10
votes
Accepted
Is there anything wrong with the sentence "今午前七時間です"?
Adding 間 turns a fixed point in time into a period of time. "It's 7 o'clock" is a fixed time so it would just be 七時. You would add 間 if you wanted to say that you'd been doing something for ...
- 29.4k
8
votes
Does the ゛ have any use?
I'm not 100% sure what you're asking here, but ゛ when used by itself actually has a number of different usages.
Generally, ゛ (Dakuten) are not written separately. For example, "か" "ka" becomes "が" "...
- 13.6k
7
votes
Accepted
Can I use a Chinese newspaper to learn kanji radicals and maybe some kanji?
It is not a good idea to learn Japanese Kanji reading Chinese newspapers. Of course, a majority of Chinese characters used both in China and Japan have same or similar meanings, however, the grammar ...
- 2,088
5
votes
Do non-native speakers of English find gairaigo more difficult to learn than native speakers of English?
I can definitely say I have seen a trend among people with 漢字圏 backgrounds to avoid カタカナ loanwords in favor of 漢字, where there is an equivalent (regardless of how unnatural it might sound). In those ...
- 2,195
5
votes
What are these two characters marked red? い＿める and いじめ＿いよォ?
「いぢめる？」
「いじめないよォ」
Note, the word is いじめる and is normally never spelled いぢめる. It seems spelling it that way is a quirk of this character.
(Normally じ and ぢ would be pronounced the same (ji), but ...
4
votes
Accepted
English as a second language, Japanese as a third language -learning it in english, or mother language?
Well, I wouldn't say that I have mastered it, but I have come a long way learning Japanese almost exclusively through English material.
My first language is Swedish, but English is mandatory in ...
- 266
4
votes
Accepted
Can I use only hiragana when writing words/sentences?
First of all, I'd get a handle on learning the two sets of kana before even starting with kanji.
Now for your actual question: Yes, it is 100% okay to write something entirely in hiragana. The use of ...
- 2,359
4
votes
Accepted
About ではない, のか and など
ではないのか is one phrase. It means "wonder","suspect". もしかしたら～ではないのか means "I wonder that maybe ～."
- 24.1k
4
votes
Is There a Good Guide to Thinking in Japanese?
You don't 'learn to think in Japanese'. No, you 'learn Japanese', then you 'think in it'.
Sorry if that sounds condescending, but what I mean is that you will think in Japanese once you've learned to ...
- 3,412
4
votes
Accepted
Optimisation of vocabulary learning
I've long been wanting to create a list of kanji (say, all jōyō kanji) ordered by weight, where the weight is determined by the frequency of the kanji itself and by the weight of all those kanji in ...
- 47.9k
4
votes
How do the Japanese ask questions about language?
English
Since the question seems asking for Japanese translation, I know that pure translation is a violation of the rules of this site, but I dare to answer the question because I would like to tell ...
- 15.3k
4
votes
Accepted
ズボン pronunciation variation & explanation for
ズボン is one of the words that is pronounced differently depending on the speaker. Typically it's pronounced as ズボン【HLL】, but elder people tend to prefer ズボン【LHL】. Both pronunciations are widely ...
- 306k
3
votes
3
votes
Accepted
Is my hiragana/katakana handwriting good or understandable?
Only real issue is that your ク looks a bit like カ, everything else is legible.
3
votes
Na adjectivs or i adjectives
Judging by its form, きらい could be an i-adjective, but it's actually a na-adjective. This is in analogy to すき, so you can view them as a pair.
But more importantly, things like these can be figured ...
- 1,587
3
votes
Accepted
What are these two characters marked red? い＿める and いじめ＿いよォ?
To actually answer the question, the characters are な (na) and ぢ (pronounced ji, but di in certain romanisations).
To address the meaning of what's being said, I understand that there is a slight ...
- 3,707
3
votes
Accepted
Asking a question with a negative verb (見なかった?)
When you say 変な子見なかった？, you hope that he saw the kid or you think he probably saw the kid.
小学生の女の子来ませんでしたか？
Did an elementary school girl come here?
When you say this, the situation will be like ...
- 1,020
3
votes
Question about original meaning of primitives in Heisig method
As dROOOze has already mentioned, and as Heisig has mentioned himself, the primitive's meanings are made up, in part or in full. I suggest you read the preface.
The basic alphabet of the ...
- 2,382
3
votes
Accepted
Trying to translate an SFX but the characters look confusing
It's もわっ…. It's a mimetic word that describes smoke, moisture, smell or something similar started to fill the atmosphere. This person seems to be sweating, so it may be describing the smelly moisture ...
- 306k
3
votes
Accepted
Is Duolingo's pronunciation decent or good?
In short:
Duolingo's Japanese pronunciation quality is not perfect. Most Japanese people would sense that it's not a native speaker here and there. Now that said it's not so bad that one would have ...
- 15.6k
2
votes
Using -ndesu correctly?
It is literary translated as "まず、お手洗いに行かせて(ください)" and "まず、お手洗いにいきたいんです" is translated as "First, I want to go to the washroom". However it is probably understood as "まず、お手洗いに行かせて(ください)" when you said ...
- 24.1k
2
votes
Does 「私は緊張してです私の日本語学習ついて」 read properly?
As other people mentioned in the comments, your grammar is off in that sentence. I would phrase it like this:
私は日本語を勉強することについて不安に思っています。
Side note: Even in English, I think the sentence "I'm ...
- 870
2
votes
2
votes
Can Sempai be used to address a student of the same year/age
Yes, "sempai" can be used to address a student of the same age, or even possibly someone of the same year, if he/she entered the group before you (for example, if he/she joined the club in the spring ...
- 2,153
2
votes
Do non-native speakers of English find gairaigo more difficult to learn than native speakers of English?
(Seems very opinion-based to me, but nevertheless)
I'm not so sure it's easier for native English speakers for different reasons :
Some 外来語 don't come from English : アルバイト (from "Arbeit" in german), ...
- 1,991
2
votes
Pronunciation of 家
家 is read and pronounced as いえ - i-e (yi-eh) or うち - u-chi.
In comparison, うち sounds to me more informal, psychological, and subjective than いえ, which sounds formal, pysical and objective, like home ...
- 9,505
2
votes
"This is a pen." and "I am a boy." -- What are the equivalent sentences for Jp learners?
The following may be one:
わたし は げんき です。
Or perhaps the whole phrase:
はじめまして。わたしはnameです。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。
- 958
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