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 ...

Conversation goes: A: まだひきずっていたのか B: え、お前忘れたの？ギスってたの俺だけ？びっくりする B: 次はねぇぞ The ギス I know means having a cold atmosphere or strained relationship. But here, I am not sure I get what it means.

According to Wikipedia (and some posters here), Kagoshima Japanese resists the じ・ぢ and ず・づ mergers, much in the same way that various English dialects retain differences between words like meet and ...

I noticed that in the case of nouns, we can use either of these: Ｎのとおりに Ｎどおりに But this seems to be case-specific. When or in which circumstances do we use the latter?

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?

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 sentence ...

Sorry if this has been answered before, but I couldn't find it. I understand that when the on'yomi reading is used, this is associated with words with a more "literary" feeling or with written usage. ...

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 ...

Can somebody explain to me the difference between と共{とも}に and に伴{ともな}って？ I believe that sometimes they can be used interchangeably, but not always. Moreover, their basic meanings also seem to differ. ...

この本は読むのに簡単だ。This book is easy to read. この本は読むのが簡単だ。This book is easy to read. I was wondering if anyone could explain to me how these two readings differ in nuance? When there is a sentence like ...

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 ...

I've started to notice this, and I'm not sure whether my eyes are deceiving me or not, but it seems as if several, but not all loans have a high statistical probability of vowels being reduced/...

When I listen to Japanese people speak, I usually hear them say ないで{HLL} and なくて{HLL}, with the pitch drop always placed on な, no matter the verb. But I might just be hearing things wrong. However, I ...

I recently learned that the symbol 〼, called 枡記号【ますきごう】, can be used as a phonetic shorthand for ます, as in 豆腐あり[〼]【ます】. In a similar vein, I am aware that 〆 is used as a shorthand for しめ in 〆切【しめきり】 = ...

These other apposition-with-name variants are readily apparent to me: Name as appositive genitive 富士の山 = the mountain of Fuji Name modified by non-restrictive appositive 私の友人のAさん = A-san, my friend,...

I've been reading through Imabi, and one of the notes on the site was about inappropriate use of として and にとって in contexts of contrast and although phrases. These three were listed as examples of ...

In this post, I insisted that AはBにしてもらう is synonymous to BはAにしてくれる but not necessarily to BはAにしてやる / あげる. However, there was a counterargument that says you can't use くれる unless the speaker is ...

The phrase Nなく means "without N" and is used to modify verbs, as in: 彼は私を躊躇なく殴った。 He hit me without hesitation. In sentences like this, is it ungrammatical or unnatural to say Nがなく instead of ...

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-...

The topic is Gilgamesh here. 「英霊の座」スレ住民。タンクトップにジャージのズボン、バンダナに指抜きグローブ姿の立派な引きこもりニートで、その上セイバーのストーカーでもある。遠坂邸に居候しており、カソックにフリルのエプロン姿の家政婦のおじさんが生活全般の面倒を見ている。 いつも自信満々に全く説得力皆無のアドバイスを戦車男に焚き付けては、...

I'm pretty sure that there's a lot more you can do with 限る than there is with 限定する, (When I looked up 限る, I saw a lot of different usages, such as it meaning "is the best," or "nothing is better than,"...

I think they both mean that you have to do something because there is a social pression like なければならい、but I'm not certain that I can use them interchangeably. Could somebody confirm it?

A 「宿題はもう出しましたか」 B 「いいえ。昨日宿題がありましたか。私は___」 知りませんでした 知っていませんでした 覚えません 覚えませんでした I am a little confused because I don't quite catch the difference between the first two options. There was a similar ...

スタミナ苑, 清月苑, 叙苑, 京城苑, etc. are all real yakiniku places in Japan. I don't see the character 苑 in the names of any other type of cuisine there.

According to this question. Ending a sentence with さ is a colloquial way of to make a sentence more playfully assertive. But I noticed that ね is also used to end a sentence and the meaning to me seems ...

I should preface this by saying that I myself am fairly young (a teenager) and speak primarily to other young people (while I may not know their exact age, it's safe to assume the other people I speak ...

I've come across the sentence 父は休みの日はずっとテレビを見ている。(My father spends his days off watching television all the time.) where it doubles in using the は particle. From another post, it seems that this ...

Are these sentences correct? クリスマスにパソコンを買った。 クリスマスのときパソコンを買った。 クリスマスのときにパソコンを買った。 What is the difference when using に、とき, ときに?

I saw a movie labeled インディペンデント作品 The adjective インディペンデント does not end in i and is followed by neither na nor no here. Is this meant as a strange compound noun (katakana + kanji)? Or is this a ...

In this answer it is said that the usage of なくて is narrower than ないで(ないで can always replace なくて according to the logic explained and is ambiguous because of that) But in this question, the answer says ...

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

So when connecting い adjectives you go from い to くて Like: おもしろい 楽しい -> おもしろくて楽しいです。= interesting and fun And with な adjectives you add で Like: きれいな やさしい -> きれいでやさしいです = pretty and kind So what ...

This phrase showed up in one my phrase books with the translation of "Best Wishes" but I'm curious if it can be used to sign off letters and emails with the same casual politeness that the phrase ...

What does the じゃもの in 春じゃもの mean? The phrase is a koto song title, so I can't give much context. I think my teacher said it meant something like "clearly", or "the essence of". But I can't remember, ...

The structure strikes me because the underlying transformation seems to be like this: [　あなたが　]　[　この文の　　～ところを　]　[　おかしいと　]　思う [　あなたが　]　[　この文の　　＿＿＿＿＿　]　[　おかしいと　]　思う　ところは～ Another similar example is: [　...

I came across 当て字 in my N1 vocabulary list, and while I think I understand what it is from the definition "kanji used as a phonetic symbol, rather than for its meaning", I'm not sure what the point of ...

I came accross the following passage in my textbook: ゆとり教育で学校で教える内容が減らされたため、その教育を受けた子供達は常識的に誰でも知っているはずのことでさえ知らないという現象も出てきた。 I can understand the meaning of the sentence, as "Due to the decrease ...

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 ...

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 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: ...

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. 大{...

Can you please help me with this phrase please, "時間{じかん}は十分{じゅうぶん}にあるので,　急{いそ}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.🌸

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 ...

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 ...

I'm a total newbie learning japanese as you will see, so please be patient with me. I have this sentence from my textbook: Shiken no toki jisho o minai de kudasai! Because it was a new lesson, I ...

手を上げてない人は私だけです。 上げてない is the negative form of てある right? Most people would omit the い in ている. So for me it is hard to differentiate if てある or ている is used since both sounds the same (negative only). ...

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. ...

「一時はどうなることかと思ったけど、怪我の功名ってやつね。」 I also found the expression 一時はどうなるかと思った(「At one point [For a while] I was really worried.) in a dictionary. Are both 一時はどうなることかと思った and 一時はどうなるかと思った the same? If not, ...

『それにしても、随分と思い切りましたわね、士道さん』 狂三が、面白がるような口調で言ってくる。士道は一瞬口ごもってから返した。 「……仕方ねえだろ。それに、狂三だって賛成したじゃねえかよ」 『まあ、それはそれですけれど。ーー確かに、折紙さんが現れる前に<ファントム>を追い払うことができたのなら、折紙さんはそもそも攻撃する目標を失うわけですし』 The context is that ...