Learning Japanese • 日本語の勉強 |これはOTです| ゆっくりしていいぞ！

[L Thammy]

You asking about ラスボス? It means she is a difficult enemy - a last boss


腐敗した道徳 = shitty morals.

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I was actually going for a rhetorical "explain why this japanese text is here". :P

I saw a Japanese tag trending on Twitter and decided to click it. The first tweet was someone who had just decided to insert it into an unrelated tweet in order to get more views, and half of them were just spambots that didn't even make any sense. The tag was for some meme where you evaluate a game's final boss, but I was barely seeing the actual meme.

 

[Subpar Scrub]

Hey guys, I grabbed the Genki books with audio files and I'm ready to give this a go. Was wondering if anyone had a podcast or other audio content they'd recommend for learning, as I'm usually on a treadmill every day. Cheers and sorry if I missed a link in the OP.

 

[Minilla]

Anyone used the Japanese from Zero text books? I got it off a friend and it seems like nice layout? Just want to check its not considered really bad or anything?! Seems to get decent write ups and it says its not as daunting as Genki is at first?

Hey guys, I grabbed the Genki books with audio files and I'm ready to give this a go. Was wondering if anyone had a podcast or other audio content they'd recommend for learning, as I'm usually on a treadmill every day. Cheers and sorry if I missed a link in the OP.

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I had Japanesepod101 recommended to me

 

[Subpar Scrub]

Anyone used the Japanese from Zero text books? I got it off a friend and it seems like nice layout? Just want to check its not considered really bad or anything?! Seems to get decent write ups and it says its not as daunting as Genki is at first?



I had Japanesepod101 recommended to me

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Yeah cheers, found that one but was hoping for more options :) I saw the Japanese from Zero books when I was browsing for resources and they seem to be highly recommend based on reviews, might have to grab a copy myself

 

[Minilla]

Yeah cheers, found that one but was hoping for more options :) I saw the Japanese from Zero books when I was browsing for resources and they seem to be highly recommend based on reviews, might have to grab a copy myself

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Everyones different but I really like the system the use in the Japanese from zero of slowly replacing romanji as you learn the hirigana words in the textbook. I'm remembering much more now . Everyone has different learning I know , but this text book is great for me.

Would recommend.

 

[Reversed]

Thought this may be of help for somebody in here

 

[Deleted member 82]

Thought this may be of help for somebody in here

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Doesn't work with Japanese, Chinese or Korean.

 

[RangerBAD]

Doesn't work with Japanese, Chinese or Korean.

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Yup, things will not magically "match up". lol

 

[sackboy97]

How is everyone doing? I haven't done much this past couple of months as I had a bunch of exams. I'm excited to go back to studying more. I have read a couple of Asano oneshots yesterday, which was fun (though I still feel it's a bit above my skill level). I'll probably go back and re-read the 新完全マスター volumes, to practice and review various concepts.

 

[Deleted member 46493]

Spent an hour "translating" a paragraph from Popeye magazine (fashion/design magazine). Japanese friends were asleep so couldn't ask them about what turned out was a lot of slang or casual forms I couldn't Google. Still fun to read stuff you're actually interested in!

 

[Jintor]

Yeah getting past the 'base' stage to the 'i can actually start trying to read shit i'm interested in' stage is great. I just wish I had the mental capacity to do more deep reading at once... oh well

 

[Hypron]

I can't force myself to read something and look absolutely everything I don't know, so generally I'm happy understanding what I can and just getting the gist of the rest. I might look a recurring or important word up here and there, but I find that if I look a lot of them up I don't actually remember anything anyway haha.

Otherwise, I've just been trucking along since the beginning of the year. Couple of drama/anime episodes everyday, some Anki, and some flashcards. I've been slowly going through Mushishi and getting lots of flashcards from that (440 of them in the span of 25 episodes). It does use some dialectal stuff here and there, but other than that it's pretty easy to understand and the hard (e.g. internal organs) or made up terms they use are usually repeated a lot of times throughout each episode which helps to understand them.

