Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (July 16, 2022)

27 comments

1. So I’ve decided I will give N1 a shot this december. My main problem was the reading section. The texts there were rather different from the VN’s I usually read, especially on the vocab front. Can you guys recommend reading material that is a bit “closer” to N1, especially vocab wise?

2. このソリはもともとボギのもの

   This sleigh is originally ボギ’s

   Could some help me understand how もともと fits into this sentence? I am confused since there is no verb for it modify

3. 何故コンビニは定価でしか物を売れないんですか？

   What is the meaning of しか after で and before 物 ? What is the grammar involved?

4. I am Wanakani lvl3 here for past1 year(haven’t purchased there member ship), where should my learning go from here, I haven’t been able to do much progress past year cause can’t focus on single resource as they are plain boring. Any Suggestions.

5. A couple of example sentences from goo辞書 for the verb 溺れる:、
   溺れかかったところを助かった
   He was saved from drowning.
   おぼれかけた人を助けた
   He saved a drowning man.

   I understand that かける / かかる as auxiliary verbs mean “be about to…” or “be on the verge of”…. but why is かかる (intransitive) used in sentence 1 and かける (transitive) used in sentence 2? Are the two verbs interchangeable when used as auxiliary verbs?

6. I have three questions about compound verbs that are formed or the 連用形 (such as 食べだす or 読みかける):

   1. Are there a finite number of verbs that can follow the 連用形 to form a compound verb? Should I be able to find a complete listing of them?
   2. What are these structures called in Japanese.
   3. Are these considered fundamentally different from verb structures with the form 連用形 + て + Verb？

   Thank you

7. In the manga よふかしのうた、I encountered the sentence 「大丈夫、起きた時にはそらもうすっかりしているからさ」。The thing is, I think I understand all of the parts of this sentence individually, I don’t understand what そらもうすっかりしている is supposed to mean, and dictionaries and DeepL haven’t helped

8. What does Shogo from “Let’s ask Shogo” (a Japanese culture youtube channel) say in the end of his intros?

   I can hear “それでは[今日](#fg “こんじつ”)を○○”

   but this ○○ puzzles me, sounds like “marimashou” but “maru” is not a verb I could find.

   Edit: It might be まいる meaning a humble “to go; to come; to call”

9. Having a difficult time wrapping my head around the desire form of both ある and いる。I’ve always understood these to mean “exist” and therefore would be intransitive so when someone says いたい to mean “want to” my mind scrambles because “want” in English is transitive.

10. I’m trying to write my name ‘sajith’ (sa·ji·th) in Katakana.

    In Wikipedia, I saw that it is written as サジット (sajitto). I was only able to find one person with that name though. But most guides suggest appending ‘s’. サジス (sajisu)

    I’m confused about what to use. Any insights?

11. I got a message today with はず written in Kanji 筈 It made me realize that the choice on whether or not to use Kanji is largely whatever the IME says, we do.

    Because I cannot remember seeing it written in Kanji ever before.

12. Anyone know of a good online course to study for the JLPT N3? Thinking about taking it in December. Thanks!

13. From 天気の子: A policeman tells ほだか that ひな is younger than he thought: 生活のためだろうが実際はまだ中学３年。

    What does the first part 生活のためだろうが mean? Again I feel I should understand but it doesn’t make sense in the context of the sentence … “Maybe it’s about life” (??)

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15. Hello! It’s hard to do any kind of immersion in Anime and not encounter ダメ, but it’s usually on its own meaning “don’t” or “stop” or “you can’t / shouldn’t”

    But today I found some example sentences that are using it in full sentences:

    1. それを私に聞いちゃダメ。
    2. それ食べなきゃダメだよ
    3. 僕も行かなきゃダメ？

    It looks like all of of these examples mean the same thing without it, though, right? Like 「僕も行かなきゃ？」on its own also means “do I have to go too”. So I assume ダメ adds an emotion to it, or a nuance. As far as I can tell, that nuance is complaining? Is that right, or is there another emotion I should interpret these as having?

