Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (February 13, 2024)

34 comments

1. what’d mitorizu say

   gakuya de ha ___mitaini

   https://vocaroo.com/1cP1Ozbs0aqY

2. Hello everyone. I have a question to ressources. Everyone is posting about genki and how good it is, however I read that it s meant for a classroom setting, so wouldnt other books like minna no nihongo etc be better for self studiers?

3. Hello.

   I’m doing a Genki review of previous chapters before moving onto Chapter 7.

   I have a curious question about は placement.

   In Genki chapter 3, page 91/92, it talks about how は doesn’t need to be a subject and can be nonsubjects thus moving the は to behind a different word.

   My question is what’s the difference between these two sentences メアリーさんは週末たいてい何をしますか vs メアリーさん, 週末はたいてい何をしますか?

   Do they both mean the same thing but style choice different?

   Or does メアリーさんは週末たいてい何をしますか would mean, I’m asking Mary what she does for the weekend, but there are other people among us? And メアリーさん, 週末はたいてい何をしますか means that I’m talking to Mary but I will talk about other topics other than weekend after asking her about the weekend? I’m just guessing here.

   If anyone can tell me the difference or lack thereof of a difference, I would be grateful!

   Thank you in advance!

4. Hi, I had a confusion about the passive form of intransitive verbs. I’ll use 怒る as an example 

    私  は  彼  に  怒った  is “i got angry at him” 

    私  は  彼  を  怒らせた  is “i made him get angry” 

    私  は  彼  に  怒られた  is ??? 

   If I follow Genki’s   “<victim>  は  <villain>  に <passive verb>”  guideline, i think this means  “he got angry at me”. But Google translate has it as “i got angry at him”, as if it were the same as the regular verb

   With transitive verbs, like 食べる, the regular vs passive forms feel very distinct. 食べる = “i eat”, and 食べられる = “i get eaten”. I’m having a hard time with intransitive verbs, because their regular meaning already includes “to get”

   Any help would be appreciated!

5. Dumb question but is there a trick to figuring out when a word ends and a new begins when reading?

6. Should I spread my time learning all of the basic language skills or just focus on some?
   By basic language skills I mean reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
   My end goal is to be fluent in all of them, but for right now, my goal is to be able to write short stories and/or song lyrics. If I focus my time on writing/reading right now, will that hinder me learning listening and speaking? Is it best to just practice them all at the same time? When I’m learning vocabulary, should I write down the pitch accent/intonation for the word? Or should I just learn the accent when I get around to it?

7. Vocabulary app similar to WaniKani?

   Hey all,

   I tried searching but was not very successful, so I hope this question is not a duplicate.

   I’ve noticed that the most recommended app to study vocabulary seems to be Anki with specific decks. However I cannot really get used to the flip card method and I’m always unsure how to “rate” myself in terms of answering. Due to these two reasons combined I cannot really stick to Anki.

   On the other hand I started WaniKani last year and I really like the SRS of it and that it checks my answer.

   Now my question is, is there any app that uses a similar system to WaniKano but for vocabulary?
   I started using Bunpro for grammar as well and the pro version seems to have a vocabulary mode as well, so is that worth it/similar?

   Any help us greatly appreciated!

8. Let’s look at the title of [this manga](https://mangadex.org/title/1a91719c-1009-482a-9915-389a366505e7/osananajimi-no-ijou-kawaii-imouto-chan): 幼馴染の異常可愛い妹ちゃん, translated as “My Friend’s Abnormally Cute Sister”. osa… translated as friend here for brevity.

   To my understanding, if we wanted to do things “by the (grammar) book”, to say “my friend’s abnormal and cute sister” it would be: 幼馴染の異常**で**可愛い妹ちゃん

   To say “my friend’s abnormally cute sister”, it would be 幼馴染の異常**に**可愛い妹ちゃん

   異常可愛い is then grammatically incorrect slang, similar to saying すごい面白い instead of the technically grammatically correct すごく面白い

   TL;DR: my understanding is that to use a na-adj as an adverb to modify another adjective, it looks like na-adj + に + adj. But na-adj + adj is somewhat common slang. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Thanks!