I'm currently watching this TV show ウロボロス though, and one of the two main characters speaks in a deep yakuza-style voice and I'm having more trouble than usual understanding him haha

 

[L Thammy]

i got the blues and didn't study for like two weeks

 

[Resilient]

i'm back from exile

 

[L Thammy]

誰かは日本語から追放出来ませんよ。

 

[TheSporkWithin]

Stop getting banned.

 

[RpgN]

How is everyone doing? I haven't done much this past couple of months as I had a bunch of exams. I'm excited to go back to studying more. I have read a couple of Asano oneshots yesterday, which was fun (though I still feel it's a bit above my skill level). I'll probably go back and re-read the 新完全マスター volumes, to practice and review various concepts.

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Currently the studying is mostly going according to keikaku *insert infamous picture here*

The plan was to focus on grammar and kanji. I'm focussing more on kanji than I thought I would, which is for the better. I feel that I need to get it out of the way because it really is making a difference. My usual vocabulary routine is being affected but that's okay. I've went through 635 kanji. Many of the kanji I already knew but RTK helps me distinct them better. Another benefit I'm getting out of it is learning multiple meanings of a kanji. The book focuses mostly on keywords that I'm not familiar with: 忍 also means endure and not just sneaking etc. That's really neat!

When it comes to grammar, I went through the last Tae Kim chapter in terms of comprehension. I'm trying to remember the grammar vividly so that I can understand texts more naturally. I have to say though, there is some grammar that I just don't see used. The texts that I read or spoken Japanese that I hear hardly use any advanced grammar. Is that normal or am I not looking right?

Another revelation is...anime. There was a time I was told that listening to anime would be disastrous for learning Japanese and that you should avoid it at all costs. Which is exactly what I did since 2005-ish. I watched the first episode of 僕だけがいない街 with a friend (it's also called Erased). And I only watched it because he introduced me to it. I was surprised by how natural the talking sounded and how it can be great to strengthen the language. This is causing me to think about anime and whether I should do more with it in the future.

 

[Hypron]

i'm back from exile

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おかえり. Why were you in exile lol

 

[sackboy97]

When it comes to grammar, I went through the last Tae Kim chapter in terms of comprehension. I'm trying to remember the grammar vividly so that I can understand texts more naturally. I have to say though, there is some grammar that I just don't see used. The texts that I read or spoken Japanese that I hear hardly use any advanced grammar. Is that normal or am I not looking right?

Another revelation is...anime. There was a time I was told that listening to anime would be disastrous for learning Japanese and that you should avoid it at all costs. Which is exactly what I did since 2005-ish. I watched the first episode of 僕だけがいない街 with a friend. And I only watched it because he introduced me to it. I was surprised by how natural the talking sounded and how it can be great to strengthen the language. This is causing me to think about anime and whether I should do more with it in the future.

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Well, anime for practice is definitely a good idea. I believe you'd encounter more elaborate and complex grammar in adult-oriented novels. Even Asano, for example, who writes seinen, uses structures a bit more complex than I'm comfortable with at the moment (at least for some characters, like the uncle in おやすみプンプン).

おかえり. Why were you in exile lol

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He vehemently discussed some Splatoon plushies that weren't of the proper colour.

 

[Hypron]

Currently the studying is mostly going according to keikaku *insert infamous picture here*

The plan was to focus on grammar and kanji. I'm focussing more on kanji than I thought I would, which is for the better. I feel that I need to get it out of the way because it really is making a difference. My usual vocabulary routine is being affected but that's okay. I've went through 635 kanji. Many of the kanji I already knew but RTK helps me distinct them better. Another benefit I'm getting out of it is learning multiple meanings of a kanji. The book focuses mostly on keywords that I'm not familiar with: 忍 also means endure and not just sneaking etc. That's really neat!

