>>196>>197
I don't think they were asking for how to translate that.
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Anonymous2012-05-05 8:41
Should I be taking notes of any form when I'm actively studying grammar? Or do I just read loads of examples and wait until it sticks?
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Anonymous2012-05-05 10:25
>>203
Take notes, don't read examples. Read some materials to see how it's actually used irl. Saying that, though, taking notes is mostly useful for slangs because good lord, the shit that Jap teenagers make up isn't likely going to be updated in dictionaries. MeCab or Jparser are more helpful for intermediate-and-above grammar references, but they are bloody useless to you without basic grammar proficiency.
Don't know any app like that for my Android, though. Would be sodding handy to carry around one.
Would you say Genki I & II + the Intermediate Approach... book count as basic proficiency?
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Anonymous2012-05-05 13:11
>>205
Yes, although that's not the best way to go around the basics. Genki books don't teach you how to analyze sentences in tokens, spend too much focus on formal expressions and don't group related patterns together.
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Anonymous2012-05-06 11:36
>>204
I don't see what the problem with examples is. Reading examples for specific grammar patterns is of questionable usefulness, especially when those examples are created primarily for teaching ("textbook" sentences). However, real example sentences in a corpus like ALC (alc.co.jp) or the example sentences in EDICT can be very useful for understanding meaning. I probably refer to ALC more than any other resource simply because it provides better context for a given word, showing collocation and associations.
In response to >>203 and in addition to >>204, I think that volume is really important. I took two years of Japanese (which looking back, probably taught me about as much as is on Tae Kim's site) in college, then just started reading light novels. The first one took me weeks, with the first pages being the worst, and my understanding was tentative at best. But after a while and after stressing about various grammar patterns, you begin to make a peace with the way things are formed and the way things flow, and it speeds up. I didn't take notes, I just asked questions to Japanese friends/google/lang-8 and kept reading as much as possible.
What kind of questions do you mean? Not sure how I'd go about learning specifics about grammar without purposely going through a textbook/website until I find examples of it.
Also, how long should I really be looking at for grammar to stick? I'm 'getting' it first time round, but I wouldn't say my understanding is anything better than tentative. Should I move on once I understand it at that level, or persist in some manner until it's second nature? I'm guessing it's more important that I get exposure to the language rather than constantly do grammar, but it's my first language, so...
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Anonymous2012-05-07 21:37
>>208
Just about what something meant or why things worked the way they did. This is also a good place to ask such questions, as is the forum for Tae Kim's.
>I'm 'getting' it first time round, but I wouldn't say my understanding is anything better than tentative.
That depends on what your goal is. My only real goal is/was to understand Japanese. I only thought about it as much as it helped me to understand. Some people are more interested in the linguistic dissection of Japanese, and want to fully explain why things work the way they do, which is also valid. It helps if you think about these things day to day, and keep trying to find examples of them until you feel comfortable. it's a matter of volume.
>it's my first language
Do you mean that you're actually a Japanese heritage learner, or are you saying that this is the first language you've learned? I'm going to assume the latter.
Grammar is valuable, but only so far as it helps you to better understand the author's intent. Asking out of the blue what the difference between "must" and "have to" is in English and getting an explanation will not help you as much as seeing each 100 times in actual context will. At least, not on a subconscious level. Now, if you're like me, you don't actually know what the hell the difference is, and you'd need to look it up. Still, you manage to use it absolutely perfectly every day of your life, with no problems at all. That is my goal in Japanese.
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Anonymous2012-05-07 21:54
>>208
Also, as far as basic grammar goes, I recommend guidetojapanese.org, it's a good place to start on most basic patterns. If you know everything in there, you can at least get started on reading more complicated things, and begin to find out what you don't know.
This one's a bitch to figure out:
成績も後ろから数えた方が早い、何に関してもやる気が感じられない
First half of the sentence, I guess he must be scolding somebody that the dude's score is quicker to count from the bottom, though I could use some confirmation. The second half, I can't decipher what he's saying. Any help?