9. What does the use of ありゃ mean here?

   基本的に**ありゃ** 見てて 面白いものでもないじゃん？

10. **ほよほよ**
    **I read a manga and there’s this sound effect ほよほよ/ hoyohoyo (?) which I don’t know what it means or add any nuance in this sentence by the author ,hope someone could explain (i can only guess that it means “very soft” or something)**

    **.**Context: A girl is holding Mc’s arm while she’s talking with him.

    桃香、胸あるよなぁ。抱かれた肘がほよほよとやわらかいものに埋まっている。

11. 皆さん、こんにちは！

    **What do you think of this “learning setup” to achieve some kind of fluency** (speaking, reading novels like Harry Potter and watching Japanese movies)?

    * **Vocabulary**: Use [JPBD](https://jpdb.io) with a Top Vocabulary Deck (my idea is to pledge the $5 to have access to the top 30,000 words).
    * **Kanji (+ Writing)**: A fusion of [WaniKani](https://www.wanikani.com) and [Ringotan](https://www.ringotan.com) for best memorisation. I plan to buy the lifetime membership for WaniKani by the end of the year.
    * **Grammar**: I will start attending a Japanese course (N5) next week (15 units until June) but for more input, [Bunpro](https://bunpro.jp) (I haven’t tested it yet but I want to give it a try and maybe also buy a lifetime membership at the end of the year) OR textbooks (I have several) + [Tae Kim Guide](https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/).
    * **Immersion**: Watching Japanese movies and YouTube videos, listening to podcasts and reading books (I’m not focusing on much immersion yet as my comprehension is low).

    Do you think this will work? Am I covering everything I need to become reasonably fluent in Japanese? I try to spend about an hour a day on it, I’m quite good at keeping a routine, but the main problem I have is sticking to certain resources.

12. Listening with subtitles on/off?

    Hi everyone!
    I want to improve my listening skill, and found some good and fairly easy YouTube channels for that. Should I listen them with subtitles on or off?
    When I listen to them without subtitles, the amount of what I can understand is quite low, can’t really “hear” the words. However when the subtitles are on, my comprehension is much better, but maybe because my reading skills is far better than my listening skills. So to improve listening should I turn subs off, to force myself focusing only on the spoken language, or should I turn subs on, to better understand what’s in the video? Currently learning around beginning of N3 level.
    Thanks!

13. So, I work in the film industry in Japan. And while I know that the term used is “映画産業”, it often becomes “業界” when talking about specific things within the industry.

    So, what’s the difference and which one should I use in which situation?

    Thanks in advance.

14. [deleted]

15. Is 死ぬ and (ぶっ)殺す bad words or curse words? I often see them censored, especially when used in a seemingly threatening manner.

16. hello! Not japanese learning related, but around when will JLPT 2024 start registrations? Just curious. If it helps, I live in the Philippines. Thank you!

17. Just finished Tango N5 + N4 grammar and vocab!! Big win 🙂

    Mining time – Shirokuma Cafe here we come.

    Edit: Holy shit this is hard

18. その一方で　私が魔王だという うわさも下火にならない。

    野外演習の件で 再燃してきたようにも思える＞

    the mc here is having an internal monologue, talking about various rumors that have been spreading throughout the school.

    What does ように mean in this case?

19. Anyone know about kanji frequency lists that are based on a variety of sources? I’ve seen the top 2500 in newspapers one and it’s fine but there is a lot of news-specific vocabulary too high up

20. **1/「なんだっけって言った？」**
    **2/ 「言ってないよ。なんとなく、お話の流れで」**
    **There’s a part in a manga which i’m not sure about. Much thanks if anyone could help me understand correctly their meaning (if my JP was wrong please correct me)**
    **Context: A girl is asking MC about what type of girl he prefers /likes (i think she like MC but doesn’t has courage to confess with him, so she keep beating around the bush)**
    桃香 (Girl)「じゃあじゃあ、料理か出来る子と出来ない子だったらどっちが好き？」
    一刀 (MC)「出来る子」
    桃香「即答だった……」
    一刀「それはね……好きな子の手料理っていうのは、男の憧れだもん」
    桃香「そういうものなんだー」
    一刀「かといって、出来ないからイヤってわけじゃないぞ」
    どれだけ長い時間腕を組んでいても、慣れるということはない。
    桃香「勉強にな……じゃなくて、普通男の子はそういうものだよね？わかるわかる」
    桃香「練習しよっと」
    ごめんなさい。ぶっちゃけて言うと、歩き辛いです。
    一刀「あのさぁ、桃香……これって」
    桃香「あと、なんだっけ……あ♪そうだ。女の子の髪型とか服とかに、こだわりってある？」
    一刀**「なんだっけって言った？」(>> Did you just said “What is it ” ?)**
    桃香**「言ってないよ。なんとなく、お話の流れで」(>> No I didn’t say that. There’s no reason here, I just go with the flow of our conversation and ask you whatever I feel like to ask you.)**
    女の子って、そういうものなのかな……平然と言われて、なんとなーく、納得してしまう。

