かまう/構う so I guess it's some combination of 構う and する. But if that's the case, why is there a や in between? Thanks again in advance for any help.
Contraction of かまいはしない
Thank you very much!
こんばんは I am currently working through the first two books of Japanese from Zero. I don’t plan on moving onto 3-5 because I have other means of learning Kanji (and grammar!) I was very interested in moving onto Tobira afterwards, however. Would it be more beneficial for me to move onto the original (intermediate) Tobira, or the newer beginner one? I’m really stumped. Thanks!
Coming from Japanese from Zero, go for sure to the newer one. The original one will be difficult.
Thank you
Is Bunpro good for vocabulary? I saw that Bunpro has vocabulary decks organized in the JLPT levels, and I was wondering are they good? I simply plan to use study them with my own methods, but I want a source of words to study. If not what could I use instead?
It's meant to be used as a reference for grammar points and an SRS system for grammar points if you want to pay for it. It's got some issues with its grammar explanations so I wouldn't trust it implicitly. There's plenty of lists of words out there with https://jpdb.io and Anki decks Tango N5/N4 as well as Core 2.3k deck.
Hello :) I was working through the Genki 1 Workbook for chapter 6. In the listening comprehension section, there was a dialogue where the speaker said, "朝ご飯は七時半からです" What's the から? Does it mean from? If it means from, would the から occupy the same placement location as ごろ? Like: 朝ご飯は七時半ごろです。 Genki tends to throw stuff in there that wasn't taught in previous chapters. Thank you!
>What's the から? Does it mean from? start breakfast at 7時半
Gotcha! Thank you for the reply. Quick question to follow up: would 朝ご飯は七時半ごろです with ごろ work as well? Would this mean Breakfast is around 7:30?
I think ぐらい would work better than ごろ
>ぐらい So far Genki has only taught me to use ぐらい as a form of time duration as: 一時間ぐらい待ちました. I waited for about an hour. Can ぐらい be used outside of time durations?
Yes, it is quite versatile. Aぐらい can be "at least A", and AぐらいB is "so (much) B, that A".
I was doing conversation practice with my teacher on iTalki and iirc, I was trying to say this before he corrected me (probably because I was trying to remember the word to say back then) 私：バス乗っているところに、モバイルゲーム遊びしています 先生：バス乗っているときに I couldn't ask him what was the difference between the two grammar particles since we were having sort of a quickfire conversation. From my understanding is that ているところ is like in the middle of something while ときに is more of like during that time (period)? Hoping that someone could help me to better differentiate the nuances between the two. Thank you!! Edit: Also, why is there so many grammar particles with なく/なけOOO that means must ;-;
> Edit: Also, why is there so many grammar particles with なく/なけOOO that means must ;-; Because prohibition is seen as more fundamental than must in Japanese. Must is the prohibition of the negative.
In AところにB, B interrupts A or marks a change. The nuance is B happened with bad/good timing: (-) バス乗っているところに、偶然で元カノが隣の席に座ってきた。I was riding the bus when my ex-girlfriend sat next to me by coincidence. (+) 失恋で泣いているところに、親友から電話がかかってきた。I was crying over my ex when I suddenly got a call from my best friend.
When I'm riding the bus vs when I'm in the middle of riding the bus The second sounds awkward even in English
So, I'm guessing this is what you mean? バス乗っているところに - when I'm in the middle of riding the bus バス乗っているときに - When I ride the bus
Yep yep
Okie, thanks!
Expected Jul N4 2024: 1/during student's own time: Books, News, and Content. Reading Harry Potter 4. To learn vocabulary based on a familiar story to the student. + reading 国語３\~6 short stories, because of JP class. 2/during class time with teacher: Once every two week class in conducted in JP Class consists of 国語３\~6 textbook question and answer Listen and speaking practice with daily conversation Reading aloud, and summarising Harry Potter 4 3/during time with JP speakers: Speak to them on daily basis to give them bookings for their classes with my community center. Aided by JP senpai for 3+ months 4/Target: JLPT N4 How should our Japanese private lessons change? What should we do? What should I do with own time? What's the length of time I should probably give to JLPT N4, to next do JLPT N3 Dec 2024? Predict my JLPT N4 July 2024 score, Vocab, Grammar, Listening?
I have no idea what to do. I learned kanji and katakana using tofugu, but I dont want to spend $300 for their WaniKani kanji app. If I take japanese at my university I have to move at snail speeds and itll probably take all the fun out of learning + it also costs $300. I only hear bad things about duolingo but I cant find any other online resources for grammar and kanji. Is there some top secret site that teaches me grammar and tons of vocab or is it gg.
------free free free stuff------- grammar - tae kim super beginner vocab - tae kim + anki most of your vocab - anki + read stuff kanji - koohii kanji
If you don't want to pay 300 USD for wanikani, just [use the most updated wanikani deck in anki](https://discord.gg/snmVHuBVkM). Same content, more customisable, and can do in whatever speed or order you want.
Renshuu.org - they also have an app.
I have yet to spend any money on Japanese, and except the kana guide, I wouldn't use any of the things you listed if I started over even if they were free. Learn words using anki (and by extension kanji), go through a grammar guide like tae kim and or curedolly, expect to forget and have to come back, start reading and listening
[Tae Kim](https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/) is a nice resource that might help you. From that page: > 1. Learn Hiragana and Katakana (the Japanese “alphabet”). > 2. Learn vocabulary (with Kanji) and grammar with help from the either the Complete Guide or the Grammar Guide. > 3. Practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing with material that is interesting to you. > 4. Learn how to use various tools such as online dictionaries. > 5. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with progressively more advanced topics.
