日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 6

If you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.

Japanese - Ask questions thread
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1174719097/1-40

日語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread2 質問
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1206158123/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 3
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1267485093/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 4
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1302350850/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 5
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1330050873/1-40

>>327
After having written this, it might seem hypocritical, and may as well be, to proclaim that "English does not make you better understand the way Japanese works" and is a Bad Idea. Translations are useful in the beginning stage, providing you with fairly accurate descriptions of what is going on in the original sentences, but to keep relying on English (or whatever other L1/L2/etc you use) too much later on is not going to do much good for your comprehension.

No matter how literal the translations are, there are nuances, implications and concepts that just won't translate. This is not a problem for the translator, who will always localize their source material to make it understandable for the target language's audience, but very unfortunate for the learner.

As a learner, weaning off using English et al., instead trying to understand Japanese in a Japanese context, is an important step. This isn't specific to Japanese, but goes for all attempting language acquisition. It might be extra difficult for monolinguals who haven't grown up thinking in this way, but tying words to your own internal concepts instead of the closest L1 approximation is a good starting point. This is even more important when it comes to grammar, which usually is more abstract.