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I am self-studying using Minna no Nihongo, and I'm on chapter 3 at the moment. I was looking for opinions on whether it's worth bothering writing my answers using kanji? Sometimes I'll look up the stroke order on Jisho and try to write it and it normally turns out very bad :)
The book has furigana so I could very easily not do that, and I'm not sure how beneficial it is to try writing kanji that I'll quite easily forget at this stage in my journey. I am doing WaniKani on the side and have become familiar with some basic ones, but some of the ones in MNH are quite complex like 事務所 and 自動販売機. Thanks in advance!
I think the larger question here is how much you do or don't care about learning how to handwrite kanji in general.
There are some people here on this sub who will tell you that this is a complete waste of time, especially if you have no plans on ever living in Japan (some will tell you it's a waste even if you do plan on living in Japan, which I disagree with strongly, but hey).
If you DO decide that you want to learn to write kanji, you should develop a study plan for that (I would recommend the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, but there are other options as well).
If you don't really care about learning to handwrite kanji, then just randomly looking up and handwriting 事務所 and 自動販売機 is almost certainly just going to be a waste of time, because you're not going to retain anything from writing a complex character once and then forgetting it.
Thanks for the quick response!
not sure yet, I would definitely like to spend more time there as a tourist but not sure about living there.
So I guess that puts me somewhere in-between 'don't care' and 'do care'... maybe I'll just write them if I feel like it. Sometimes it can be fun especially with an ink brush
No worries!
Yeah, in your situation, it probably isn't worth devoting serious time to it -- with the caveat that it MIGHT be worth it if you're the type of person for whom writing the characters will help them stick in your memory (I think the "handwriting is a waste of time" advocates sometimes miss this).
I learned Japanese in the old days when not learrning to handwrite wasn't really an option, and I do feel like my recall of characters has always been strong in part because I spent years where I was constantly writing them out. But yeah, in the end, just do whatever feels right for you~
Several times now in anime episodes, I heard characters, mostly stiffer ones, say what sounds like "watakshi". I'm assuming that's the more formal "watakushi", but with a heavily devoiced u. If that's wrong already, feel free to correct me :)
Now, I know that watakushi is pretty formal and fit for something like a job interview. In fact, I listened to a Rocket Japanese audio lesson which had exactly that as a context, a job interview and the formality and defference to show in that context was one of the take-home lessons. But, they did pronounce the word very clearly, with the u not silent
So, my question is this: does devoicing have an impact on formality? Is saying "watakshi" less formal? Or is the clearly pronounced "watakush" of the Rocket Japanese audio lesson an artifact of its artificialness?
No, devoicing has nothing do with formality, except in the general sense that people sometimes tend to enunciate more clearly when they're speaking formally. For example, you'll even hear a clearly voiced "desU" sometimes -- this isn't "more formal" but just means the speaker is enunciating (for example, a devoiced でございます would be considered more polite than an enunciated/voiced です).
I can't comment more on the two examples you heard, but I suspect the difference between the two isn't quite as pronounced as it may seem to you. In any event, you don't really need to worry about this. I would just take note of various pronunciations you hear, who the speaker is, what the situation/context is, and make mental notes accordingly.
Okay, thanks for the answer!
Quite likely. I'm still early in my journey, so anything unfamiliar sounds like a loud warning klaxon. And then I'm going "huh, why is that" and I can't get it out of my head :)
Happy to help! And no worries, I get it -- when you're just starting out (with anything), it's very hard to know and trust yourself about what is and isn't important, and that's understandable.
So asking questions is a great thing (and this is a great place to do it!)
Why does 「今度」 sometimes translate to “next time”? I’m practicing using Bunpro SRS and it says 「今度」 could be translated as “this time”, “recently”, or “next time”(This is from Bunpro’s N5 deck, but I’m just making sure I’m not missing any vocab from Bunpro’s N5 deck). “This time” and “recently” make sense to me, but why is it sometimes translated as next time? Is it just something I’ll just need to remember or am there an explanation for this?
