日本語 (Japanese Practice)

[Suzaku]

Let me see if I have something straight here. ので vs から

You really don't go for the easy ones, do you? This is one of those where you could ask three native speakers and get three slightly different answers.

Simplest answer: ので is more polite.

Slightly more complex answer: から is more subjective, and somehow 'stronger', while ので is more objective and 'softer'.

　お前が遅いから（×ので）負けるんだよ。
　おまえがおそいからまけるんだよ。
　We always lose because you're too slow.
This would sound very wrong using ので. から indicates that it's my opinion that we always lose because you're too slow, not objective fact.

　映画がまもなく始まりますので（×から）、携帯電話の電源をお切りください。
　えいががまもなくはじまりますので、けいたいでんわのでんげんをおきりください。
　The movie will be starting soon, so please switch off your mobile phones.
It would be impolite for this kind of announcement to use から.

　雨が強かったので、試合は中止になった。
　あめがつよかったので、しあいはちゅうしになった。
　The game was cancelled due to heavy rain. OR
　It was raining too hard, so the game got called off.
Not a matter of politeness here, but stating an objective fact, rather than an opinion.

Also, as you've mentioned below, ので can be more complex or nebulous, while から is more straightforward.

I`ve also seen some constructions like, "私の事を" or あなたの事が. What does this mean? I`m thinking, "My thing." and "Your thing.", but I really have no idea.

This is a slightly roundabout way of saying "me" or "you", used when discussing emotions when you (or the person you're talking to) are the subject of the emotion in question.
Easily the most common uses of these are あなたのことが好き - I like you, and 僕のことはどう思う？ - What do think of me? (i.e. Do you like me?), used in a romantic sense.

貴女 when talking to girls, 貴男 when talking to guys?

貴女 for girls is fine, for guys or mixed company 貴方 is used.

[Daimon]

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[Daimon]

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[kerwin]

初心者は、私をサポートしてください！

[Daimon]

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[MrPeg]

Bit of an offshoot here, I've been looking for a Kanji translation of a verse from a book, basically to make a piece of wall-art. Unfortunatly my Japanese language knowledge is limited to a selection of throws and arm locks. I've tried randomly messaging the residents of japan on facebook but none have replied in weeks of trying Tried but never trust google translate ofc

Could anyone here give it a shot? The verse is

Do not hurt where holding is enough;
do not wound when hurting is enough;
do not maim where wounding is enough;
and kill not where maiming is enough;
the greatest warrior is one who does not need to kill.

[Daimon]

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[MrPeg]

Thanks, the where could be swapped for when or if I suppose

<3 to you

[tastelikecoke]

二年に日本語はべんきょうした。けどぼくはへただ、ながいじかんのに。

さあ、かんじはいいほうほうがなんですか？ぼくはHeisigをつかうです。 まいにち、アニメを見えていますから、にほんごがべんきょうします。けどぶんぽうをよくない。

わるいにほんごはすみません！

死にたいと願ってきたのに, 死ぬこともできない。。。

"I want to die, but I can't, and I must scream."?

[tastelikecoke]

So, here comes English. Can anyone recommend a way to learn both Japanese grammar and vocabulary in general? Currently I'm doing sentence mining, coupled with a grammar book. I generally want to eschew kanji until I learn the underlying words.

[Elliot]

So, here comes English. Can anyone recommend a way to learn both Japanese grammar and vocabulary in general? Currently I'm doing sentence mining, coupled with a grammar book.

For grammar, Tae Kim's grammar guide is excellent. Example sentences are written with kanji but there's a vocabulary list with readings at the top of each section, and you can also get them by hovering your cursor over the kanji (and there are browser plugins that do that anyway, at least for Firefox).
For vocabulary, have you tried the Core 2k/6k sentences? There's a shared deck for them on Anki (if you don't have Anki, get it), and you can download audio for it by following the links here. There are some other resources recommended in that thread as well.

I generally want to eschew kanji until I learn the underlying words.

Personally, I did Heisig (just volume 1) before I started making any real effort to learn vocab. It doesn't take that long, and it seems to me like a logical way of going about things. But if you want to only learn each kanji after you've learned a word that uses it, I think there's probably some sort of Anki plugin you can get that would do do that. Like, you could have a vocabulary deck and a kanji deck, and the kanji cards would all be suspended until you've viewed a vocabulary card that includes that kanji. But I couldn't tell you specifically how to do it; all the more advanced features in Anki just confuse me. That forum in my last link would be the place to look.

