LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (November 12, 2024)

  • November 12, 2024

This thread is for all simple questions, beginner questions, and comments that don't need their own post.

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Seven Day Archive of previous threads. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.

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30 comments

  2. I got minna no nihongo books, but since it is all in japanese, i don’t get much. Could someone help me?

  3. Hello! Does anyone have any experience in buying ebook volumes of old manga from Book Walker or Kobo JP? I was considering buying Major Vol. 1. It’s an anime I saw and loved, so it has the plus that I know the story, which might help me understand more complex things. However, the preview on BW looks terrible, especially when I want to read the furigana. The books are not expensive, so I could try to buy one and just see what it looks like, but if anyone has any experience with similarly old manga, I would appreciate the input!

  4. This is more a curiosity post than anything, but, twice now, I’ve come across a strange (or maybe just specific) phrase – adjective + こと where こと isn’t a nominalizer (at least as far as I can tell).

    Example in the wild (first sentences in short story): 女は迷っていた。もう長いこと迷い続けていた。

    I’ve looked in a few grammar resources and [Imabi](https://imabi.org/expressions-with-%e3%81%93%e3%81%a8/) (use 14/example 36) was the only one that covered this use. It described this as “Makes an adverb. It isn’t really constructive and is only limited to certain phrases.” In other words, “It’s an adverb; don’t overthink it when reading.”

    I guess I’m an overthinker. “Surely there is some difference between this and the more common way to construct an adverb from an adjective.” Like searching Massif using the example from Imabi, 長いこと待つ, brings up 16 results compared to the 56 results searching 長く待つ finds.

    This is a bit of a rambling post, so I’ll try to end with a question: does adjective + こと signify anything to a reader outside of the grammatical function? As an example of what I mean by “outside of the grammatical function”, maybe it’s used in works that are considered literary so it is seen as literary or pretentious (I guess this might change from person to person).

  5. Is there a reason for me to go through Genki II if I’ve finished Tae Kim’s guide to grammar, other than learning the vocab?

  7. So you know how words like moshimoshi mean hello (in certain contexts), nikoniko means smile, etc. What are some other very common words like this that utilize like the doubled format (words are hard ( T∀T) ) used in common japanese speaking and/or texting/social media?

  8. I haven’t actively studied in a while so I ended up forgetting a lot of kanji, so I’m reading a LN and I see that there’s so many words I don’t know and many of the kanji consisting of the words I know I learned before but I forgot the reading or meaning, sometimes both.

    How can I get back into learning and fixing this weakness of mine? I can’t get through anything without yomi chan at this point.

  9. For 海外でゲーム中にしゃべることは普通だと思う, are で and に the correct particles to use, and if so, why? Is は普通 the “action” that allows us to use で? And for ゲーム中に, is ゲーム being treated as a specific point in time like 一時 or 一月? Is that how I should be looking at it?

  11. Is there any resources like satoi reader for beginners? I Just finished N5 grammar and wanted to practice a bit before starting N4

  12. From Trillion game chapter 1,

    > こんなごっつい家が、夢だったんじゃないのに～！！

    How 夢だったんじゃないのに is understood? “even though it was not a dream” doesn’t make sense. I read an English translation that says “I couldn’t have expected this in slightest” and I am not sure where it comes from.

  13. When is かく　pronounced like kaku or kak. I’ve seen it pronounced both ways. This goes for がく　and こく as well

  14. Does watashi ga nihongo kikoeru mean what I think it means?

    I saw an instagram reel from a japanese second language speaker say watashi ga nihongo kikoeru with on screen subtitles translate it as ‘you hear how I speak japanese?’. Is this correct? Google translates it as I can hear japanese, but I figure it might be an idiom. If incorrect what’s the best way to say ‘you hear how I speak japanese’?

  15. Hi
    Can I ask why are the following:
    朝起きた後で　シャワーを浴びますWrong
    朝起きて　シャワーを浴びますCorrect

    歯を磨いた後で　寝ますWrong
    歯を磨いて(から)　寝ますCorrect

    I know this is supposed to be a sequence but why can’t it be “I sleep after I brush teeth” or “after I wake up I shower”?