16. IF anyone has watched spy x family, do japanese people actually say waku waku and also yor forger, who’es code name is thorn princess, is it 茨ー姫 or いばら姫. Could you explain why it is?

17. **Context : MC is going for a lunch with his office’s colleagues ,inside a coffee shop.They’re talking about the shop owner, MC asked “Is she handles everything in this shop alone ?” >> Then 1 of his colleagues said “No,there are another part-time girls working here too”.**

    **After this there are 2 sentences which I don’t understand ,so much thanks if anyone can explain for me their meaning .**

    MC「この店、店長がひとりでやってるんですか？」

    吉野「バイトの子も何人かいるよ。出来れば見せてあげたかったんだけどね」

    MC「吉野さんの知り合いとかですか？」

    **吉野「いや、ぜんぜん。顔なじみといえば顔なじみだけどね」>>(I don’t understand this)**

    **千倉「あればっかりは見た方が早いですって」>> (and this too )**

    ふたりの口ぶりからして、看板娘みたいな子でもいるんだろうか。

    個人的には、あの店長も充分に個性的な感じがするんだけど。

18. When using お and ご to make nouns polite, how do you know when to use which?

19. I’ve just come across a tweet about a mum whose kid wants to practice abacus at home. She doesn’t really wanna buy an abacus because 「どうせすぐ飽きるから買うのもなぁと思って…」(I can link/paste the whole tweet if needed)

    The 買うのもなぁ is tripping me up. I understand it in this context, but how can のもなぁ/のもなー be used in other situations? What kind of meaning/feeling does it have?

    The most I can understand is that it is negative and is a spoken, casual phrase (meaning dictionaries and Google have been no help!). I want to be able to understand and use this phrase. Thanks 🙂

20. For anyone else who has worked through the Quartet textbooks: did you find that the reading sections were absolutely kicking your ass? Obviously I’m glad to be exposed to new kanji, but I feel like I’m bouncing back and forth between the textbook and Google Translate to draw the kanji for words like 密閉容器 every twenty seconds, it takes me _forever_ to read a 50 line story.

21. On the JLPT N2-N1 test(I’m not there yet of course) how situation looks with words marked in jisho.org as “Usually written using kana alone”? Just stumbled on the かすか (微か) word in LN I’m currently reading, and it just made me wonder (again) – should I, in the case of such words, learn the kanji+okurigana form or just kana?

    The author really likes to use pretty rare words, in which at least one kanji is outside of jouyou pool, but in this case he used only kana form.

22. 弊社では、金星をベースにした新感覚のカクテルもご用意しています
    What does dewa here mean.

23. 間違いが起こってからでは、遅いのだ。

    Hello, struggling to comprehend this sentence. Especially the 起こってからでは part. Does this mean “If mistakes are made, it’d be too late” ?

24. 　恵梨香は聞くが、七海はぼーっとしていた。
    「七海？？ 大丈夫？？ 」
    　恵梨香は少し心配そうに聞く。
    　真優も七海のことが少し心配な様子を見せる。

    I’m wondering about the grammar of the last sentence. My understanding is miseru is a transitive verb with “少し心配な様子” as the object and “七海のこと” as the subject. So this means something like “Nanami is also showing a somewhat concerning appearance to Mayuu”.

    However, I’m confused since koto is usually used for people to show that they *aren’t* the actor. Also, how do you know that this means “concerning appearance” rather than “concerned appearance”, other than context (obviously Nanami is spaced out and not actually doing anything deliberately)?

25. The anime “精霊の守り” the “卵” is a spirit

    なんとかその卵とやらを取り除いてはもらえませんか？

    ”Is their no way that we can get you to expel this “egg”?

    I have a question about 取り除いては　I’ve ran across Verb in て form + は what exactly does it mean?

26. How would you say “I wake up at (time) in (place)”

    Would it be like

    (Time)に(Place)で起きます。or (Place)で(Time)に起きます。

27. So される is the passive form of する but what about され?
    I saw a sentence saying aは発見され so is this a shortened version of される?