texts:
What is the difference between '礼', '礼儀', '礼に', '敬礼', and 'お辞儀'?
More generally, what does '礼' mean when used stand-alone as a noun?  Can '礼' be used stand-alone or would that be considered unusual?
Context: I am asking both about in regular (informal) speech, and writing.
Could '礼' be used stand-alone as say, a chapter to a book?
As I understand it:

'礼儀' refers to manners as a whole
'礼に' refers to politeness or polite acts
'お辞儀' refers to bowing as a whole, including specific sub-categories like '座礼', or '敬礼'

Google translates '礼' as "thanks", but that seems somewhat inconsistent (or at least imprecise) when compared to other research.  Would it be reasonable to disregard this translation?
Would it be correct to think of '礼' as literally meaning 'bow', or more generally referring to greetings overall?
Research:

This question on the difference between "マナー” and "礼儀" gave me an idiomatic sense of what could be called 'courtesy' (or more specifically, the expression 'common courtesy', as separate from politeness) in English.

I'm looking to understand how '礼に' is used (twice) in this karate-do precept - would it be correct to say the author is referring only to politeness or courtesy, and not to the physical act of bowing? I'm not sure.

Karate-do begins and ends with bowing.
一、空手道は礼に始まり礼に終る事を忘るな
Hitotsu, karate-do wa rei ni hajimari rei ni owaru koto o wasuruna

I asked a friend about their experience at a Japanese immersion school, and they mentioned classes ending with the instructor saying '礼': the class was expected to bow after hearing this.  Does this seem like a typical experience (which would indicate common usage), or does it strike you as unusual?

I have also seen the English word 'bow' translated as: '船首', '会釈', and '一礼' - what do these words mean?  How are these words used in general speech?   Or do they have limited use outside of conversations specifically about etiquette and forms of bowing?


texts: Where does the verbal form しとく come from?

texts:
In a manga I am currently reading, one of the character exclaims:

  安心しな。秘密に しとく から。

The general meaning of the second part ("I'll keep it a secret") is quite obvious, and it seems that "しとく" (ostensibly derived from し, with a suffix appended) has more or less the same meaning as plain "する". But I am curious about the grammatical (or dialectal?) construct used here, its usage, nuance etc.

The closest to an explanation I could find, was this verb in WWWJDIC:

  とく  (v5k) to do something in readiness for, to get something (needful) done

... but I must admit I'm still at a loss as to why it would be used as an auxiliary here.

What is the exact nuance (and grammatical origin) of that "しとく" and does the "とく" suffix work with other verbs?


texts:
相手は多分徒歩、尾行を悟らせつつ悟らせない、という絶妙な距離でいるからには、私の走りに対応出来るとも思えない

I'm having difficulty understanding this part 悟らせつつ悟らせない

Is this some kind of combination between causative and passive ?


texts:
Why is the name 五右衛門 read as ごえもん?
How can the three kanji 五右衛 be read with only two syllables?


texts:
In Japanese class, we were always taught that the negative of 来{く}る is 来{こ}ない (not きない). In Japan, though, I've heard several native speakers use きない.
I have two questions about きない.

Who uses きない? People from rural areas? Rural Tohoku and Kanto regions? Is it part of a certain area's 方言?
What impression does きない give? One of my native Japanese friends got made fun of for using it, so I imagine きない is thought of as quaint or maybe uneducated by some. (Personally, I like it, though).

Thanks so much!


texts: Where does "もしもし" (moshimoshi) for answering the telephone come from?

texts: Does the term "もしもし" (moshimoshi) predate the telephone? Does it have any use besides answering the phone? Where does it come from, is it just a reduplication of "もし" (moshi) "if", and if so how does that work?


texts: Correct translation of こともない in this sentence

texts:
Just before the quoted passage, the narrator says a whistling going "Don!" happens at the same time as he stumbles and ends up stooped. Then:

  もちろん、いくら昔の話でも発車のベルは「ドン！」などとは鳴らないし、発車のベルが人を突き飛ばすこともない。

My attempted translation:

  Of course, though this happened a long time ago, it couldn't be possible that the bell would go “Don!” and send someone flying.

Here I assume こともない means "it's not possible/the case that..." Is this correct?


texts:
I encountered the following sentence in a book.

  私は彼に今晩来るのか聞いた。

Okay, I guess the meaning is easy enough: I asked him if he would come tonight. This の, however, was a slight surprise. Grammatically speaking, since it comes after 来る, it has to be nominalization of some kind. But I have no idea why か would require any kind of nominalization when it’s used for indirect speech questions.

In fact, if I had to say something like this, I would most likely say:

  彼に今晩来るかどうか聞いた。

Or even just:

  彼に今晩来るか聞いた。

I thought of three (rather unsatisfying) explanations. First one: の (or のか) is a common interrogation particle in casual speech, so one could say to a close friend: 今晩来るの（か）？
However, I highly doubt that the の in the sentence is this kind of の, since it does not sound like direct speech is quoted (at all).

My second idea would be that this の is an emphatic particle, just like when we end a sentence with のだ・んだ. But why use it here? I have no idea.

The third option is regular nominalization, which is used here for some reason. So the sentence would be (literally): I asked him if the fact that he will come is. But then, why would this structure be used at all?


texts: nanimo vs nandemo (also daredemo/daremo) 誰でも　誰も　何でも　何も

texts:
何でも食べる

何も食べない

"it is as much as something, eat." = if it's anything, i'll eat it/i eat it.

"as much as something, not eat." = if it's anything, i will not/don't eat it.

何でもない = "it is as much as something, not" =  it is not even something

何もない = "as much as something, not" = even something is not

Why does the te form of desu do this? Am I also wrong with these translations? I am also aware of 何もが, which I think makes it apparent that nanimo is a noun from the use of ga to mark the subject. Am I confused here too? Any help would be appreciated.


texts:
チケットが二枚余ってて～とかいってくる男がいたから、いらないなら２枚ともちょうだいって言っただけ
it's cuz there's a guy that said he had 2 extra tickets, "if they aren't needed, i'll accept them" is all I said.

The latter half is the speaker talking about her own remarks right? Is there a more exact way to pinpoint that other than deducing from context? (ie, only girls use ちょうだい)
is there distinction between ～てちょうだい　and ～ともちょうだい？
thank you


texts: How to parse 中国人で日本語が話せる方は、お電話ください。

texts:
I have a difficulty to parse the following sentence.

  中国人で日本語が話せる方は、お電話ください。

I just understood the following partial phrases.

中国人で means "with Chinese"
日本語が話せる方 means "person who can speak Japanese"
お電話ください means "please telephone"

I have learnt で that functions as

バイクで学校へ行きます。I go to school by a motorcycle.
家で食べます。 I eat at home.

But the particle で in question is difficult to understand.

What does the sentence actually mean and what is the usage of で in this case?


texts: 漢文・古文-type expressions that survive in modern Japanese

texts:
I was translating an academic paper that quoted some articles that were written before WW2, and I came across the expressions [noun]+たらしむべく and きたらしめる (from 来る) for the first time.

Thanks to these
posts/articles, I was able to translate the passages. But what struck me as interesting is that the person who answered the Yahoo!知恵袋 question said "if you had to forcibly translate [noun]+たらしむべく literally to get your point across, you might say であらさせるために, but this is ridiculous, so the old expression lives on in modern Japanese."

Are there any other 漢文・古文-type expressions that remain common in contemporary written Japanese? Is there a collective name for them?

I tried to Google it (sort of) and I found せしむるべし, which I also remember seeing somewhere once.

I'm looking for expressions that would prompt an average contemporary native speaker to post a question on Yahoo! Answers. I'm already familiar with stuff like べき・べく・べし, 〜ざるを得ない, using き・し instead of い as adjective endings (良き・良し).


texts:
ギュンター・メイによると、ロボットなどの機器に高速な無線リンクを追加することにより、高精度な連係やキャリブレーション（調整）が可能になり、大きな損害につながる故障や稼働停止の予測に役立つという。さらに人工知能（AI）をはじめとする高度なソフトウェアを使うことで、機器の能力をさらに向上させることもできる。
This is the Japanese translation of the original WIRED English article: https://www.wired.com/story/factory-robots-may-point-way-5g-future/
Gunther May says adding high-speed wireless links to robots and other equipment allows them to be coordinated and calibrated more precisely, helps predict costly malfunctions and downtime, and allows sophisticated software, including artificial intelligence, to be piped in to make them more capable.
There are many uses of という so I don't know what this という refers to.
Thanks for reading my question.


texts: I found out about this from what appears to be a Japanese calligrapher on YouTube. He says it's a historic version of 恋, but the only evidence of it being historical I found was from a blog with little to no information about it. Where can I find out more about this character?


texts: Positioning of small kana in compound kana

texts:
When writing compound kana the small kana is slightly lower than centre.
But is it slightly left of centre as well ?
Take じゃあ
Here we have 3 kana.
Firstly, when writing, is the total width of the space allocated to the small kana the same as if it were a big kana ?
じゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあじゃあ
じやあじやあじやあじやあじやあじやあじやあじやあじやあじやあじやあ
The font I'm using here certainly gives them equal width.
Secondly, and mainly, when writing, is the small kana slightly left of centre and hence spatially closer to じ than あ ? The typing font seems to place it central. But I read somewhere that it should be slightly left of centre of the square allocated to it.


texts:
What does ‘いてね’ mean?
What does いてね mean in ‘聴いてね’?


texts: Is 更新予約 a valid term for a "Scheduled Update"?

texts: My Samsung tablet has a setting item ソフトウェアの更新予約. Switching language to English has it "Scheduled software updates". I searched for 更新予約 on internet and did not find many hits for this term. Has Samsung got it right by labeling "Scheduled software updates" as ソフトウェアの更新予約?


texts: Is there a difference between the following two words for chopsticks ? Hashi and Otemoto

texts:
As a Japanese beginner I was familiar with the word Hashi for a while, today I learned that another word for chopsticks is Otemoto.
This word is often written on chopstick wrappers. My guess is that it is more formal than Hashi ?


texts: I'm wondering if there is much difference in the pronunciation of the words or intonation of them. Is it just the long vowel?


texts:
So this is a total re-write of my question.

