All Questions

This is somewhat related to the discussion of classical auxiliary verb ふ, mentioned in the answer to snailboat's question, What is the わ in 忌まわしい and 嘆かわしい?. Another apparent iterative / repetitive ...

The Okinawan word for "Okinawa" is ウチナー, for "person" is チュ, and for "Okinawan" (person) is ウチナーンチュ. I'd like to know where this ン comes from between the part for "Okinawa" and the part for "person". ...

I've seen that 上京する "going to Tokyo", 来阪する "going to Osaka" are used to refer to visiting these cities. What other terms are in use for visiting other cities? Which of them are commonly understood?

The situation (story from Edo period, but in contemporary Japanese, at most stylised on old language): three thieves A, B, and C working in a group. Pickpocket A is caught in a crowd, B disappears ...

Is it grammatically correct to say “Noun + という + Noun”? Or I have to say “Noun + だ + という+ Noun” ? Or is it a same thing with difference in an informal/formal speech ?

I noticed that on Japanese 履歴書s, graduating from graduate school is marked with 修了 instead of 卒業 like for undergraduate and primary/secondary education. I'm curious as to the reason this difference ...

How has the percentage of writing using each script changed since 1945? With script reform, increasing influx of loanwords, and stylistic choices, several factors affect how much certain parts of the ...

As I understand fo now 第 [dai-] and 目 [-me] both turn 5 to fifth. 五匹の犬 [go-hiki no inu] five dogs 五匹目の犬 [go-hiki-me no inu] the fifth dog Here everything is clear. Articles and books say you ...

When I learnt Japanese I was taught that a transitive verb in its "te form" followed by the verb "iru" represents a continuous action. However, this is not the case with intransitive verbs which ...

I didn't see a duplicate for this in the similar questions, so here goes. Is there either a list of words like this, or a name for this type of word (made of two very rare/complex kanji, but the word ...

日本語を習う時はローマ字を使わない方が良いと思われる。 日本の将来の見込みは暗いように思われる。 彼は金持ちであるように思われる。 Why does the first one use と and the second and third one use ように?

I believe 「ここに住所を書いてくださいますか？」 means “Could you please write the address here?” And 「ここに住所を書いてくださいませんか？」 means “Would you please write the address here?” An exercise I’m doing shows the second ...

I'm writing a simple Japanese skit for my class and there is a place where an ancient samurai needs to speak a few sentences of Classical Japanese. I can mostly make the sentences, but it seems weird ...

This is related to Beyblade, regarding a team exclusive to a game that didn't get translated to English. Each blader has their own holy beast to command and I'm not getting the name of one of them. ...

トイレに行っているあいだに電車が行ってしまった。 The choices were either あいだ or ところ but the answer is あいだ. Google translate it : The train went while I was in the bathroom. I thought it meant : I was about to go in ...

Inspired by this question, I'm curious as to whether there are similar guidelines for the length of Japanese sentences (Maybe in Japanese clauses are more relevant?) to maximize readability, whether ...

I'll be taking a written test in a few weeks to become a part-time translator for an automotive client; they sent me some practice documents in the meantime. I am having issues at the moment, since ...

Should I use (に or で) for the following lines? Since they are time periods, I thought に would be correct, according to Times The particle ni is usually used with times: Go-ji ni ...

I understand that である is most commonly used to replace だ/です at the end of a sentence in written expressions. But outside this usage, I can't find much explanation on how to use this structure. In ...

These two characters are discussing ヒューバート in the below, and about how he lacks self awareness. However I am not sure why 気にされる was used instead of 気にする here. I know that される can be used as an ...

My impression when using conditionals, most of the time, you lose the ability to express desire. For example, when conjugating to -たら、you have to use the past tense of the verb. Is it grammatically ...

銀行に変化を促しているのがタイの中央銀行です。 日本で言えば、日銀が腰を上げて、変革の旗振り役をしているといったところです。(source) Could we replace といったところです by というところです here? If yes, what would be the difference? If not, why?

Recently, I was given a copy of Complete Course of Japanese Conversation-Grammar by Oreste and Enko Elisa Vaccari. As it dates back to 1967, I was expecting at least a few things to be a bit old-...

In the course of my study I've come across several words which all seemed to have a high degree of overlap, in that they all essentially meant 'to tease, to bully, to torment'. If possible I'd like to ...

What exactly is the difference between these two phrases. How does けど/が affect the meaning and how does it relate to its meaning of 'but'?

