Is it normal to send young children out on errands I’m Japan? and, if so, can someone please explain? It seems like a right of passage or something to be proud of. But, I’m wondering if it’s normal or just for the show. They seem incredibly young.
Also, the のin the title seems smaller? Like小さいかな. Is this just a style choice? Or just to emphasize that’s it’s barely pronounced?
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/xqtzcp/im_watching_はじめてのおつかい_old_enough_and_was/
3 comments
We’ve already had threads with hundreds of replies about this. We going to do it again?
The answer to the first part is complex, but in general Japan is a pretty safe environment for kids, and they usually go to school by themselves in groups without adults from first grade. … Sending kids on small errands is somewhat common I would say, but the young age and difficulty of the task is exaggerated in the show where the kids can be monitored by the production team.
As for the small “no”, it’s somewhat common that grammatical particles ( https://nihongoichiban.com/home/japanese-grammar-particles/ ) are written in a smaller font.
はじめて without の is like “to start/begin”はじめての makes it “First” (for the first time)
“[Their] First Errand” はじめてのおつかい
Thus の is a particle and not part of the original word はじめて