Outside of uses that include travel, walking, riding, driving, going or returning or any other form of travelling and moving;

What cases would it be appropriate to use へ vs に or に vs へ?


texts: Can 物 be added to any word to make it mean "things?"

texts:
I keep seeing examples of words where 物 is tacked on the end to mean "things." 食べ物, 飲み物, つまらない物, etc. Are there any restrictions as to what can precede 物? Can I, for example, say something like 青い物, 幸せ物, or even 死に物?

I guess 食べ物 is often translated into English as the noun "food", not "edible things." Is this merely a more natural translation or does 食べ物 literally imply "anything that can be eaten" (as opposed to "things that should be/are typically eaten")?

In French, there are seemingly highly-specific verbs like jaunir (to turn yellow) and bleuir (to turn blue). They act like they follow a similar pattern whereby any color can be transformed into a verb of this sort. (My French is very rusty, so please excuse me if this is an inaccurate assumption.) Does 物 perhaps have a similar flexibility whereby 「Ｘ物」 can always mean something like "things to Ｘ?"


texts: How did 優しさ derived from 優しい? The rule is？


texts: why isn't "そなわち" in dictionaries? what does it mean?

texts:
I am pretty sure that I have heard the phrase "そなわち" used to begin sentences. Googling "そなわち" returns about 35,000 pages. Just like I remember, most use "そなわち" as a phrase at the beginning of a sentence. However, neither goo dict or jisho dict have this phrase.

what does "そなわち" mean?
Why isn't "そなわち" in either of those dictionaries?
Goo and Jisho are probably weak dictionaries. What are the jp/jp, eng/jp, jp/eng dictionaries that the moderators use?


texts:
I am reading 宇宙よりも遠い場所. Right off the beginning comes a sentence: "誰にも理解されなくたっていい".

I am sure it means "It is OK that it is not understood by anybody". However, the されなくた puzzles me:

Shouldn't ない past form be なかった?
I google 理解されなくた and Google only returns 理解されなくて.

Thanks.


texts:
This is a brief dialog from the game Tales of Graces. In the English version, it goes:

  Sophie: Pascal, what's an airhead?
  Pascal: Someone who's so smart, they can control air with their mind!

So I wanted to see how this joke would be executed in Japanese. So I found the dialog of the Japanese version, and it's:

  ソフィー：パスカル、のーてんきってなに？
  パスカル：天気を毎日おんなじにしちゃう神様の特殊スキルだね。

My best guess is "If the weather is the same every day, they get special powers from God", but I'm not entirely confident. I don't know how to parse the hiragana between 毎日 and 神様. Here is why I am having doubts:

Since the verb しちゃう precedes the noun 神様 with no conjunction separating them, it seems like "天気を毎日おんなじにしちゃう" is an adjective clause modifying 神様.
I've never seen 同じ written as おんなじ, so I'm not sure if it's just an alternate spelling, or a different word altogether.
天気 is a direct object of しちゃう (because of the を) particle. I'm not sure what it means for 天気 to be a direct object to する。
I'm not entirely clear on why the -ちゃう form is used for する. My understanding is that -ちゃう means something was done regrettably (or "finally", depending on the context), so I'm not sure how to fit it into the translation.

Can anyone give me a translation, and if you can, clarify the points I listed?


texts:
Why does this site say that そばから "Can be used only with past tense" then use it with ている？

The usage note:

  後件は良くないことが多く、過去のことにしか使えません。

The example sentence:

  雪かきをするそばから雪が積もり始めている。


texts: How do you say: "it could have been avoided" The correct way?

texts:
I tried, but ended up with this:

それは避けられたかもしれない。

But, I do not know if it is right to say it that way


texts:
I'm wondering how to express a very mild preference towards an option when being offered several choices in a conversation (e.g. when arranging a meeting time with a colleague).

I am familiar with the expressions .. ほうがいいです and .. がすきです, but both feel stronger than what I want to say.

Essentially I'm trying to complete this sentence with something natural-sounding: どちらでもいいですが、Xのほうが...??。


texts: Pronunciation of the Japanese ん and nasalized vowels

texts:
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 n sound taken off as well? But from what recordings I've been listening to I swear the ん is making a n sound.


texts:
In one panel in 犬夜叉１, the character says:

  よし、こんなもんか。

He says that after digging up a hole to hide his fellow.

I suppose that もんか is a contraction of ものか. As far as I know, that should carry a meaning of irony (as if this…). It doesn’t, however, fit there. It was his idea to dig that hole, there was no discussion about it, no objections. No conversation on that topic preceded.

Another meaning of ものか I found was to express a surprise. That fits there even less.

In the context, something like

  So, this should be enough. (The hole is big/deep enough already.)

would fit there. But that doesn’t match the Japanese version. Or does it? Is there some meaning of the ものか (or even just もんか) I’m just unaware of?


texts: I know that 赤ん坊 and 赤ちゃん are used frequently to refer to a baby but it would seem that 幼子 could also refer to a baby or an infant. In my dictionary it was even marked as "common". Now, I searched the word on google.jp and what came up on images were most definitely not babies (or at least, not any cute babies). Is this word just not used anymore?


texts:
人生の時間は有限なのである。全く当たり前のことなのだが、いつも人はそれを忘れる。忘れて他人事みたいに自分の人生を生きている。時間は前方へ流れるものと錯覚しているからである。人生は、生から死へと向かうもの。死は今ではない先のもの。しかしこれは間違いである。死は先にあるのではない。今ここにあるものだ。死によって生なのであれば、生としての今のここに、死はまさにあるではないか。

May I know what is meant by 先 in the bolded sentence? Does it mean "former" or future"?


texts:
Which is the correct one?

テレビが壊れているから、見られないんです。
テレビが壊れているから、見られていないんです。
テレビが壊れるから、見られないんです。
テレビが壊れるから、見られていないんです。
テレビが壊れたから、見られないんです。
テレビが壊れたから、見られていないんです。

When do we have to use either progressive or plain form such as in the following sentences?

このことを知っていますか。
このことを知りますか。
部屋の窓がいつも閉まるから、旅行しているかもしれない。
部屋の窓がいつも閉まっているから、旅行しているかもしれない。
部屋の窓がいつも閉まるから、旅行するかもしれない。
部屋の窓がいつも閉まっているから、旅行するかもしれない。


texts: What is the difference in meaning when 触る is used with に vs when it is used with を?

texts:
According to jisho.org, 触る is both transitive and intransitive.
How is it that it can be both? Here are two example sentences from my dictionary:

僕の車を触らないでくれ。
ぼくのカメラに触らないでくれ

What is the difference in nuance between these two sentences?


texts: Is 勇敢なアイデア the best translation for "brave ideas"

texts:
I am looking for the best translation for the concept of a "brave ideas"

Not necessarily used in a sentence. Simply the phrase "brave ideas".

Is 勇敢なアイデア correct?


texts: I need help translating as I'm confused with word usage

texts:
I need some help with a bit of the Japanese-English translation I'm currently working on.
Here is the full Japanese sentence:

  返事をした女の子がこちらに近づき、僕の手にナイフを握{にぎ}らせる。

The following is the bit of what I need help with translating in the context of the above sentence:

  ナイフを握{にぎ}らせる。

The second section directly translates to:

僕の手 - "my hand"

に - particle that represent direction of movement

ナイフ - "knife"

を - particle that means the knife is being affected by following verb event

握{にぎ}らせる - to let (someone) take hold of your hand/ grasp/ seize - verb.

Which all together translates to the following when strung together in a sentence:

  my hand is taken hold of by (someone) knife is grasped in my hand.

I'm having trouble conveying the action while using only the words/meanings that are provided in the original which I have managed to translate as:

  The girl’s response was to approach me, take hold of my hand knife
  appears in my grasped hand.

From what I know of the context, the knife is being placed? given? to the POV character by the girl before it is grasped, which is not shown in the given Japanese or translation. As pointed out in mindful's comment, the translation for

  [僕の手にナイフを握{にぎ}らせる]

is more or less "made me grip the knife in my hand".
However, my understanding of the translated context would be that the translation would be the equivalent of “the girl grasps my hand, knife appears in my grasped hand".

Is it possible for me to translate this to

  "The girl’s response is to approach me, take hold of my hand and places in my hand a knife."

while using only the words/meanings that are provided in the original Japanese?


texts:
All of the examples and questions I have seen are of the form A～たり　B～たり　する. But is it possible to use たり with three or more actions, such as A～たり　B～たり　C～たり　する?

For example, does the following sentence make sense?

  週末に、友だちに会ったり、日本語の勉強をしたり、本を読んだりします。


texts: What's the difference between たびに, ごとに and おきに?

texts:
I can't wrap my head around the difference between たびに, ごとに and おきに. I have already looked up at the answers already posted in two previous posts and on the internet, but I still don't get it.

I understand that たびに means that every time something happens the result is always the same; whereas, ごとに has basically the same meaning, but it also has the nuance of "more" as in this sentence

  "君と会うごとに不満が増してゆく"

However, there are sentences as

  "彼は会うたびに好きになる" and "私の孫は会うたびに、前より大きくなっている"

where たびに also bears the meaning of "more" and, thus, it can be replaced by ごとに. So what is the difference?

Moreover, I have the same problem with ごとに and おきに. They both mean "every", but they are not always interchangeable or they do not always bear the same meaning, as in

  "この電車は二駅おきに止まる"

and in

  "この電車は二駅ごとに止まる"

If I got it right

  "この電車は二駅おきに止まる"

means that "the train stops every tree stops", while

  "この電車は二駅ごとに止まる"

means that "the train stops every two stops".

On the other hand, in this sentence

  "私は二日ごとに花子と会っている"

ごとに and おきに are interchangeable and bear the same meaning. Can somebody help me to figure it out?


texts: Possible explanation for the ている-form also being used as past tense?

texts:
I was thrown for a loop when I found out that, in addition to describing events that are happening currently, the ている-form could also be used as past tense:

まだ食べていない。
I have not eaten yet.

