Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (June 09, 2022)

33 comments

1. Beginner here with two questions. Is it okay to learn Hiragana and Katakana at the same time? I ask because an acquaintance recommended [THIS](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/b0jlyt/i_made_an_allinone_hiraganakatakanabasic_kanji/) chart. I feel like I have an easier time remembering both when I do repeated writes of each kana together like the chart shows.

   Does Genki I teach me dakuten? I did a bit of research and it seems that the common advice is to move onto Genki I afterwards. I worry because I feel like I should learn it along with the above, but almost every chart recommended for beginners doesn’t have dakuten included.

2. Context: i’m currently doing a worksheet on んです. It asked me to translate the phrase “I got a bad grade” to Japanese.

   My instinct is to translate this phrase as “悪い成績があったんです” but the answer key says to translate it as “成績が悪かったんです”. What is the reason that this translation is preferable?

   Thanks so much in advance!

3. I was wondering about this:

   > よほどのグルメなのだな……いったい何んのシェフを雇っているのやら。

   What does いったい do here? The rest of it is something like, “She must be a gourmet, (I wonder) how many chefs she employs?

   I looked up いったい but I couldn’t really decide what it does.

   For context someone is thinking to themselves about a rich woman who seems to have employed almost all of the town’s chefs (weird I know).

4. Is there a difference between に際して and にあたって?

5. 下の名前でいいよ

   I was just wondering, does this mean something like, its fine to use my “nickname”. Its kind of hard to translate. For context, in this scene a girl gets all formal and calls them X+さん when talking and they reply with this.

6. Are there any good anki decks similar to Kanji Damage that are a bit less crass? I did ~900 kanji in the KD anki deck a few years ago and would like to start over, but would prefer something less offensive so I can use it on my phone in public transport without worries. I liked how it had example vocabulary with common words, onyomi/kunyomi and mnemonics.

7. Learning the numbers in Japanese, but I’m confused on one or two of them.

   Why does 100 go ひゃく　200 go にひゃく but then 300 go さんびゃく then 400 go back to　よんひゃく

   Like it goes from Hyaku to Byaku. Why is that? It’s only for 300

   But then 600 and 800 use Pyaku.

   When in the thousands range it’s sen usually but for 3000 it’s zen.

   I’m just baffled. The numbers are easy aside from these few bunch which I have to specifically remember are different.

8. What does 上では mean here?

   > セイバーを使う上では留意しておいてくれ 上では

   Is it the same usage as this

   Ａという状況だから当然Ｂする，Ｂするしかない，Ｂするべきだ

   　※話し手の決意や覚悟を言う時や相手に助言や忠告する時の表現（硬い表現）

   　※Ｂには、責任や覚悟を伴う行動や助言の言葉を使う。

   　※「べきだ，つもりだ，てはいけない」(助言、決意、忠告)や「はずだ，にちがいない」(判断)と一緒に使うことが多い。

   　※参考：～以上いじょう(は)
   　　　　　～からには
   　　　　　「～上は」「～以上は」「～からには」の違いを考える

   　Since A, Because of A

9. If I’m writing a journal entry and I want to write a “part two” of the entry how do you do it?

   Like if I write an entry like this:

   > 今日のテーマは「ハンバーガー」についてです。

   And then I want to write “part 2” in a later journal entry can I do

   > 今日のテーマは「ハンバーガー第2部」についてです。

   Is that ok or something else?

10. What is the difference between 切迫 and 緊張?

    I looked them up in a dictionary and both seem to express a feeling of tension toward something imminent

    状況などが、非常に差し迫っていること。緊張して、今にも事が起こりそうなこと。「—した空気に包まれる

    緊張した状態になること。逃げ場のない追いつめられた状態になること。「経済情勢が—する」

11. [deleted]

12. たとえば、｢走る｣ことは、一見単純で誰にでもできる運動ではあるが、｢速く走る技術｣となると、なかなか身につけることが難しい。

    I don’t think I’ve seen a ではある like that before. Is that also the reason there’s a に in 誰にでも here? What would this sentence look like in spoken conversational Japanese?

13. 運動の技術やフォームを改善することは、その運動を支配する神経回路を組みかえることになるので、そう簡単にはいかない。

    Which usage of いく is this いかない？

14. Can you use も particle after で as in the sentence below?

    英語でも難しいと思います。

    It should mean “In english, it’s also difficult.”