21. Hi wanted to start learning Grammer. Someone told me to use bunpro but I accidentally downloaded the wrong one, bunpo. I’ve already finished the n4 and n3 section of bunpo and I’m wanting to know if I should quit bunpo and start using bunpro. In your opinion which is better?

22. Can you say いくつ instead of 何歳? I heard it on YT.

23. I’m almost done with the Tango N4 deck, and I remember reading somewhere that after finishing it, it’s not worth doing the N3 deck. Does anyone have recommendations on what do after the N4 deck? Is the N3 deck really not useful? If it’s not, should I use something like Satori Reader to get reading comprehension and vocab practice going forward?

24. Does anyone else need a lot of repetition to remember vocab? All the “I learn 5000 new words everyday and review all the ones I allready know” comments and posts I see here make me feel really dumb

25. Hi there, I’m just wondering if its grammatically correct to say the following:

    学校が嫌いだったけど、習うのが好きだったと言っていました。

    In this, I am trying to say- They said they disliked school but enjoyed learning. Is this correct or do I use だ instead of だった for the first segment, and the tense is assumed through the だった at the end?

    Thanks in advance everyone

26. how to make my yomichan screenshot smaller in anki, something like 250×182 instead of what it does now 1302×951 as the image shows up super big on my card.
    these are the values i use now: <b> {furigana-plain} </b> {sentence} {glossary-brief} <br> <br> {audio} {screenshot} {url}

27. Lately i thought i need to brush up in grammar because i never really put much effort in to it apart from Tae Kim, srs the dojg 1+2 books and looking up unknown words/grammar. For that reason i went to imabi to get an overview of the grammer points i could have missed and to my surprise i was pretty much familiar with the stuff up to advanced 2. 

     Now to my question. Do you think it es necessary to learn the veteran grammar points from imabi or is my time better spent just reading more and looking up stuff on the way?

28. what’d she say after kankei

    [https://vocaroo.com/1ir2qMaLrB2m](https://vocaroo.com/1ir2qmalrb2m)

29. hey people! Do we need to add a に to 代わりに or can it be just 代わり?

    The sentence is from song lyrics :
    君の代わり誰か欲しい

    thanks in advance :3

30. I picked this up at Kinokuniya a while back and had a great time doing it with my daughter. Are there any activity sheets like this online? I tried searching for “Japanese children’s activity books” but mostly got results for teaching kids Japanese.[https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g9czlznxit09jaofncbuf/2024-02-13-13.45.53.jpg?rlkey=gul632b6v0kyffijiwwz1e9b5&dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g9czlznxit09jaofncbuf/2024-02-13-13.45.53.jpg?rlkey=gul632b6v0kyffijiwwz1e9b5&dl=0)

31. Hi everyone!

    I have recently started a bachelors in accounting and I am interested in possibly working in this field in Japan. I’m leaning towards working in tax. I also plan on obtaining a US Certified Publix Accountant (CPA) designation. Are there any accountants here that can point me in the right direction for learning the Japanese accounting vocabulary/concepts?

32. Why is particle で used in the context of ordering something?

    If I´m not mistaking, a common way of ordering something in Japanese is to say the name of the thing you want to order +で. Could somebody please explain, why the で particle is used in this expression?

33. Hello there,

    if allready memorized all basic Hiragana and Katakana. I allready started to learn Monographs like ga,gi,gu and so on.

    My question is do I have to learn Digraphs? Like sha,shu,sho or cha,chu,cho?

    I mean the simple answer for me would yes I have to learn it. But I’m still curious.

34. I was wondering if someone could recommend any fashion / beauty channels in Japanese?