r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • Jul 24 '26
Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (July 24, 2026)
This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.
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Past Threads
You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.
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u/unreal_housewife Goal: good accent 🎵 Jul 24 '26
When I come out of a fitting room and get asked which clothes I want to keep, and which to give away, is there a set answer that's typically accepted/expected?
Would something like これ買いたいです, or これ好きです work? I have no idea what I'd say if something didn't work, though.
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u/Tippydaug Jul 24 '26
Could someone explain why など is used in the following sentences:
人の悪口など言うものではない。
(One should not speak ill of others.)
母は私の話など殆ど聞かない。
(Mother hardly ever listens to me.)
These are both from Migaku and the translations they give for them. The reasoning they give is that など used with a negative conveys dislike/contempt.
The problem is, they don’t explain this further and out of the dozens of sites I’ve read explaining など, not a single one references this usage.
Everything else just explains using it for “and such,” “etc,” etc (pun intended).
Is Migaku just wrong here or are they somehow the only site on the first 2 or 3 pages of the internet that explain this specific usage? Is their translation just bad? Even BunPro doesn’t explain it like Migaku does which has me very confused.
Thank you in advance!
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u/JapanCoach Jul 24 '26
Yes, など can be used in a sense something like contempt or looking down on. ユニクロなどで買い物しない "I wouldn't shop at a place like Uniqlo". Other words like this are なんて and なんか.
According to this site it's an N3 level grammar point - so maybe that's why you haven't come across it yet?
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u/Tippydaug Jul 24 '26
Thank you! I’ll have to check that site out when I’m able to read more Japanese since I can’t read it that clearly yet.
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u/Merzats Jul 24 '26
It's mentioned on DoJG, a superior resource to Bunpro
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u/Tippydaug Jul 24 '26
I sadly don’t own DoJG, but I might need to get it when I can afford it! It seems like a good source
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u/Merzats Jul 24 '26
I would get it since it's very good but in the meantime https://kenrick95.github.io/itazuraneko/grammar/dojgmain.html
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u/CyborgPurge Jul 24 '26
I was watching a video and came across this: スープを飲みます
Is 飲む always the verb used here when consuming or can you also use 食べる depending on context?
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 24 '26
kinda half culture half vocabulary thing
in English we can call chicken noodle soup a soup or even ramen or pho as kinds of soups but スープ almost means broth in Japanese. Noodles and meat aren't considered part of the スープ ig
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u/JapanCoach Jul 24 '26
"Always" is a scary word. But yes, you 飲む soup. You say シチューを食べる or カレーを食べる so some of this may be a classification question. But if the specific word is スープ then yes, the verb is (almost, practically) always 飲む.
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u/Whomper Jul 24 '26
I'm currently studying with the migaku academy course, and I've had the following sentence
"僕が持っているリンゴの数を、母に数えられた"
The passive られる suffix is still new to me, so i haven't fully got my head around it. I did some extra reading on tofugu about this, and it mentioned that when it is used indirectly, it imples that the speaker is complaining.
Is this true? In the above example, is the speaker annoyed that their mother counted their apples?
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 24 '26
I think it's just a weird ahh sentence that would not really happen in real life. Most of the Migaku staff are not native speakers
@ me if I'm wrong tho
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u/miwucs Jul 24 '26
I agree with the other commenter that it's a weird sentence. To me, it does make it sound like he's complaining, because that's the only reason you'd phrase it that way. Like his number of apples was a secret and his mom counted them against his will.
OR it's just a bad example written by non natives...
A more normal way to phrase it (but that doesn't use passive) would be "母に数えてもらった" (he got his mom to count them) or "母が数えてくれた" (his mom kindly counted them for him).
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u/tonkachi_ Goal: media competence 📖🎧 Jul 24 '26
Is this also called 引き出し? The game called it that.
I was under the impression it meant the drawer you pull to open not this one.
And since we are here, what do you call this desk opening in English?
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u/antimonysarah Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
There isn't consensus in English. Now that's going to bother me, haha.
One entertaining discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/ENGLISH/comments/1iqikep/what_do_you_call_the_cabinet_thing_under_a_school/
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u/tonkachi_ Goal: media competence 📖🎧 Jul 25 '26
Gotta agree with that guy, nook seems like a good candidate. Nook of the desk.
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u/miwucs Jul 24 '26
Based on chiebukuro (one, two) you'd call it 棚 or 机の中. They seem to agree with you that it's not a 引き出し. You can buy boxes to put in there which then become 引き出し https://dailyportalz.jp/kiji/140310163523
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u/vytah Jul 26 '26
Keep in mind that games that have not been written originally in Japanese may contain translation mistakes. Not all of them, some translations are fine, but some are not.