    I feel like it’s correct but I’m not sure if it would be mistaken for something else as there’s a lot of uses for で/も and でも.

15. Could someone tell me what 視野 adds to the following sentence?

    > ガイドラインの改訂を視野に検討する必要があると考えている

    They think it is necessary to consider revising the guidelines

16. [deleted]

17. Can someone explain to me why some fonts on websites change randomly?

    https://imgur.com/a/Mbz9a22

18. Etymological question: what’s up with 皮肉？” Irony” is meat skin? And I guess 肉 is unique as it’s onyomi is used in both singular form and when in jukugo. Irregular words and meanings are obviously a thing but honestly less rare than English so far for me in Japanese, so it’s weird to see. I’d assume 肉 has some other meanings or historical uses I’m not familiar with.

19. So I just finished Core 2000, should I continue and go for Core 4000? I wanna reach at least N3 lvl.

20. Reading an email about the return of a product. There’s this passage:
    商品が到着しましたら、ご返金の対応をさせていただきます

    1) Why is the causative verb? (“させて.. “)
    2) Here, the verb “いただきます” is what? くれる? I notice the いだだきます is used very often in formal/humble speech. Why? Is it always the てくれる?

    Thank you for the help 🙂

21. From A Biohazard 1 攻略

    警察内外から選抜された各分野の専門家が，その技能を操作・治安維持に生かす．

    Could I please have some help with the 2nd half of this sentence?

    “警察内外からSpecialist form varying fields of expertise were chosen.

    その技能を操作・治安維持に生かす．”Using there abilities to return public order. ” ?

    Some things that I cant quite grasp is how ・is used in this sentence. その技能を操作 “その” is also a bit confusing it I cant seem to make sense of it.

22. So I’m listening to 夜に駆ける and one of the lyrics is 「君にしか見えない何かを見つめる君が嫌いだ」. Usually for 見える I heard が being used, so is に here because 君 is not the thing that is visible, but rather the person for whom the thing is visible? So like indicating an indirect object/passive agent?

23. Year ago i read a guide here about some kind of setup that allows you to record you screen (for visual novels for example) and it hooked up with some extensions that not only offered translations but allowed adding the cards to anki decks.

    However i cant remember ANY names so im haing hard time googling for that. Id appreciate some help 🙂

24. What are some terms I could look up to find webnovels (and other prose-driven content) depicting a slow-burning romance focused on puppy love? The only term I can come up with right now is 純愛, which is probably way too broad, and possibly arguable. I want to check out something with a similar vibe to からかい上手の高木さん to be specific, so if you have any specific recs, I’ll gladly check them out.

25. この業界……そんな『頑張るだけで到達できる』次元の子じゃ、**とてもじゃないけど生き続けられない**。

    What’s the bold text mean? I’m particularly confused about とてもじゃないけど.

26. 言えないんですけど？？？

    Hi all, I was listening to Learn Japanese Pod and came upon this sentence in the transcript.

    Can someone explain to me why it’s “いんです“ at the end?

    I thought the いん is possibly an abbreviation of いる, but then why is there an いる behind the verb 言える？And why can です be added at the end? I thought if you end a sentence with the dictionary form of a verb, it indicates casual speech, which is conflicting with the polite sentence ender です.

27. In this sentence “靴が同じなのに、僕の方が似合ってるよ”，is 方 read as ほうorかた？And what does 僕の方mean?

28. Why is ってadded to this sentence? 科学の力ってすげー！

    Thanks

29. Help with formal Japanese writing!!

    I’m finishing an essay assignment that needs to be written in formal Japanese
    I’ve heard that words like なっている should become なっており, does that work in the case of 「____が異なっておりも、重要である」?
    Also! Should the word として be replaced with において to sound more formal?

    Thanks in advance for any help 🙂

30. Learning japanese from rock bottom, for no real purpose whatsoever but to have a third language with me. Will learn with inputs of a teacher during 2 years and half.

    Q: How much japanese can i learn in 360 hours and will it enough to make me able to teach japanese myself?

31. What’s the difference between 映画, 動画 & 映像? From what I understand they all mean film?

32. How can you say that you’re curious about something without a negative implication? I know 気に{なる:する} but they seem to have the implication that you’re worried/bothered.

33. What’s the difference between “Xはテーブルの上です” and “Xはテーブルの上にある”？

    The article that I read translated the latter as “the banana is on the table”, but shouldn’t it be “there’s a banana on the table”?