Actually it sounds like he's talking about himself because of the 感じられない (i.e., can't get excited about anything even if he wanted to).
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Anonymous2012-05-09 20:40
I'm in the midst of writing my last Japanese essay for college. Is there a Japanese equivalent to "In this essay I will talk about" much like Japanese people say "それでは，説明させていただきます" when they're about to give a presentation?
This suffices though its not necessarily great writing (just like in English). You don't start quality papers with "derp I'm gonna talk about economics".
Keigo is never used in essays, usually only in presentations and speeches. It sounds formal and privileged to the point of being rude to say 書かせて頂く
Is it a good idea to go from kana to kanji, using the same sentences, but just reversed direction? Obviously there's no way it could hurt, but I will basically never write anything in Japanese without a computer, and even then, very rarely; I am interested purely in media, so all my interraction with the language will be essentially passive. Even if I decide not to focus on being able to produce the kanji from kana, would it take long to pick this up? As in, am I likely, when fluent, to take as long as it's taking me to recognise them, or will it be like one month for me to get up to speed (With focused effort, of course).
I ask primarily because, when I do my reviews in Anki, I am having trouble going from English keywords to kanji (Suspicious in itself, as I should move on from this as soon as possible), but when I show the answer, immediately I get the "Oh! That's obvious!" feeling; many of the kanji I continually get incorrect from keyword to kanji, but upon the answer I am 100% sure I would've recognised it when seen.
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Anonymous2012-05-10 12:41
Has anyone seen live versions of downloads of any of these?
- Tobira (holy shit this one is elusive for how popular it is)
- Chuukyou wo Manabou 82 (not 56, which is the lower level)
- J301/501 (501 used to be available somewhere, but it was an MU/FSn link, both of which are now dead)
- Sa-Motome N3 reading or listening
- any of the Shin Kanzen Master series
I've managed to amass a lot of good series, including Genki, Nakama, Chuukyou he Ikou/wo Manabou 56, JBridge, Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, but I'm missing those few which would allow me to move forward.
Also, what other books are good for the intermediate to upper-intermediate level? JLPT prep books are great, but they're pretty dense and bland with no sense of integration, and they require outside research to get the point of them, making them ineffectual for manual study so much as priming.
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Anonymous2012-05-12 2:16
I am a bit stumped on the meaning of this phrase.
気をつけてねあなたの行動筒抜けよ
Does it mean: "Be careful, I overheard about your behavior"?
Does not literally mean "overhear", though that can be its meaning given context. It literally means "when the bottom of a tube gives out and the contents leak out".
In this sentence, though there isn't a particle, it would like be 行動（が）筒抜け. Meaning "your actions are going to leak out". Altogether: "You better be careful or people will find out what you did", or something along those lines.
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Anonymous2012-05-12 8:53
When learning new kanji, I know you should learn readings in context from sentences, but would it be worth looking at the readings for 5/10 minutes, then learning sentences after? I feel it'd be easier to remember that way, but don't want to waste my time if it's not going to confer any benefits to my studying.
Thanks.
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Anonymous2012-05-12 11:30
I work in a retail store, and we occasionally get Japanese customers coming in. Does anyone know of a reference site that might have lists of Japanese phrases with proper keigo for a shop-worker speaking to a customer?
For example, answering questions about prices or letting the customer know that the shop is closing soon.
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Anonymous2012-05-12 12:47
>>228
Stick with the basic degozaimasu, itashimasu, nasaimasu, itadakimasu, shiteorimasu, zonjiru, moushiageru, etc. and it'll be fine. Obviously if you're working for a major company, keigo will be important but if you're on the sales floor, no one expects anything spectacular nowadays; desu-masu can even pass, especially from foreigners.