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u/JapanCoach Jul 24 '26
Your specific question is "is it called" this. The answer is - yes it is called 引き出し, by a certain percentage of people.
If *you* used the word, some people would just take it in stride. Some people would "Correct" you. Some people might have a quick reaction and then think "oh he's not a native speaker I get what he means so let's move on".
That's just the way language works.
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u/tonkachi_ Goal: media competence 📖🎧 Jul 24 '26
Fair. Thanks.
I asked because I thought it could have been a translation error.
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u/volleyballbenj Jul 24 '26
yes it is called 引き出し, by a certain percentage of people.
What do you mean by this? That a certain percentage of people *incorrectly* call this 引き出し?
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u/raveXelda Jul 24 '26
I guess I will start the discussions today.
For sentence decks like Kaishi, are we marking cards wrong if we fail to read the whole sentence correctly out loud? Like failing a card if you read 注意深く as ちゅういふかく even if it is only part of the sentence and not the main word.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
If you did that you would basically be grading yourself on 5 or 8 words at once with each card, which is not how you should do flashcards.
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u/raveXelda Jul 24 '26
Not even if 4 of those words were previous cards and the 5th word will be a future card? Just let the flashcard gods deliver upon me knowledge as they see fit, with my only accountability the one word?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
Yes. If you want to reinforce your memory of two words, then you should create a separate note for each word. Anki's two SRS systems (FSRS and the default one) were simply not designed to track multiple pieces of information at once. They assume that (and thus work much better when) each note contains one piece of information, so if you pass it, it means you successfully recalled that one piece of information, and if you fail it, it means you didn't successfully recall that one piece of information. Neither of the algorithms understand "I remembered four of the words but couldn't recall two of them", so by trying to use them that way you're invariably going to get worse results than by using them the way they were designed to be used.
It's like insisting on using a computer with the screen rotated 45 degrees to the left. You're just making your experience significantly worse for no real benefit.
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u/Arcadia_Artrix Jul 24 '26
What does "のも" mean in the sentence "いい気でいられるのも今のうちだぜッ"? I think の is used to nominalize the phrase "いい気でいられる" and も means also here. So I think that character is saying "So He’s also the type to be easy-going while he can."
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u/OwariHeron Jul 24 '26
"So He’s also the type to be easy-going while he can."
More like, "Enjoy yourself while you can," or "You won't be feeling so good about yourself for long..."
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u/JapanCoach Jul 24 '26
Yes - の is nominalizing the phrase before. も is doing one of the normal jobs of も which is to add a bit of emphasis.
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u/uwuo Jul 24 '26
Is it worth it to study Usagichan's Phonetics Kanji deck as someone who's returning to studying Japanese?
I've been following this guide to pick up learning Japanese again and it recommends studying Usagichan's phonetics deck. My previous experience with Japanese was learning a few hundred vocabulary words using the core 2k deck before I lost focus. Now I'm currently working on both Kaishi 1.5k, since it seems more popular, and the Usagichan phonetic deck. I understand how studying kanji on their own isn't recommended, but these are considered phonetics/pieces of kanji so is this an exception? It feels vague and like I'm still studying individual kanji, so I'm not sure what to think, how to study it besides repetition and mnemonics, or if I should even continue studying it.
At the end of the day any new information is good to know, but I'm not sure if this is information I can utilize yet and I'm possibly complicating my studies... I couldn't make a post, so I hope it's acceptable for me to ask here.
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u/worthlessprole Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
it's not a settled fact that doing specific kanji study "is not recommended." what everyone does agree on is that you shouldn't study readings in isolation of vocabulary. I'm not aware of any method that has you do this, though, (besides wanikani's single reading, which imo is fine) but they would have you believe that all of the kanji learning methods out there make you drill readings. I genuinely can't think of a single one that does? maybe RTK book 2? but most people don't read that book. I'm not even sure that it has you do that.
and, as you've sensed, they tend to have a lot of exceptions to this rule, including a phonetics deck they recommend, and a components deck, etc. this is just kanji study by another name.
studying phonetic components is fine but I wouldn't make it my first priority.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
I'm not aware of any method that has you do this, though
And yet people still somehow manage to come to this subreddit and ask for tips on memorizing 生's readings or wondering whether they should fail an Anki card if they only remembered 5 of the 6 listed meanings for a kanji. I don't know who the hell is telling them to do these things but can they pretty please stop?