I now have come up with an idea that might be able to satisfyingly explain the fact that one verb form can be used for two different tenses. It all comes down to one attribute of the て-form: The verb in the て-form does not show any tense of its own. Instead, its tense seems to be inferred by other verbs and context.

So, what if it is not one and the same ている-form that is being used for past and present, but actually two forms that differ in the hidden tense of the verb in the て-form and thus only appear to be the same?

The verb 食べる in the example above, then, would actually be past tense, which is however not visible because of the て-form superficially overwriting the tense of the verb.

In conclusion: My theory states that when the ている-form is used to describe current events happening in the present, the verb in the て-form is in its present tense. Accordingly, when the ている-form is used to describe events of the past, the verb in the て-form is in its past tense. It's just that this is not visible because the て-form does not allow for a display of tense.

Now, to my actual question: Does this way of trying to explain these circumstances hold any water? Are there any flaws with it that I have overlooked? Feedback would be greatly appreciated!


texts:
When I typed "spicy natto" on Google Translate, I got this:

  スパイシーな納豆

Here are two things that confused me:

1) why do we need な?
2) why not use 辛い?

Does anyone know?


texts: Is 方 being used as a suffix in this sentence?

texts:
I'm fairly certain 方 is being used as a suffix in the following sentence based on three things; as explained below, but I would like a secondary opinion to confirm or deny my claim.

  実戦では、拳法のような型や構え方は意味がない。

According to Tai Kim's guide, 方 is used as a noun and is read in two different ways, かた and ほう. I doubt the 方 is being used as a noun in my sentence, based on my second piece of reasoning.
Seeing as 型や構え are two nouns connected by the や particle, 方 can only either be a verb (highly unlikely) or a suffix for the sentence fragment to make syntactical sense in Japanese.
In the definition of the かた reading for 方 here, the third provided definition "noun, noun - used as suffix translated as 'method of; manner of; way of' has the following example sentence.

  その少年はカーブの投げ方を知っている。

3.2 Seeing as how 投げ is most likely being used as a noun; and is before the 方; I came to the conclusion my 方 is also being used in the same manner; which appears to be as a suffix.


texts:
Is the に particle in ように consistent in all its uses?

For example...
1/
明日は晴れるように   or
覚えるようにします
I understand the に here to be a target particle for what you are wishing for or trying to achieve.

2/
先生のように教える
Here it seems like it is more like it is making よう into an adverbial form.

Is there an interpretation that encompasses both uses?


texts: Meaning of そ、in 「そ、　そんなこと言っても……」?

texts:
I need some help understanding what "そ," means in the following context, in which two fighters are being forced to fight and are conversing during the fight:

  Opponent:「死にたくなかったら、　本気できなさい」

  “If you don’t want to die, then fight seriously.”

  POV character:「そ、　そんなこと言っても……」

I managed to translate most of the Point Of View character's response; but I don't know what そ could mean in the above sentence. Any ideas?


texts:
日頃は冷静な乾さんの裡から、ちらりと激情が見えたようだった。

What is the reading and meaning of 裡 here? I found the readings うち and うら in Jisho.org


texts: How to use "待つ" in the indirect passive?

texts:
No one likes to wait, so I thought "待{ま}つ" would be a great verb to use to practice the indirect passive (suffering passive) of an intransitive verb. However, I'm having trouble probably because "待つ" can also be transitive.

I used this sentence as a model:

  夫に死なれた女性は未亡人と呼ばれる。
  "A woman with a deceased husband is called a widow."

I tried to use "待つ" as I would use "死ぬ", but it doesn't seem to work because the person who is waiting is also doing the suffering. The model has the "夫" dying and then another person, "女性", suffering.

I talked with a native speaker. She said the problem is that "待つ" can both be transitive and intransitive, and that fact is critical for suffering passive. I'm not convinced. I think the problem is that the person who waits also suffers. But, I'm not sure how to untie that and create suffering passive with 待つ used as intransitive.


texts:
I came across this sentence in my JLPT mock test book:

  今の暮らしにはモノが溢れ、捨てても捨てても増え続ける。

I don't understand what kind of grammar and what is the meaning of the bold phrase. It looks like an expression.


texts: The meaning of し in the following context (maybe duplicate, maybe not)

texts:
I have a hard time figuring out the meaning of し　in the following sentence

暗いし付いて行ってあげようか
It's dark outside. Want me to go out with you ?

Is it the し　that serves to link two sentences together like the て　in
https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/23789/%e3%81%a6-versus-combining-form-for-joining-clauses ?
It seems a bit strange to me because

the subject is not the same
I feel that the first sentence has a
more causative meaning: since it's dark ...

Could you clarify ?


texts:
その時を待っている - I will be waiting for that time

その時に待っている - "I will be waiting for that time" or "I will be waiting at that time"

The first sentence only can ever have that single translation. The second sentence, however can mean 2 things. Is there a way to disambiguate the second sentence? (apart from context)


texts: Can someone please give a simple example of a direct object acting as the topic of a sentence?


texts: What's the difference between 終わった and 終わっていた

texts:
① いつの間にかパーティーは終わっていた
  ② いつの間にかパーティーは終わった

How do you interpret the two sentences above?


texts: I just recently started to learn Japanese and I am a bit confused with some numbers. For example, what is the difference between 七 (なな) and 七つ (ななつ). Is there no difference? Is it just another way of saying it?


texts: I am a beginner to the Japanese language, and I understand that ええ and はい mean the same thing, yes. What I want to know is when to specifically use ええ and はい.


texts: Is へ and に interchangeable in these cases?

texts:
I'm just starting to learn Japanese.
I am not quite understand about one of the uses of the captioned particles.
I've learned that に refers to the location of destination, and へ refers to the direction of the destination. But my friend told me they are interchangeable and に is colloquial and へ is for writing. If yes, in below cases are they interchangeable?

  川の 向こうへ 渡る 橋は 一つしかありませんでした。
  友達と レストランへ 行きます。
  来月 国へ 帰ります。

Will the meanings be different if へ is changed to に? If yes, what difference will be?

Thanks!!


texts: How to say "It was my first time canoeing"

texts: Is it "初めてのカヌー” or is that saying something like "It was my first canoe"?


texts: What did 才六 and similar terms about Kansai residents mean?

texts:
While looking up the denonym for a Kansai resident (I've since found out it's 関西人{かんさいじん}), jisho.org described 才六, 贅六, 上方才六, 賽六 and 采六, with pronunciations (not necessarily in that order) of ぜいろく, ぜえろく, かみがたざいろく, and さいろく as being (presumably related) words used to debase people from Kansai.

What did these words mean?


texts: Logic behind ～く form in the negative form of i-adjectives

texts:
I'm trying to logically grasp why い-adjectives switch to the ~く form in order to form a negative.

For example:

痛い　　　(is painful)

痛くない　(is not painful)

I understand ない to be an adjective.
い adjectives cannot modify other adjectives.
However, い adjectives have an "adverbial" ~く form that can.
From that perspective, it seems to be very logical that adjectives assume the ~く form in order to modify ない.  (painful-is not)

Though even that's a bit confusing since it feels more natural to me to think of  ない as modifying what precedes it...

Am I thinking about this correctly?  I'm wondering how this is understood from the Japanese perspective.


texts:
The girl from the rich family writes to the guy who she has now developed feelings for:

  あなたと一緒に過ごせる日々を私が可能な限り応えたいと思えるようになりました。

I've seen 応えたい with words like 期待、要求 or 想い, but with 日々? Does she implicitly mean "the happiness I have felt during the days I have spent with you"? And that she wants to give the same happiness to him? Or is it more along the lines of "I came to think that I want to make the time we spend together a happy one"?


texts:
EDIT:
It seems I have a misunderstanding about んじゃない. I thought it was meant to add "isn't it" to the end of a question. e.g. 田中さんはケーキを食べるんじゃない "田中 eats cake doesn't he?.
According to Tsuyoshi Ito's answer below it seems it can also be used to negate a sentence. I'm not sure what this means. Does it become "田中 doesn't eat cake does he?" or just "田中 doesn't eat cake". If the latter, how does it differ from 田中さんはケーキを食べない.
In summary, how do I know which way to interpret んじゃない?
I've looked at all the related questions on this site but none of them are clearing up my confusion.
ORIGINAL:
I'm having trouble making any sense from this sentence:

だってふつうって言ったらふつうなんだから、特別なことしてるんじゃないもん、ねぇ。
After all, when you say you're ordinary, you're ordinary, so it makes you special doesn't it?

I don't really know how to interpret じゃないもん. Is that making my translation go wrong or is this sentence really as silly as my translation?


texts:
Which is grammatically correct? matcha or maccha?

In my opinion, according to its hiragana representation, it should be written as maccha rather than matcha.

Is there any rule about romaji writing convention I missed here?


texts:
一箇月 is an outdated version of 一ヶ月

The ヶ in this case is not the katakana ケ but a shorthand for the kanji: 箇 and therefore does not produce the "ke" sound.

I got this idea because ヶ kind of looks like the bamboo radical in the top left. Is my assumption correct? Are there other characters that have the same function as ヶ? What are these shorthands called?

Thanks!


texts: Using 「に」, 「にとって」 and 「に対して」 with adjectives

texts:
I read these two questions but I still don't understand the relation between the use of the 「に」 particle with adjectives and other structures such as 「にとって」 and 「に対して」.

On the first link, Axioplaseさん explains:

  体にいい is 体に(対して)いい, while 子供に怖い is 子供に(とって)怖い. It's a completely different grammatical form, with a different "subject". In one case, the subject is the-thing-that-is-defined-by-the-context-but-isn't-in-the-examples, and in the last case, the subject is the kids.

According to him that's why「体にいい」 is correct and 「子供に怖い」 isn't.

Still according to Axioplaseさん:

    その野菜は体にいい。

  These vegetables are good for the body.