Here's a list of sonkeigo and keigo expressions. Not all of these are used, and, depending on the situation, the customer might not have any idea what you're saying or you might just come off so formal that you're rude.
>>227
>I feel it'd be easier to remember that way
then why not just try and judge for yourself whether it's worth doing or not? fucking youtube generation is unable to do any experimentation
>>228
>we occasionally get Japanese customers coming in
then why can't you just stick with desu/masu? judging from the context you're obviously not working in japan, neither are you japanese, so people won't expect you to use keigo anyway.
Because
>but don't want to waste my time if it's not going to confer any benefits to my studying.
Look don't get me wrong, I can understand why you'd be pissed off for me asking, but I'm a third-year physicist; I am perfectly capable of doing experimentation. Yet, that's going to add up to a Hell of a lot of time which may turn out to be time wasted. If you actually know whether or not it'll be useful it would save me either time or worry.
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Anonymous2012-05-13 12:08
>>232
Finances, mainly. One book is expensive enough, multiple is a stack of shit.
And wat? Everyone has given me huge suggestions for Tobira. Why do you hate it, and what's better in its place?
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Anonymous2012-05-13 13:16
What does "してねーよ" mean?
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Anonymous2012-05-13 13:54
>>235
して is する in te-form. ねー and よ is sentence ending particles, use to emote; disposable.
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Anonymous2012-05-13 14:14
そんなの部員じゃなくても出来るし、祭でやることじゃないでしょ
Having a hard time figuring this one out. He says that we're capable even without any staff like that but it doesn't seem fit logically to the "not something to do at the festival" part. Am I misinterpreting this phrase?
No, it's している negated → していない from which い is frequently dropped, becoming してない, then ない often becomes ねえ in casual speech, making してねえ. We add よ on top of this making something meaning "(I) don't do that", "(I'm) not doing that", etc.
>>237
Let me just first say that you have given virtually no context at all. This makes it very difficult to give any real interpretation to the sentence, and frankly it's very irritating to try and work with. Japanese is a very contextual language, meaning we need to know what is happening to interpret many statements, and even in English or other languages we check our assumptions against what we know about the situation. Still, we can note a few things.
The first part says "someone can do this even if they aren't a staff member", not "we can do it without staff members" (that would be 部員がいなくても, not 部員じゃなくても). The second part is pretty much what you said. Make what you will of it.
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Anonymous2012-05-13 21:00
I found this on the pixiv page on one of my favorite artists, and I wondered what it means:
As a more personal question, do you people feel a bit annoyed to go on this textboard to translate stuff for people who don't know the language themselves? I really don't want to bother you guys just cause I don't understand some word.
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Anonymous2012-05-13 22:43
クマのプー太郎
Poohtarou the Bear
↓
うなぎ
Eel
↓
義理の母
Step-mother
↓
派手な看護婦
↓
A gaudy nurse
ふてくされた小学生
↓
A pouty elementary school kid
胃カメラを飲む紳士
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A gentlemen who took a gastroscopy test
しり
↓
Ass
リトマス試験紙
↓
Litmus paper
しり
↓
Ass
リンパ管を見せて喜ぶ変質者
↓
A pervert who gets excited when he shows his lymph ducts/you show your lymph ducts
三味線でドアをこじ開けようとする泥棒
A thief who tries to wrench open a door with a shamisen
↓
ウクレレで窓をこじ開けようとする泥棒
↓
A thief who tries to wrench open a window with a ukelele
馬に話しかけるハゲた男
↓
A bald guy who accosts horses
コウモリにたかられるレスリング選手
↓
A wrestler swamped by bats
手裏剣で床にはりついたガムを剥がす算数の先生
↓
An arithmetic teacher who peels off gum stuck to the floor by a shuriken
一風、変わった娘
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An eccentric, peculiar young woman
名刺を交換するモンゴウイカ
↓
Cuttlefish that exchange business cards
カラオケザル
Karaoke Monkey