I've been trying to grasp how ん sounds when placed after a vowel. Apparently the vowel becomes nasalized (and extended?) but does it get rid of the n sound completely then? If so wouldn't ほん have its ...

This question is based on my somewhat limited understanding and observation of places I have been to so I may be falling victim to a bad sample size. If that is the case, please alert me. In the ...

I asked a Japanese friend of mine whether I can rephrase the following two sentences with the bold words: これがかの有名なマリー・アントワネットが座った椅子ったって、今見て彼女がいるわけじゃないのにね。(original) これがかの有名なマリー・...

I've searched them online, but still couldn't distinguish these two. I know: ①The former is to remark or to express a strong feeling. ②The later is more about personal emotion, obligation and social ...

I am reading a selection from A Japanese Reader and am trying to figure out the meaning of this passage, especially the usage of 「これに変わって」: 古い行事のすべてをそのままに行うことは生活様式が異なってきた今日{こんにち}、無理であろうし、...

While studying grammar I noticed that some words require using である/な when used with a noun/な-adjective respectively. I wanted to see if there was a pattern between which words required them and which ...

Recently I read though the article addressing the question (んだから vs んだ) where it explains the usage of のだから as: １）話し手も聞き手も知っている事柄に用いられ、「聞き手（あなた）も知ってはいるが、その認識が十分でない」ことを知らせようとする話し手の強い気持ちが入る。 ２）...

日本に来た2日後にこの本を買った。 日本に来て2日後にこの本を買った。 日本に来てから2日後にこの本を買った。 I created these sentences from similar-looking examples I found on Google. Are they all grammatical? These all mean "I bought this book two ...

There are three variations on this phrase that I can find in Google, and I'm not sure whether all three are really used, or how frequently. But I am confused about the differences between them. ...

I want to know if there's a grammar structure that can be used when you want to know the extent of an adjective. E.g. 会長は若いね　＞＞　How young is he? この映画はとっても長いよ！　＞＞　How long is it? ...

This is what I know. 1) Unlike, say, -p, the final -t of Chinese readings was maintained in careful speech at least as long as the Christian resources of the XVIth century (Frellesvig 2010: 316-7). ...

鳥の絵が得意になり、クリスマスにハトの絵を贈ってくれるようにもなった。 I cannot understand the meaning of ようにもなった in this sentence. I know that 鳥の絵が得意になり、 means "I became good/strong at drawing birds and..." ...

Can someone please explain the bold grammar? せんてんてき 【先天的】 《ダナ》生まれながらにして持っていること

Maybe this is a bit too hypothetical, but I thought it was an interesting question nonetheless. I was writing a business email in Japanese, using pretty formal language, on behalf of someone who ...

So in most languages we can either put text in italics or between asterisks to indicate what the speaker is doing. For instance: Looking up It will be raining soon Or on the Internet: *chewing your ...

I feel like （私は）彼の前です。 means the same thing as （私は）彼の前にいます。 (I am in front of him.) Also 本はどこですか。and 本はどこにありますか。 (Where is the book?) Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a rule for determining ...

This will be a long question. I referred to the other questions that were already answered, Difference between 前に and うちに When describing time span, are 間 {あいだ} and 内 {うち} interchangeable? What'...

This article lists many examples of using ものだ to articulate "deep concern." The author of this article explains that when you connect words which indicate desire like …たい and 欲しい with ものだ, your speech ...

I read somewhere that 形容動詞 are a special subclass of nouns. Contrarily 形容詞, the い adjectives, are actually a lot more similar to verbs. During the time that I have been learning Japanese language (...

I'm writing somthing for my Japanese class currently, and I wrote 「おいしい食べ物のあるレストラン」and I thought that when ある was modifying a noun you could change it to の but my teacher corrected it to が. Are there ...

"A:　いつごろ切符を予約しましたか。 　B:　３か月前です”　why should it be です but not でした?

Ok, so I found this phrase in regards to a profile of a character and there's a list given with his abilities and such. The first thing in that list was that it said that the character has good ...

When asking someone else to do a favour, one would append ください or くれる. For example, 手伝ってください or 手伝ってくれる to either mean "please help me" in the former case and "can you help me" in the latter case. ...

I have read in several sources that it is grammatically incorrect to use は (topic particle) in relative clauses. However, I am almost certain that I have seen constructions like the following: ...

Can you please help me with this phrase please, "時間は十分にあるので,　急ぐことはありません。" What is the meaning (or the grammatical role) of に in 十分に?? Thanks in advance.🌸