    子供にはその映画が怖い。

  When you are a kid, this movie scares you. (Not "this
  movie is scary for kids", that's the point).

  I think the は after 子供 is important. If you don't have it, then 怖い looses its subject, and your sentence becomes wrong.

That last paragraph is about why one can't rephrase 「子供にはその映画が怖い。」 to be 「その映画は子供に怖い」.

On the other hand, on the second link broccoli forestさん explains that:

    僕にはペンが必要です。

  is grammatical only because 必要だ can take two arguments (AがBに) as word-specific feature, not that it's a universal grammar for adjectives. It's like the English word worth can have an object but most other adjectives can't.

If I'm not mistaken, 「僕にはペンが必要です。」 could also be written as 「僕にとってはペンが必要です」.

So why wouldn't 「子供にその映画が怖い」 be a correct variation of  「子供にとってその映画が怖い」, meaning "this movie is scary for kids"?

My questions are:

How do I know an adjective can be used with the 「に」 particle at the same time as 「が」? In which case would the word marked by 「に」 be the subject?
Is it okay to abbreviate 「に対して」 and 「にとって」 to 「に」? Is that
    what's happening whenever 「に」 is used with adjectives?
Why does 「子供にはその映画が怖い」 mean "when you are a kid, this movie scares you" and not "this movie is scary for kids"? Why is 「その映画は子供に怖い」 unacceptable?

P.S. I relied entirely on other questions and even mentioned other users. I don't think this is forbidden, but it may be frowned upon. I hope I was able to be clear enough so that no one needs to click on the questions I linked to understand this one. And I apologize if I shouldn't be bringing up other questions or other users so much like this. I also apologize if I misunderstood any of the mentioned people's answers.


texts: What's the difference between だから, そこで and それで?

texts:
I've read that だから is more like a personal opinion which puts emphasis on the reason whereas それで is a more "natural" reason.

no idea about そこで though.


texts: Convert to Ta-Form when followed by a noun

texts:
Original sentence :

  解雇がないため、一生安定した職業になります。

My question is, why not :

  一生安定する　?

When do we need to convert the verb to Ta-Form ?


texts: Commonness of casual phrases like "あたし" and "ちっちゃい"

texts:
I came across a Japanese girl in Germany who talked using words like あたし instead of わたし, or ちっちゃい instead of ちいさい. When I asked her, she said that these words or usages of words are more common in Japan.

Is this true?
How does the majority of Japanese people judge this?
Shall learners pay attention to such details or avoid this topic entirely?


texts: What does 〇〇〇〇 mean when combined with おじさん？

texts: I saw the term 〇〇〇〇おじさん　written in a chat profile.  What does the 〇〇〇〇 mean?


texts:
そのままお待ちください。

This sentence, which is translated as

Please wait just a bit.

doesn't completely make sense, particularly そのまま。
Should I think of it as

(As it relates to the current state of 'waiting'), please continue to wait [(without change)]{そのまま}.

Or something completely different?


texts: How do you indicate sections in a report if there are more than 5? (まず、つぎに、さらに、そして、最後に)

texts:
If you need to indicate more sections in a report than five (beginning each section with 「まず」、「つぎに」、「さらに」、「そして」、「最後に」 respectively), what word(s) should you use to indicate the start of the additional sections?

Do you insert them after 「そして」 but before 「最後に」?


texts: what's the difference between particle を and に when used for location

texts:
i’ve been learning about particles lately as im still new to the language i can't tell the difference between these two particles when used for locations for example:
街を歩く
does this mean walk through town？
and
街に歩く
does this mean walk to town？
thanks in advance for the help.


texts: Why is there ベッドルーム when there's already 寝室?

texts:
I was trying to find house vocabulary and found multiple (from my perspective) synonyms (where the synonyms sounded like English). For example, ベッドルーム and 寝室, as well as キッチン and 台所, as well as バスルーム and 風呂場, etc.
What is the difference between the katakana and the kanji versions? Which ones should be used? Why do the English-sounding versions exist? (<-- for that question I assumed the kanji versions of the words came first)


texts:
These are the lyrics to a metal song about Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror.  The band tends go Classical for effect (cf. the refrain at the end: 闇にこぞりて / 我が主来ませり …).  The first verse is transcribed in most Japanese sites as this:

  俺は大地と海洋の
  近親婚の末息子
  因襲めいた村の奥
  夜鷹に言葉教わった

However, when I listen to the song, I hear the singer go /o.so.wa.ra.ta/ (0:56- here  – notice that his /r/ is often lateralized; cf. 0:41, 0:54, 3:24 etc.).  Not osowatta, not osowareta, but osowarata.

When I told my teachers about this they said, “B-baka na! Surely you're mishearing! Sonna koto wa nai hazu! That form doesn’t exist, it doesn’t even make sense!” They said it was impossible.  They said no native speaker would ever produce it.  But I'll show them! With the dark powers of ad-hoc Google searches, I'll show all of them!

From 『去日来日』 by 植松正 (1977)：

  これは、よほど学「先生」と言ったって、学校などで教わらた先生というのとは、だいぶ感じが違う。

From 『逸見東洋の世界』 by 臼井洋輔 (1990):

  寺子屋では教わらたのか、心そこにあらずで、彼が本気で出入りしていたのは、[…]

From 『現代のエスプリ』 , somewhere between nos. 286 to 289:

  その構造は数学的にみても動をやってのけます。たとえば彼らは、誰にも教わらた神経結合の組み合わせだけで、[…]

These 3 are all we get from Google Books, but they're in actual print.  Google Scholar claims two more hits but they're restricted, and a regular web search gets some ~20 examples (versus 170 for osowatta).

So my question is: Are these all typos? A surface phonetic process (which)? A dialect form? Language change? And what does it mean – is it equivalent to osowaratta、osowareta (if this even makes sense?)、 some Classical form I don’t recognize, or what?


texts: What does 兼 mean when it appears next to a person's name in an organizational chart?

texts:
The 兼 character appears next to some people's names in the organizational chart of the company I work at, as shown below.

  田中 太郎 （兼）

What meaning does the 兼 character signify in this context?


texts: 「[和む]{なごむ}」is a word that you can hear in everyday conversation? Or just in poems or songs?


texts:
It's my first time asking a question in this website so I hope I'll be as clear as possible.

I'm new at learning Japanese and I'm reading a book containing the phrase 「コロリ、コロリと」. It is impossible for me to understand. I tried looking it up on google but I couldn't find any proper explanation about it.

Could someone please explain it to me? Here's the entire sentence

  マエダさんは、コロリ、コロリというところで、うしろを向いてグルグルと首をまわしはじめます。


texts: こんな ことしたら心動くんだ. Is this sentence correct?

texts:
Recently I watched a show and the girl did something for the guy and he was moved by the girl's action. I may have heard it wrongly but I
thought I heard the guy said it as:
こんな ことしたら心動くんだ to another friend.
I did a Google translate and it turned out as "I'm moved when I do this"
Why is it "I" and not "he/she/someone else"?
Then I did a test by changing the the sentence to make it into a probable "when/if", but Google failed to translate the below sentences.
こんな ことされたら心動くんだ. If you do something like this
こんな ことしてくれたら心動くんだ. If you do something like this
こんな ことしてくれば心動くんだ. If you do something like this
I was puzzled as to why the translated answer to all the three above altered sentences was the same, that is "If you do something like this". Are they grammatically missing something?
Kindly advice and correct the sentences if they are wrong. Thank you.


texts:
I know that て can be used before いる, as well as when asking for ください, but I just realized I don't really know what it means. For instance, I just read an instance of て being used at the end of a sentence:"知り合いもいるからちょっと待ってて!"
What exactly does the て form mean in this context? I know it's short for いて, but even so, I've never ended a sentence with a て form verb.


texts:
I see 対応（たいおう） quite often, but I can't seem to grasp exactly what this word means or how to use it properly.

Checking a dictionary I get about 5 different definitions, all quite different from one another.

My question is, what does this word actually mean and what are the most common ways it is used? Are there any good example sentences which show the usage of this word clearly?


texts:
I have this sentence
隣の席が私なのを、感謝しなさい

What does 私なの mean in this case?
Why is there a を with a comma right after?


texts: is there a way to say "region-locked" in japanese?

texts: i feel like there should be a way to say it when talking about things not being available in certain regions.


texts: "何を言っている __のか__ 、分からない" vs. "何を言っている __なのか__ 、分からない"

texts:
In the recent thread titled Reason for 「のか」 and 「かもしれません」 in 「何を言っているのかわからないかもしれませんけど」, my impression is that saying "何を言っている のか 、分からない" sounds abrupt (and sort of impolite). While I have no idea if this is correct Japanese, I would have said "何を言っている なのか 、分からない". The "な" seems to take the edge out of the straight-up "のか".

The answer to the thread titled 「なん」as a formal, spoken, suffix for questions? mentions the phrase "なのか". But, I can't figure-out if that answer is applicable to my desire to say "何を言っている なのか 、~" instead of just "何を言っている のか 、~". I also found this thread titled What exactly is なの(nano)?. That thread looks relevant to my questions in this thread, did it really only confuses me.

  Is it even possible to say "何を言っている なのか 、分からない"?
  Would saying "なのか" make the sentence less formal?
  Would saying "なのか" make the sentence less aggressive / abrupt? more polite?
  Would saying "なのか" make the sentence sound more feminine?
  Would a native speaker actually ever say "なのか" in this type of sentence in a conversation?


texts: What is the difference between 派出所 and 交番?

texts: I know that they both refer to some sort of police station but I don't know if they are interchangeable, if they mean the exact same thing,etc


texts: How many forms can a Japanese verb take?

texts:
Japanese verbs are quite complex compared to English verbs (Most English verbs have five or six forms and to be has eight not including archaic forms). Their agglutinative nature means they have various parts which can be present or not, or can take different morphemes.

What I'm wondering is if it is possible to calculate the total number of possible forms this can lead to for a typical Japanese verb.

