12 comments

1. What is 組み重ねの書棚?

2. How much cheaper would it be to buy shin kanzen n1&n2 in japan and bring them back home? Versus buying them on amazon? Price difference worth the trouble?

3. I’m starting to be a little bored by NHK News easy and it’s even starting to feel a little too easy sometimes, does anyone have any suggestions to what I may be able to read ? I’m more interested with news or casual stuff, I have already started a game.

4. What level should I get to before I start to UNprofessionally voice act in Japanese ? I’m around A2 right now ( guhhhh 😭 ) but I think I just need to work on pronouncing long words, going on for a long amount of time and emoting, is there any videos on this ?

5. So I was browsing yesterday’s thread and came across [this question](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1f4hfz3/daily_thread_simple_questions_comments_that_dont/lkmy0a5/). I am bit uncertain how to make sense of this sentence:

   > 曇りガラスの向こうに隠れないよう、いつでもいかなるときでさえ、それが天職であるかのように拭ってきた大切な想い出だったのに

   I translate it as “It was an important memory I cleaned, as if it is my calling, no matter when and what time, in order to not disappear behind the frosted glass.”

   It is not clear to me whether 曇りガラスの向こうに隠れないよう modifies 拭ってきた. I wonder how to fit いつでもいかなるときでさえ into translation. Also I am not sure what それ might refer to…

6. I have a year before I go on a 21 day trip to Japan. I took 1 year of Japanese in high school, but that was about 15 years ago now! I do understand the sounds and can read hirigana phonetically. I can remember some basic phrases, but where should I start to learn the most important things as a tourist?

7. 1. I’m watching Pokémon and James says the following sentence as they’re getting blown away, which seems to me to have an idiomatic usage that I don’t get.

   風が吹いたら桶屋もうからずロケット団が迷惑するー

   2. I’m having trouble parsing the さえまくった part of the following sentence.

   やっぱり名探偵サトシの推理が**さえまくった**

8. Three situations that came up on my trip to Japan that I still wonder about:

   1. At the station to come back from a trip to Fuji, there was an attendant asking where people were headed. It was pretty crowded. I told her Shinjuku, and an unrelated man in the crowd turned to look at me and said “Shinjuku?!” in the most surprised voice. I’ve wondered ever since what shocked him about it. Maybe it was because I was too specific and should have just said Tokyo? (Saying “Shinjuku?!” is now an inside joke with my sister, haha.)

   2. At a station, we went into the conbini stand and left our luggage outside. When we came out there was a man leaning against the wall kinda blocking my sister’s bag. She asked me how to say excuse me so she could get it. I don’t remember if I told her sumimasen or shitsureii shimasu, but whichever it was she said the man practically jumped when she said it. I’ve been wondering if one of those is more appropriate to the situation and the other means like “excuse me, I have something to ask you.”

   3. At a food stand in Fukuoka I ordered some things and the woman running it gave me the 日本語上手. I wanted to say back “not really” or “not much” or anything humble (because it is very not jouzu, I just ordered one of the few kanji on the menu I could read). But what I blurted out was ちょっとだけ and she repeated it and laughed and so did her husband and I got so embarrassed my mind went blank and I ate the rest of my meal in silence. How badly did I fuck up? Did my answer even make sense?

9. I recently learned about using ～てくる and ～ていく, but I’m a bit confused on how they work compared to ~ようになる. I think that there’s a sort of time-perspective of sorts when using it, for a lack of a better term. Am I correct in thinking so? It kind of made sense with change verbs, but I’m having trouble using it with action verbs.

   Given this example: お酒を飲む, do the following interpretations make sense? This really seems to make sense when not using a verb in the potential form.

   1. 飲むようになる (I will start to drink sake [either next week, or soon; no set start date])
   2. 飲むようになった (I have started in the past to drink sake, [no implication as to now, the present])
   3. 飲むようになってきた (I have started in the past to drink, and I am continuing to drink to this day)
   4. 飲むようになっている (I will begin to start drinking, [now, today, or very soon], and will continue to do so)

10. > 二度とつまらないミズをしないため今はこれだけに集中するんだ

    What does つまらない mean here?

11. https://vndb.org/v179

    What’s up with the し in the logo of this game? I can remember one other place where I’ve seen such a straight し, in the anime Anohana. Is it supposed to be a stereotype of children’s handwriting, maybe slightly analogous to dotting an ‘i’ with a small circle?

    I read a decent amount of manga I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of し in manga handwriting.

12. Hi there,

    I’m struggling to understand when to use which ending of な adjectives in the plain form. How do I know when

    1. It takes だ –

    >私はお金は大切**だ**と思います。

    2. It takes な –

    >暇**な**とき、うちへ遊びに来ませんか。

    3. It takes nothing –

    >彼女は綺麗でしょう。

    Even if there isn’t a set rule, is there a rough rule of thumb I could use to try and guess the form I should use?

    Thank you