Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (June 22, 2023)

12 comments

1. ツッコミ – I’ve been seeing this more and more lately. Does it mean to joke around or to make a “joking comment”? I’d have to pull out one of my novels to find an example if it’s necessary.

   I also see it used in the anime “日常” a lot with the word ボケ。One of my monolingual dictionaries mentioned that ツッコミ and ボケ refer to 漫才, but I don’t know enough about stand-up comedy culture in Japan to comment on that.

2. What are some useful pieces of tech for learning japanese?

   Is there any way to get the full capabilities (reading, lookups, dictionaries, translations, flashcards) of what a pc and phone offer, without it being on pc or phone?

   Those devices distract me. There’s so much I could be doing instead of learning, after all…

   I’m purchasing an e-reader (probably kobo libra 2, or sage, haven’t decided yet) for reading books and manga.

   I heard about the casio e-dictionaries. I wanna know more about those. Are they affordable?

3. What does それとなく actually mean in the sentence “登山隊は身の危険をそれとなく感じていた。”? I have a translation of the sentence as “The climbers were apprehensive of their danger.” but I would think the sentence would have more or less the same translation without それとなく.

4. what’d they say before gebahyou?

   mechakucha saikoukai desuyo.
   sude ni otosikata ga hakkiri shittesimatteiru murashige

   ___ gebahyou
   https://vocaroo.com/1gs9W7KFgc7F

5. Just started watching TokiniAndy’s Genki I Lesson 3’s video, and I just wanted to clarify when he says to make the godan verb stems, change the ‘u’ sound to the ‘i’ sound. Then he moves on to say for the polite present tense, add ます to the masu verb stems. What is the masu verb stems? Is it the same as the godan verb stems?

6. Are there any worksheets (official or fan-made) that go with the Cure Dolly lessons and go beyond lesson 6?

7. Could I have some help with making a sentence? Confused about some of the N5 grammar concepts surrounding continuing states.

   If I wanted to say: “The new 2D Mario game looks super cool!”

   Would it be this?

   1.「新しい2Dマリオのゲームはとてもかっこいいを見ますよ！」

   or would it be the て-form of 見える due to it being in the continuing state of appearing cool after a state change?

   2.「新しい2Dマリオのゲームはとてもかっこいいを見えていますよ！」

   or is it more normal in Japanese to simply state that it is cool?

   3. 「新しい2Dマリオのゲームはとてもかっこいいですよ！」

   Or would any work, depending on if I wanted to say that it 1. looks very cool, that it 2. is looking very cool, or simply 3. that it is cool?

8. I’m using the JPDB frequency list with yomichan, and I’ve always wondered what the meaning of the カ character in a bubble next to the frequency number is. Does anybody know and can help me?

9. I was watching the tonkiandi chapter 7 genki lesson and in it is the sentence テレビがついている. From what I can figure out I thought it would be テレビがつけている. so I’m not sure if it’s a mistake or I’m just wrong but any clarification would be greatly appreciated

10. What is the best first step to take? With so many different options I don’t know if I should start with an online corse or get a textbook, ect. I get very paralyzed when there are so many options. Any advice on what the best first step is would be greatly appreciated.

11. Hi, I need some help with a specific sentence, regarding shopping at an in-person shop vs online. I *want* to say that if you talk to the clerk, you can make a well-informed decision regarding the product you are interested in buying, and as a result you can (could) be more satisfied with your overall purchase.

    ​

    What I wrote is this:

    そうしたら、詳しく商品を決められて、満足が行けるようになる。

    I feel like especially the second part of the sentence sounds extremely unnatural and is probably not correct, even though when I put this sentence in Google Translate it gives me more or less what I want to write in English. Any tips or suggestions? Thanks!

12. Is there any grammar resources you guys actually found fun? Im at episode 11 of curedolly and its by far the least enjoyable part for me, not only is it boring but it feels like you never retain any of it its the absolute last thing i want to do.

    Currently nearing my first thousand anki words (291 “mature”) and enjoy trying to immerse with some anime but this grammar stuff especially is just awful, i feel like you learn more by actually looking at the language, particularly with verbs.