Here's a quote from a similar explanation from some time ago:
The simple answer is that it's just the way it is, but if it helps you mentally process it, you can think of it similarly to how we say things like "this weekend" in English to mean a weekend that is coming up (and people sometimes have to say things like "this past/coming weekend" to clarify whether they meant the immediately preceding weekend or the following one).
The "next" time is "this" time in the sense that it will be the occasion coming up (while the ongoing occasion is already over in the sense that the opportunity to do whatever the thing is has passed).
Does しけてます here mean 時化る (他人が自分に対して金を惜しむ。)? He is stingy, because he only bought one 応急薬 even tough he is a 成人探索? Or does it mean something else?
Context: the MC beat someone up and than said the following
ちょっとやりすぎてしまったかしら……。ええと、この方も応急薬くらいもってるでしょうしそれを使って――って、わたくしの腹パンで壊れてしまった１本だけ!? ちっ、成人探索者のくせにしけてますわねぇ
Yes, it is 時化る, which doesn't necessarily mean "stingy" but can just mean someone's not doing well financially (i.e. poor/broke), which is the nuance the speaker is going for here.
㊁経済的に苦しい状況になる。
「小遣いが残り少なく、ふところが━」
Thank you very much.
You're very welcome!
It's a bit of a long comment but I've finally decided to play an unlocalized visual novel because i heard it was beginner friendly and it seems like a more efficient way to learn for my brain.
Basically, I'm not sure how good of a method it is, but I usually do a breakdown of every sentence, writing down the kanjis I come across, then translate it by myself, check with an online translator for errors to try and understand how the sentences are built, why a specific word is used here, etc… However, I came across a sentence that I struggled to translate, and of which I don’t understand the reasons it’s been translated this way.
The sentence is 「慌てて立ち上がって、私は申し訳さそうには似てかんだ」which I first translated by “I rose to my feet in a hurry, apologizing shyly”, but some of the translators I used when checking for mistakes translated the second part by “I gave an apologetic smile.”. I would like to know why it’s been translated this way, as I don’t understand where the smile comes from in this sentence, even though it makes a lot of sense with the context of the game.
First thing, as a general rule I don't really recommend practicing by "translating", unless you genuinely have a goal of becoming a (professional or otherwise) translator someday. There's really not a lot to be gained (in terms of Japanese proficiency) by worrying that much about specific word choices in a hypothetical English equivalent of the Japanese sentence.
This doesn't mean you should be content to "get the gist". You absolutely should be challenging your own understanding and confirming to yourself that you understand precisely what the Japanese sentence is saying. But you should be processing this in your mind conceptually and abstractly in Japanese, not by turning every word/grammatical structure/etc. into English.
In this case, well, first of all you have a typo and I assume at the end that that's supposed to be はにかんだ (from はにかむ), which basically means "to act in a shy and bashful fashion". The verb はにかむ doesn't really describe a precise action but just behavior that expresses a certain feeling, so there's some freedom in how one might translate it. As you say, the translation used conveys the feeling of the scene, so that's probably why it was chosen. It's actually not possible to "literally" translate from Japanese to English often because there are words and grammatical patterns in JP that don't map 100% to EN ones with the same meaning/nuance. This is another reason why translating (or analyzing translation) shouldn't be a key element of your study unless you have a specific interest in translation techniques.
I should point out that your translation technically isn't correct either, because the Japanese sentence does not contain a verb that means "to apologize". 申し訳なさそうにはにかんだ means "I did (past tense) the thing called はにかむ in a way that seemed (そうに) apologetic (申し訳ない)". If you understand it to that level, there's no need bring an English translation into the equation.
I see! Thank you very much for your reply, this makes a lot of sense. While translation interests me as a whole it’s definitely not in my plans to become a translator, so I’ll be more careful of how I learn in the future!
Thanks for the kind response, and I'm glad my response was helpful to you!
Not really a language learning question maybe more of an quandary. Would appreciate some takes from people who have been with language 10+ years mainly because that's enough time to see the language change.
