Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I’ll answer the second question first because it’s easier.
出る means to go out or leave. Attaching 行く to it means to go out and go away. Just saying 出た is like “he left the room” 出て行った is like “he went out of the room” 出て来た is like “he came out of the room.”The 何も questions is a bit more difficult. Firstly it’s not a negative word. も is a particle worth getting to know well. Curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and talk till sunrise.
Particles are, as prepositions are in English, difficult to give a good explanation for but I will try. も shows emphasis. It is perhaps best known as “also” or “too” like 私はすしが好きです。天ぷらも好きです。 If you think of it as an emphasizing tool, the second shows that in addition to what I said before, I also like tempura. It is emphasizing the tempura part.
Saying 何も is emphasizing the “what” and pretty much means “everything” but it’s best not to try and translate directly because of exactly what you said above. Sometimes it means “nothing”. If I were to try and give a more particle-meaning-focused translation of what was written above, it would read: “He can’t do even what.” which of course makes no sense. It’s better to think of the question words more as unspecified things in that category. 何 – unspecified thing, 誰 – unspecified person, いつ – unspecified time and so on. I realize this is confusing and probably not helpful. Example time.何も – 何も聞こえない – can’t hear anything
even what
いつまでも – いつまでも忘れない – will never forget
even until when
誰も – 誰も会わなかった – didn’t meet anyone
even whoGood luck. Sorry.
Sake is often called 日本酒（にほんしゅ）
I zoom in too. Sometimes I’ll copy a section of text into a word processor and blow it up so I can see better. As for Japanese people, they can get it from general shape and context. If you think tiny font online is bad, you should see some of the handwriting scrawled on sings and message boards. I’ve been told that, far more so than the actual shapes of the elements, the proportion of the sizes and locations of radicals is important to recognizing and distinguishing between kanji.
The age thing is different from State to state. Typically, you can get a service industry job at 14 provided you get permission from your school and that your hours a limited to something like 20 per week.
Apply to McDonald’s. It was not the all-around best, but certainly the most fun job I ever had.
I don’t want to get into a big debate about whether or not kanji->keyword is good or bad, but to say that the only purpose of the keyword is to help you remember the kanji seems a little strange to me. If that were the case, it seems more likely that Heisig would have avoided using so many similar keywords and instead opted for more memorable ones. It seems there is a reason he chose the keywords he did and that those ideas could be used to draw meanings from compounds.
If you saw 完結 for the first time and knew the keyword for each kanji as perfect+tie you’re probably not going to be able to recognize it as “conclusion” but, once you’ve looked up the meaning you can use the keywords to help you remember the meaning.
The idea that you should go kanji->reading->meaning seems a little ridiculous as it bypasses the whole point of using kanji at all.
If the meaning of the individual kanji 完 has nothing to do with the meaning of the compound 完結, why was that kanji selected for that word?Oh, I just remembered! I can participate in this thread since I’m technically in grad school. Going for a masters in curriculum design with a content specialization in physics at GVSU. I found out I was coming to Japan shortly after I enrolled in the program and never took any classes and won’t until I move back to the States (if I move back to the States).
I think the use of grammar you haven’t studied yet is not a bad thing. It means you get more natural sounding sentences. Just focus on understanding the things you&re currently studying and guess the rest form context if you can, if you can’t, don’t sweat it.
なる is 鳴る which uses the same kanji as 鳴く which is used for animal sounds like mew and chirp and stuff. The 鳴る version is for things like that but not animals, phones, squeaky hinges, etc.
Not sure about the second part, could just be a different style than English. Maybe the と言う just always follows quotes directly to avoid confusion between
「あの・・・」田中さんは話し出しました。
Tanaka said “duuuh…”
and
「あの・・・田中さん」は話し出しました。
(Somebody) said “duuuh…Mr. Tanaka.”
sometimes は is used that way to emphasize things.And don’t worry about the kanji use, I don’t think there are any real set rules on when to use it and when not. It depends on the person writing.
I’m not sure if the grammar in that sentence is completely right (that’s not to say it’s wrong, I just don’t know) but the phrase 今の日本にある is modifying the noun ラーメン屋. 日本にある means “in Japan” so the whole shebang is “Ramen shops in (modern/current/today’s) Japan…” and is the topic of the sentence.
Not sure about の. I’ve had male students ask me questions with の…but they’re kids so…
To you young sprats just setting out on the fabulous road to university life, what are you planning on studying? Major? Minor? Focus? Concentration? Whateverit’scalledinothercountries?
I know quite a few people who majored in Japanese and I would say you’d be better off focusing on something else. You can study Japanese just as effectively on your own, probably more so. Then you can walk out with some sort of skill set on top of being able to speak Japanese.
Yes, you have to insert the tags manually. This forum is still a bit in the “janky” phase. When I recommended the readthekanji site, I wanted to give credit to the person who pointed it out to me but, alas, the forum has no search function and I couldn’t find the thread.
I know what video you’re talking about. (Personally I can’t stand that guy.) I don’t think anyone would thing negatively of you for not being King Karate as long as you weren’t boasting about how awesome you are (as the guy in the video implies everyone from every country but Japan would do).
What I think is funny is that I get asked a lot by the kids what club I was in in junior high. I then have to explain to them that we didn’t have clubs.
“So you didn’t play any sports?! or anything?!”
“Actually, I played baseball and street hockey and basketball and soccer and football and video games and guitar and went on bike rides or to the mall. I did whatever I wanted.”
“WHA?!?!”
I’m not saying the way they do things here is wrong or worse, but it just seems that way to me. I’m aware of my bias.A similar thing happens when you explain that vacations, at least in the States, are actually vacations. Here the idea is if you don’t have to go to class you have more time for homework.
For me, kanji has made learning vocabulary much easier than it was when I was trying to learn strictly by hiragana. I’m not saying that you have to learn all the kanji before getting your feet wet with vocab, but don’t stress out about it. I would suggest jumping on the kanji boat pretty quick though. “Remembering the Kanji” is recommended by a lot of people on this forum (and others). You might want to look at the site readthekanji.com as well. I liked it so much I signed up for the pay version. It gives vocabulary and kanji by JLPT level. One downside is that is doesn’t quiz you on any vocabulary without kanji.
In general digital clocks will display the time in 24 hours. Analog clocks, of course, use 12. Written, I’ve seen more 24hr that 12hr, speaking, I would say they are used about the same. If AM/PM is implied, as in English, it’s not mentioned. If you said you went to bed at 10:30, you don’t need to say PM. In more ambiguous cases, AM/PM is designated by 午前/午後 (ごぜん/ごご)：
午前３時
午後３時 etcBoth
I think the te-iru form is used when other people are thinking about something….I could be wrong.
