Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (July 19, 2023)

13 comments

1. Hi, I’m going through Pimsleur and there
   is one phrase no matter how many times I replay it I can’t understand what the person is saying, so maybe someone could give me a hand.

   The Engilsh is “How’s the preparation of the meeting?”

   And I hear “Kaigi no junbi wa ______ desu ka?”

   It sounds like “ikara” or “ikana” but I just can’t understand the speaker and I can’t find a defintion for either of those words on jisho that fits.

2. Question about う

   For context I just began learning 2 weeks ago and I’m really just focusing on learning kanji via WaniKani. I can read hiragana and can read katakana okayish.

   So I just learned how to say the kanji evening and it’s really weird as a native English speaker that it’s spelled ゆう. Why that’s confusing to me is because ゆ already has the “u” sound in it. And when I listen to the pronunciation it sounds just like “you”…but then ゆ sounds like “you” too.

   This is not exclusive to evening so many kanji or vocabulary have う at the end of it and I don’t get it! Like population and artificial 人口、人工。these say “jinko”…I just don’t understand why it ends with う is it just silent?

3. i saw this sentence 「帰りに何か買ってこようか？」and i get that the こ might be an abbreviation for くる but i don’t understand the use of よう here.

4. How would i go about writing/pronouncing my name? My name is Vee, but it’s my understanding that the v sound is rarely used in japanese and not really pronounced the same way that we pronounce it

5. Hello everyone! It is another beautiful day in Yamaguchi Prefecture. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their great advice. These beginner threads are extremely important and helpful for us beginners. As I have stated prior, I intend to make my life here in Japan with starting and providing for my own family at the core of that ideal life. I currently have a time sensitve goal of successfully passing the JLPT N2 exam prior to my 40th birthday which is less than 3 1/2 years from now.

   I have been hesitiating to pull the trigger on the next step but have finally decided to start the next step with it being the much recommended Kanji Damage site. The reason for this is because someone here suggested I work on kanji prior to starting my first Anki vocabulary deck, the Core 2k and 6k decks. My final question prior to being away until next Monday, is if Kanji Damage, plus the anki related to it AND starting the Core 2k deck along side it, is a good idea? Is that a good idead for the next 4 weeks? Or should I just focus on Kanji Damage, plus its anki decks for the next four weeks? However, I will be studying on average 5 to 6 hours everyday. Is 4 weeks at the pace too much time on just Kanji Damage? Thank you all very much and please forgive my long windiness! I also apologize for spelling mistakes.

6. 友達にある花の原産地や育て方などを聞かれたが、そういうことはこの本に書いてあると言って、本を貸してあげた。

   Would changing そういう to そんな be incorrect Japanese?

7. 白いスーツを買いたいです

   Is this really that you “want to buy” the suit? Mainly because im unsure of the accuracy of the translation in this anki deck.

   If its true its probably the function of the “たい” im not understanding, thought it was past tense so “wanted to buy/bought” etc.

8. 人の悪口は聞くに堪えない。

   Does this roughly mean

   1) I can’t stand hearing people speaking ill of others.

   or

   2) There’s no worth in listening to people speaking ill of others.

   ?

9. Got a question about a sample sentence from Quartet for the grammar point ~どおりに

   計画どおりに仕事をするのは難しい

   I can’t tell if it’s more like

   “It’s difficult to work exactly as planned” – meaning that things can go wrong like maybe the plan is too strict, so there will be deviations

   “Exactly as planned, it’s difficult to work” – meaning it was the plan that work would be difficult

   I have a strong feeling that it’s the first one because it’s like [計画どおりに仕事をする] のは難しい where “work exactly as planned” is the phrase that gets nominalized then described with the adjective. But I can’t quite explain to myself why the second option would be wrong, or what the right way of saying it would be instead.

10. What is the difference between すればするほど and すればしたほど ?

11. **「面白いとかそういう基準じゃないだろ」**

    **When reading a novel, i don’t understand 1 sentence spoke by the protagonist , hope someone could help me understand its meaning correctly (my guess : “But a rumor doesn’t has such interesting criteria which we need to follow !” )**

    ***Context: MC came to an isekai world by falling down from the sky. A leader of a clan took him in and want to used MC as a tool to boost her clan’s reputation. She said she will spread a rumor about MC – tells everyone that he’s an incarnation of Budha descended from the sky . MC complains about her exaggeration .***

    天から降りてきたのはまあ間違いじゃないっぽいけど、如来の化身とか何なのこの人……。

    MC「……それはちょっと盛り過ぎじゃないの。如来の化身とか、なんか後光とか差してるみたいじゃない」

    Clan leader「差していただろう？あの時は」

    MC「…………」

    そういえば、田楽狭間に降りてきた時は光り輝いてたんだっけ……。

    どんだけ派手な登場シーンだったんだよ、俺。

    Clan leader「この手の噂話は少々尾ひれが付いていた方が面白くなる」

    **MC「面白いとかそういう基準じゃないだろ」**

    Clan leader「面白い方が、民の噂に上るであろう？」

12. There’s this part in Akira, when the 大佐 of ネオ東京 is facing what looks like an elaborate sealed [chamber](https://imgur.com/a/TpDb9Wx), and he says to the scientist who is with him (@41:00):

    見てみろ…この慌てぶりを…怖いのだ. 怖くてたまらずに覆い隠したのだ. 恥も尊厳も忘れ

    築き上げてきた文明も科学もかなぐり捨てて自ら開けた恐怖の穴を 慌てて塞いだのだ.

    Is he speaking of his own fear, or does it extend to mean fear as embodied by whatever (if anything) is within the chamber? When he says 自ら開けた, can 自ら only mean he himself (only him) opened it. I think, maybe only his fear, and only him, but I am not sure.

    Edit: to add a bit of the audio [here](https://soundcloud.com/sfungobats/qebf5kfeedfe?si=7d360d90e1ff4acfae2ce3086db5da3a&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing) in case it helps; sentence is at about 1:12

13. so in this sentence 小学校の時、先生に好きな絵をかかせてもらって、とても楽しかったです。

    if the causative form here mean that the teacher let her draw whatever she likes what does mもらう do here ? what did she receive from the teacher ? the ability to draw what she likes ?