[Daimon]

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[Daimon]

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[tastelikecoke]

For vocabulary, have you tried the Core 2k/6k sentences? There's a shared deck for them on Anki (if you don't have Anki, get it), and you can download audio for it by following the links here. There are some other resources recommended in that thread as well.

I have a deck of 400 cards from Core2k/6k sentences. One thing I decided is to learn how to listen and understand Japanese first, so I made a deck with kana-only front and meaning back, so I can read it and understand it.

If I could get ruby text running in AnkiDroid, then I could probably use kanji in front.

One problem I have is tripping with indistinguishable kana, like reading 「ぜったい」as 「せつたい」, and 「コープ」as 「コーブ」. I even fear that there are some words that I misspell the whole time...

[Daimon]

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[Elliot]

If I could get ruby text running in AnkiDroid, then I could probably use kanji in front.

I'm afraid I can't help you there. But as a sort of stop gap, you could put both kanji and kana fields on the front. Not quite as convenient as ruby, but serves a similar function.
As for confusing kana, using cards with audio might help. Certainly the difference between つ and っ becomes pretty obvious when they're read aloud.

[Gelsamel]

So, actually got around to getting off my ass and learning Japanese. Yesterday I learned all the ひらがな (took under 3 hours with an additional ~3 hours of resting, to keep the brain fresh) and I'm wondering if anyone has some really good resources for starting to learn Japanese with the assumption that you can already read ひらがな. I don't want to ever see ろーまじ again (I mean, unless someone I'm talking to can't read ひらがな or something). Tomorrow I will probably go through all the かたかな.

Cause I used a weird mnemonic learning method the ひらがな I mix up most are weird ones, completely unrelated shape wise. Like for some reason I can't fathom, every once in a while, I accidentally read は as た (but never the other way around). Although I do sometimes mixup に and こ simply because my brain forgets to recognise the vertical line (or assumes there is one there). Sometimes I see a plosive mark and my brain interprets it as "Something up in the top corner? That means voiced mark" and so I to go straight to the b- sounds instead of p- sounds. But otherwise I think I'm doing pretty decent (and reading fairly quickly) for what is effectively the first day in which I can read ひらがな.

[Gelsamel]

Getting towards the end of the basic section of Tae Kim's Grammar Guide and I have a question... hopefully someone here knows the answer.

He has a summary table of how you can add 「んだ」 to conjugations and also how you can add 「んだ」and then conjugate it.
He shows why this explanatory particle is useful with the following example:
「遅くない？」 - "It's not late?"
vs
「遅いんじゃない？」- "Isn't it late?"
My question is there any difference between
「遅いんじゃない？」- "Isn't it late?"
and
「遅くないの？」- ("Isn't it late?"???)
or is it just another way of saying the same thing?

(Edit: Nevermind, someone answered my question elsewhere. 「遅くないの？」- "It's late, isn't it?" is fine, apparently).



Also been going through Heisig's Remembering the Kana (RTK). Which is really awesome. I guess I'm sort of self-learning with the long-term goal in mind, I'm going through all the basic logical underlying structures of the grammar and the Kanji first... which means I'm behind on the raw vocab and conversational skills that someone attending a class for as long as I've been studying would... but hopefully I'll have a better fundamental understanding of Japanese in the long term.

[Daimon]

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[Daimon]

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[tastelikecoke]

If I could get ruby text running in AnkiDroid, then I could probably use kanji in front.

I'm afraid I can't help you there. But as a sort of stop gap, you could put both kanji and kana fields on the front. Not quite as convenient as ruby, but serves a similar function.
As for confusing kana, using cards with audio might help. Certainly the difference between つ and っ becomes pretty obvious when they're read aloud.

I did just that . I stopped using Ankidroid for the Core2k and did it on the computer instead so I can hear the voice overs. Turns out reading kanji is not that bad, and being a quarter through Remembering the Kanji does help. (my progress on that is still slow though.)

今は、来年に日本のクラースをかかってほしい。でも、このクラースはかんたんだ。ひらがなはもう知ったんだ。どうしよう？

(you can correct my grammar if you can.)

