I’ve recently restarted my journey to learn Japanese again. But I’m having trouble remembering the difference between sore and kore. No matter how many times I do it, it doesn’t stick. Are there any tricks people have found that have worked for them?
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There are plenty of words like “konshu” meaning *this* week or “kongetsu” meaning *this* month. So associating “ko-” with *this* becomes natural, pretty quickly. 🙂
KO-lose (close) to me.
By SO-meone else (the listener).
A-ll the way over there.
DO-n’t (don’t) know – I have questions.
A: これはいくらですか。How much is THIS?
B: それは二千円です。THAT is 200 yen.
A: あれは？How about THAT OVER THERE?
B: どれ？あっ、あれは千五百円です。Which? Oh, THAT OVER THERE is 1,500 yen.
C: レジは どこですか。Where is the register?
D: あそこ ですよ。OVER THERE.
E: てあらいは どこですか。Where is the restroom?
D: ここです。It’s HERE.
F: りんごは どこですか。Where are the apples?
D: そこですね。THERE BY YOU.
You’ll get eventually after enough practice. I knew the difference, but would accidentally us これ when I meant それ, and vice versa.
Use ここ そこ あそこ as the basis of your memory instead. If you know those three, you can think of them as like “here”, “there”, and “ALL the way over there,” and it’s easier because you’re obviously adding on to soko. Then just apply that to the other a/so/ko words.
There is no trick, you just need to observe people using them.
Try https://www.youtube.com/@ComprehensibleJapanese if you’ve never listened to a complete story or conversation in Japanese.
In general you *must* activate study by having experiences in the language. Otherwise it won’t stick very well at all.
This might be a dumb trick, but it also might completely work for you. Mind you, you do need to add the third word of “are”
Simply point at things as you say each word (also, using the actual location words of koko, soko and asoko might be a bit better). Take three different objects that you know the Japanese words for, put on of them very close to you and say “Kore wa___” as you point to it; put the next object a little further away and say “Sore wa___” as you point; and then have the third object even further away and point to it as you say “Are wa___”
You’ll probably get these three down VERY quickly with this method.
I also had a hard time with this. One day in the middle of doing practice it kind of just “shifted” in my brain and it started to make sense conceptually.
A good way to practice to get to where you can remember enough to answer a question on a page is to go though the Genki Practice site that someone made on github. ([https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/#lesson-2](https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/#lesson-2)) You would want the practice for pages 69-72 to practice sore kore/ koko soko/etc… Then once you can match them up successfully without much difficulty, start to try to just say where things are relative to something. For instance. sit in your room, pick an object to act as your standin for a human. Pick a simple sentence to start. Things like “Whos pen is this?” or “Whos pen is that (by the other ‘person’).” Use things in your real room that you can interact with. You’ll probably find this actually pretty hard. It’s hard to go from books to real life some times and this is one of those concepts that feel so alien that it can be hard to get used to it. Take your time, focusing on getting the answer right first. Speed will come later. If you struggle to switch arounds between them, then start with just doing one of them. For instance, saying “kore wa pen desu.” when you pick up a pen. Then do that with all the stuff close to you. Add in more stuff if you need. Then move onto “sore wa pen desu” when things are close to your other stand in for a person. When this feels super easy, start changing it up a bit and using kore/sore in different sentences. Like asking how much something cost relative to yourself and the other “person”.
Even just doing this sort of practice on your own can be really helpful.
This is how I understand it, with a practical example. Please correct me if you think this is wrong.
これ is about things that are both close to you and your listener; say you’re walking about a market or a shop with someone else, then you both stop in front of a beautiful kimono. You ask your partner “これが好き?”
それ is for things that are far from you but close to your listener; say you enter a coffee shop and get greeted by the nice clerk behind the counter. You see that there’s a very delicious looking piece of cake right there inside the glass counter, close to the clerk: “それをください” you ask, pointing at the cake.
Finally あれ is for things both far from you and your listener; you’re walking the streets with a friend and you see, on the other side of the road, a strange looking shrine. You point at it and ask “あれは何?”
Study more, it’ll stick.