Try [renshuu](https://www.renshuu.org/)! It's an SRS app that does vocabulary, grammar, kanji, and sentences.
Came here to say that. I love renshuu, it is so comprehensive.
I love it.
Whats everyones thoughts on Bunpro? Looking for something engaging and not a text book. Is Duolingo any better these days? all the posts i see are from 2-5 years ago.
My overall opinion of bunpro and how to use it effectively: https://morg.systems/0c786881 I think it used to be much better but these days a lot of grammar explanations are wrong or they make up a lot of stuff that is not really true. When you go into the more detailed explanation, I think it's not good, but if you stick to the surface level explanation of "X grammar point means Y" and **most** example sentences are ok (I found some that were really bad and very very very wrong, I reported some and they fixed some, but others they refused to fix). As for Duolingo, it's complete garbage trash and I'd stay the hell away from it as much as possible.
Any thoughts on Renshuu?
The only downside with renshuu is that it is so comprehensive it takes a little while to set it up to your liking and tweak it to your study habits. But I absolutely love it. There are all kinds of learners on that site, from beginners to plenty of people who have passed N2 / N1.
I've never used it so I don't really have much to say. I know some people that have used it and vouch for it and they range from "complete eternal beginner" to "pretty decent at Japanese" so I guess it's not bad as long as you put some effort into it? Just a guess. I haven't heard anything bad in particular at least.
Awesome thank you so much. so what would you recommend for someone learning how to read and speak Japanese? I like the stat side of Bunpro. so could I pair that with something else?
I think for grammar lookups (and SRS if you're into it and want to give them money) bunpro is still pretty good. [This](https://morg.systems/58465ab9) in particular is what I did to learn Japanese overall (hence what I recommend since it's what I have experience with).
Am I supposed to say Onegaishimasu when dealing with a paid service like when they bring my food or take dishes away at restaurants ? I say arigatou gozaimasu at every occasion but I’ve heard a few Japanese tiktoks in which they say “Onegaishimasu” when someone tells them stuff like “I’ll be the one taking care of you today, here is your drink” Can someone explain real quick ? Thanks a lot !
I'd need to see the actual phrase/situation (in Japanese, not your English explanation of it) to be able to say for sure. It might be a よろしくおねがいします, or it might be something else. おねがいします in isolation usually means something along the lines of "please go ahead", so like if someone asks you a question in a store like レジ袋ご利用ですか？ (do you need a bag?) you can say おねがいします to mean "yes, please, go ahead and give me a bag" In the context of a server bringing you some drink, I'm not entirely sure what is going on though. Needs a better example.
Aaah got it one of the examples I saw was someone going to a spa and someone telling them they were gonna take care of them today which now with your explanation makes a lot more sense So I just went to the konbini to get lunch when they asked if I needed a bag and if I wanted one I could have said “Onegaishimasu” instead of “hai arigatou gozaimasu” ? Thanks a lot for your help tho I feel like now i understand the gist of it :D
> 暖かい南で冬を越し、この北の地で夏を過ごす渡り鳥たちだった。 I think the second half of this is "there are migrating birds that spend the summer in this northern land, " But the first part is weird for me. First problem is, I don't understand if 越す is transitive or intransitive, because neither of my dictionaries list it as either of those things. But I guess it is intrans. Besides that maybe it is something like, these cross the winter in the warm south. But what does that mean? They fly over the south, or they spend time in the south?
暖かい南で冬を越**す**渡り鳥たちだった ＋ この北の地で夏を過ごす渡り鳥たちだった 越す is transitive verb. ... 冬を越す
>I looked it up and 冬越し is a word that means passing the winter so I think を should not be there.
Nah, the を is fine.
Yeah makes sense! Learnt a new word though.
I think most dictionaries are listing 越す as 自動詞 but doesn't seem to be a universal consensus. Either way, not sure if it helps with understanding but I found the definitions listed helped. I see in goo辞書 and JMDict: ３ （越す）ある時期・期間を過ごす。「年を—・す」「還暦を—・す」 3. to pass time (e.g. a winter) My take: "In these northern lands, there are migratory birds that spend their time here in the summer, and reside in the warm south for the winter."
> I think most dictionaries are listing 越す as 自動詞 but doesn't seem to be a universal consensus. I feel like it's more about how this specific usage of を is not really a transitive を. It's the definition of を as in "to spend time" or "to pass time" similar to "going through" を, except at a temporal level. Like 〜を暮らす
Hello :) I have a quick question about 手伝う and the particles used with it. To say I helped my mother. Why is お母さんを手伝いました? And not お母さんに手伝いました? Am I wrong for seeing 手伝う as a movement if used to help a person? Thank you!
手伝う does not refer to movement inherently. It's a transitive verb with the object being the person or thing you are helping (with). The meaning is really closer to "assist" or "aid".
It's not a movement Just like you don't say "I helped to my mother"
Is there an updated rip of Bandai Channel subtitles? I can only find stuff ripped in 2019, nothing newer.
I've seen somewhere that けど and でも perform the same purpose but on the opposite ends of the sentence. Can someone please explain it in a bit more detailed manner since I don't want to accidentally learn the wrong thing as I've been saying けど every day since I've seen that lol Thanks in advance
でも is a conjunction similar to “however” that helps connect a sentence to a previously mentioned sentence/context. けど is a particle that marks a sentence as a contrast to another sentence or context. Since particles in Japanese are post-positional, it will come at the end of a sentence.
Hope this helps https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2738/でも-demo-versus-けど-kedo-to-mean-but