Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (March 25, 2024)

22 comments

1. So, as a lot of people recommend I’ve learned a lot of kanji through context of vocab. I’m probably at around ~12,000 words in Anki with very little independent kanji study. However, due to the immense amount of synonyms/類義語 what would you guys recommend my next step be for getting a better understanding these similar-seeming words? Just googling them as they come up? Or doing more independent kanji study? Wait until I see them more in context from immersion or over time as I learn more kanji in the context of vocab? I already have both monolingual and bilingual dicts. And are there any dictionaries that work with Yomichan etc, that are kinda like a thesaurus except it tells you the difference between similar words?

2. Please someone explain this grammar point? Idk but it’s a – すんの, I need that for a anki card
   [https://imgur.com/Ra7J2HV](https://imgur.com/Ra7J2HV) – full sentence

3. I’m confused on how to make complex sentences and sentences with multiple verbs. Like for instance, how would I phrase this example sentence grammatically in Japanese: “This commercial makes me want to go to the store.”

4. How often should I use です/how to combine ideas into one sentence

   I am still in a beginner level learning and know that eventually the flow of putting different ideas together will become more natural. But for now, I’m wondering how is the correct way to form different ideas together into a main point.
   For instance, I was working on doing an introduction for a tutor, and it sounded like this.
   “こんいちは、はじめまして！わたしのなまえハンターです。
   アメリカじんです。わたしはオクラホマのだいがくせいです。
   日本語がすこしはなせます、でもまだ上手じゃありません。”

   Obviously I know this is not how a normal conversation would flow, broken up into several sentences for each small point. I’m aware it reads mostly as “Hello, I’m Hunter. I’m American. I’m a college student in Oklahoma. I know a little Japanese, but im not that good yet.” Etc etc.

   I guess my question is how could I make a better flowing sentence to sound more like, “hello, my name is Hunter and l’m an American college student in Oklahoma. I know a little Japanese but I’m not very good yet.”
   I feel like adding “&” at the end of every point I make is all I know how to do so far, but feels very choppy and I assume not very natural.
   I hope what l’m trying to ask/convey makes sense!

5. This is probably going to be a bit of a weird question but…
   I decided to play Fire Emblem 3 for immersion, and in the opening narration, the text uses around 3-4 different ways of saying “destruction” (壊滅,滅びる,滅亡,滅び去る), and while I was feeling annoyed by this, I remembered learning in school that knowing a lot of words with similar meanings is very important when writing long texts because it’s not a good idea to repeat the same word over and over again. Then it dawned on me that it’s probably the same in other languages (I never had any type of formal education on anything other than my mother tongue so I never really thought about this).

   So, is Japanese the same? I decided to ask this because I want to make sure that it’s fine to just think of them as different ways to say the same thing and that there is no point in trying to find any special nuances that each word may have.

6. hi i just started learning japanese in the last few days,
   and i struggle with vowels and letters. should i get the
   basic idea of the pronunciation and sounds then fix it
   with time and shadowing or should i focus more
   prosustion now. ty

7. Hi there. I beleived that “[thing] wa nihongo de dou iimasu ka?” is “how do you say [thing] in Japanese”

   Is that correct?

   Also wondering if asking for someone to take your picture with ” shashin o tote kudasai” and “shashin o toresete kudasai” and “shashin o eshoni toresete kudasai” comes across as a bit rude or not? I read these as a way to ask for photos, alone, of the person, and together but see other ways mentioned and wondered if this was because what I have is comes across as rude?

   Apologies, I am still learning Kanji so would be awesome if I could get response in romanji. Thank you 🙂

8. Is 奥 just 中 just emphasisinig more how deep inside something is? thank you I might as well inquire about 内 also.

9. I wanna make sure I’m understanding this ならでは grammar point correctly. Jlpt sensei has this example sentence and accompanying translation :

   >彼ならではとてもこの仕事は扱えない。
   >There is no one who I can entrust this job to other than you.

   I feel like the translation is poor. Is the sentence not saying something like “he is especially unable to handle this job?”

10. Is いつもと (as usual) more of a set phrase, or can と mean “as” for other things too?

11. what would be a better translation for “what foreign languages do you speak”?

    何外国語が話せますか。

    or

    なんと外国語が話せますか。

12. Looking for resources for reading simple Japanese. I can read Katakana and Hiragana (and the first 30 kanji lol) but I’m slow. I want to practice more to help pick up speed. 

    Any advice on interesting sources for those studying for N5&4 level?

13. I’m not quite grasping how to use onomatopoeia with する. For example, with ドキドキ I’ve seen it used as ドキドキする and ドキドキしている to talk about a current state. For example, [goo.jp](https://goo.jp) dictionary has two example sentences as follows: (https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/en/%E3%81%A9%E3%81%8D%E3%81%A9%E3%81%8D/#je-53922)

    駆けどおしだったので，まだ胸がどきどきしている
    I ran all the way, and my heart is still pounding.

    胸がどきどきする

    〔心配で〕 《口》 I have butterflies in my stomach.

    How can both express a current state and yet the verb tenses be different?

14. I am still trying to grasp the grammar for complex sentence, just wondering if this is correct:

    Context:
    “I am sorry that you did not get to eat what you wanted yesterday.”
    This happened indirectly because of me, for example I am allergic to what the person wishes to eat so i feel sorry.

    In Japanese – are these correct?
    Simple sentence:
    あなたは昨日食べたいものを食べられませんでした。ごめんなさい。

    Complex:
    あなたは昨日食べたいものを食べられませんでしたから, ごめんなさい。
    あなたは昨日食べたいものを食べられなくて, ごめんなさい。

15. Does ください sometimes mean a question just without the か？ or is it always just like a polite request? Like if you were to ask someone for their phone number, if you say 教えてください then is it taken as a question? Literally you’re saying “please tell me” but depending on the situation that feels like it comes off as being pushy to me. Would just saying 教えますか？ better, or is that not what you would normally say?

    Also, do people in Japan still ask for each others numbers, or do they say something else? Like how in the US usually people will add each other on Snapchat vs directly adding their number as a contact. I know they use LINE a lot in Japan. I guess if you didn’t use it though then just getting someone’s number would be the best contact method until you could switch to some other app I suppose.

16. Should り be two strokes or one stroke when written? I’ve seen people write it like the katakana リ and I’m wondering if it is handwritten differently from what is shown on a computer.

17. Is there a phrase that is equivelent or similar a similar way to say the English phrase “A man on a mission”?

18. Hello everyone,

    If the owner or representative (not sure) of a japanese online store addresses me with first name + -sama in the the email they’ve sent as a reply to an enquiry, how should I address them? First name + -sama as well, or should I use something different since I’m the customer?

    Thanks a lot!

19. how do i type dakuten on gboard? it doesn’t seem to work even if i click or swipe it https://imgur.com/a/v1jzKtl the same thing happens on swiftkey

20. Why would materials on an invoice for an English lesson be called 立替金?

    Is that a normal term for materials? Maybe for equipment?

21. I was reading a pamphlet and saw that 食べらないと分からないのかな was translated to:

    I guess you won’t know until you eat it. Why was 食べらないと translated to until and not to:

    I guess If you don’t eat it you won’t know

22. Hello, I was wondering why in sentence like 彼女の事が気になる or 気になる人 the tense of なる is in 辞書形? From my perspective なっている (maybe even なった) would seem to be a better choice to show the state like in 楽しみにしている (or in the case of なった that the action of being interested happend).

    The only reason I could think of why なる is more common than なっている is because it is stating a fact and though なった would also state a fact it would be unclear if it still applies. But the same would be true for 楽しみにする which isn’t used.