If it's not straightforward or generally talked about, a reference to a discussion or research paper would also be a great answer.


texts: Trying to make sense of a sentence in Akutagawa's "Hell Screen"

texts:
Towards the end of chapter 10 of Akutagawa's Hell Screen,

その度にばさ／＼と、凄じく翼を鳴すのが、落葉の匂だか、滝の水沫とも或は又猿酒の饐ゑたいきれだか何やら怪しげなものゝけはひを誘つて、気味の悪さと云つたらございません。
Source

which translated to

The flattering of wings is compared to the smell of fallen leaves, the splashing of a waterfall, saruzake, [...]

Is it a reference to something in the culture? Why would the flapping of wings be compared to the smell of fallen leaves, or why that smell of fallen leaves is creepy in the first place? I can't make head or tail of this.
Can it be simplified (cutting out the middle part) to

翼を鳴すのが ... 気味の悪さと云つたらございません。
The flapping of wings was ... so grotesque it was almost indescribable?

It's the only sentence in the novel that really stumped me and the reading group so far, would appreciate the help!


texts: Do people who speak Chinese use kanji more when writing Japanese?

texts:
As Chinese was my first language, when learning how to read Japanese, I would sometimes get stuck on a sequence of kana, but then understand completely when the relevant kanji was substituted in its place. Similarly, when I write stuff, I tend to use kanji whenever possible to make clear the meaning of the words.

Is this normal for people from a Chinese background? Or is it just me trying to leverage my knowledge of Chinese as much as possible, regardless of whether it actually helps?


texts: Please explain the use of では in this particle cluster

texts:
This is the first paragraph in a story geared towards teaching Japanese:

  ジェームズは事務所で仕事をしています。彼は毎日とても忙しいです。彼はお客様と多くの会議 をします。ジェームズはこのような会議は好きではありません。彼はお客様がとても退屈しているのではと思っています 。

I don't understand how the last sentence relates to the rest of the story. This is probably because I can't make sense of the particle cluster のでは. Could someone please correctly translate this sentence according to the context and explain the particles used? Thank you in advance!


texts:
i understand that they’re short forms of なければ and なくて but i don’t understand the different nuances between them. thanks!

ex.

勉強しなきゃ。
vs
勉強しなくちゃ。


texts:
I saw this:

  アンさんはべんきょうをおしえるひとです。

Is this a correct sentence? I got confused with おしえる人. I thought we cannot follow a verb with another noun without nominalizing it with either の or こと. Should this be おしえるの人?


texts: Usage and meaning of [passive verb]-てみれば

texts:
I am familiar with the set phrase 「言われてみれば」 as a way to say "Now that you say that", but as I examine the phrase further, the phrase structure strikes me as strange. The 〜てみる conjugation is commonly used to say "to try doing something", but what meaning does it give when used with passive verb form; "to try being done" does not make much sense to me.

Maybe one might argue that 「言われてみれば」 is a set phrase so I should just accept it as such, but when I googled around I found that while many verbs yielded zero results when I tried to find their [passive]てみれば forms, there are some verbs, mostly related to speech, that can use this form:

本当に好きだったと聞かれてみれば、本当に愛してたと答えられる。
違う病院に行く、ご事情を話されてみれば良いと思います。

But there are also some verbs that are not related to speech:

愛されて壊されてみれば (song lyric)
お前が轢かれてみれば分かるから、お前で実験してみろよ。

So, in general what meaning does this form give to the original verbs, and in what kinds of scenarios is it used for?


texts: How do I write out a multiple choice question in Japanese?

texts:
This is more for formal written email than spoken in person.

For example, if I was to ask:

Which of the following do you enjoy:

(A) Coffee

(B) Tea

(C) The java in me

I would also like to know the most common way of listing a multiple choice such as if I was to use ㋐　㋑　㋒ in this situation?

Thanks in advance


texts:
In English, we can say, "Brad Pitt is living in Los Angeles and is a famous actor". I wrote this sentence as two Japanese sentences.

ブラッド・ピットはロサンゼルスに住んでいます。有名な俳優です。
Brad Pitt is living in Los Angeles. He is a famous actor.

Can いる be written in て-form to give the following compound sentence? Or is it best to just use the two sentences above?

ブラッド・ピットはロサンゼルスに住んでいて、有名な俳優です。


texts: Is there a term for Chinese-derived "kunyomi"?

texts:
So, when it comes to kanji readings, there is onyomi and kunyomi, plus some exceptions and in-between cases.  One interesting type of reading that I've come across a few times is when a kanji has a "kunyomi" reading that comes from Chinese.
That is, it's "kunyomi" since the reading is derived from the meaning, not the sound (of the character in Chinese), but rather than using a native Japanese word, it uses another Chinese word.
The only example I can think of off the top of my head is a pretty obscure one: the name of the Japanese leek/onion. The original Chinese-derived term is 「辣韮」 (らっきょう).  However, it can be also written 「薤」(a single character that also means leak/onion) while still being pronounced「らっきょう」. I've seen the kunyomi reading of「薤」listed as「らっきょう」in dictionaries.
What are some other examples you can think of?  Is there a particular name for this type of kanji reading?


texts:
I have a simple question to be asked in japanese: WHY ARE YOU HERE?

I know the individual words for 'Why', 'here'. But I don't seem to know the sentence structure for these types of questions.

Anyone has an insight (colloquial and formal version?)


texts: How to interpret this sentence in context of the picture above?

texts:
First, I'm sorry for the very unspecific topic of this question, but I didn't really know how else to describe my problem.

The sentence in question:
壁には植物が装飾され、都心とは思えないほど緑があふれるチャペルに、床にはじゅうたんではなく木目のフローリングが敷かれた披露宴会場。

For full context:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/business_tokushu/2018_0621.html?utm_int=news_contents_tokushu_004

And the "picture above" (just to explicitly reference it):

My attempt at translation:
"About the walls, they are in the chapel where plants are used as decoration and the green overflows to the extent that you can't assess it as city centre and about the floor, it is a presentation banquet hall where there is no carpet rug and wooden floor is spread out."

In general I'm always having some difficulties interpreting sentences which are contextualized by pictures. In this case, the referenced picture seems to show rooms for marriage ceremonies, consisting of a chapel for the ceremony and a banquet hall for the subsequent celebration.

I interpreted this sentence as if there were actually two sentences, each marked by the respective topics 壁には and 床には.
The problem is that these two sentences seem to reference two different rooms, chapel and banquet hall, but the topics are "floor" and "wall" which are somewhat unspecific considering the pictures. There are floors and walls on both pictures after all :D


texts: How does this passage change the topics of discussion so quickly?

texts:
I am trying to understand a passage that I found in a JLPT N2 practice book. I will quote the passage bit by bit, giving my interpretation.

  自分の考えに自信を持ち、これで良いのだと自分に言い聞かせるだけでは充分ではない。他の人の考えにも、肯定的な姿勢を取るようにしなくてはならない。どんなものでもその気になって探せば、必ずいいところがある。それを称揚する。

Just telling yourself that "it's enough to just be confident in your own ideas/thoughts" is not enough. You have to acknowledge others' ideas and thoughts as well. If you do this, then you will find some good aspects in everything, and you should praise those good aspects.

So far so good.

  よくわからないときにも、ぶっつけに「さっぱりわかりませんね」などと水をかけるのは禁物である。「随分難しそうですが、でも、なんだか面白そうではありませんか」とやれば、同じことでも、受ける感じは全く違ってくる。

Even when you don't understand (what the other person is saying), you shouldn't just say "you totally lost me". On the other hand, if you say "This seems quite hard to understand, but it's quite interesting as well, isn't it?", then the impression the other person gets is totally different.

It's still kind of on-topic. It seems to continue talking about how to respect other people's thoughts and ideas. But then I see this:

  すぐれた教育者、指導者などはどこか良いところを見つけて、そこへ道をつけておく。

Good educators and leaders will find some good aspects somewhere, and make a road towards it (?)

Why does it suddenly start talking about good educators and leaders. I suppose it's to give an example of "who acknowledge others' ideas and thoughts and find good aspects", a reference to the first excerpt.

"make a road towards it" is from Jisho.org. Apparently that's what 道をつける means... Feels kind of unnatural in English though.

What comes next completely blew my mind:

  批評された側では、多少、けなされていても、褒められたところをよりどころにして希望をつなぎとめることができる。

On the side of being criticised, even if you are spoken ill of, you can more or less use the places where you are praised as support, and hold onto hope.

Suddenly what is the author talking about? That seems like nonsense. If you are being criticised, 褒められたところ wouldn't exist, would it? This sentence also doesn't connect well with what was being said. Why suddenly 批評された側では?  The sentence feels very random and out of nowhere.

Question:

Where have I misunderstood the passage? Or is the passage supposed to be hard to understand? Maybe my tiny brain isn't powerful enough to understand such a philosophical passage?


texts: Confused over role of 「自分が」in this particular passage

texts:
I'm reading through Ishikawa Taiga's memoir 『僕の彼氏はどこにいる？』, and I've come across a passage that has me quite confused as far as grammatical structure goes, specifically the role of 自分が in following passage:

  自分が初めて男のコに気持ちが動いたときのこと、学校でのこと、中には「元彼のことが忘れられない」なんて発言も飛び出して、まだ「生のゲイ」に出会ったことのないボクは、ただ感心するばかりだった。

For context, the narrator (Taiga) is discussing his experience of entering a chat room way back in the early days of the Internet and, for the first time, being able to chat with other gay men about their lives. He's brought up all the different things that these other gay men would discuss with him.

I've translated the passage without any issue. However, my question is this: what in the world is the function of the bolded 自分が above? I've assumed, perhaps wrongly, that it's referring to the men in the chat room, not Taiga, as ボクは appears in the same passage, and that refers to Taiga. With that being said, I've also taken it to indicate the subject of either a (relative?) clause or sentence. But looking at the entire passage again, I can't see how that's possible. Maybe I'm missing something, but taking just this bit on its own...

  自分が初めて男のコに気持ちが動いたときのこと、学校でのこと、中には「元彼のことが忘れられない」なんて発言も飛び出して

...自分 couldn't be related to either the verb 動く or 飛び出す. As far as I know, those are both intransitive verbs that already possess "actors" carrying out their actions (気持ち in the case of 動く;　発言 in the case of 飛び出す).