I've mainly been finding myself getting somewhat perhaps too annoyed at things like excessive English usage (I don't want to project my annoyance in a reaction rather). I don't necessarily mean mixing of English, because I do like things like 和製英語 but just straight up the sentence is almost entirely English except the structure and maybe a particular or a する verb in the mix. I can't help but find myself annoyed and think it sounds dumb, but that just might be the bias in the fact my native language is English and I want to learn a language that isn't English. This perplexes me because I don't want to react that way to people who by all rights are not really doing anything to be bothered by, and maybe they have a weird fascination with English but never actually putting in the time to learn it, but either way I'm just curious how others have dealt with that.
I guess as a side note when I'm forming my own opinions about it, there is (maybe recent?) a trend where people are just attaching くない to the end of verbs so things like ハゲるくない？ are coming up more and more on streams (maybe it's in an trend), I also find this kind of dumb and annoying. I guess I can get behind things like ないなった and see how they can be a cute response, but I don't like how this one is turning out.
I guess I'm wondering if I should even feel bothered at all in the first place.
You know how long I've been learning the language and how long I've been here in Japan.
My honest reaction to this is that I haven't seen this, at least not as a serious major trend/shift in language use. Are you saying that you've met (or seen/heard) actual Japanese people who talk like Taiki Shuttle? (I'm trusting that you of all people will get the reference, lol) Like, not as a joke or a one-off quirk but like, on a consistent basis? Because I've probably talked to thousands of Japanese people over two decades of being here and this has never been my experience at all, and still isn't.
(One caveat I'll add is that for obvious reasons I don't spend a lot of time hanging out with teenage girls or anyone who isn't old enough to drink, so if this is some very recent trend I can't help you. Get back to me in ten years when my daughter is around that age and maybe I'll have a different story.)
(edit -- Also note that I'm not talking about people who pepper their sentences with 横文字 to sound "trendy". This IS a thing and IS annoying but it's not all that different from tech bros or shady salesmen in English peppering their language with stupid/annoying buzzwords.)
For me I pretty much only hear this with things like 違（う）くない or みたく (i.e. for the 'seems' みたい that should be みたいに), i.e. things that seem like they could/"should" be an い-adjective because of meaning or form. So again, very limited circumstances and there is a large percentage of people (especially anyone from their older twenties and up, I would say, and most educated people even younger than that) who would not say these things at all.
TL;DR -- I've been here in Japan surrounded by the language for over two decades and don't feel this is pervasive at all, at least not to the degree that I ever felt the need to care about it (or even think about it, really) until I read your post.
Yeah since I don't live there my windows is still limited, League of Legends is probably the easiest place to find this sort of thing with the English strings. I saved some examples from a stream I was watching at the time: 「RFCピックアップしてボットウェーブプッシュしたいな *gets ambushed in middle of talking* オーマイガー！！」(RFC; Rapid Firecannon is an item in League) it's not consistent across all games but a lot of games I think what happens is people tend to get interactions with a lot of English speaking foreigners (e.g. in valorant voice chat is common and they intermingle with a lot of other countries). It's not surprisingly since a ton of the gaming terminology for big competitive multiplayer games is imported from English so I can link some pretty egregious examples--but then again thinking about it yeah it's not that much different from tech bros (in English) being annoying using hot buzz words and stuff. Or maybe something like "twitch chat" culture bleeding into many other things; which I also find annoying in English. I think this is a product of environments (mine). If it's not wide spread then probably should just stop caring.
Yeah, online multiplayer game chat is not really a thing I do (in my native language either), but I think you've hit it right on the head.
The example you cite feels less like "English taking over the Japanese language" as some pervasive trend and more like just a heavily jargony sentence where all the jargon are loanwords because LoL is not a native Japanese game (and the オーマイガー part of it is just a Japanese person borrowing an English expression that they've probably heard a lot and like, not really any more significant than an American umamusume streamer dropping a すごい！ or whatever). Gamer slang has always been a thing and basically is a sub-language of its own be it in JP or EN.
(I don't even think this particular case is like my "tech bro" example -- which is more of a business world thing -- because this isn't people using jargon/buzzwords pretentiously when more obvious/natural native word alternatives exist, but people using the actual accepted/common terms that are used in the gaming community because everyone else uses them.)
But yeah, if it helps at all, know that this is a pretty localized phenomenon and if you're interacting with a wide variety of Japanese natives over a wide range of situations/contexts, Japanese is still unmistakably Japanese.