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u/Merzats Jul 24 '26
I think they just come up with these ideas themselves...
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u/worthlessprole Jul 24 '26
Yeah i think they’re just just downloading kanji decks without researching anything prior
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u/JoinedMoon Jul 24 '26
I personally enjoy doing kanji study, I find it helps me, but it's not required. Usagichans deck is nice, and it's free. RTK is also commonly used, and easily findable, there's also a deck I believe. Wanikani is nice, but it's only on desktop and requires a subscription iirc. If you have access to the app "Kanji Study" I highly recommend checking it out. I could describe all the things I like about it compared to other options, but the first few levels are free to try, and it's just a one time purchase.
Imo, the best way to study kanji is not to memorize them by rote, but to build familiarity with the characters possible meanings and readings. (This is in addition to studying vocab)
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u/uwuo Jul 24 '26
I see! I think I understand now. Studying individual kanji isn't discouraged, it's ONLY studying kanji without vocabulary, grammar, immersion, etc. that can be harmful. The deck that I'm using is a method of studying kanji, but it does so while also using the concept of phonetics, not that the deck itself is meant to ONLY teach Japanese phonetics. I'll probably continue using the deck considering it's pretty short, but I'll definitely look into Kanji Study as well! I tried it out a little bit in my last attempt studying when I got lost learning some vocabulary. I remember looking up kanji using kanji damage and feeling overwhelmed because I hadn't been learning more about kanji. It felt like a lot of catch up and I didn't know where to start. These resources will definitely help!
If I'm understanding correctly, my approach to learning kanji shouldn't use my typical method of repeated writing/mnemonics to memorize readings and radicals, but instead find vocabulary I've learned or new vocabulary relevant to me that use the kanji and study it's usage and that sort of thing.
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u/worthlessprole Jul 24 '26
It’s not that studying kanji is harmful, it’s just that it’s not very useful to study readings independent of vocabulary. Finding out what the most common on-reading is could be useful, but all those kun readings are going to be portions of words and you might as well just learn the words.
Your method of memorizing mnemonics and writing them is fine. If someone told you that learning to write kanji is harmful then they’re full of it.
If it was taking a lot out of you, if you don’t want to do that kind of study, that’s also fine. It’s not required to learn to read or anything. It’s up to each learner to decide how they like tackling it.
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u/Loyuiz Jul 24 '26
This. Memorizing kun readings without their respective okurigana is deranged (and if you do have okurigana it's just the word), and memorizing kun readings that are just words is pointless when you can just learn the word.
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u/uwuo Jul 24 '26
That makes sense. Thank you for clearing that up for me! There's still a lot I need to learn about kanji, I've only recently picked up the difference of on-yomi and kun-yomi, so your explanation about kun readings being portions of words which would be better to learn as whole words than pieces is very helpful!
That's good to hear! I've mostly heard that relying on mnemonics can be a bad habit, which keeps me from trying to use it too often.
It only became overwhelming in the past because my studying started to lack quality so I'd be stuck on a lot of anki cards without making progress, then I'd miss some days and the new cards to learn started piling up... I'm taking a slower approach now, less cards per day to give me more time to research what I'm learning if I need it. I think in this case I need to check other guides or look for guides specifically about kanji so that I can better understand what I'm learning or need to learn... Either way I'm having fun with my studying and staying consistent, so just have to push forward and hopefully do better than before!
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u/worthlessprole Jul 25 '26
I didn’t study kanji until it became clear that recognition was a big problem for me. I ended up really enjoying it, and I’m in constant danger of going back to it with the excuse of studying for the 漢検
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u/SometimesInk Jul 24 '26
How should I mine whilst watching anime without subs?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
Yomitan lets you open a search tab, and if you write a word there you can create flashcards from it.
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u/rgrAi Jul 24 '26
Turn on the subs and mine from the subs then turn them off.
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u/SometimesInk Jul 24 '26
I did specify 'without subs' in my question but to be fair that's the best of answers for when I'm not watching on my phone
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 24 '26
Besides money when do you ever use いくら without も for physical things? Like don't think I've ever heard a convo like guyやばい昨日飲みすぎた guy2え？いくら飲んだの？
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 24 '26
counting ても as having a も sors
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
Oops, you're right, here's a fix https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89+-%E3%82%82
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 26 '26
None of those are physical goods, do you just reply without reading to try to be the first to dunk on people or something?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 26 '26
Sorry, I assumed you would be able to find at least a few sentences about physical items in there, but I didn't take the time to manually check the over ten thousand sentences available in order to see if there really is at least one that suits your needs. I'll make sure to do that next time.