[Gelsamel]

今は、来年に日本のクラースをかかってほしい。でも、このクラースはかんたんだ。ひらがなはもう知ったんだ。どうしよう？

My practice translation:

Spoiler:

今は、来年に日本のクラースをかかってほしい。

I'm having trouble with this first sentence... Not sure why you are setting 今 as the topic. I also have not studied the て form yet so not 100% sure what that construction at the end actually means. I'm guessing the て form lets you connect verbs with adjectives? Otherwise I don't get why it can end with ほしい.

"(As for) Now, wished to take class of Japan (Japan class) next year."

I read this as meaning a class in Japan. I suppose you could have meant 「日本語のクラース」 and typoed, but I figure you would've corrected that if you saw it.

でも、このクラースはかんたんだ。

"But, this class is simple."

I thought initially maybe it should be その because next year is 'far away' and 'that' sounds natural for this sentence in english, but jisho says この can be used for 'ideas expressed by the speaker' so I'm guessing that that works here because it's more like "This (class) that I'm talking about".

ひらがなはもう知ったんだ。

"Because Hiragana is already known."

どうしよう？

"What to do?"

I am really new at this so I am probably wrong, but it feels like the sentence would've been better starting off with 「私は、」 instead of 「今は、」. That would allow the first line to read like this:
"(As for) Me, (I) wished to take Japan class next year."


As for what you should do... going to Japan for a class sounds awesome, I bet immersion really helps... though I don't see why you would be doing such low level stuff if you were actually going to Japan. If you mean a Japanese class, I'm sure you could find some that teach higher level stuff... but you should realise that stuff like RTK and SRS software like Anki and other things are more tailored towards self study. Even RTK says you shouldn't pair it with traditional study.

[tastelikecoke]

に日本のクラース would be 日本語のクラース. I'm certainly not going to Japan anytime (there is one, but it's a full-blown student exchange program). But I do hope to go in the future (but it would be にほんでショッピング).

I don't know much details about 今 and topics, but I put it that way since the sentence isn't about me.

四年前にカタカナをおぼえたのに、カタカナはまだむずかしい。

[Gelsamel]

If you don't want the sentence to be about you maybe you could use 「来年は」

Ex: 来年は、日本語のクラースをしてほしい。　- (As for) Next Year, wished to do Japanese Class.

Again, I don't know the て-form yet, I'm just copied how you used it, I hope that above sentence is right.

But why not have the sentence be about you? Were you not talking about yourself wanting to take a class? It's just that setting the topic to 'now' and saying something about next year seemed really weird to me, maybe it was fine. Again I'm new at this so you shouldn't take my opinions as lessons haha!



「四年前にカタカナをおぼえたのに、カタカナはまだむずかしい。」
Practice Translation.

Spoiler:

Not 100% sure what 四年前 means... 4 years ago, maybe?

"Despite memorizing katakana 4 years ago, katakana is still difficult"

Yeah, it doesn't get used as much so it can be difficult to remember. You said you were using RTKanji, did you try RTKana? That helped me learn both of them pretty quickly... though I still have trouble writng katakana on paper sometimes, I can read it fine.

Maybe a katakana Anki deck would be helpful。

[Daimon]

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[Gelsamel]

Sorry if you feel left out. I hadn't replied to you mostly because I'm really new at this and I didn't want to try and translate it all. When I get better I promise to talk with everyone here.

Can you explain to me exactly how the line tastelikecoke wrote should be translated. I get "(As for) Now, wished to take Japanese next year." or it might just be 'wish' instead of 'wished' or maybe 'want to' would be better. But why 「今は」? How does that make sense? I guess it should be obvious but I don't get it. They 'wished'/'wants to' now, but not before and not after ???


As for your problem, I don't think I can help you... do you use Anki much? Maybe there is a sentence building deck out there you could use.

[Daimon]

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[Gelsamel]

A simple example is, "来年に従業を受けたい" 来年は would emphasise the fact that next year, want to take a class since "next year" being the one who wants to take classes makes no sense. Since the last part is a phrase, I failed to include Japanese in that sentence; I do not want a double を. Context here should be obvious, but for a more literal translation, 日本語は私が来年に授業を受けたい, but that sentence is horribly stiff to me.

