Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (July 26, 2022)

17 comments

1. I was wondering about this sentence:

   > 頷きあった僕らは、先を争うように通路を走った。

   For context, the characters are in a train and they decide they need to go to some room in the train, rather quickly.

   What’s giving me trouble is, 先を争うように. Is it being kind of used as an adverb on 走った? But more than that, I don’t understand how you can “vie” for “ahead”. Does this kind of mean to describe that the characters are running as if they are racing, almost as if they are competing for first place?

   Anyway I can’t really figure this out.

   I could use some help if anyone has time.

2. I found the following example sentence:

   こんな子供みたいな喧嘩はやめよう。

   I understand this to mean literally ‘let’s stop doing such a childish fight’ or more naturally ‘let’s stop this childish fight’.

   Why would they use は here instead of を? やめる is a transitive verb so it would make sense to use を.

3. Are there any kanas besides ん that change sounds depending on the rest of the word? There’s a Japanese Karate term, Kōkutsu, that the “tsu” is pronounced as “soo” instead of “too.” Is this most likely because of translation errors, or is there some rule I’m unaware of that would change the sound?

   Edit: I don’t mean EXACTLY “too.” I know what it sounds like. I have the audio files for every Japanese kana. I jus’ spelled it that way for lack of a word that I can think of off the top of my head that sounds closer to つ than “too.” Would “tuh” be more acceptable? Or “two” but stopped half-way through? I don’t know how to spell つ more accurately than that.

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5. What is the meaning of とる in sentences like “何を言っとる”, “まだ残っとったんか” and “その名前やったら 知っとるで”?

   I seached for articles showing all of its uses, but I couldn’t find one that helps me to undestand that meaning

6. How do you say something along the lines of “i wish your company continued success” doesn’t have to be that exact sentence, but something you could close a business email to say goodbye and wish them well.

   Translator says “御社の発展をお祈りします。” but I have no idea if that’s normal

   Also, is “御社の時間を奪ってしまい、申し訳ありません。” normal way to say “I apologize for taking up your company’s time”?

   We exchanged 100+ emails and I ended up not needing their services so wanted to apologize for it.

7. With 欠く are に and を interchangeable? I saw this sentence 配慮に欠いた言動で相手を不快にさせる. The subclause with 欠く feels like it would make a lot more sense with を and I can’t really find anything on google searching に欠く, other than に欠くことができない, which seems like a setphrase that means something a bit different.

8. In my current duolingo lesson, I’m running into the sentence structure A の B をしないでください and am having trouble visualizing it in my head. The example sentence used is:

   彼女の邪魔をしないでください ( かのじょ　の　じゃま　を　しないでください )

   I can understand the sentence after reading it a few times, but the logic of it is confusing. How does, what I would transliterate into, “Her hinderance/interference” instead translate into “bothering/disturbing her” based on most translation sites? Any research that would explain this would be helpful.

9. Kindly correct.

   昨晩、電話がかかった。出てから、聞き覚えのない声を聞いた｡ “*I received a phone call last night. When I picked it up, I heard a voice I’ve never heard before.*”

10. Is this sentence correct?

    日本語はちょっとが読みまして分かります。
    As for Japanese, a little is read and understood.

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12. Hello, I am trying to say the mountain is above the forest here:
    **山は森の上にあります**

    Does it look correct? Does ni arimasu translate to where the mountain exists relative to the forest?

13. I’m using Tae Kim’s grammar guide and am on page 108 learning about the [reason] から [result] structure. In the third example sentence, there’s this sentence 時間がなかった =
    I didn’t have time. My understanding of the sentence is 時間 meaning time, が as in the particle and なかった as in the common ending for past-negative verbs. But 時間 is not a verb so what does the なかった mean?

14. Please check this [screenshot](https://imgur.com/a/6N5bS7p) showing a definition of 伝奇 that I got from Yomichan. The article is from this [page](https://www.4gamer.net/games/643/G064385/20220726027/).

    From what I can understand from the J -> J definition it’s more like a supernatural story. However, the English definition says it’s a romance story.

    I’ll admit, English is my second language and the word romance to me is more like a love story. But based from the article it is more like a supernatural story than romance.

    So which is it? If the English definition is wrong, can you recommend a better J -> English dictionary for Yomichan? Thanks in advance.

15. Would it be worth it for me personally to learn Japanese? The only real reason I want to learn it is for translating song lyrics, since I listen to 95% Japanese music, so it seems like if I wanted to learn a new language, the time and effort might be better spent somewhere else.

16. Don’t suppose anyone who is doing or has done Genki by any chance made an Anki deck set for the grammar points only.

    Remembering Vocab is one thing but I’ve vaguely remember the grammar points, feel it would be wise to have some sort of Anki deck with grammar examples or basic question sentences.

    If not I may end up having to make my own but I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to Anki.

17. This is a question about ておく in a particular sentence:

    いいですよ。たまにはこういうイベントにも付き合っておきますよ。

    Context: students have gathered for a test of courage and it’s one of the boys’ turn to choose someone to go inside the school building with him to take the test. He then picks one girl and she says that. I’m well familiarized with ておく and I know pretty much all its usages, be it “in preparation for something later”, or “to leave something in a certain state” etc. But why is it used in the sentence above? Does it mean “I often show up to events like this… (therefore I can go in with you, since I came)? If it means that, then it fits the meaning “to do something in advance”, right?

    ておく and other constructions are often used liberally, but I’m asking in case it actually means something, well, meaningful here.