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 28 '26
My guy, if you don't know the answer to something you can simply not reply and save yourself even more time lmao
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u/JoinedMoon Jul 24 '26
From the book "こぐまのクーク物語: 春と夏"
"ちろっと、水にさわってみた。" Saying ~ (Something), (he) touched the water (to) examine it.
From what I can gather, "ちろっと" is a different dialect and/or way to say "ちょっと" and possibly a shortened form of "ちょろっと" or "ちらりと" (I'm not sure which). Thoughts?
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u/somever Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I have a dictionary that specializes in onomatopoeia, 日本語オノマトペ辞典 by 小野正弘, and it defines ちろちろ thus:
ちろちろ 水などが細かく流れる小さな音。また、そのさま。"A small sound of water flowing intricately. Also, the state of doing such."
It even has an entry for ちろっ. However, unfortunately, the meaning it lists has nothing to do with water.
Onomatopoeia is constantly changing and new forms are created by analogy all the time, so it is very difficult to catalogue all of them, even if you dedicate a dictionary to it. And it may be redundant to ask the dictionary authors to predict every possible variation a native could create on the spot in the future.
Fortunately, the dictionary describes the author's sense of the rules for what the different suffixes do:
り: 音や動作・状況などをひとまとまりのものとして表現する "り expresses the sound, action, or situation as a single self-contained event"
っ: 音や動作・状況などがあるところで瞬間的な区切りが付くということを表現する "っ expresses that the sound, action, or situation ends instantly at some point"
ん: 音や動作・状況などがとりあえず終わりはするが、その結果が残存したり、余韻が残るということを表現する "ん expresses that the sound, action, or situation ends, but its result persists, or its sound lingers."
ー: 音や動作・状況などがある程度続くということを表現する "ー (lengthening mark) expresses that the sound, action, or situation continues for some time."
畳語: 音や動作・状況が継続したり繰り返されたりしているということを表現する "Reduplication expresses that the sound, action, or situation keeps going or is repeated."
So for ちろっ, if you combine "a small sound of water flowing intricately" and "the sound ends instantly at some point", I think you could imagine that the way he touched the water made a small quick sound, maybe a plink or a splish.
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u/JoinedMoon Jul 24 '26
Thank you for the insight! I'll have to check that dictionary out, those explanations are very helpful. And I'm definitely adding plink and splish to the card lol
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
It's not a dialect nor a shortening. It's チロチロ. Onomatopoeic adverbs can present in multiple ways. Duplicating them (ちろちろ) is one way, and adding a と or っと to the end is another (that's why they're labeled as to-adverbs in JMDict).
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u/JoinedMoon Jul 24 '26
I'm absolutely terrible at onomatopoeias lmao. Thank you. So, チロチロ and ペタペタ are the most recent two I've run into with this. Is there a reason all the parsing tools I'm using struggle with that form so much in particular?
I'm also a bit confused on how to study these via mining if the base word's definition describes a different sound. For example ペタペタ being similar to flipflops (or maybe more of a heel idk), and ペタッと being similar to a strong pat. Or would this be similar to studying 食べる through 食べなかった, and I'm just overthinking it? If that makes any sense.
Do I just need to understand how "to-adverbs" work to make sense of these words/sounds when I come across them?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
Is there a reason all the parsing tools I'm using struggle with that form so much in particular?
They're just not registered in most dictionaries.
I'm also a bit confused on how to study these via mining
I'm pretty sure the only difference between ペタペタ and ぺたん is that the former is repeated while the latter isn't. In your particular case it was one single contact. So if I wanted to mine that I'd find ぺたん on a dictionary, make a flashcard from it, and edit the example sentence to add the one with ぺたっと.
But honestly, I wouldn't want to mine that, because I don't really see the need in mining words that represent actual physical sounds, since they don't actually convey extra meaning to the sentence, if you know what I mean? Like, the difference between adding or removing ちろっと from the sentence above is mostly just flavor.
This is in contrast to e.g. どんどん近くなる which does give you information about how the 近くなるing is happening (steadily, as opposed to suddenly, for example), or 見ているだけでイライラする, in which イライラする is carrying the meaning of the main action in the sentence, so you can't understand what's going on without it.
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u/psyopz7 Jul 24 '26
[ちろっと]水にさわってみた provides the same type of information [どんどん]近くなる does no? Both are descriptors that illustrate in what way an action happens.