So is 自分が functioning in a more colloquial way, intending to mean something more along the lines of "Each one of them, himself, confessed these things"? I can't help but feel there's some kind of grammatical point here I've completely missed that's keeping me from understanding how 自分が is functioning in this passage.


texts: Is there a good historical explanation why we cannot generally use 言う in the 3rd person in the past tense?

texts:
Is there a good historical or logical explanation why we cannot generally use 言う in the 3rd person in the past tense? Why do we have to resort to 言っている for the 3rd person part tense (言っていた), unless it happened 'just now'. Also, why is this not the case for the 1st person and the 2nd person?

Thank you!


texts: What is a typical Japanese term for "fake", like in "Fake News"?

texts:
Besides obvious フェークニュース, is there a natural Japanese expression to express the idea of fake?

On the same topic, how to say fake or shallow person? Is there an equivalent to plastic people in Japanese?


texts:
I've come across the phrase:

〜とでも言うべきであろうか

in my reading. I understand most of it, but I am a little confused as to what the "でも" is doing. I'm familiar with "でも" as a particle, but it appears to be functioning as something like an adverb in this case. My best guess would be to translate it as something like "〜, one might call it".
Can anyone explain the function of the word here? Thanks.


texts: ゆ has connotations for hot water and bathhouses, are there other examples of this shorthand?

texts:
You often see hiragana ゆ in bathhouses, and after reading this answer, I think I understand why.  I have noticed hiragana nu ぬ at festivals on banners, and wondered what do these characters represent in that context?

Is there a term for seeing these characters in these places?  Are there some other noteworthy examples of a hiragana character being used as shorthand for a point of interest?


texts: Meaning of に in プラスチック**に**は体に悪い物質が付きやすいため

texts:
プラスチックには体に悪い物質が付きやすいため、魚などがプラスチックを食べると、その魚を食べる動物や人にも悪い影響が出る心配があります。
  As for plastic, because bad materials easily stick in the body, there is a worry that if fish eat plastic it will also have a bad effect on the people and animals who eat those fish.

I can't understand the purpose of the に in bold at the start of this sentence.

Can it be omitted without changing the meaning?


texts: 手に入りにくいことは and 自分のものにしよう

texts:
けれどその「不便さ」がある意味では、情報の意味をゆっくり考える猶予を与えてくれていたとも言える。また、ある種の情報が手に入りにくいことは、それを獲得し自分のものにしようとする強い動機づけになってもいた。

May I know the meaning of the bolded sentence?
I know the first sentence means "Inconvenience lets us think about the meaning of the information slowly".  But what is meant by the bolded one?  Something like some information is difficult to obtain and strong motivation to obtain the information? But I can't connect the two parts together into a sentence that makes sense.


texts:
I was watching some anime today, and I heard "y" sounds in places I didn't expect.

Here's a sound clip (MP3) and my transcription:

  私の世界へようこそ。
  今やこの世界をコントロールできる唯一の人間だ。

There are two "y" sounds I didn't expect.  I'm not sure whether they're related.

世界へ sounds like "sekai ye" rather than "sekai e".
世界を sounds like "sekai yo" rather than "sekai (w)o".

Can anyone explain these "y" sounds to me?  Are they standard?  Common?


texts: Does ｖている with the following intransitive verb refer to expressing the present state

texts:
I was understanding the concept of ｖている and its implications on the intransitive verb. I have seen that, ｖている when used with punctual transitive verb, are used to focus on the present state (somewhat), e.g. 着ている (I wear ___), 知っている(I know ___). Whereas, the Vnp form of these Punctual Transitive Verbs, i.e. indicate their future aspect, e.g. 着ます/着る indicates I will wear, 知ります/知る indicates I will know.
Further, I came to know that, Durative Transitive Verbs which showcase, continuous form with ｖている e.g. ドアを閉めている (I am closing the door), becomes sort of Stative/Punctual with intransitive counterpart i.e. ドアが閉まっている (The door is closed).
So, my question is, does the ｖている form of the above said verbs/or the intransitive verbs whose counterpart is transitive verb (Usually the counterpart are continuous verbs), focus on the present state of the object, like the Punctual Transitive Verbs mentioned above, and their Vnp form indicate future aspect?
E.g. Will ドアが閉まっている focus upon the present state of the object, i.e. the door is closed. Whereas, ドアが閉まります/閉まる indicate, the door will close? like the Punctual Transitive Verb.
教えてください.


texts:
Is it just the て-form of ます? So, could I just use 食べまして instead of 食べて? Leading to my next question (everything from here on is assumed):

Since 食べまして is the polite form of 食べて, why wouldn't you use 食べましてください instead of 食べてください, isn't that even more polite?
But then again, I never heard of 食べましてください, so what is it about the ～まして part?


texts: How to interpret this mismatched furigana?

texts:
I understand that mistmached furigana can be used to show another layer, but I can't figure out how to interpret this.

I guess it's highlighting the word メイン.  Like the hamburger is the main thing she took?


texts: Is there any rule for hiraganas after the kanji in a verb

texts:
The hiraganas go after the kanji in a verb are so confusing.
I know there's always an U character, like 行く, 話す ... but sometimes i see there are 2 characters after the kanji, like 終わる.

My question is that there is any rule for us to remember this?

Verbs in group 2 (Ichidan verbs) need an E character before RU, is that right ?
(食べる) ? So they always have 2 hiraganas after the kanji?
So why 終わる is a verb of group one but it has two hiraganas after the kanji ?

Thanks very much


texts: I am a big fan of badminton, especially the Japanese players like Kento Momota-san, and in a few months they will come to my country, and I would like to get some of them to sign their autograph in my autograph book. I was thinking of saying: "サインをください" or "サインをおねがいしますか？", would that be wrong to ask like that or is there a better polite way of asking?


texts: How to say "There is (A) in (B)(Location)."

texts:
How do you say that there is a thing (e.g.: Restaurant ) in a certain place (e.g.: My town)? Is there a formula for this?

If someone were to ask me if there was a restaurant in my city they would say あなたの町に日本のレストランがありますか。

They would use the particle が but in my answer do I use は? And does that have to be in the beginning of the phrase or can I put it after the location (に particle)?


texts: なく vs. なくて and stem form vs. てform as conjunctions

texts: I have been wondering about this, since every time I hand in a 作文 in a Japanese class, I'm corrected on conjunctions. It seems to me that whenever I use a てform as a conjunction, a response comes back that it has a cause-and-effect feel. I thought that it was just neutral, since there are so many different ways to express cause and effect, but it seems that might not actually be the case. That being said, I thought that stem forms and なく might be the actually neutral way to join two clauses. I just wanted to know if I'm correct.


texts:
おおおお…
天地に き揺らかすは
さゆらかす
神わがも
神こそは　きねきこう
き揺らならば……

This is dedication to the god Gozu Tennou from the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne Maniacs.
It's almost the same as the first line of one of the kagura songs - https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/阿知女作法
There's a lot I can't understand:

Why there is き and さ before ゆらかす?
What is 神わがも? Is it 神我 (divine self) + も to emphasize?
What is きねきこう? According to wiki きね is probably the same as 巫女 (shrine maiden) and I suppose きこう is volitional form of 聞く. But who's the object of the action, is it "Hear the shrine maiden" or "Hear it, shrine maiden"?
What is the meaning of the whole line?


texts: So-called の-adjectives - how does の *really* work?

texts:
Ok, so there seems to be some controversy over whether we can really say that there are 'の-adjectives', or whether we simply use a noun in an "attributive" way (a term which I don't actually really understand). But it's clear that there's something interesting going on here, a deviation from the "default" understanding of の (as marking the genitive case), and I'd like some clarification.

Let's look at what seems to be for whatever the classical example:

○　「永遠の愛」 "eternal love"

It's clear that we can't just apply the pattern "X の Y ⇔ Y of X" here*. But what is really going on? How do we know that the usual pattern doesn't apply here - is it contextual? A matter of set-phrasing? Is it because 永遠, being abstract, would need to be reified to be used in the normal way?

* It's worth noting that the pattern doesn't even hold in English here, which does seem to be a special case.

"love of eternity" - a strange thing to talk about, but in English, reification is implicit so this works just as well as "love of gold".

But what is more strange is that with "love" in particular, this doesn't have the normal genitive-case meaning - an English speaker parses "love of gold" not as the love which is expressed by gold, but love such that gold is the thing that is loved. Similarly for "eternity", following the same role.

And it doesn't even work the same way with similar words... * "desire/lust of gold" - should be "desire/lust for gold". But regardless, a love which is eternal is not the same thing as a love which is expressed by (belongs to, really; but in what other sense can love be possessed than by expressing it?) eternity-seen-as-an-entity, which would be the default interpretation of the pattern.

What happens in Japanese with that example? 「金の愛」 - grammatical? How would it be interpreted? How about with explicit reification (「金のことの愛」・「金のものの愛」）？

And how literal is it to translate 「永遠の」 as "eternal"? Can we describe what's going on here more pedantically? What determines our ability to use a noun this way with の?

And am I getting too philosophical? :)


texts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat-a-cake,_pat-a-cake,_baker%27s_man

Its recorded on Fisher Price toy TV remote control. That's what my Japanese wife says but she doesn't speak slowly so I can't be sure. I have no hits on Google search so it that right? If not what is the correct name?


texts:
「じきに夕食の支度もできると思いますよ。
  　どうです、いっしょに？」

  「ラッキー！
  　それじゃ、ごちそうになってこうかな。」

My attempt - So, it's your treat then?


texts:
In the subtitles for the first episode of Code Geass, a character asks:

代理人のご到着かな

Maybe there is a grammer point that I don't understand, but shouldnt this be:

代理人のが到着かな

Meaning something like: as for 代理人 (the substitute), 到着 (the arrival) is here, isn't it?
instead though there is a ご where I expect a が. Is this slang maybe? Or a grammer point I don't know?


texts: What is the grammar behind this sentence in old Japanese

texts:
Here's the first sentence from the song Reincarnation from Kenji Kawai, part of the OST of Ghost in the Shell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z64HCi2rQkE)

  A ga maeba, kuwashime yoinikeri

According to this site and this one, this writes in Kanji

  吾が舞へば、麗し女、酔ひにけり

and in (old) hiragana:

  あがまへば、くはしめ、ゑひにけり

and (poorly) means

  Because I had danced, the beautiful lady was enchanted

I understand this is old Japanese, but I have no idea what is grammar behind that, especially:

舞へば: what is this "へ"? an old verb form ? (I guess the "ば" is the same as in modern Japanese, e.g. "踊れば")
酔ひにけり: is that "酔ひ" ("酔い"?) + "に" + "けり". What does that mean ?

