19
votes
Accepted
"As in" in japanese
You can simply use の:
今日は「評論」の「評」の漢字を覚えました。
ブラボーのB、デルタのD
「服を着る」の「着る」じゃなくて、「髪の毛を切る」方の「切る」です。
- 331k
16
votes
Accepted
Are Japanese modifiers "greedy", "anti-greedy", or do they mean whatever people choose them to mean?
Unfortunately, there is no easy and clear rule to determine which parsing strategy is correct. The general rule is "Choose the shortest and simplest parsing strategy as long as it makes sense". It ...
- 331k
16
votes
Accepted
Are these two sentences equivalent? 「トイレはあそこです。」、「あそこはトイレです。」
Basically your understanding is correct. Both are natural by themselves, but used in different contexts.
Suppose you have a friend in your new house.
トイレはあそこです
is an answer to the question "...
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14
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of 上げて落としたみてー?
みてー is a contracted form of みたい ("is like ～"). It's an instance of /ai/-to-/ee/ contraction. 上げて is the te-form of 上げる, and 落とす is a verb. Therefore a very literal translation is "It's like I raised ...
- 331k
13
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of しも?
I'm afraid to say that いつしも is very rare, and you can use it naturally only in literary sentences. ～しも was a grammatical element in archaic Japanese (it was a kind of intensifier similar to nothing ...
- 331k
12
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between 日本人の学生 and 日本の学生 ?
A の B has many meanings, depending on the relationship of A and B:
(possession/affiliation/belonging) B of A, A's B, B which belongs to A
彼の友達 his friend, a friend of his
私の車 my car
日本の都市 Japanese ...
- 331k
12
votes
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Writing a story in Japanese: how to handle dialogue
Can it work the same way in English, where I can remove the dialogue tag (he said, she said) when my speakers are established? Can I also mix in action between the dialogue while doing this?
Yes.
...
- 66.3k
11
votes
Listing things off: Using Hitotsu repeatedly
Using 一つ for every entry is actually an older and more traditional style of listing than using sequential numbers. Historically, Japan didn't have a tradition of assigning numbers to listed items; ...
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10
votes
What is 'called' in Japanese?
This is a case where you don't necessarily need to do a direct translation from English and include every word. You can just say
私の町は「name of your city」です。
If your "city" is fairly well-known (...
- 44.5k
10
votes
Structure: thing を numeral (or numeral and counter) ください
Think like this:
All nouns in Japanese are uncountable. You can't count apples any more than you count water or light. Thus under Japanese grammar you always have to say "two 'objects' of apple", "...
- 52.4k
10
votes
Accepted
か + と particles with a non-quotation verb
「か」 as you may know is a particle that shows uncertainty, usually to create a question. Here, even though it is not what we call in english a question, it acts like exactly like it.
「と」 is the ...
- 504
10
votes
Accepted
JLPT sentence order section
Rather than just solving your exercise (which is not the point of this website anyway) I'll try to give you general suggestions about how to approach this kind of problem.
1. Understand the context.
...
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10
votes
Accepted
Do I have a good grasp on the basics of what the continuative form is?
連用形 (usually translated as "continuative form") is one of "the basic 6 conjugation forms" of Japanese verbs/adjectives. For the ichidan verb 食べる, its 連用形 is 食べ. For godan verbs, many of them have two ...
- 331k
10
votes
How can I say "to be tired of verbING" in Japanese?
Yes, but it has a nuance like "I am tired because I am verb+ing". I think のに appropriates for your sentence such as 一日中家にいるのに疲れる.
When I read dictionaries, I noticed that these words "tired", "bored",...
- 24.3k
9
votes
Usage of ”し” particle
In your example:
結婚式ってだいたいいくらかかるんですか？
えと。。。１００万円っていうのもありますし、５万もありますよ。
The し is used to give options, indicating 「前に述べる事柄が、後に述べる事柄と対比的な関係であること」, "what's stated first has a contrastive relation ...
- 66.3k
9
votes
Accepted
「が」vs「の」 with possessives
が for possession was more common in old Japanese.
But it's rare today and it only remains in proverbs (e.g. [人間]{にんげん}[万事]{ばんじ}[塞翁]{さいおう}が[馬]{うま}) and other fixed phrases.
One exception is [我]{わ}が. ...
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9
votes
Accepted
Why is 街に歩く not grammatical?
According to a classic explanation, "pure motion verbs" such as 行く, 来る, 動く, 入る and 移動する can take both ～に and ～へ, but "motion manner verbs" such as 走る, 泳ぐ, 歩く and 飛ぶ tend not to take ～に. Verbs in the ...
- 331k
9
votes
Accepted
Ways to specify "intra-" or "extra-" usage of 北・南・東・西
Place + の + 東/西/南/北 + にある is indeed ambiguous, but you can usually determine the meaning in one way with the aid of the context and some background knowledge:
伏見桃山城は京都の南にある。
Fushimi-Momoyama Castle ...
- 331k
8
votes
Accepted
Structure: thing を numeral (or numeral and counter) ください
The following Wikipedia article on Japanese counter word explains well about how the counter words or counters (josūshi 助数詞) work in Japanese.
In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot ...
- 2,108
8
votes
Accepted
Translating 別として
Your translation is really close! You should probably be able to understand it if you took a look at the meaning of 別として here. If not, the rest of the stuff I've written below should help you get ...
- 7,109
8
votes
Accepted
what does としてもだ mean in this sentence?
This だ is optional, but it works like a sentence-end/filler particle that adds an emphasis to the speaker's opinion. It's relatively masculine. This だ to emphasize ても/でも is uncommon in real-life ...
- 331k
8
votes
Accepted
Unable to interpret these sentences: 「まいばんくにのかぞくにでんわします」「このまちにはゆうめいな建物があります」
First sentence
まいばん くにの かぞくに でんわします。
I call my family at my home country every evening.
First of all, the family is not making the call, but someone (probably the speaker, it could be someone ...
- 6,837
7
votes
using の with と,で, から, まで
In English, "in ～", "from ～" and so on modifies something both adverbially and adjectivally. In Japanese, you have to distinguish. Since more and more questions are being marked as ...
- 331k
7
votes
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Is there a shorter version of saying "これからは、日本語を学ぶために全力を尽くします。"?
"From now on, I will do my best to learn Japanese."
これからは、日本語を学ぶために全力を尽くします。
When we learn English language, we Japanese usually say not 英語｛えいご｝を学｛まな｝ぶ, but say 英語｛えいご｝を勉強｛べんきょう｝する. And, the ...
- 15.4k
7
votes
Accepted
How to express a comparison between two elements in two different fields
You can turn the adjectives into nouns and compare them like such.
[noun1] の [adjective1] さは、 [noun2] の [adjective2] さより ___ 。
For example:
ジョンさんの[賢]{かしこ}さは、メアリーさんの[美]{うつく}しさより[印象的]{いんしょうてき}だ。 ...
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7
votes
Accepted
"ための x ために" in this phrases
私の最愛の祖母のために幸せな記念日
私の最愛の祖母のための幸せな記念日
ために is adverbial and ための is adjectival. So grammatically speaking you use ための here so that 私の最愛の祖母のための can modify the noun phrase 幸せな記念日. But... as you say you ...
- 66.3k
7
votes
オタクの僕の弟 - Does the "otaku" refer to me or my brother?
Both interpretations are possible, but I think this title probably means "my little brother must have many friends since he is an otaku" rather than "my little brother must have many friends since I ...
- 331k
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