Right , but what about 「今は」?

It's not so much of a problem of needing example sentences or Anki; it's more of a, "When I sit down to write, I cannot write at all." kind of problem.

How do you mean? Like, you can't think of what to write? Or you have trouble figuring out how to write what you want to write? Cause I was thinking maybe there would be some clozed delete anki decks that help with figuring out how to phrase things, rather than just being 'example sentences'.

[Daimon]

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[tastelikecoke]

かかって

I admit that I picked that verb out of the blue Supposedly 掛かる.

I'm wondering how can I improve my pace of learning in Japanese, other than 2 Anki decks, Like some definitive system I could adapt to my schedule that isn't cards. And should I do my usual 10 a day, or do 20 a day for the Remembering the Kanji?

[Daimon]

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[BryanRabbit]

I've been trying to learn Japanese by studying for a long time, I've made a lot of progress but I'm convinced I'm not going to get much better without exposure to native speakers. It's difficult enough to make and keep new friends in the city as it is though, I don't have much free time, and at this point I can't afford a trip to Japan. Someone once told me he learned through playing imported games, rather than spend a million dollars on an imported game I got the idea to download roms for old games in the original Japanese, so I'm trying this now with Chrono Trigger, a game I've already played many times in English so I'm familiar with the dialogue.

Already I'm confused by some of the beginning dialogue with Crono's mom (luckily I found this site with the script).

e.g. あんまり調子に乗ってハシャぎすぎるんじゃないわよ

The first part seems to be "to get carried away by excitement"? I have no idea what ハシャぎすぎるん is supposed to be. Just throwing the idea out there if anyone wants to try it, or if anyone has suggestions. Trying to navigate and translate the menu and items is fun, I'll try to finish the game this way.

[Daimon]

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[BryanRabbit]

Thanks! I'm having fun with this method, I should have tried this much sooner.

What is ためておく? Are two verbs being combined here?

EDIT: Here's another example I found... 送っておくよ

I just noticed 置く 's entry in my dictionary has this:

3: (Usually written using kana alone) to do something in advance (usu. following te-form verb)

Is this the same oku? Does 送っておく mean to send in advance?

[Gelsamel]

If you're having trouble with sentences in the game, try out this: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi- ... dic.cgi?9T

[Daimon]

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[BryanRabbit]

For some reason I'm having a hard time with this part of a mock test, here's the passage for context:

石田さんは、川下図書館で働いています。 本についての相談を受けたり、どこにどの本を置くのがいいか考えたりします。 それから、図書館の新聞によい本の紹介文を書いたり、小さな子どもたちに絵本を読んだりします。

Ishida-san works at Kawashita Library. The second sentence is confusing to me, it looks like; he receives discussions about books and thinks about what book is okay to put where. Maybe; he does things such as consulting customers about books and organizing the books in the library? Third sentence should be; he also writes introductory essays about good books in the library newspaper and reads picture books to the little kids.

If someone could explain the grammar of the sentence in red, and tell me if I made a mistake I would appreciate it.

Also the question is 石田さんの仕事ではないものはどれですか。 Which looks to me like; which thing is not at Ishida-san's job? Not 100% how that should be translated (It's multiple choice and the book underlines ではない)

EDIT: Gelsamel thanks for the link it's very helpful

[Suzaku]

For some reason I had completely forgotten about this thread I'll have to be more careful in future.

本についての相談を受けたり、どこにどの本を置くのがいいか考えたりします。

「相談を受ける」is an idiomatic phrase for 'be asked about' or 'be consulted about', so your "consulting customers about books" is appropriate. The second half 「どこにどの本を置くのがいいか考えたりします。」 I would translate as "considers which books to [display|place] where." so again "organizing the books in the library" is fine. Literally, this would be "thinks about where which books would be good to place."

石田さんの仕事ではないものはどれですか。

"Which (of the following) is NOT part of Ishida-san's job?" would be how I would write this if setting this as a test question in English. I suspect that the 「ではない」 is underlined for the same reason that 'not' is usually bolded and all-caps in English multiple choice tests.

I'm at work right now, so I'll have a look at the question backlog when I've a little more time.

[BryanRabbit]

Thanks! That makes things a lot more clear.

[Daimon]

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