Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (March 20, 2024)

12 comments

1. I have not taken the JLPT, so other than practice tests I do not know how difficult the exam is. I don’t mean this to insult anyone that has passed it, but isn’t the actual metric for passing… kinda low? I feel like somebody that gets perfect marks on the N1 and somebody that “passes” with a %55 overall are at such different levels its almost unfair to qualify them under the same umbrella? Or for the N2, you can get a 30% on each section and pass… as long as you get a 50% overall score? I never really gave much credence to the JLPT before, but it seems like it’s even more flawed than I originally thought. Or am I just ignorant? (I’m not referring to the difficulty level of content but rather the test format itself)

2. So I’m studying kanji (RRTK 450: Remembering the kanji). Learned (and remembered 😁) my first 50 kanji so far. I know it’s barely a beginning but I’m glad I have at least started.

   Now for the actual question: A kanji like 丁 has buttloads of meanings! The main meaning being shown is “street”. But other meanings are: ward, town, counter for guns, tools (for which btw i already learned another kanji before), leaves or cakes of something, even number, and 4th calendar sign. (PHEW!)

   Do I have to memorize all these meanings? Or just the main “street” meaning is enough? This is really messing with my head because almost all kanji have multiple meanings like these and I am only able to remember at-most 2 meanings!

   Please advise. Any guidance is appreciated on this.

3. Would 「Aさんのリクエストは条件に従いながら(or 条件の違反ではないが？)、材料としても裸の写真を送信するのはNGです」be an appropriate and proper way to say ”your request is still within the rules, but for the love of god please don’t send NSFW refs” to an art requester?

4. Heyo! I’ve done a little research but couldn’t quite find a good answer, hoping someone can help me out here!

   **TL;DR: Is there any way to automatically mass-add audio pulled from online dictionaries to an existing Anki deck?**

   I’ve been studying Japanese for a couple years and have built up a personal Anki deck of about 9000 vocab words. Recently it hit me that I would probably benefit from hearing my words on review, to try and passively develop a better pitch accent. I’m not interested in switching decks and my deck is wayyy too big now to start manually adding .mp3 files. Is there any sort of add-on or script I could use to mass-pull audio from internet sources and add them to my existing deck? I’ve heard of AwesomeTTS but I’m looking for something that’s not computer-generated, since the point is to make sure I’m pronouncing things correctly. Thanks for your help!!

5. I can’t find a good resource for this, but I’ve been going through Bunpro and am halfway through N4 at this point. I have a hard time intuitively knowing when a grammar point will be attached to the stem (what they call the ます form, without the ます) and the dictionary form of a verb. Things like にいく/やすい attach to the stem form, but つもりだ attaches to the dictionary form, but they both seem to modify the verb with an adverbial phrase (easy to, hard to, intend to). I assume there’s a logic behind this that will help me understand why you use what verb form where but I haven’t so far found anything that explains cases where you append something to a verb which form of the verb you use. Can anyone help me please?

6. Can you learn using only apps and immersion? So, no textbooks or anything like that

   Also, how do I even start immersing when I only know the letters, a few words and little to no kanji?, it feels like that’s the hardest step but I’m not sure if it’s even the right step…

7. 「今度(こんど)また説明(せつめい)してあげましょう。」「それでは、（＿＿＿）ときまたお願いします。」

   Why is そう used in the blank instead of その?

8. In the 3rd edition of Genki workd book section on pg 75, (7-7, II) Question 2 is to translate this sentence into Japanese.

   >There are about 10,000 Students in my school.

   The answer according to the key is:

   >私の学校に学生が一万人ぐらいいます

   Which I partially got because according to the key

   “一万人” is supposed to be” いちまんせい ”

   Why isn’t “一万人” translate to “いちまんにん” ?

9. A:　田中さんのスカートはきれいですね。どこで買ったんですか。

   B:　（＿＿＿）、姉がくれたのです。

   1.  買わなかったんです

   2.  買ったのではなく

   What’s the difference between 1 and 2?

10. I deleted my RTK deck today after finishing the book. I felt like the reviews were taking too much time I could be spending learning grammar and actually reading Japanese. Can I have some reassurance that those hundreds of hours I spent aren’t going to be wasted if I stop reviewing?

11. Hello! I’m going to be doing a video where I talk about venue services for couples in Japanese.
    What would I call an engaged couple as someone in the hospitality industry? Anata sounds a little rude. Do I just call them “customer?”

    My main sentence is:
    あなたの結婚式の計画をお手伝いさせてください。

    I appreciate any help! I don’t want to offend people. 🥺

12. I hope this is okay to post here but does anybody know of a site like jpdb but for learning English?