Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (January 24, 2024)

11 comments

1. I was recently corrected by someone when it came to this sentence,

   日本人は特にフランスが好きなのに、なぜでしょうか？

   Anyway, I was told that the particle に was incorrect and should rather be replaced with は. I’m still struggling to understand why this is, could someone help explain to me? Thank you!

2. Need help breaking down/understanding sentence 2. (Sentence 1 included for context)

   1. 「お兄さん、なんの本を読んでたの？」
   2. 妹のアニーが、スキップしながら、ジャックに聞いた。

   What I understand:
   – Annie is the subject
   – she is skipping while asking Jack the above question

   What I don’t get:
   – how to apply 妹の to the sentence.
   – is Jack the narrator and it’s “my little sister Annie”? If so, why is Jack’s name mentioned? Is it something to do with referencing himself in the third person instead of using personal pronouns?
   – is it a third person narrator? If so, how does fit 妹の into a translated sentence? “Jack’s sister Annie asked him while skipping”? (That feels wrong for some reasons but I don’t know WHY it feels wrong.)

3. 最近のバスはシートも広くて、ベッドみたいに倒せるんだって。

   So I know that んだって like this means “I heard” and that

   最近のバスはシートも広くて、ベッドみたいに倒せるって。

   Would be more direct like “he/she said”.

   But I’ve always wondered if it applies to nouns, like nounなんだって vs nounだって , or if that would only be used in the ‘reasoning ‘ sense of that construction rather than the らしい type meaning.

   It’s unfortunately the kind of thing that’s frustrating to Google so I’m asking here.

4. How do I tell apart the three writing types in speech? I’m a complete beginner, so I hope its a valid question. If someone says a word that would be written in Hiragana, Katakana, or Kanji, how can I know which way to write it just by hearing it?

5. Can someone please help rate and provide feedback on my N1 strategy?

   I have N2 and work in a Japanese company. I use English for my job but use Japanese internally. I want to pass N1 first time this summer. I know it’s impossible to know my true level just via a Reddit post but I would appreciate some feedback from actual high level speakers. I struggle a lot with remembering new things – some things stick and some I can never grasp.

   Not including speaking/emails at work and random media like Netflix, this is what I use:

   1. Notebook

   2. N1 Kanzen master reading

   3. JLPT1 500問 exercise book

   4. App for listening exercises

   Here’s what I do;

   1. Everyday at work I write down new grammar patterns and vocab in my work notebook.

   2. When I get home I copy these into my main notebook with examples and read it over for review.

   3. I do one reading exercise from kanzen master. I just can’t read it naturally with a time limityet so instead I take my time and write down any words I dont know in the notebook. I’m usually correct when I take my time so being aware I’ll have a time limit on the test I need to find a way to get faster.

   4. I do a page of the 500問 book and again copy stuff I don’t know into the notebook.

   5. I do a listening exercise on the app, read over the script and again add to the notebook.

   I would appreciate any feedback on how to improve this:

   Thank you

6. JLPT N3の質問があります。なぜ不正解の選択が違いますか。

   子供の頃、よく祖母に「男[?]男になりなさい」と言われた。

   １．ような ２．そうな ３．らしい ４．みたいな

   正解：3

   勉強して、ある程度日本語が話せる[?]日本語の授業がおもしろくなった。
   １．ことができるまで
   ２．ことができてから
   ３．ようになるまで
   ４．ようになってから

   正解：４ なぜ３の選択が違いますか (ようになるまで）

   昨日の夜、寝る前に[?]ヨーグルトが食べたくなって、夜中なのにコンビニに買いに行ってしまった。

   １．どうか ２．せっかく ３．どうしても ４．きっと

   正解：３ 二番も正しい答えでしょう?（せっかく)

   皆さんは、インターネットに４０年以上の歴史があることを「？」か？

   １．知ります ２．ご存じです ３．存じしています ４．知っていないのです。

   正解：２ なぜ「に」が現れましたか。「インターネットに４０」

7. can someone explain the use of the ‘to’ particle in this sentence to me? 水の上の花と花の間. I looked up every definition i could find, none of them made sense to what the translation says. being used as with, and, or as a condition to result doesn’t seem to make sense. What am i missing???

8. Continuing the conversation from yesterday:

   >I have a coworker who is younger than me but really bossy on the rare occasions we work together and I struggled to describe it to my friends. 気が強い and 細かい can occasionally be good things as far as I understand, but this coworker not so much. Always telling me what to do as if I don’t know lol. 厳しい kinda works but it just…. lacks something.

   I’d like to add that I have no intention of saying anything at work (I rarely see her anyway), I just want to be able to complain more accurately when drinking with my friends lol.

   I got some nice suggestions from /u/Ok-Implement-7863 , some that I’m considering:

   同僚なのに(年下なのに)上から目線

   よく指図する

   よく仕事の内容を指摘してくれる

9. Why is the translation for “The birds were singing”, 鳥の声がしました and not 鳥の声をしました? I thought を should be used since it’s a verb

10. Attention japanese french learners i need your help.

    So im learning the word dake だけ which means “just”.
    And theres だけで , for “just by”.

    Gonna need to speak in french from here :

    Si je dis : juste en mangeant ; j ai mal au ventre.
    C est correct ?
    Mais on peut aussi dire : je mange juste et j ai mal au ventre.
    I think the second sentence is somehow incorrect and not classy but it confused me.
    My brain doesnt think in japanese and im still refering to french then english.

11. > サエはそれらを見ると、顔をくもらせ、静かに手を合わせて祈った。合わせた手の指先が細かくふるえているのを、マコウカンは暗い面持ちで見つめていた。

    In this passage, that を hanging out there before the comma is screwing me up a bit. I’m having trouble deciding whose hands are trembling.

    Though my guess is サエ’s hands are trembling, because after that the topic changes to マコウカン, but not before. Though these things can seemingly happen in any order, so I’m not as sure.

    Context: They found some corpses while looking through an abandoned mine.