Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (June 04, 2023)

15 comments

1. Does など have some meaning jisho isn’t listing? Every time I read it it comes across as very unnatural. For instance:

   台所などに流して捨てることはやめるように言っています。 “Says to stop throwing it away in the kitchen etc”. (“Kitchen for example”?) But the whole article repeatedly says kitchen and lists nothing else. Why does it need a など？

2. I have a huge problem commecting なくてはならない、わけにはいかない、なくてはいけない and I think one or two more similar forms to their respective meaning. Any type of way to not confuse myself with the meaning o the wrong one?

3. -mou dou nattatte ii

   kakkou warukutatte ii-

   I’m having troubles with these lines from a song.I don’t know what the ~tte suffix is supposed to add.[natta] i know is the past form of naru but I can’t find what [warukuta] means,I think it’s maybe maybe related to warui but I can’t find anything to support this.

   Can someone explain to me what the ~tte adds and how it’s used?

4. Can someone tell me what this sentence means? On genki 1 Textbook 3rd ed page 336-337 the dialogue is about Sora who wrote on her diary about the day that she went to Mary’s host family house, but theres one sentence that i dont understand. In the dialogue she says 家で晩ご飯を食べた。お母さんは「何もありませんが」と言っていたが、たくさんごちそうがあった。Does the 「何もありませんが」mean that the mom told Sora that theres nothing to eat, but still made her food?

5. I have just found out that masu is the polite form to conjugate verbs and I feel dumb lol

6. I don’t have a question, just wanted to share I was able to get through a very basic children’s book that had short sentences on each page and pictures, and able to understand most of what I was reading without needing to look it up and for me this is progress since I definitely would not have been even able to tell what the sounds were of the characters I was looking at on each page just 6 months ago, let alone the meanings of the words, so I feel happy. Determined to keep going, keep learning more words and expand the vocab, and gradually work up to harder reading material.

7. Could someone explain this usage of しみじみ in this exchange? (context: having dinner and talking about the food)

   A:「このスープもうまいな。。。」

   B:「あぁ。。。しみじみとする」

   After doing my research on しみじみ, the only meaning I think could apply here is a reference to some nostalgic feeling of sorts? Like the soup brings back memories or something along those lines. But I’m not sure if this isn’t just another completely different usage I may not be aware of.

8. Would anyone be able to tell me what this means? I can tell the individual parts but am having a hard time understanding how it all comes together:

   質問があるのですがぜひ教えてください

9. 3 ways “to decide” 決す vs 決める difference?

   despite being godan vs ichidan it feels like they are the same words to me

   example sentence: もう決した？　vs　もう決めた？

   in conversation, which one sounds natural? or does it depend on the speaker (i.e dialect)

   決す

   決める

   決まる

10. what interesting book recommendations have you come across?

    am looking for Japanese equivalents of 1. native language non-fiction writers/journalists (Walter Isaacson, Bob Woodward) 2. business stories Ed Catmull/Pixar, Bob Iger/Disney 3. diplomacy/negotiation and geopolitics

11. あ! ゴロゴロ雷だ!

    when it’s thundering and raining, would this be correct to say in spoken japanese? or is it better to use one or the other?

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13. また、前の文に出てきた言葉を関連する語で言い換えることがよくあります。

    (talking about change out clauses with equivalent clauses)

    Does 語 mean something like “clause” or something? Why is 語 chosen here over all the other words that mean… “words” in Japanese?　

14. うちの祖父にグラウンドゴルフに参加しませんかというお誘いが来た。

    Just to make sure, this is definitely “my grandfather received an invitation” and not “I received an invitation from my grandfather”, right?

15. I can’t find a clear answer online so I’ll ask here.

    is there a difference between しか〜ない　and the expression しかない, or are they both the same? I know しか is a particle, but しかない is also used on its own as it’s own expression, for example, 行くしかない, so I’m wondering if there is any difference between the two.