When it comes to grammar, I went through the last Tae Kim chapter in terms of comprehension. I'm trying to remember the grammar vividly so that I can understand texts more naturally. I have to say though, there is some grammar that I just don't see used. The texts that I read or spoken Japanese that I hear hardly use any advanced grammar. Is that normal or am I not looking right?

Another revelation is...anime. There was a time I was told that listening to anime would be disastrous for learning Japanese and that you should avoid it at all costs. Which is exactly what I did since 2005-ish. I watched the first episode of 僕だけがいない街 with a friend (it's also called Erased). And I only watched it because he introduced me to it. I was surprised by how natural the talking sounded and how it can be great to strengthen the language. This is causing me to think about anime and whether I should do more with it in the future.

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I think anime is perfectly fine to develop your comprehension ability. Just need to keep in mind that it's often exaggerated. I quite enjoyed 僕だけがいない街 (and the drama version too) actually. Some characters do use some 北海道弁 (off the top of my head stuff like したっけ or ～だべさ) so keep an ear out for it haha.

He vehemently discussed some Splatoon plushies that weren't of the proper colour.

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lol

 

[Resilient]

I missed you people 🥰

 

[L Thammy]

How do 貴様ら feel about Tatoeba as a resource? Jisho uses it for their example sentences (which might be how you get sentences like サダムが脅威でないなどと言うのは、赤がかった反戦運動の人達くらい。), but I'm a little suspicious.

 

[KtSlime]

How do 貴様ら feel about Tatoeba as a resource? Jisho uses it for their example sentences (which might be how you get sentences like サダムが脅威でないなどと言うのは、赤がかった反戦運動の人達くらい。), but I'm a little suspicious.

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I sometimes look at tatoeba, but tend to look at career-picks or chieibukuro when looking up uses.

 

[Hypron]

I find that Japanese dictionaries usually have enough example sentences. 研究社 和英 in particular tends to have a lot of them, even more than the J→J dictionaries I'm using.

 

[Deleted member 82]

There's http://yourei.jp/ as well, though I've never really used it. Don't know how good its example sentences are.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

Reviewing my kanji, I like to think the kanji [犬] is derived from [人] because dogs are human's best friends (it's how I decided to memorize it anyway)

 

[L Thammy]

Reviewing my kanji, I like to think the kanji [犬] is derived from [人] because dogs are human's best friends (it's how I decided to memorize it anyway)

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If you go to Wiktionary you can often see the origins of kanji. It looks like this was a doodle of a dog that got flipped 90 degrees and then mutated somehow.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/犬#Glyph_origin

 

[mere_immortal]

Oh hey learning Japanese thread! Recently jumped on board after learning Hiragana and Katakana over the past few weeks. Gone with what seems like the standard Genki/Wanikani/Anki route.

Only around a week in so far but it's amazing how even with just the の and は particles stuff is starting to come together. It's like solving a puzzle where you're slowly being introduced to new pieces, really enjoying it. Some of the rules around on'yomi and kun'yomi readings are a little weird but Wanikani does a great job with the mnemonics.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

Hey again, sorry for the noob questions but I want to make sure I understand things correctly.

It's partly about は and が (topic/subject particle).

So if I understand correctly :
私はまりさんが好きです basically means the same as まりさんは好きです
Except in the first sentence 私 is the topic and まりさん is the subject, and the sentence is more precise than the second sentence with まりさん as the topic right ?

Also the difference between :
私はiChamです
and
私がiChamです
is basically nuance right ?

And finally betwen :
肉は食べます、魚が食べません
肉は食べます、魚を食べません
What's the difference ?
Thanks for the help.

If you go to Wiktionary you can often see the origins of kanji. It looks like this was a doodle of a dog that got flipped 90 degrees and then mutated somehow.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/犬#Glyph_origin

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It's always funny to see the etymology as a kanji like 川, 山 or 車 I'm like "yeah I can see where that comes from" whereas others...

