Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (May 14, 2023)

26 comments

1. I know >Duolingo but I got [a question on it wrong](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632979116957630484/1106916494828392448/Screenshot_20230513-123900_Duolingo.jpg) and I wanted some clarification. Can 何 work at the start of a sentence?

   I am assuming I should be thinking about this as “as for your phone number, what number is it?” rather than a more English way of “what is your phone number?”

2. how to say “let me tell you something” but more like, “m’tell you sum” *angrily*

   TWD shane reference

3. hello! my questions are on the following sentence:

   エドガーさんは魔法使いだった事もあるんですか

   1. ⁠what is the definition/use/kana of 事 here? I had looked it up, but there are many definitions and i’m not sure which is correct / makes sense
   2. ⁠in あるんですか , what is the purpose of the ん?
   3. ⁠how would you translate this sentence? For me, all I can make of it is “so Edgar was also a wizard?”

   あなたの時間をいただきありがとうございます

4. What’s the origin of this phrase? Or any good mnemonics for it?

   >股にかける – to travel all over; to be active in places widely apart

5. How can you say without?

   For example, how could you say “An ocean without fish?”

6. Hello. Needed some help in parsing the below sentences:

   1 地下１０センチまでめりこんだだろーが！！振り出すのスゲー大変！！

   Needed to understand what these sentences mean. Plus, in the first sentence, what’s the meaning of having “が” at the end?
   Context: Manga slide from Yotsuba – the character is crouching with a badminton racket in one hand and picking up a shuttlecock with the other hand. Characters were playing a game of badminton

   2 つーかずっと女だって言ってんだろ

   Context: Character is told that he was called a boy by somebody else the other day, and presently he’s being called a girl

7. I regret diving in the Red Sea.

   Can I ever make this joke land?

   (EDIT: 後悔: regret 紅海: Red Sea)

8. I’m around N5-N4 level, and I’m finding it easiest to learn through reading (books, games, whatever). I’m considering getting books in Japanese about either Yokai or Japanese folktales, but don’t know any that would be 1: good, and 2: not too difficult to read. Any suggestions would be appreciated

9. Whats the difference between そらす、防ぐ、 and 予防する.

   I suppose fusegu is for physical prevention/protection, while yobou suru is more towards outcomes/situation.
   Then how about sorasu? Ive seen 目をそらす which seemingly translates to “Avert eyes”.
   But is it someway related to fusegu/yobou suru, what is the kanji? and what other contexts can we use sorasu?

10. Was thinking 落し物 should be 落ち物, because I didn’t drop my wallet, it just fell out of my pocket. But even in English “drop my wallet” is correct.

11. so I recently got introduced to 預かる and 預ける. im not sure how to explain the difference, and need some help.

    then, I came across 加わる and 加える. now, I think these have a same kind of difference, which I still cannot explain properly.

    what’s some good explanations you might know to describe the differences?

12. this question might be super basic and asked often. sorry in advance

    開く(ひらく）、開ける（あける）、開く(あく）

    when and how do you use each of them?

13. Is there a better subreddit for questions relating to historical contexts of traditional phrases? I’m trying to figure out where the logic developed behind the usage of a phrase.

14. is つくり an adverbial noun because it ends in the kana り? Compared to つくる which is a verb.

    example sentence, 神さまが天と地をおつりになりました。

15. My younger brother is interested in learning japanese, It’s his birthday in a couple weeks, I’m looking at spending about $120 or so US. What are some good options for resources? Genki? I’m open to suggestions.

16. I was practicing katakana and I asked ChatGPT to proofread my friend’s name in Japanese (Patrick O’Leary) I wrote:

    パタリック　オリーリ　です。

    Chat GPT wrote:

    パトリック・オレアリー”

    I don’t really understand the difference. Would both be understood? Are both accurate? The only bit I’m confused by is レア。？

17. Visiting Japan with a non-binary child and can’t find info on how to refer to them (singular). I find info on what “I” pronoun to use but I’ll be the one speaking and interpreting. There are no articles about this. My child was AMAB so I might get away with “musuko” if they (my child again) are okay with it. I read that Japanese people don’t accept this concept as well as in the USA, so I also don’t want to do this if it will make my child the object of hatred. Once again, only if my child is okay with it. If not, what words to I use when referring to my non-binary child. (Haters scroll past. Advice, attempted answers, musings are all welcome.)

18. と particleIve seen, ～という、っていう、i think that って has more of an “apostrophe/quotation mark” “「」 ” type of function (Example: 「べんきょうしたくない」ってといって) while for と i know its used in という and と思います, which is pretty clear that the と marks something, but i dont know the extent of its usage or how it works.

    Then with っては・とはTheir usage share some common grounds like;「ＸｘＸ」ってはなんですか「ＸｘＸ」とはなんですか

    Although i understand と usage in a sentence just by experience, i actually dont have fundementals for it. I know と can have “with / and” or “following/together/accompaniment” sort of function, but i dont understand how this function carries towards と usage in と思います or という.

    Like, why not って思います / っていう (i dont encounter them often) , why and how does と also encompass the function of って, or rather, is って related to と?

19. 俺たちあテメエに感謝してんだぜ

    Is the してんだ here really the te-form of する + んだぜ？ Or is it している?

20. So apparently normal Japanese learners get to 10k moji per hour within a couple of months of learning Japanese. I’m a few months into Japanese as well and I read multiple hours a day but I’m nowhere near that reading speed (I just tested myself on a text that is **below** my overall level lmao). Pretty demoralizing TBH and not sure what to do from here. I imagine a big part of why reading is so effective for language learning is because you come across so many words and grammar patterns but that’s not really the case when your reading speed is piss-low, right?

    Should I just turn on auto in VNs? Simply reading normally clearly doesn’t work for getting faster.

21. An example sentence from A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar:

    よし江ったら私には何も言わないのよ。They translate it as “Yoshie didn’t tell me anything, you know”.

    It appears that a non-past form (言わない) is used to refer to a past action, in the main clause. Can anyone confirm and/or offer more info on the subject? I have a feeling that the verb being negative and the emotional nature of the sentence also play a role, but I’m not really sure.

22. I have noticed when that a man confesses his feelings to a woman, they use ‘ore’ and ‘omae’ instead of ‘boku’ and ‘anata’. Is there a specific reason for this?

23. I started reading Fire Punch in Japanese and every now and then for parts I don’t understand I’ll cross refrence with an English translation to see if I atleast got the general meaning of a sentence. I came across a part in chapter one that says ”新しい腕生えるのに一時間るだろ 俺は一瞬で生える！” which I read as ”It takes you an hour to grow back your arm, but it only takes me an hour” but the the translation says ”It takes you *a whole week*” instead of one hour. Am I reading the original Japanese text wrong or is it just the translator taking liberties with the source material?

24. Anybody here have a U-NEXT or Amazon Prime JP account? Wondering if shows there have Japanese subtitles. Thanks!

25. What verb of “to stay” do you use in Japanese to say “I will ‘stay’ in Chiba for 4 days (in a vacation home)”?

26. When speaking, is it better to keep pitch accents flat if you don’t know where the down step is?

    Would it sound weirder to a native speaker hearing someone guess a pitch accent or keep the tone flat?

    Also, does bad pitch accent sound to Japanese natives kind of like some Katakana might sound to a native English speaker?

    デジタル: an English speaker could probably catch that in the context of someone saying “デジタル download”, but it would be very obvious the speaker wasn’t native.