  17. I’ve been taught that when using the ~如く structure, の follows nouns and が follows verbs, but this seems to contradict the 「龍が如く」 franchise where が follows the noun 龍. Is there some kind of abbreviation happening that explains this or is the が / の rule not a hard and fast one?

  18. Hi may i ask why 立ちながらそばを食べる　is wrong but 立ってそばを食べるis correct instead?

    Why cannot be “i eat soba & stand at the same time” for ながら？

    btw the て in this question/context is with/without like in 帽子をかぶって走りますso how do I stand ‘with’ eating soba?

    Thanks in advance!

  19. im at the point in hiragana where i can recognize all the characters now, should i just move on to katakana or try and learn how to read just hiragana and learn all the words i can for it

  20. 今は**仕掛け**稼業と投資半々ちゅうとこやな。

    how would you interpret **仕掛け**稼業 ?

  21. I’m slightly confused as to when use とおり and when のとおり

    知って _______ 、われわれにはわれわれの手立てがある。
    1. とおり
    2. のとおり

    In the above example 2 is the answer, but in a lot of anime I’ve heard this being used as just とおり, e.g. `お前の言う通り`

  23. Hi! Sorry if this is off-topic, in which case I’ll gladly post elsewhere, but since it’s about a translation I’m trying to do myself it sounded like it was okay here per the rules!

    I’m currently working through translating [one of my favorite songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1evccopsjY8), 暁のコドウ by UNCHAIN, and I’d like to focus on the title and a couple lines of the refrain I’m having trouble with.

    For the title:

    * 暁 is pretty clearly just an older/less used word for “dawn”.^(1) What’s tripping me up is a little combination of grammar and vocabulary. の could mean a possessive, “dawn’s [something]”, or it could be a way to label whatever the next part means, like “dawn [something]”, and I’m not quite sure which since I don’t know what that something is.
    * コドウ is very unclear to me, since it is not in kanji. Google Translate simply translates it to “Kodo”, as in “Kodo of the Dawn”, which sounds completely meaningless to me – is it a name? Putting it in hiragana, it offers “kid” or “child”, yet other translations on other sites say “pulse”.
    * The fact it’s in katakana seems to indicate a loanword, name, or other grammatical exception of some sort, but I wouldn’t know which. Is the meaning just unclear without the rest of the context of the song?
    * The last line, one of two that use the title, states: 暁のコドウが今キミを呼ぶよ
    * Roughly, “the [コドウ] of dawn is now calling you”
    * Google Translate offers “voice” as yet another translation for コドウ for this context, further hindering my attempts to understand what that word means in context

    For the refrains, most of it is easy enough, but again the portions written in just katakana confuse me.

    * カゼタチヌ: I got this from the Ghibli film, “The Wind Rises”, so I’m fairly confident here, and that ヌ is just being used as a sort of poetic/archaic way to add emphasis
    * アカネモユ: This, I’m really not sure. I’ve tried splitting and respelling the characters, and maybe it’s describing the flower, East Asian madder, ‘also swaying’ (アカネも揺), to the crimson color itself (same spelling), or maybe somehow there’s a translation for red itself 赤 (あか) with a verb [ねもゆ], or possibly just some other grammatical bits I just haven’t learned yet.
    * The rest of the refrain is pretty well spelled-out, I think, but seeing raw katakana just really throws me for a loop when trying to translate.

    I would really appreciate any thoughts, corrections, or information about any of this. Thank you!

    ^(1. Or, perhaps not – I had read that once upon a time, but apparently it might not be that rare/anachronistic after all)

  26. I read somewhere that the typical US Japanese major program is targeting getting students to JLPT3-level proficiency. I’m curious if there’s some sort of backing for the claim that that’s what universities are aiming for. I skipped to the last one but if I look at just the JLPT level of certain kanji it seems like that would leave you with little hope of making heads or tails of a typical newspaper or novel.

  28. 片目を瞑り、舌をチロっとだして静香さんがおどける

    confused about ちろっと i can’t find a definition; as far as I understand cause of the noun before it and the verb at the end she’s sticking her tongue out? but ye i wanted to mine it but I can’t find it.

  29. similar to ~中 is there a suffix for beginning and end?
    I know there’s 月末 but I dont think you can use that as losely as 中
    thanks for reading

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