 

[L Thammy]

So if I understand correctly :
私はまりさんが好きです basically means the same as まりさんは好きです
Except in the first sentence 私 is the topic and まりさん is the subject, and the sentence is more precise than the second sentence with まりさん as the topic right ?

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Not 100% sure about this one. The thing is that 好き is not something you do, it describes an attribute of the thing being liked, so I think が might be preferred because it's emphasizing that まりさん is the one who is being likeable. They're the actual actor. は probably still make sense because if there's only one name mentioned and you're in a vacuum you're probably talking from your own perspective.

Also the difference between :
私はiChamです
and
私がiChamです
is basically nuance right ?

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I believe so. 私はiChamです and Chamです sound more like an introduction, 私がiChamです sounds more like we're looking for iCham and you're trying to identify that it's you that is iCham.

And finally betwen :
肉は食べます、魚が食べません
肉は食べます、魚を食べません
What's the difference ?

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I'm inclined to read 魚が食べません as "fish don't eat", but Google translate figured it out, so now I'm doubting myself.

 

[RpgN]

And finally betwen :
肉は食べます、魚が食べません
肉は食べます、魚を食べません
What's the difference ?
Thanks for the help.

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Are you shown these examples from somewhere? Because I'm not sure if they're natural or used in such a way.

First example, you are saying that you eat meat (you eat meat in general, you brought the topic of meat= as for meat, I eat that). But you DON'T eat fish (fish is part of the topic, you are trying to specify that you do normally eat meat except for fish (fish though I don't eat).

The second example is a bit odd if it's one sentence. を specifies the action you are doing. You are eating the fish, you are doing the action and you are no longer just talking about it.

Not 100% sure about this one. The thing is that 好き is not something you do, it describes an attribute of the thing being liked, so I think が might be preferred because it's emphasizing that まりさん is the one who is being likeable. They're the actual actor. は probably still make sense because if there's only one name mentioned and you're in a vacuum you're probably talking from your own perspective.

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好き always goes with が as far as I know. I've never seen it used like this unless it's used in a negative state. (I don't like...).

 

[Deleted member 1635]

Also the difference between :
私はiChamです
and
私がiChamです
is basically nuance right ?

Click to shrink...

Easiest ground rule to remember with these is that with は, the part that comes after the は is the emphasis, whereas with が, it's typically the part that comes before the が that is emphasized. Kind of the difference between, "I'm iCham" (your name being the important part in the introduction) vs. "It is I who is iCham" (in a situation where the true identity of iCham has come into question and you announce *yourself* to be the one true iCham).

And finally betwen :
肉は食べます、魚が食べません
肉は食べます、魚を食べません
What's the difference ?
Thanks for the help.

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Little different here. With が, the subject becomes the fish and you're just saying that the fish does not perform the action (eat, in this case). With, 肉は食べます, generally people would assume that you're talking about yourself and saying "I do eat meat" with the nuance of it being an ongoing regular thing.

On the other hand, you could say "魚が食べられません" and people would immediately know you're saying that you cannot eat fish, with some nuance of it probably being one of the few things that you cannot eat for one reason or another.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

Thanks for the answers that's really helpful.

Are you shown these examples from somewhere? Because I'm not sure if they're natural or used in such a way.

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Nope I'm writing these myself so it might be why it sounds unnatural.

好き always goes with が as far as I know. I've never seen it used like this unless it's used in a negative state. (I don't like...).

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Yeah I saw this in my lessons just now. And I suppose 嫌い is the same right ?

Easiest ground rule to remember with these is that with は, the part that comes after the は is the emphasis, whereas with が, it's typically the part that comes before the が that is emphasized. Kind of the difference between, "I'm iCham" (your name being the important part in the introduction) vs. "It is I who is iCham" (in a situation where the true identity of iCham has come into question and you announce *yourself* to be the one true iCham).

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That's clearer to me now thanks.

