Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (June 26, 2023)

10 comments

1. Im reading a graded reader with a story about why there is no year of the cat. And the 年 kanji in „どしてねこ年がない？“ has どしas furigana, why is that? The dictionary has the reading とし and ねん for it when i looked it up.

2. I’m going to a Japanese university and they’re asking us to spell our names in Katakana. My name contains “ye”. However there is no kana that makes that sound. How do I spell it? I’m currently doing イェ.

   If it helps, the full name is Ayen.

3. If V (masu-stem) + 続ける is used to express that some action is continuing, is removing the ending る just a slightly more abbreviated way of conveying the same thing, or is there some grammatical reason for why the る might be dropped? (e.g. 降り続ける vs 降り続け)

4. Is there a similar website like realkana.com for vocabulary? There’s study stack but the flashcards are in romanji. I am looking for something in kana.

5. I’m learning with wanikani and bunpro, feeling ready to read something on my own (the goal is to be able to read and listen to japanese media in general), I’ve tried reading slice of life light novels but they proved to be too difficult. What should I start with?

6. What are some good apps for studying Japanese daily? I’m already quite familiar with Japanese and currently live in Japan, but I’ve recently been motivated to pass N1 in the future and want to commit to studying. I’m not sure about my current level, but I would estimate it’s somewhere around N3.

7. How fast should I be reading for N1?
   Exam is in a week, I am confident in most aspects but not sure how fast should I be reading because its my first time taking the exam. Any guidance is appreciated.

8. I tried finding 幻 using Jisho.org’s “radicals” interface but couldn’t find 幺. I count 5 strokes in that radical. What is my mistake?

   Also, for 玄, I count 7 strokes but it is placed under the header of 5 strokes.

9. Hi there!
   I have a question about a piece of N1 grammar, のごとく, as I never learned that but my friend told me this would be ideal to use in a comparison situation; as you would use the word ‘like’ in English.

   I tried to translate “Work like a captain, enjoy like a pirate.” with my knowledge of N3 to the following:
   船長のように働き、海賊のように楽しめ。

   My friend however suggested that のように wouldn’t work as well conveying the same implications of ‘like’ in the sentence, and his suggestion was ‘のごとく’. Making the sentence: 船長のごとく働き、海賊のごとく楽しめ。

   Is this the correct usage of the ごとくgrammar in making this sentence better sounding than のように?

   Thank you kindly in advance.

   Edit: sorry for replying multiple times. Something went wrong (yes I’m now using Reddits own app, go figure), I did not mean to spam.

10. I’m 5 lessons into Japanese using a tutor on iTalki. I’ve was going it alone for about a year before and learned loads of words and random grammar points but didn’t have the guidance of a teacher. In the short time I’ve been using a teacher I feel like I’ve gotten so much more return for my input.
    So as a question for other people getting 1 on 1 lessons – how quickly did you find you were covering topics etc did you feel reasonably competent after a year or so?
    Edit: For context I’m doing 2 lessons a week