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Tl;Dr: These are the sentences

"これは私のためですか?” ”私は里保さんのために何か買いたいです。”

Hello everyone! Recently, I've been using a program to help me with my Japanese grammar, as I still struggle with forming sentences.

However, I noticed that this program tends to have some phrases that I feel are unnatural in actual conversation, at least from what I've been told.

Right now, the program is trying to teach me to use the word "Tame", which I've always considered to be "For the sake of" or something of equal weight. This program is implying that it can be used as just a replacement for the English word "for," as in "I bought some candy for Suzuki-san." or "This is for you."

Have I been look at the word Tame wrong this entire time, or is this one of those cases of "Well, you're not technically wrong, but it's really unnatural."

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I would use に in normal/daily conversation, as in...

  • 「これは私のためですか?」(unnatural) → 「これ(は)、私(ですか)?」
  • 「私は里保さんのために何か買いたいです。」(ok, but more naturally/casually) → 「私は里保さん何か買いたいです。」
  • "I bought some candy for Suzuki-san." → 「鈴木さんお菓子を買いました。」
  • "This is for you." → 「これ、あなた。」「[name]さん。」 (or 「これはあなたの。」「これはあなたの分。」「はい、どうぞ。」 etc. depending on the context)

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