Would someone give me some tracks to understand this grammar ? (I am fluent in modern Japanese) How old is this Japanese ?


texts: Difference between です and をする in the following passage

texts:
I just came across this sentence while studying verb する

山田さんは英語の先生をしている - (As per the book it translated to " Yamada-san is an English Teacher)

My question is why did not we use です instead of する and make the sentence into 山田さんは英語の先生です (which also has the same meaning)?
Further, is there any difference in the nuance between the two sentences?


texts:
The way of turning 赤 into an adjective is adding い, but what does it mean when instead of a い you put a く？

I found it in this phrase:

  私のリンゴは赤くありません。

I get the meaning but not the meaning of く.


texts: Asking 'how much is the hotel for one night'

texts:
I'm trying to ask "How much is the hotel for one night?"

After doing some reading online, I've come to two answers. But I'm not sure which one is correct.

このホテルは　いっぱく　いくら　ですか。

and

このホテルは　いっぱくが　いくら　ですか。

Is the が needed?


texts: What is the difference between 設問 and 質問?

texts: The two words appear to both mean the English word question. Are they completely interchangeable?


texts: Why are 'must' and 'must not' both negative and how can I seperate them?

texts:
While studying japanese I came across some grammar that really confuses me:

ここから、始まってはいけない

Ok, it says 'you must not start from here'. Which seems agreeable because the sentence is in a negative form. However then this sentence appears:

ここから、始まらなくてはいけない

Which roughly translates to 'you must start from here'. Why is this sentence also negative? Why are 'must' and 'must not' both written in a negative form and how can I tell them appart?


texts: is it known how each kanji/compound graphic design evolved the way they did?

texts: In many languages you can know the etimology of the words, you can trace how its meaning evolved and their origins, the meaning of the words usually comes from other words in Latin, Greek, English, etc, slightly modified. Is there something like that in japanese but not for the meaning of the words, but for the graphic design of each japanese kanji/compound? For example, it is clear and it makes sense than the kanji for "forest" is made up of 3 "trees" components, or than the kanji for hermit is the addition of the "person" plus the "mountain" kanjis. Can you visually trace any component of a kanji/compound like that?


texts:
What is なり means in the following sentence, as far as I can guess it's close to the second one here.

  「少なくとも、いきなり挑戦される可能性は低い。その間に、戦う準備なり勝つ方法を考えていかないといけないが…」

Some sort of translation:

  "At the very least, the possibility of us being challenged is low. In
  ths time period we have to think about fight preparations and the
  way to win."


texts: What is the difference in usage between 準備　用意 and 覚悟

texts:
The dictionaries translate these three words roughly as preparation/preparedness or ready/readiness.

I don't think I undersand the subtleties of their usage.
Not to mention できる also has another meaning as "to be ready" as in 「ご飯できてるよ！」to mean that "The meal is ready."

Please enlighten me.
Also ware their any other words commonly used to mean prepare/ready?


texts:
From the context of the original Japanese text, is seems that しかたない does not imply a negative feeling such as disappointment or dissatisfaction. Instead, it seems to mean "That's just the way it is" without any negative connotations.

However, all the English translations I have found, such as...

I can tolerate it
I can live with it
I can accept it
Oh well...

do imply some degree of negative feeling. (One translation is "I don't like it, but I can live with it.")

The Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai is ambivalent about this question.

The context in which しかたない is being used is, for example:

I have a headache.
Here is a tablet. It takes 10 minutes to have an
effect.
しかたない

In English, that feels like (possibly slight) disappointment, but apparently, in Japanese, it does not.


texts:
ゐ and ゑ. Looks like an odd looking hiragana, but i never seen it before in the hiragana list.
ゝandゞ. What does it mean, and why there is a dakuten in the second one.
ヶ. It looks like ケ. Maybe it is ケ. I only know that it is readed か or が. Example: 藤ヶ谷 (ふじがや).

― 檜原 クリスチャン


texts: Why is 今年 written in hiragana in this NHK news article?

texts:
Article in question

(Note that it's not NHK easy news, but the regular nhk news)

  ことしのノーベル賞の受賞者の発表が７日から始まり、日本人としては去年、医学・生理学賞を受賞した京都大学特別教授の本庶佑さんに続き、アメリカ国籍を取得した人を含め27人目の受賞者がでるか注目されます。

I thought at first it was a weird one-off thing, but actually ことし is used consistently in the rest of the article.

  ことしの受賞者の発表は....

[...]

  文学賞は去年、選考を行うスウェーデン・アカデミーのスキャンダルで発表が見送られたため、ことしは２年分の受賞者が発表されます。

I've read a few answers regarding the use of hiragana, especially this one :

When writing for general public, is there a general guideline for selecting kanji?

But 今年 doesn't seem to fit into any of those categories and anyway 去年 is used in the same article...


texts: What type of verb conjugation is this 巻き込まれてしまた

texts:
Below is an example I found from Internet.

途中で渋滞に巻き込まれてしまたのです。
(The meaning I guess : "The reason is, along the way, I was stuck in a traffic jam")

But from "巻き込まれてしまた" I could not figure out what kind of conjugation was applied to the verb 巻き込む.

Any one please help.


texts: Word for "British"? (I don't mean "English / イギリス")

texts:
If I were to explain the (pedantic) difference between "English" and "British", what would be the word for "British"?

I might want to perform the following explanation in Japanese as in this question on ELU: Difference between English and British. What would be the word for "British" in the context of that discussion?


texts: What does this symbol "I" mean in a manga? What is its usage?

texts:
I saw in a manga ミIナト meaning minato a name but I don't know what the character between ミ and ナ means and the usage of it
and theres another one too おまさてI and theres like 3 lines below it's written downwards
I'm not sure if its a mi katakana or what
and what does that S like symbol mean?


texts: I have been searching around, but all the sources give completely different answers ranging from 2,000 to 50,000. So my question is how many Kanji characters that have ever existed since the dawn of time? Does this include unofficial characters?


texts: Can you disambuguate a specific noun from a general noun with たち

texts:
A person was talking about living near a particular mountain. I want to say:

  I want to live near the mountains too

where I mean mountains in general, not the specific one he is talking about.
If I say:

  私も山の近くに住みたい

will it sound like I want to live near his mountain? How do I make the distinction? I thought explicitly making it plural might be one way:

  私も山たちの近くに住みたい

Does this work? Are their better/other ways?


texts:
々 doesn't seem to be a real kanji, but at what grade is it taught?

I'm trying to work out the maximum grade level for 四字熟語【よじじゅくご】, so I'm wondering how to classify something like 興味津々【きょうみしんしん】 with the first three characters having grade levels 5, 3 and 8, but what is the fourth?


texts: What are the implied differences in わたくし and わたし?

texts: Although I believe わたし to be the more common reading of 私, I have heard many examples of わたくし being used as well (ex 黒澤ダイア ラブライブ). Does that mean わたくし is an informal version or more feminine version of わたし, like あたし? Thanks!


texts: Can particle に be always interpreted as adverbial modifier marker?

texts:
In English there are 12 cases of adverbial modifier.

Can all these 12 adverbial cases in English be expressed by Japanese particle に?
Are there other grammatical functions expressed by particle に?


texts: In cases such as [第二次全世界戦争]{だいにじぜんせかいせんそう} or [第二次]{だいにじ}スーパーロボット[大戦]{たいせん}, is [次]{じ} effectively just acting the way a number followed by st/nd/rd/th would in English?


texts:
I encountered this sentence in a textbook

  野菜をたくさん買ったので、店の人に家まで届けてもらいました。

Which one of the following would the sentence is supposed to mean?

  Since [I] bought a lot of vegetables, [I] had a guy at the shop deliver the vegetables home for me.

or

  Since [I] bought a lot of vegetables, I received home delivery.

Does the verb もらう in the form ～てもらう always mean to have someone do something for me instead of only to receive something?


texts: Is there any difference among 思, 考 and 侖?

texts: According to List of jōyō kanji and jisho.org 思, 考 and 侖 mean think. Is there any difference in meaning and usage in them?


texts:
I saw a tweet that said

要は日本酒が呑みたい

And my dictionary translated 呑む as 'to drink', with 飲む as the default spelling and 呑む as an alternate form.

What is the difference between 飲む and 呑む?


texts: 幼いときに老けて、老いて子供に戻る。Can anyone explain the nuances of this sentence?

texts:
幼いときに老けて、老いて子供に戻る。
I can make a few guesses as to the specific meaning but I'm not sure which one is right.. does anyone know what would be the most correct translation of this sentence?


texts: Referring to Chinese Characters that are not used in Japanese

texts:
I was reading the internet today and noticed someone said that the kanji 获 does not exist.

This character is very commonly used in Chinese and can be found in the Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs (Han) block at code point U+83B7.