 

[RpgN]

Little different here. With が, the subject becomes the fish and you're just saying that the fish does not perform the action (eat, in this case). With, 肉は食べます, generally people would assume that you're talking about yourself and saying "I do eat meat" with the nuance of it being an ongoing regular thing.

On the other hand, you could say "魚が食べられません" and people would immediately know you're saying that you cannot eat fish, with some nuance of it probably being one of the few things that you cannot eat for one reason or another.

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Are you saying that when が is used with animals, it's talking about what the animal is doing and never used about you not eating that animal among the rest? That you need to use 魚が食べられません to say this?

Yeah I saw this in my lessons just now. And I suppose 嫌い is the same right ?

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That's right.

 

[filkry]

肉は食べます

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To me this reads like "The meat eats". Is this wrong on my part?

 

[L Thammy]

To me this reads like "The meat eats". Is this wrong on my part?

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肉は just means that you're talking about meat, not that the meat is necessarily doing anything. That's also why those sentences might have been a little weird; the topic was set to be about meat, but suddenly you shift gears to fish.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

I wanted to say "I eat meat but I don't eat fish" but I was wrong

 

[Deleted member 1635]

I wanted to say "I eat meat but I don't eat fish" but I was wrong

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肉は食べますが、魚は食べません。

 

[Deleted member 1635]

Are you saying that when が is used with animals, it's talking about what the animal is doing and never used about you not eating that animal among the rest? That you need to use 魚が食べられません to say this?

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It's really the structure of "noun が plain verb," that makes one think the noun is performing the action.

What comes after が is usually an action (動作), a state (状態), or the subject of a wish or desire (要望).

食べられる、食べられない is the conjugation of a verb, thus can be considered an action, but it also represents a state (to be able to or not be able to eat). It's just more common to see 食べられない used to express what one can or cannot eat given that, without context indicating otherwise, the assumption would be that the speaker is merely abbreviating 私は and talking about his or herself to express that the noun is something that he or she cannot eat.

 

[BetterGraphics]

Hey folks! I attempted to tackle Mandarin for a month, but found it hard to get off the mark. I think the main reason was that I wasn't taking it on for passionate reasons, and it was a lot more practical (as Chinese is everywhere here in Australia).

I just shifted across to Japanese and everything feels so much better. The online community is large, the resources a plentiful and varied, and I just feel more excited about tackling Japanese. In just a few hours, I have hiragana locked in and it feels so good. Should I learn katakana now, or should I work on validating my hiragana somewhere?

 

[L Thammy]

It's not that big a decision, katakana will be just as easy to learn. If you want to have fun trying out your hiragana skills it'll be waiting when you come back.

 

[BetterGraphics]

It's not that big a decision, katakana will be just as easy to learn. If you want to have fun trying out your hiragana skills it'll be waiting when you come back.

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Wasn't implying it was a big decision. Was just checking in with the community here. I'll get onto katakana now. 👍

 

[RpgN]

Minor question time. Take a look at this (2 minutes)



It appears that the singing was translated, right? But why does the translated text appears to be so different sometimes? Could it be that this was not translated but this song has a separate official Japanese lyrics that was used at the same time? Or am I simply missing all the nuance with my current level of Japanese?

It's really the structure of "noun が plain verb," that makes one think the noun is performing the action.

What comes after が is usually an action (動作), a state (状態), or the subject of a wish or desire (要望).

食べられる、食べられない is the conjugation of a verb, thus can be considered an action, but it also represents a state (to be able to or not be able to eat). It's just more common to see 食べられない used to express what one can or cannot eat given that, without context indicating otherwise, the assumption would be that the speaker is merely abbreviating 私は and talking about his or herself to express that the noun is something that he or she cannot eat.

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Thank you for explaining this so clearly.

 

[sackboy97]

If anyone's interested, Matt's latest video talks about Morphman, which is an Anki add-on to find i+1 cards in your decks and reorder them, so that you get them in order of difficulty. Here's the link where he explains everything in detail and here's the video:


I haven't gotten around to setting it up yet, but it looks to be pretty useful.

