Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (March 12, 2023)

9 comments

1. Can anyone help to tell me if there are any grammatical errors in this sentence:

   十分日本語わかって働きながら勉強できる

   The sentence I was trying to write is clearly not true lol. I don’t think I understand combining verbs in sentences fully but I can’t see what’s wrong with this

2. is 偉そう always negative or can it just be “proud” but not in a bad way

3. ___られない

   what’d he say
   https://vocaroo.com/1i66aP5bxD87

4. Why do Japanese people sometimes write in all kanji?

5. A wealthy and influential man, Schubert, is donating his collection of books to a university library. At the ceremony, two guests A and B discuss the fuss:
   A: ただの大学への蔵書寄贈式とは思えんな
   B: ああ何しろシューバルト氏の動向の一つ一つが
   ヨーロッパ経済に影響を及ぼすと言われてますからねえ
   A: **めったに人前に顔を見せない人物だけに**
   **ここぞとばかり集まってきたわけか**
   B: しかしここに来て突然蔵書の寄贈とは
   まるで形見分けみたいですねえ
   A: おいおい縁起でもない. 彼はＥＵ経済の要なんだ
   もう少し生きててもらわなくちゃ.
   1. Going by the meaning for ここぞとばかりに, does the bolded sentence mean something like: As might be expected, because he is a person who seldom shows his face, everyone jumped at the chance and gathered here.
   2. I think, A says 縁起でもない because B says 形見分け. Schubert is suddenly donating his books, as if he will die. I was wondering, is 形見分け done by the person who died (before they died) or is it done by the living (distributing amongst themselves)?

   Audio clip [here](https://soundcloud.com/sfungobats/u2cknyehex).

6. When using 久しぶり for an action, do you use past tense or present? What about for a negative

   It’s been a while since I’ve had sushi
   「久しぶり寿司を食べた」か「久しぶり寿司を食べる」

   I haven’t ridden the bus in forever
   「久しぶりバスに乗らなかった」か「久しぶりバスに乗らない」

7. Don’t really understand what this poster is saying 「みんなのバリアフリー料金がみんなのバリアフリー設備に」. Like “everyone’s accessibility payment is for everyone’s accessibility equipment.” So the money you pay for accessibility is also for your own benefit? For context, the poster is talking about how there will be automatic gates for the platforms (可動式ホーム柵) for each station by 2025.

8. How fluent is ChatGPT at composing Japanese sentences?

   In my experience, I’ve almost never seen it make a grammatical mistake in English. It effectively always produces fluent sentences that make sense given the context of the conversation. As for answering questions *about* the language, sure, not reliably accurate.

   Is it the same for Japanese? Does it produce fluent conversational responses?

9. I was wondering about this line from the Dragon Quest 3 [script](https://nayukaaaaa.nomaki.jp/wp/dq4/dq32.html):

   > わしはここに街を造ろうと思う。街が出来ればきっと皆の役に立つはずじゃ！ 　しかし街に商人は欠かせぬ。たとえレベルは低くても商人であれば贅沢は言わん。誰か来ないかのう。

   I can’t figure out what 欠かせぬ might mean.

   I think the rest is:

   > わしはここに街を造ろうと思う。

   I’m thinking about creating a town here.

   > 街が出来ればきっと皆の役に立つはずじゃ！

   If I can make a town, probably everyone will “stand to the role” (join my town).

   > しかし街に商人は欠かせぬ。

   However merchants are (?) to the town. (I think this should say, merchants are “ESSENTIAL” to the town, but IDK how to get that)

   > たとえレベルは低くても商人であれば贅沢は言わん。

   Even if level is low, If it’s a merchant I won’t speak of luxuries (I won’t ask for him to be high level is what I think this means)

   > 誰か来ないかのう。

   Won’t someone come?