Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (May 03, 2023)

16 comments

1. I’m following along with Cure Dolly’s Alice in Kanji Land (pretty fun so far), and doing the associated Anki deck. However I find myself being able to pretty easily recall the meaning of the Kanji but not the pronunciation. I’ve thought about adding the hiragana on the front card as well since I often find myself thinking of the wrong pronunciation more often than not, and sometimes have a hard time getting that out of my head.

   My question is basically, is this a bad idea? I fail the pronunciation I click Again even though I know the meaning. For example 入口 comes up on my card and I know the meaning, but my initial pronunciation even though I’ve seen the card like 30 times was いるぐち. I’m thinkingmore than seeing the card more often but regularly getting the sound wrong in my mind. Thoughsthts? that having the proper pronunciation might help ingrain it into my head

2. kindle reader from outside of JP looking at JP books. not sure if creating an account and buying (and so giving banking information) from outside of the country is a good idea.

   any advice/encouragement/warning/story?

3. Have trouble working out the words in this bit of this [clip](https://youtu.be/yERviMfnuN4?t=81); could I ask please if guesses below are correct?

   いやいやそのね…あの落下物とかのことでね

   幕も(貼っとるしが?)

   偉い広い幕を(貼りはる??)なと思って いたやんけども

   Edit: changed 貼っている in guess to 貼っとる; then changed 張り張る to 貼りはる for politeness(?)

4. Is there any list of all currently airing anime on Japanese Netflix? Can’t find a dedicated category for it, or list anywhere

5. No question, just a comment:

   I know this is silly, but it amused me: Today is day one for me and the first word I learned was sushi.

   I decided to learn kana before starting learning Japanese. A few years ago I studied Mandarin and I tried to start with its romanization system because I thought it would be easier for me. Big mistake, as it started making sense only when I ditched pinyin and jumped into hanzi.

   Right, today I opened a video of a guy writing hiragana. He was writing every character 3 times and I was following along, copying the writing and trying to get the sound. When he got to し and then す my brain connected them, and as a joke I thought “cool, I wonder if す and し makes sushi. I google it and and to the surprise of my “totally ignorant on the language” self, it was.

   Sushi. My first word. By accident.

6. What do people read to practice kana? I bought a book for Japanese toddlers but it isn’t very interesting as one can imagine.

7. The translation for real estate agent that seems common is 不動産屋, which looking at the individual kanji is roughly *bad move property dealer*. This sounds…pessimistic about realtors (which I find hilarious). I tried looking for more details on the origin of the term, but the reading is too advanced for me.

   ​

   Is this choice of kanji intentionally conveying this negative concept of real-estate agents? Or, is this a case of choosing kanji based off of sound (or some other criteria) that happened to give this amusing interpretation?

8. Struggling to understand what this sentence means

   「死人が出たこのおぞましい会場に、僕たちを留める理由はないと思いますけど？」

   My understanding is, “But I don’t think there’s a reason to keep us in this disgusting venue where he [deceased person] appeared.” I’m not really confident on the meaning of 「死人が出た」 and 「留める」 here.

9. What’s a good app on the phone similar to wanikani on the computer? It seems like wanikani doesn’t have a phone app.

10. What is the top most formal way of speaking Japanese? Like the most most formal very very fancy sounding Japanese

11. So I took Japanese in high school my senior year almost 20 years ago, I remember…well as you can imagine not very much, basically I am down to the AIUEO in hiragana. I am finally going to Japan in August of this year. I know that reasonably I should expect to know/learn nothing in the time frame between now and leaving. However, I have always been of the mind that people should at the very least try to know something of another language when traveling.

    So I was thinking of loading up iTalki again and having some conversational practice. However I wasn’t sure how much would be “too much”? Would you say maybe an hour every day? Every other day? Obviously I would do this in addition to relearning hira/katakana and other vocabulary through the likes of Anki as well.

    If I am in the wrong direction entirely, I am open for other ideas and suggestions.

    Thanks!

12. Hi, today I came across 親愛なる phrase meaning “dear”. Is it used anywhere in real Japanese?

13. Hello,
    I’ve tried a lot of japanese online translators to find the meaning of the word “teyogu”. Google translator says “hand tools” but every other translator couldn’t find a meaning. It would be very great if someone can help me out on this one.

    Thank you and have a nice day!

14. Hello everyone! For the sentence:

    にほんでいちばんたかいタワーです

    and

    にほんでにばんめにたかいタワーです

    Why do we:
    1. Use で and not に? I would’ve thought because were talking about an object in a place, it be に
    2. Why if it’s anything but いちばん, we attach めに?

    P.S apologies for no kanji as I’m still learning it and am in the early stages.

15. Does 皿 only mean the plate the food is on, or can it refer the food on the plate too? If I ask for a オススメのお皿, am I asking for a plate or a meal (or either depending on context)?

16. When you want to talk about the entirety of something when do you use 全部 vs 全て?

    For example recently I was talking to my teammate who in which the both of us are sponsored players for a けん玉 company and the Kendama World Cup is coming up and I wanted to ask him if he liked all of the Level 9 Kendama World Cup tricks and so I said:

    全てLevel 9のが好きですか？

    I just wanted to make sure I used it correctly and what other scenarios I could use 全てand 全部 in. Thank you in advance!