 

[Jintor]

It appears that the singing was translated, right? But why does the translated text appears to be so different sometimes? Could it be that this was not translated but this song has a separate official Japanese lyrics that was used at the same time? Or am I simply missing all the nuance with my current level of Japanese?

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Translating lyrics is hard (especially for a song like this where the meaning has to come through in the lyrics) since you still have to adhere to meter and rhyme and all the other things that make a song work as well as convey the meaning. In addition the fact that Japanese and English are roughly backwards in terms of object-subject-verb or whatever tends to fuck with lyrics a bunch.

However, Weight of the World is a special case since it seems the English isn't a direct translation of the Japanese but rather something more like an independent version with the same root meanings.

JN: I met Emi Evans about 4 years ago when I first came to Japan. My mother, who is also a singer here, took me on a gig that she had with her and allowed me to sing a few songs just as a way to get me acquainted with the industry here. Emi was very sweet and after the gig said she hoped to work with me again in the future. Then a few months ago I received a message from her asking if I would be interested in auditioning for a video game soundtrack opportunity. It was actually offered to both me and my mother, but I believe she was very busy at the time, so I accepted the audition and ended up being offered the gig.

ーFrom what I understand, you had a hand in creating the new NieR:Automatatheme song. Is that correct? What specific things did you work on?

JN: Yes, I did. I wrote the lyrics for the theme. The melody and concept were already laid out.

ーWhat do you mean by concept? Were you also involved in the musical side of the song as well?

JN: When I say concept, I mean the overall content of the song. They already had an idea of what they wanted the song to be about and what they wanted the meaning of each line to be, so I just took those directions and put them into a more poetic format that fit the melody that they already had laid out. I hope that makes sense. (haha)

ーWere you given any themes or clues into the story for the song?

JN: No, not really. They just gave me the concept for the song, and I did my best to work with that. There were a few areas that they asked me to change in the song before it was finalized, but it worked out really well.

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[DennyDifferent]

In the interest of using something you enjoy for immersion I've been thinking about trying to play a game in Japanese but I'm not sure what to go for. Many JRPGs use strange language and also I'm not sure how useful words like "mana" will be in everyday conversation :) It's the same reason I don't try to immerse with much anime (outside of slice of life stuff like Toradora).

Does anyone have any recommendations?

 

[TheSporkWithin]

It really depends on a lot of things, like what genres you enjoy, what platforms you have available, how persistent/stubborn you are (you will be spending a lot of time looking stuff up and puzzling things out), whether voicework is necessary, and what your current Japanese level is.

All that being said, I wholeheartedly recommend 大逆転裁判, available on both Android or iOS if you can purchase Japanese apps.

 

[DennyDifferent]

It really depends on a lot of things, like what genres you enjoy, what platforms you have available, how persistent/stubborn you are (you will be spending a lot of time looking stuff up and puzzling things out), whether voicework is necessary, and what your current Japanese level is.

All that being said, I wholeheartedly recommend 大逆転裁判, available on both Android or iOS if you can purchase Japanese apps.

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Cool, I'll check it out. Although I didn't want something TOO text heavy as my interest dies when I'm switching to and from a dictionary. I'd probably say I'm about an N4 but my reading is much better than my listening (I have a big issue with listening). I'm level 19 with Wanikani which, I think, puts me on about 700 kanji and I've just about finshed Core 2k on iKnow.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

Yeah, in that case you're probably not going to have a very good time with anything that actually requires understanding of text to proceed. (Which 大逆転裁判 and all the other Ace Attorney games do)

Maybe something more like Super Mario Odyssey?

 

[Jintor]

being honest at pre n3 even pokemon ruby in jpn was a bit of a pain. The reality is any media, let alone a game, where you have to put it aside to look up words in a dictionary is going to be kind of annoying and I find the effect is exascebated with games since they're so much more interactive. I find it easier to focus with (simplified) news articles or books.