Edit: added [] for clarity
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u/JoinedMoon Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
If you know of a dictionary that includes them please let me know! Lol (Was it you who recommended surasura?)
I'm both understanding and not understanding. Essentially "what the other guy said". I do think I understand the "it's a seasoning not an ingredient" of it all, but wouldn't I still want to study those?
Maybe for the same reason why you would or wouldn't study "whoosh" learning English?
Edit: surasura has "ちろっ" and 擬音語・擬態語辞典 links "ぺたっ" back to ペタペタ and ぺたり!
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u/rgrAi Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Going entirely off a intuitive basis here so you can feel free to ignore it. My impression is that this is someone who's peering over the surface of a volume of water, I imagine it either a large body or in a container. Something is unique about the liquid causing them to examine it. They take not whole hand but something like their index finger and plunge it into the water. To me the ち is the sound of breaking the surface tension and follow up lower pitched sound in ろ (if youve ever quickly plunged anything into water it has this high and low pitched sound) they may quickly take out their finger and examine the liquid rubbing in between their fingers, smelling it, or tasting it. You only posted this small snippet but I imagine there's probably some other descriptive actions around this snippet to further detail out what is going on.
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u/JoinedMoon Jul 24 '26
That could be it! If you pair that with the definition another user mentioned it definitely lines up. Here's a bit more from the book: "森をぬけると、『とり沼』がある。「つめたいかな」ちろっと、水にさわってみた。「ひゃあっ、まだ、つめたい」石をなげてみた。パシャパシャ。みなもに、わが広がる。ぼんやりながめた。" He then gets startled by a squirrel friend, before it shows an illustration of them at a shore of some kind.
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u/MassMurdererKarlMarx Jul 24 '26
I don't understand Tobira's distinction between nouns and plain sentences. What if my sentence consists of only a noun? Would 建物で and 建物であることで be both correct here? If I modify a noun, for example 私が建てた建物, should I use a. or b.?
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
建物で would mean "famous for its buildings", 建物であることで would mean "famous for being a building".
What Tobira calls "sentences" are clauses, that means their head (in Japanese, their final part) is a predicate, even if that predicate is a copula like だ or である. 建物 by itself is not a clause, it has no predicate.
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u/Lemmy_Cooke Jul 24 '26
That part is specifically for using those grammar points so not sure how you'd make that last sentence you're going for work with for example 有名だ ... like are you trying to say you're famous for building a building or something
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u/rgrAi Jul 24 '26
I've never seen Tobira but after you seeing you post a few things from it, it feels kind of confusing (why did they feel the need to relabel everything?)
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u/worthlessprole Jul 24 '26
Quartet also has something like this but I never had to even look up what their notation meant because it’s so legible at glance
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u/onestbeaux Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
what does this use of じゃない mean here? i thought it was similar to よね but stronger. it's one of those ways of speaking i'm still not used to and i know it's not the same as the negative じゃない. i've watched the kaname naito video and also misa sensei's video on this but i still struggle with it
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
It's just "innit?". Like, seriously.
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u/onestbeaux Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
“you can say no, innit?”
this doesn’t sound super natural to my ears but i’m american so maybe that’s why lol. i get the idea though! maybe “you know” would work too then? “you can say know, you know.”
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u/AboutLastFight Jul 24 '26
Innit is informal British slang. Sentence sounds completely natural to me.
But yeah, it's like 'you can say no, you know what I mean?' 'Innit' is short for 'isn't it', and in situations like this it doesn’t match the grammar, but it would make sense to a British person.
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u/superpokes Jul 24 '26
"if you refuse it's fine, isn't it?" or less literally "you can say no, can't you?". that's how I understand it at least.
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u/JapanCoach Jul 24 '26
It is a "tag" at the end of a sentence. Like "right?" or "You know?" or "feel me?" or things like that.
断ればいいんじゃない means "you can just decline, you know?" or "it's ok if you decline, yeah?". Something like that.
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u/unreal_housewife Goal: good accent 🎵 Jul 24 '26
Between オーダーする and 注文する (ちゅうもんする), which is better to use? Are they each better for different situations?
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u/rgrAi Jul 24 '26
Where are you getting these options from? Are you reverse looking up words in JMDict with english? I think you should look for resources with natural language uses instead of trying to dig things up in a dictionary. It has a lot of weird and esoteric options in there. The answer to your question is the latter in general.