Okay thanks! That helps a lot.
It's just how language evolves. The trend you mentioned I believe came from younger generation? Trend comes and go and they often get the older generation confused (which is you in a sense).
I think you may need to seek out different kinds of content than whatever you've been watching/listening to/reading because while I have definitely seen a trend to use more loanwords in recent years, it's not the majority of every sentence or anything.
Plus, for a beginner it can actually be helpful. Free loan words! Though if the sound is the same but the meaning is different that makes it harder.
Also, in ten years there'll be a new trend for you to hate, don't worry!
Hey everyone! So my partner and I decided to save up for a trip to Japan next year and along with that we decided we should give it our best shot to also learn Japanese.
We are wondering what's the best app to help us keep our minds fresh as we are learning. There's way too many out there, but this is what I am trialing so far.
Our main source of learning is gonna be through Genki books, so don't fret that we are learning only apps. This is just a study aid for us.
https://preview.redd.it/igprpog5fkcg1.png?width=695&format=png&auto=webp&s=c206a875aad2553b3f1c29c540fe75a4edd07945
Depends on your goals. Genki + Renshuu is probably best combo here. Renshuu can follow Genki's course guidelines if you set it up that way. Also look into other resources besides apps. There's YouTube channels Tokini Andy which follows the Genki books (has playlists for it) and also great beginner ones like Japanese Ammo with Misa (I listened to her explanations while driving, she was good at explaining beginner stuff).
If you're more interested in just a trip then Pimsleur might be a good option, it's not good for learning the language as a whole, but it does prepare you for tourist type interactions--maybe that's what you want.
Thank you! Don't worry, I won't solely use the apps. The apps are just more over something I can do on the go. Sometimes I get downtime when I'm out at work, so I'm trying to replace my mobile gaming with learning instead.
I'll definitely will check out those YouTube channels though.
Disclaimer that I learned the language long before any of these apps existed, but I'm familiar with them in passing.
Of these, I'm pretty sure the only one that gets consistently positive reviews/feedback is Renshuu.
Of apps not listed here, I know that Bunpro* (for grammar), WaniKani (for kanji/vocab), and Satori Reader (for reading practice) are also popular and generally viewed favorably.
(*note that BunPRO and BunPO are different. I don't really know anything about the latter, which is the one showing in your image.)
Awesome! Yeah I keep seeing Renshuu pop up when doing my research, so I think I'm gonna keep that.
I'll most likely go into those other apps once I start getting the alphabet down. I don't wanna overload my brain.
Happy to help!
Honestly, I would suggest not doing more than one or two SRS apps. Once you have the kana along with basic grammar and vocab down, the majority of time should be spent actually using the language (reading/listening).
(Which is to say, I mentioned the other apps as possibilities since they are generally considered high quality, but I don't necessarily recommend installing 4-5 apps and making that the focus of your Japanese study.)
edit - I agree with u/rgrAi's suggestions as well.
https://preview.redd.it/ww0ppi9a9kcg1.png?width=598&format=png&auto=webp&s=a77598331a480e0b77bee229aa646fecdeac3279
Why is the 6th stroke so short on this kanji? This is from AnimCJK (https://parsimonhi.github.io/animCJK/).
I can't find any fonts or pictures where that stroke is so short for either Chinese or Japanese
Another kanji I've written with wrong stroke order for years, I see. 2nd and 7th strokes I've always done as one, on a 6th stroke.
I always think of that little stroke as a tongue. Just thought I'd share.
Appears to be traditional Chinese. Japanese Chinese Look up kanji + 書き順 to get Japanese handwriting.
People might not actually pay that much attention when handwriting in reality though.
It's typically longer, but I've seen it written short before and it's just a font/stylistic difference, I think.
It's not going to result in confusion or anything, so it's probably not worth worrying too much about.
https://preview.redd.it/eezv36n0tjcg1.png?width=1069&format=png&auto=webp&s=d15e0811aee11e2055d1f6696bbc26a422676382
What is the に with dakuten? I get from the context it's an onomatopoeia for him smiling. But what exact replicable sound is he making?
