15 comments

1. I’ll try asking here before making a post because I think it’s a simple question, but I want to hear an answer from folks who know what they’re talking about!

   For super basic grammar, am I understanding the differences between the は particle and the の particle + order (and would these sentences be correct):

   いぬはともだちです。= (My) dog is (my) friend. (I believe “my” is implied here from what I’ve been learning and I wouldn’t need to say わたし before いぬ and ともだち, right?)

   いぬのともだちです。= That is the dog’s friend.

   ともだちのいぬです。 = That is (my) friend’s dog. (Same as above, “my” is implied here based on context, right?)

   Unlike の, は has the subject before it (like いぬは), right? So ともだちはいぬです would be more like calling my friend a dog?

   Sorry if this is super basic, I just want to have a firm foundation before moving forward!

2. Is there a special word for the culture around putting payments in envelopes or way to describe it? I was trying to explain that we don’t do that in the west and just said something like 支払うときお金を封筒に入れない but I’m wondering if there’s more succinct or proper ways to talk about it

3. hi may i ask, 無茶をする and　無理をする – they both mean doing the impossible/doing too much/over exert? when do we use which?

4. A guy is in the middle of a date and a delusion appeared in his mind and he wondered if it will become reality: [https://imgur.com/a/4Bnc5zr](https://imgur.com/a/4Bnc5zr)

   I am bit uncertain what アレ and ソレ refers to here. Is his delusion アレ or ソレ?

5. I have a question regarding this sentence :

   これは、私が読みたい新しいほんです。

   From what I understood, **たい** is a **い**-adjective and an **い**-adjective following a second adjective conjuge to **くて**.

   Therefore following this logic it should be : これは、私が読みた**くて**新しいほんです。

   Why it isn’t the case ?

6. Could you please let me know which JLPT test book the passage below is from?

   https://preview.redd.it/mvcl8opt35ye1.png?width=669&format=png&auto=webp&s=74f3bc3feecac01957ba0319c77b12ab27cc86b5

7. When starting sentence mining, assuming youre working with another premade vocab anki deck already, would it make more sense to just put the newly mined cards into the existing deck or to make a new deck to put the cards into?
   If you were to put the mined cards into an existing deck, should i be reviewing them first (so before other new cards from the deck) or should they be put last in line?

8. 「何を言ってるのさ、羽依里くん」「この島に居るって事は、会えるってことさ」

   is ってことさ　the same as というのは~ことだ ?

   and if so is って事は then the first part of this pattern?

9. もうすでにチケットは売り切れです。

   How is this different from merely saying:

   すでにチケットは売り切れです。

   ?

   Is the first simply more emphatic? I’ve always been mildly curious but never enough to actually ask

10. I’m moving to Japan this summer and my dad would like to visit eventually. I want to make him a funny Japanese guide with key vocabulary for my dad like “toilet,” “beer,” and “cameras.”

    What are some funny (but also useful) words I should include? Anything dad-esque or related to his main interests (cameras, computers, watches, kei cars, etc.)

11. I recently decided to take a few months off from reading to focus on listening comprehension. Since February I’ve done ~150 hours of unsubbed listening.

    Unsurprisingly, my listening comprehension improved a ton. What did surprise me is that I got a LOT faster at reading too.

    I used to read through a sentence, take inventory of all the words and grammar, and started identifying the clauses etc. It was more like solving a math problem than reading. Now I’m just understanding as I read.

    I suspect that reading allows you to build up knowledge and familiarity with words and grammar, but it’s just raw data. It’s slow to access and clunky to work with. Listening to Japanese converts that raw data into a ‘language’ structure in your brain that is way faster and fluid at processing and understanding.

    Just wanted to share that finding 🙂 gl all

12. Am I right to translate this sentence ほぼイタリア人の日本人もどきがいちご食べたいって言ってた by ”the almost-Italian Japanese guy told me he wants to eat strawberries.”
    ほぼ and もどき have the same meaning / serve the same purpose, am I right ?

13. [https://imgur.com/a/2olIqoJ](https://imgur.com/a/2olIqoJ)

    Which words are suitable for sentences 5 and 6 ? I feel none work so I’m a bit lost. I’m certainly making a mistake elsewhere
    Thank you !

14. Hi all, how can I improve my reading comprehension? I’ve built my vocabulary to a point that I can read full sentences but I can’t understand the meaning. For example, I have this sentence:

    わたしたちは、 どうすれば自分が望むような人生を送ることができるのでしょう。

    I can understand all the words in isolation i.e.

    わたしたち: we
    自分: oneself
    人生: life

    I think I’m at a crossroads here of comprehending in Japanese vs trying to translate the sentence to English.

15. I have a question about the word 寂しい
    I understand it is translated as “lonely” a lot or “miss.” But I want to ask the context if it’s used in a context of work and also friends.

    For example:
    I know

    1) みなさん会えなくて寂しい　(It’s lonely I’m not able to see everyone)

    but is it appropriate to use it such as

    2) 前の仕事することが寂しい　(この仕事を辞めたから)
    I miss working my previous job.
    I’m not sure if my construction for this sentence is even right…

    A follow-up to this:
    Im reading a manga with a scene where Person A is talking about a job they worked before (but not anymore) and the coworkers there.
    Person A loved this job but now is working a different job they also love.

    Person B interrupts them and asks 「さびしいか？」

    Person A doesn’t respond and then explains why he changed jobs in the first place.

    Later, Person A says in a monologue 「寂しくないと言ったら嘘になる」

    Is さびしいused to mean lonely or missing something (in this case the job?)