Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (April 10, 2024)

9 comments

1. I apologize if this post is not in the correct place – feel free to remove/delete it if I am posting incorrectly.

   **Bit of history…**

   So not too long ago (about two three weeks ago) my wife discovered that there is a new initiative at the branch of her company to establish a new foothold in Japan. As a result, her and three of her co-workers are being sent over to Japan in ~1 year, plus or minus a few months to help with setting up their branch at the new office. She asked if I would be interested in going and I said “sure!” as my job is remote and extremely flexible.

   Her company insists that she reaches “conversational” levels of Japanese within this one year and they claim that it’s “completely doable” and that she should use whatever methods she wants to get there.

   I have looked up Japanese as being one of the most difficult languages to learn and I don’t agree that it’s completely doable (but I would like to be proven wrong). I know that, even with dedicated study it can take like 2200+ hours to reach “fluency” with the language.

   So far, they have purchased her some sort of family plan on Duolingo for her and her coworkers, and they gave her a copy of “A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar” as well as a copy of Kodansha’s Kanji book (book with a blue cover).

   She asked me if I would be interested in learning the language with her so that we can speak together and help each other learn etc. I’m all for this, but I am clearly not *quite* as passionate about it since I don’t have a career based reason for learning it.

   **Where we are now…**

   That being said, we have completely learned the hiragana and katakana alphabets. We can do quizzes and get 99% identifying those characters and any combination of the characters….and she is going down the Duolingo path, taking time to mediculously write everything down, while I am more gearing up to read…but that’s just it, I don’t know how to read anything because I don’t know any words!

   Now I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about SO many resources; everything from WaniKani, Renshuu, Anki with decks – and all of that is fine. I’m even willing to invest money into this and buy “pro plans” or whatever, but I guess I literally don’t know where to start now.

   Should we be watching Cure Dolly grammar videos? Should we be watching ToKiAndy grammar videos for his N5 Genki series? Do we just read through the Japanese Guide to Grammar? I hear a lot of people talking about “immerse, immerse, immerse!” which, we *can* do for several hours after work…but we just don’t know where to put our time and focus at the moment.

   Any push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. For now, I’ve told my wife to not worry so much about whether or not she will be conversational in 1 year, but instead to just focus on learning and having fun learning so that she doesn’t get inside her own head. For me, I’m basically just doing it to help her and to enjoy myself more when we move/travel. Anyway, thanks in advance.

2. [https://youtu.be/u60oJG0ZQqc?si=3XyLwwLsA_H0HuNK&t=2379](https://youtu.be/u60oJG0ZQqc?si=3XyLwwLsA_H0HuNK&t=2379)

   「ま後で完成させようか」

   DeepLによって「I’ll finish this later」という意味ですが、適当な解釈あまりわからないんです。

   なんか「Why don’t you let me finish this later」とか「If you’ll allow me to finish this later」などの感じなんですか？

3. having some trouble with this one:

   > 神様や巫女さまたちのように、あの獣化を怖れずに受け入れてくれる方々に困れているのなら、むしろ、あの姿でいる時間が増えてくれればいいと思っています。

   Context: The people are cursed and can turn into beasts and everyone hates them. Except, the kamisama and shrine maiden don’t hate them at all.

   I think the second part is “rather, I’m thinking it’s good if we can spend more time in our beast form”

   first part is something like, “If people like kamisama and miko, who can receive our beast form without fear are at a loss”

   IDK, I’m getting confused a bit.

4. Does this make sense to say? 

   この人生一つだけありますね、だからお大事にしてください. 

   I heard that O daiji ni is said to sick people, but in this case this is not to a sick person, I just literally want to say “Prioritize yourself, treat yourself well”. Sort of a “Carpe Diem” intention. Let me know, thanks!

5. Am i weird for not wanting to learn to read or write? Korean is my main second language. I started learning Japanese just to get better at it than my coworker when he started. I am happy to just speak and listen and not be able to write.

6. My friend sent me a message あなたに足はありません。with the help of google translate (he doesn’t learn Japanese)

   And I automatically corrected his は particle to が particle, because I need to have either が or では with ありません, otherwise it will bother me…

   Preferably I feel like his basic sentence from google translate would’ve been better as あなたは足がありません

   Bur perhaps I am wrong… and I built some bad habit of which I am not aware (yet??)?? Or I am correct with my corrections?? I am not sure anymore

7. Quick question:

   Trying to understand slang a bit better –

   Does 「そんなみたいフロリダちょうどクレイジー’」work as a way to pretty much say: ‘Florida just crazy like that’ or am I missing something/ what I’m looking for isn’t entirely possible?

   – I could only go off of translate and chatgpt (I know basically all possibly needed components without them so I’m trying to work it out myself too) but they’re not human beings.. so I’m trying to ask actual humans for the best possible input lol

8. Quick question:
   I’ve played FF7 rebirth and there seems different wordings on a speech between Japanese and English version, which causes different understandings of the whole story. I don’t know so much about Japanese (passed a N5 test years ago) so I can’t help myself but ask here:
   The Japanese version is : 「こんな辺境にいたのか 消失を受け入れた世界は——」
   while the English version is: “So this is where you’ve been hiding—— in a world that has accepted its fate.”

   It seems to me in the Japanese version, “the world that is doomed to fade” is a subject, and “such a remote place” is a object, so it should mean “so the world that is doomed to fade is in such a remote place?” which is far from the English version one.

   am I correct tho? is it the only correct translation? Is there a chance that speech in the Japanese version can be translated the same as in the English version, due to some vagueness from grammar in the Japanese version if I’m not mistaken?

9. Hello! Do you all have any suggestions to learn vocabulary? I mean, are there any resources that are good to use (ex. app or videos or sites)? Thanks!