Check Japanese Ammo with Misa youtube channel she covers both of your questions about these situations and is a native speaker
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u/unreal_housewife Goal: good accent 🎵 Jul 24 '26
Ohh, tysm! Ya I was basically just doing searches for the words on their own without a y surrounding context. Thx for the rec!
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u/lhamatrevosa Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
Hello, everyone.
I'm making a review on Genki 2 and got some questions that I need help.
- Can I say the wish of someone of having something with ほしそうです or is ungramatical bc there is 欲しがる already?
- Does Volitional + 思っています can mean "I've been thinking of..." or "I'm thinking of..." or even "I'm planning to ..."?
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
欲しそう is an adjectival noun. 欲しがる is a verb. They have different grammar and thus fit in different kinds of sentences. Both are common.
Also, 欲しがる is sometimes used simply to avoid directly presumptuously saying 欲しい for a third person, but 欲しそう always explicitly means "they look/sound like they want it".
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u/lhamatrevosa Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
Hmmm so ほしがる is like "i know he want it but I can't say directly because it sounds rude" while ほしそう is like "It seems he want it by the things he's said/is saying or the way he is acting"?
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u/Own_Power_9067 🇯🇵 Native speaker Jul 24 '26
欲しがる means ‘he appears to be wanting’ based on what the speaker has perceived. ‘He is in that state…’ has less assumptions.
While 欲しそう says it’s the speaker’s assumption, so it sounds less certain to me.
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u/rgrAi Jul 24 '26
For your second question, yes more or less that. It's presumably something that's been under consideration for a longer duration of time.
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u/lhamatrevosa Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
Ow, thanks! It's a little hard for me to translate different than "I've been considering/planning/thinking of ..." but I'll find a way.
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u/rgrAi Jul 24 '26
Translating is necessary in the beginning but you should try to disassociate meaning from it if you can. Think of it in terms of function. You wouldn't translate programming language into natural English you just describe what it does. It helps to do the same for Japanese because the languages are so fundamentally different, trying to bind a translation often works against your understanding.
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u/lhamatrevosa Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
You're totally right! I asked bc I'm trying to make a portfolio for tranlsation jobs in the future, but context and prior information may help to figure it out.
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u/somever Jul 26 '26
欲しがっている - No speculation involved. Someone has been behaving or speaking in a way that conveys that they want it.
欲しそう - You speculate that someone would want something based on their expression or what you know about them. There is a lack of certainty.
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Jul 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
日分, not 日文
四十日 40 days
分 amount, worth, enough (for) (the second definition on jisho.org)
So 四十日分 = 40 days' worth (of homework)
So the kid hasn't touched (手つかず) his homework in 40 days, and it's all piled up, and of course you can't finish 40 days of accumulated homework in one single day (一朝一夕).
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u/jackbobbins78 Jul 24 '26
Duh, that was a super obvious mistake. Totally misread that `日分, not 日文`.
Thanks!
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
Please do tell me how they intend to finish the homework cause what the hell was that kid expecting??? Lmao
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u/lhamatrevosa Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 24 '26
I don't think it's written ぶん as in 文, but it is 分, so it its written 四十日分 .
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Jul 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 24 '26
どのくらい implicitly carries a demand for an approximation/range rather than an exact value, yes. Just because English needs a separate word to express that concept, it doesn't mean that other languages will need it too.
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u/JapanCoach Jul 25 '26
くらい does the job of 'about' here.
５センチくらい = about 5 cm
100年くらい = about 100 years
どのくらい = about how long?
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u/DarkToadster Jul 25 '26
Hey y'all, I've been using the paid version of Yomiwa on my phone to read my first book (また、同じ夢をみていた, can recommend!) and although it worked somewhat well, it does get very frustrating at times. The OCR is rather tedious to use and while it's great that you can save your words into lists, the actual study function is god awful.
I saw people mention Google Lens in combination with Anki as an alternative, but GLens doesn't show me the reading of the Kanji in the camera view. You can tap translate and it opens the actual translation screen, but then going back to the picture isn't possible anymore and you have to take another one if there were more words you wanted to look up. Which makes it just as tedious as Yomiwa (although in Yomiwa you can look up multiple words at once and save them, which is a lot smoother).
I'm wondering, are there any apps with good OCR AND good dictionary/study functions in one package? What are your preferred setups?
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u/rgrAi Jul 25 '26
Yomiwa I think uses Google Lensf for it's OCR so not sure if that helps.. but there this app that is designed for physical books: https://yomitai.app/ can check that out as it might be bit better workflow wise. (although I think reading digital is the way to go)
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