11 comments

1. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the third “o” in “Honō’o” means? I know honō means fire or flame.  
   The full “name” would be Honō’o no Shōgeki and assuming this was translated properly  its supposed to say Flames Impact. Does the third “o” change the ‘fire fire’ kanji at all?

2. So I recently started learning Japanese, and I’m mainly using Renshuu. In the word review settings, there is an option called “Type/write the answer when possible” that’s off by default (Renshuu right now uses a multiple choice quiz when asking a word’s meaning). Do you guys think I should enable this option? I feel like it might make me learn better by forcing me to remember how exactly the word is spelled/what exactly it means, but I’m also hesitant to change default options especially as a beginner (what if Renshuu know something I don’t know etc).

3. https://preview.redd.it/d06uu2vfkgze1.png?width=533&format=png&auto=webp&s=152643ad781955194f387f0e4e24733d59e5e066

   Not sure what 目線の高さ refers to.

4. Is there any particular logic to understand how to read or identify japanese names? A priori they just seem like a bunch of kanjis together that do not make sense and then I check online and its like “Ah, I see, this is how you say Kojima” or something like that lol

5. u/fjgwey wrote:

   [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1kgjonp/comment/mr275ph/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1kgjonp/comment/mr275ph/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

   The flip side of the same coin is that one can argue that it can be difficult for elementary and middle school students who were born in Japan to Japanese parents and raised in Japan to understand English.

   Let’s consider the sentence “This is a pen,” which is a so-called “attributive judgment.” To understand the very concept of “attribute” in English is, in fact, to grasp the idea that something akin to the “Idea” of ancient Greek philosophy—eternal, unchanging, and inaccessible to direct perception—exists. It implies that beyond the sublunary world lies a non-sensible realm, where “The Real” exists—what Kant would call das Ding an sich (the thing-in-itself), which is unknowable in itself but manifests within individual entities. In medieval Europe, this corresponds to the philosophy of Averroes—namely, the idea that the universal resides within particulars, or in other words, is incarnated in them. Therefore, it can be said that at the deep structure of the English language lies the notion of the ‘transcendental’ or the ‘a priori’.

   This is a concept that is likely to be difficult for elementary and junior high school students, born in Japan to Japanese parents and raised in Japan, to understand.

   The sentence ‘There is a pen on the table.’ is an example of what is known as an ‘existential judgment.’ It expresses a recognition of the visible presence of a particular, individual instance of what is called a pen. Therefore, this kind of sentence is also likely to be difficult for elementary and junior high school students—born in Japan to Japanese parents and raised in Japan—to fully understand.

   Of course, even elementary and junior high school students who were born in Japan to Japanese parents and raised in Japan can speak English by learning sentence patterns, accumulating vocabulary and phrases, and editing them together. In fact, that is how everyone does it. When learning English as a foreign language, extensive reading is essential. That is practical. Nothing wrong. In practical terms, what really matters is simply being able to speak English. However, that is a different matter from the discussion, an intellectually fascinating discussion, there.

   English and Japanese are fundamentally different languages from the ground up.

   Therefore, when **EXPLAINING** Japanese in English, one inevitably has to use words like ‘contrast’, ‘underline’, ‘restriction’, or ’emphasis’; however, such explanations are not necessarily accurate when it comes to understanding Japanese on its own terms.

   We are forced to **EXPLAIN**, for example, as something entering the speaker’s field of perception, etc. but such an explanation is, in fact, not appropriate when trying to understand Japanese within the framework of the language itself.

   BUT, such explanations—even if not entirely accurate in a strict sense—are inevitable, and in the end, it seems that each learner has no choice but to be exposed to a large number of Japanese sentences and unlearn through experience.

   Simply put, **people can learn even if they can’t explain**.

   (To avoid any misunderstanding, I want to add that I truly found the topic you brought up to be intellectually fascinating.)

6. After a year of casual self study I was finally able to have a conversation with a native. Found a new Japanese food stall near where I work and noticed the owner tried to talk to me in English. I mustered all the courage to speak in Japanese with her (it’s a rare opportunity where I live).

   Of course, as expected I stuttered a lot and had a lot of pauses in between words but she was very encouraging and waited for me to finish my sentences. Speaking Japanese in person really is different and scary, I even had to take a few seconds just to understand her question:
   日本に行ったことがありますか？ (Which I normally understand right away lol)

   Me: ………いませんでも来年つもり行くです。

   But when I looked it up the second part it would sound to her as 来年 積もり いくです。🤦

   Should have been
   いませんでも来年行くつもりです。

   Overall still a great first time experience! Will practice more.

7. https://preview.redd.it/vmbyid0ukhze1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ef4ad163e21c95bee8a08a01516adb43dc89caf

   I don’t get the meaning of the title もう逃げられないし逃がさない. He can’t run away so I will not let him loose?

8. https://imgur.com/a/Cq1HTfN

   I am not sure about the grammar of 夜帰る時間とか休憩被ったら in this sentence

   > 前はよく夜帰る時間とか休憩被ったら店長のとこお邪魔してたじゃないすか

   According to the official translation, 夜帰る時間とか休憩被ったら translates to something like “when our shifts end at the same time or when our breaks overlapped.” I don’t see where the translator got the idea of “or.”

9. Hi all, I am in early levels of learning (let’s say N5, maybe low N4) and I have been trying to read to improve my comprehension of the language but I am having problems founding texts around my level in which I can use Yomitan for looking words, for example a guide someone did here with a lot of text, but they are pdfs so Yomitan doesn’t recognise the characters and in that guide I can almost read everything in N5 level but struggling quite a lot with N4. So do any of you know where can I search for texts at N4 level to use with Yomitan?

   Sorry if this question have been asked before and for the grammar mistakes I may have done, English is not my first language haha

10. This is only tangentially related to Japanese learning, but does anybody have any pen recommendations specifically for writing Japanese? It’s no secret that stationary from Japan (and Asia in general) is much better than it is here in the States, but there’s SO many options I don’t even know where to begin.

11. [https://imgur.com/a/xB0Ltns](https://imgur.com/a/xB0Ltns)

    In the last page, I have doubts with とか in あんなくしゃくしゃでもまだ持ってるとか. This sentence seems incomplete? What could come after とか? I don’t think it is linked to the next sentence 言えばすぐ書いてあげるっての which means “I will write him new one right away if he asked.”