The dakuten just emphasizes the smiling. It's a matter of degree.
BTW, this is not actually onomatopoeia because there is no sound being represented here. Onomatopoeia are a specific case of a more general class called "mimetic words", which fall into three broad categories:
I'm not making this distinction to be pedantic; I think it's useful knowing that many mimetic words have no actual sound associated with them and that it's a fool's errand to look for one.
What are some good youtube channels and/or podcasts for beginners to listen to? And what should I focus on: understanding what they are saying or getting used to the sound of Japanese (and then for instance starting the video again with subtitles and following what they are saying)?
https://www.youtube.com/@cijapanese/videos
Thanks!
咄嗟に叫んだつもりだったが、十年以上もロクに声を出していなかった俺の声帯は、肋骨の痛みと雨の冷たさでさらに縮こまり、情けなくも震えた声しか発せず、雨音にかき消された。
I understand that 縮こまり means to curl oneself up; to squeeze oneself in; to be huddled. What I don't understand is what is it referring to? Is he curling himself up because of the pain in his ribs and the cold rain?
The hint is in the particles.「声帯は」tells you that the thing being spoken about is his vocal cords. Also important to recognize that 縮こまる is an intransitive verb.
His vocal cords are all bunched up/tensed up for all of those reasons.
oh hey it's you again. Thanks alot. that explains things.
Just finished learning hiragana (including all sound modifiers)! Took me only 2 months (1-2 hours here and there), but I made it. I'll be visiting Japan in 2 months. Should I bother learning Katakana, or is there some approach I could pursue to have some very basic conversations with locals?
I probably would have skipped hiragana entirely and used those two months to just take audio courses on travel/conversational japanese tbh.
I would now suggest you do that with the last two months you have.
If japanese fluency is a goal, hiragana isn't a waste but if you just want to be able to communicate for trips, focus on the basic travel language first.
Do people really see the difference between ニ and 二? へ and ヘ? I just started learning and I'm wondering how important it is for me to differentiate between the twos.
You've received some good answers already, but just for one more example: this is very much like asking how important it is to differentiate between l and I (btw, the first of those is a lowercase L and the second is a capital i).
ln context, they wiII never be confused (<- and as evidence, in this sentence I used capital i's for the lowercase L's and vice versa) unless you're using a font that differentiates the two considerably more than usual.
As long as YOU are aware that they are different characters, that's really all that matters.
People will know which one it is from context and previous knowledge. Everyone would know マニア is 'mania' and not 'ma2a' and that 二回 is '2 kai' and not katakana 'ni'.
I see. I just tried chatting with an AI and it always points out when I accidentally or mistakenly use the other similar characters. When writing a paper, letter, formal writing, etc., electronically let's say, then will it be important to type the correct or exact one?
The lesson here is: don't use chats with AI as a tool for learning.
Chatbots do not visually scan the characters, they receive a string of unicode codepoints so to them different charactrs that look similar do actually look completely different.
If you're intacting with a computer and entering “ニ回” into a dictionary it will retujrn nothing since it does the same thing, if you put it into an email that is visually read by a human again, that human will but surely not even notice that it's not “二回” unless using some font which makes the difference very clear.
Furthermore, no way an input method is going to give you the former when you write “にかい” and ask it to convert.
Probably the same answer as you already got: You get which is which from context. Just how you get that you pronounce は as わ, and へ as え when they are particles.
For the examples you brought up, I had to double check them even just to be sure which was which. When prompted right form nowhere to say which is which, most people will probably hesitate a bit, because it's context that makes it clear. Just like the difference between... say "read" and "read" which are different depending on which situation you use it in.
You probably also won't write the wrong one if your keyboard's got the right input, and you don't misclick anything.
https://preview.redd.it/5xmjppafxhcg1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f857a690682d1bb0fb5f597be67be7d71466453
What does the box with a diagonal line ⧄ signify?
〼→升→ます
ありがとう！
Does the pitch accent of 愛するfollow a pattern for similar words or is it an exception?
What do you mean by "similar words"? Single kanji する verbs? Or something else?
