11 comments

1. だから、一日に三回飲まなくてはならないということだよ。

   Hi, beginner here. What’s the point of using ということだ in this sentence? Can’t we just say 飲まなくてはならないよ?

2. Hello!

   Its me again. 😀 I’m finishing up the Genki 1 Workbook (last chapter yay!)

   There is this sentence: 何も用事がない，うちでごろごろするつもりです。I fully understand what it means, but I’m confused why 何も was added to it. Can’t the sentence be just 用事がない，うちでごろごろするつもりです.? Because don’t 用事がない already mean “I have don’t things to take care of?” So what does the 何も mean/do here?

   Thank you in advance! I appreciate your time. 😀

3. Hello, I’m currently on the journey of learning Japanese. And I specifically find the spacing between Kanji (in handwriting) troublesome. For the record, I’m using Grid paper to guide the size of the Kanji (and Hiragana/Katakana too). Most of the time, I have trouble with “compound” kanji.

   “Simple” Kanji like 会, I can comfortably fit them in one square. Words like 朝, 霜 (has 2 components or more), I tend to write as one and a half square width-wise (a chonky boy). This means I need more practice to be more familiar with the strokes so that I can fit them comfortably in one square, right? Or perhaps there is another kind of notebook to aid the “spacing” between the characters?

   Also, what is the proper spacing between the letters? I tend to use “half of a square” spacing for readability, but I think the appropriate way is that they almost have no spacing at all (like when typing). Is spacing in writing a thing? And what would be the proper way? For example:

   今日は水曜日。

   今日 は 水曜日。. (I think you will get the idea).

   Thank you in advance, kind stranger!

4. What is the difference between:

   目茶苦茶,
   滅茶苦茶,
   and
   無茶苦茶

   also, what about ごちゃくちゃ?

   Thanks.

5. I am pretty new to my learning journey and have a lot of different things to learn (kanji, grammar, vocab). I spend a LOT of time driving and stumbled upon one podcast called “Learn Japanese while you sleep” that would say a common word or phrase in English, then pause for a second, then say it slowly in Japanese 3 times. There were maybe 50-100 phrases total if I had to guess. I repeated it many times until I could say the phrase myself before the “pause” was over.

   Because of how much time I spend driving, I’m looking for a similar tool that may not even exist. Ideally I’d like to work on single vocab words, and ideally I’d like to maybe have it focus on e.g. nouns or verbs individually. So, something that cycles through a few hundred common nouns or verbs to help me commit them to memory.

   Does anything like this exist?

6. I’m 2 quarters in, about to start my 3rd in a week. We’re about 8 chapters into Genki. Is this a particularly tough point in Genki for new learners? I’m feeling very discouraged with short forms and overwhelmed with grammar points that it feels like I’m at a boiling point. I will keep going but I just want to know if there’s some sort of light switch moment, or light bulb that will go off that will help things make a lot more sense. Or am I going to have to brute force my way through next quarter?

7. **出汁を取ってて**
   I’m reading a sentence when a character is talking about making a hot pot JP style, nd i’m not sure if i was right or wrong. Hope some native could help clarify the meaning !

   **A「だったら、BとCちゃんは鍋を囲炉裏にかけて、出汁を取ってて。私は野菜を切るから」**

   Does this mean “go get dashi soup to put into hotpot” ? I dont know anything bout cooking hot pot JP style 🙂 If i was wrong please elaborate.

8. 私は・・・アイドルになったばかりの頃、周りを見る余裕がありませんでした

   as far as I understand 余裕 can also mean “calm, relaxed”

   so does this expression 周りを見る余裕がありませんでした means, “I couldn’t stay relaxed, calm” ?

   I found it also as an example in this dictionary:

   **② ゆったりと落ち着いていること。心にゆとりがあること。「余裕の話し振り」「周りを見る余裕もない」**

9. I’m on lesson 11 of cure dolly grammar guide.

   The lesson mentions this sentence: “お姉ちゃんはつまらない本を読んでいて遊んでくれなかった”

   is the “いて” necessary in “読んでいて”?

   I realize the いて is necessary to make it a 2 clause sentence.

   I was wondering if the sentence makes sense without the いて?

   Does the meaning change at all?

10. I encountered:

    **活きたお金の使い方**

    google AI said:

    「活きたお金の使い方」を英語で表現する際には、”make good use of money” や “spend wisely” などが使えます。

    I had encountered before 活かす which I learned as “to make the best use of / put to good use”

    so since 活きる seems to be the the Intransitive counterpart, should I interpret it as “to be used well, effectively” ?

    cause the jp-en dict says only:

    to be in effect

    to be in use

    to function

    and these don’t make much sense to me when I read the definition:

    （「活きる」とも書く）うまく活用することによってそのものの価値が発揮される。効果を現す。「ひとふりの塩で味が―・きてくる」「長年の経験が―・きる」

11. Hello everyone!!! Hope you are doing well! I have been doing Anki for a month now, close to 700 words in for Kaishi 1.5k deck. Today I encountered a problem I didn’t know I had. I sometimes don’t remember the kanji or the word itself, but through the sentence. What I mean is I will look at the word in kanji and have no clue what it is, but as soon as I look at the sentence, its position at the sentence and read a couple of the words to get context, I immediately know what the word is. Is this actually a problem or am I just overexaggerating it? Also, which deck should I go to after 1.5k deck?