I guess so… I kind of feel stupid for asking, but 愛する feels irregular for some reason. Is it because 愛 as a noun is accented so it has to be accented in this way as a suru-verb? I can’t think of any single kanji + suru, so far I only know words like 勉強する and similar flat words with 2 kanji.
It's not a stupid question. It has nothing to do with the fact that 愛 itself has a particular pitch accent pattern. Single-kanji する verbs have their own pitch accent patterns.
There are plenty of single-kanji する verbs. 関する・徹する・達する, to name a few.
This makes sense, thank you, I’ll memorize the accent patterns for each word
For genki do i need to buy the workbook? I know there used to be an online resource that you could use to replace the workbook but it looks like it got dmca'd.
Im wondering does the workbook require a lot of writing? Im mostly interested in reading (and speaking later) but i dont really have a need to learn to write it. I never plan to live in japan or anything.
The main reason im concerned is that i know that writing would be a travesty for me. I have TERRIBLE handwriting in english! Its seriously never improved since first grade. Its just something i could never get better at. So i know if i tried to write complex characters like japanese it would be illegible.
So yeah tl;dr: do i need the workbook and if so...does it require writing?
for me the workbook helped cement what you learn. Tokini Andy is great too as he covers the genki chapters in a lecture like form. When you combine Andy and textbook you understand how the grammar/particles/phrases work and when you do the workbook you will be able to recall those concepts easier bc it forces you to use them a bunch.
So In my personal opinion the workbook is amazing but you can just get a pdf and write in a notebook.
Additionally stroke order does help with memory so being able to write kana/kanji properly may help you actually remember. I personally have doctor's handwriting (illegible) but I'm working my ass off for JP writing and want to take calligraphy classes this summer to work on it.
TLDR: for me personally it helped (actively helping too), it may not be necessary for you. If the workbook is too expensive then sail the seas for a PDF and write answers in a notebook. Additionally there is a third book with answers to GENKI 1&2 textbook & workbook questions that you can also find online.
Berserk was an excellent choice for my manga on my way to N1 journey.
Berserk is one of my all-time favorites. The anime (I prefer the original) is also quite good, with a killer soundtrack by 平沢進..
I should really give the original a rewatch. When I watched it back in university, I was more into moeblob harem stuff. So I didn't like it so much. I'd probably appreciate it more now.
I haven't watched all that much anime at all in the 20-odd years since graduating university, but Berserk is one of the ones that stands up. I think you'd love rewatching it, too. <3
Hirasawa Susumu, my beloved ❤️
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Thanks for the answers. I think I have solved this question on my own now
Most words mean what they mean for no reason whatsoever. Someone said the word two thousand years ago or something and it caught on. Some words do have a reason for meaning what they mean though, and the word you're looking for here is "etymology" or 語源(ごげん) which you can look up, but honestly you'll find it's not that useful for actually learning the language.
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. "Ao" means "blue" (and also sometimes green, but that's a different story) in Japanese because it's the Japanese word for blue.
Imagine a Japanese person who only knows Japanese asking you "Why is the color we Japanese people call 'ao' called 'blue' in English?" How would you answer that question?
I read that っぽい has a negative undertone. Is this always the case or can it be neutral or even positive? I know some words, like 全然 can be used positively in actual usage, so I wanted to be sure.
Personally have seen っぽい used in plenty of cases besides negative, one standing out to me the most is someone looking for something and saying ここっぽい, similar to a らしい
u/Own_Power_9067's response is correct and excellent, but I just wanted to clarify one thing.
The point with 全然 has nothing to do with negative or positive meaning/undertones but negative or affirmative grammatical form. Even by the traditional/prescriptive argument of "全然 should be used with a negative", a usage with postitive nuance like 全然問題ない would be seen as 100% acceptable. (And as you seem to be aware, nowadays uses with affirmative forms like 全然大丈夫です are also quite common and accepted by most in colloquial language.)
Just wanted to make this clear as this can be an important point with other grammar patterns, too (something requiring a negative form doesn't mean it necessarily has a negative nuance, and vice versa).
It’s neutral, I say. It depends on the word っぽい is attached to.
Ok gotcha. Thanks!