The statement that the kanji didn't exist got me wondering, in Japanese, how would one refer to a Chinese Character that isn't used in the Japanese language? Would it not still be referred to as kanji?


texts:
I recently came across the following sentence in an English comic book that was translated into Japanese:

先生が僕らに何をしろって？

I checked the verb しろって and found out that it was conjugated from する？ May I know the English usage of verbs conjugated in this form, and some more examples please?


texts:
I have come across the two following sentences:

遊ぶことは犯罪です | Playing is a crime
遊びは終わりだ。 | Fun and games are over (lit. playing is ending)

Why is 遊ぶ in plain/dictionary form in the first, and then ます form in the second? Also what are the difference when they are in each of these forms?
This question goes with any verb.
Thanks.


texts: I don't understand the structure of かたじけない しのぶ！！?

texts:
I don't understand...

well, that's what it was there in the manga ... like this:

  bubble1:侍達を一人残らず抹殺せよ！！！

  bubble2:ぐわア！！！

  bubble3:かたじけない しのぶ！！武器は助かった！！

  bubble4:いえ

and nothing else and then I was confused cause it was my first time seeing it :|

and then there was an individual meaning for かたじけない and しのぶ however while mixing their meaning...,... I can't figure it out... it was confusing then I thought maybe かたじけない is an adj
I think something had been omitted and made the sentence a bit more friendly ~

also is かたじけない an adj ? while searching, Google said it's a phrase but the way written here I thought it's い-adj ...

so can you help me with it :)


texts: Do any of the Japanese particles have different pronunciations in any dialects? Or extra or missing particles?

texts:
I was wondering whether the differences in Japanese vocabulary between the dialects extend even so far as particles.

Are there dialects that pronounce any of the standard particles differently? Especially the grammatical (syntactic?) ones like は (wa), が (ga), and を (wo)? Or do some dialects go so far as having extra particles or not using some of the standard particles?

I'm expecting if it occurs at all it would be in Okinawan/Ryukyuan since the speech there is classed as separate language(s) as often as dialect(s) of Japanese. But I have been surprised before!


texts: Is the scream "gya" masculine and "kya" feminine?

texts:
I don't speak Japanese, but I notice in some manga (like Mr. Fullswing for example), male characters tend to scream "gya" or "guwa" while female characters tend to scream "kya".

Is it true that "gya" sounds masculine and "kya" sounds feminine? If it is, what makes "gya" masculine and "kya" feminine? Is it common practice to use these interjections as such? If a female character uses "gya", does she tend to be describe as boyish (using "ore", "boku" and whatnot)?


texts: Why is う sometimes read as "o" instead of "u"?

texts:
As an example, きょう is read as "kyoo", despite the last kana being usually read as "u".

Why and when does this happen?


texts:
This is a sentence from ねじまき鳥と火曜日の女たち by 村上春樹.

  スチーム・アイロンの蒸気音とコットンが熱せられる独得の匂いを楽しみながら...

熱する is a "special suru verb". I am assuming 熱せられる is read as ねっせられる. What form of conjugation is this? It looks like it could be passive or causative-passive.


texts: Does 友達 have the plural marker たち "built-in"?

texts:
I cannot recall this very clearly so I'm sorry if this is all not correct but someone once told me that the word 友達{ともだち} has the plural marker たち "built-in" and therefore you cannot say 友達たち about friends in a situation where you could normally use ～たち.

Is that right? If it is, is there any other way to mark plurality for the word 友達 in situations where ～たち is used for other nouns?


texts: General rule for writing simple kanji as hiragana in newspaper articles sometimes?

texts:
The second line of ＬＩＮＥのメッセージで“株”暴落！ reads:

  ハンドルネーム「やさ夫」さんが、テレビをみながらうたた寝をしていたときのことです。

why wasn't is written as:

  ハンドルネーム「やさ夫」さんが、テレビを見ながらうたた寝をしていた時のことです。

The later helps with readability. In particular, without "見", I had to do a double-take to see the word break between "みながら" and "うたた寝".

So, there must be a reason to sometimes write simple kanji as hiragana in newspapers?


texts:
Do I say えいがにみました or えいがをみました　？
Do I say えいがにみました or えいがをみました？


texts: Difficult to understand katakana of the word "though"

texts:
So, I'm not proficient in Japanese but, as a programmer, I decided to create a program to generate katakana equivalents of english words automatically.

I have had some success, but with some ambiguities.
For example, the phonetics for "though" being:

(American): /ðo/
(British): /ðəʊ/

My program generates: ゾー

A friend of mine told me that ゾゥ, also corresponds to "though", but she couldn't explain me why.

I guess what I want to know is what is the reasoning behind deciding the conversion of though to either have ー or ゥ?

  I read in a paper study, saying that most katakana words are derived from British english.


texts: Meaning of 疑問を胸に取材を進める

texts:
The sentence in question:
そんな疑問を胸に取材を進めると、改めて、おんぶの魅力を知ることになりました。

For full context:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/web_tokushu/2018_0521.html?utm_int=news_contents_tokushu_004

My attempt at translation:
"When I put forward such questions to my heart, I came to know the charm of piggy-back-riding once again."

In my translation, I ignored 取材 entirely because I couldnt find a way to integrate both "question (疑問)" and "interview (取材)" at the same time.
Furthermore I'm not sure wether my interpretation of "to put forward" (進める) in the entry on jisho.org is legit. I chose this meaning because I couldn't find any other way to meaningfully connect either the noun "interview" or "question" with 進める in the context of this sentence.

I also have some problems with time in this sentence. Why is "past tense" used in the second part of the sentence and how can I translate it?


texts: What is the meaning of the expression "異質の危険"?

texts:
I've been reading some documents on documents by various political parties, and have seen the term "異質の危険" used by 日本共産党 a few times now, but cannot work out what it means.

Whenever I've seen it, it's always surrounded by quotation marks, such as

  安倍晋三政権が今国会へ提出し、国家安全保障会議（日本版ＮＳＣ）設置法案とともに成立をねらう秘密保護法案に対し、反対の世論が広がっています。秘密保護法案は、外交、防衛など日本の「安全保障に関する情報」を保護するため、「行政機関の長」が「特定秘密」を指定し、それを漏らした公務員などに「懲役１０年」もの重罰を科す弾圧法です。情報に接近しようとした国民や報道機関も対象です。秘密保護法は、「安全保障」を名目に、広範な行政情報を国民から隠す、文字通りの「軍事立法」です。これまでにはない “異質の危険” は明らかです。

and

  日本中の原発が停止した“原発稼働ゼロ”の期間は７００日になろうとしている。原発がなくても電力が足りていることは、この月日が証明している。ひとたび大事故を起こしたら、その被害が空間的にも時間的にも制限なく広がる 「異質の危険」 を持つ原発と人類は共存できない。

I've tried to find other examples of this term in databases of parallel texts, and definitions of it in Japanese, but cannot find any kind of explanation. I suppose that a literal translation might be "heterogeneous danger" or "foreign danger", but I cannot work out how this makes any sense in the context of the paragraphs such as the above.

Would anyone be able to shed any light on this phrase?

Thanks.


texts: Can I find list of japanese names in kanji with latin equivalent?

texts:
I need such list at size of at least 5000 entries for sowftware performance testing purpose. The best format of list would be a CSV. For example:

佐藤琢磨;Kamui Kobayashi

Thanks!


texts:
I am wonder about using the word "unique" in isolation. Would this be written as ユニーク or ユニークな.

Sorry or the lack of explanation. I am looking to print this on a tshirt, and would like it to read "unique". In terms of "something unique". The brand is called 'One of One' and the meaning behind this is to express yourself and be yourself "unique".

I have translated this and come up with results which both include な and those that leave it off of the end of the word.

My question is if I should include the な on the end of the word as I have read that it is normally used to imply negativity when added to verbs. But in this case I am unsure of how to approach a single adjective.
I tried to do some research and could not find a complete answer.
Thanks in advance.


texts:
A man is driving home a woman. At a certain point he does not see her in the rearmirror of his car. He discovers that the woman has vanished. Then he writes this: 葉が震え、もう後を向く気がしなかった。

Has the expression in bold a particular meaning? I know it only as "leaves tremble" but here it does not make sense.


texts: What does [文] as in "[文]のに対して" stand for?

texts:
I stumbled on this grammar formula in the 日本語総まとめＮ３ book: "[文]のに対して", but I'm not sure what [文] stands for. Does it mean a sentence? If it is a sentence, it should end in either N/A/Na/V in 普通形 form, so according to the formula, this should be legit:

  田中先生は生徒だのに対して厳しい。

but is it really grammatically correct? The book also writes "Nに対して" and its example is:

  田中先生は生徒に対して厳しい.

This [文] part really confuses me, and the book doesn't explain what it stands for, even though it appears a lot in the book. Please help me!


texts:
How to say "open Pandora's box" in Japanese?
Ex.:

When I asked Jane about her problems, I didn't know I had opened Pandora's box.
What kind of Pandora's box do we open if we decide not arrest people
who have committed a crime?


texts: Why are there so many three kana kunyomi verbs beginning with あ?

texts:
謝る、扱う、現れる、表す、諦める、争う、改める、…
Why are there so many verbs beginning with あ and with three kana kunyomi?
Is there some etymological reason for this? I can't imagine this is completely incidental, though neither in Japanese, nor in English have I had any luck finding an answer with Google.
EDIT: Here's an elaboration why I'm asking:
With verbs, the kunyomi part most commonly is one or two kana long.
Among the verbs with three kana kunyomi I find it surprising how often they start with the kana あ.
This leads me to suspect that there might be a reason for this.
I am thinking of something like a past grammar feature where an あ was put in front of a verb to signify something (like with 御{お}/御{ご}), which then got absorbed into words where it was commonly used (similar to お風呂 or お金), and with the grammar feature disappearing from use, the あ getting absorbed into the kunyomi for those verbs, resulting in three kana kunyomi starting with あ.
If something like this existed or there is some other explanation, I would be interested in hearing it, and if this simply is a coincidence, then so be it.


texts: 美しい - Uncommon in everyday conversation when describing people?

texts:
Recently, in a conversation with my Japanese tutor (a native Japanese speaker) I brought up the word 美しい in regards to praising people and its usage in day to day language. She mentioned to me that it is not really a word used in normal conversation, as it was rather outdated and a bit too over the top, which would make some people think you're joking. Other such related terms like 美貌 or 美顔 are also not used frequently either.

She told to me that キレイ（綺麗）is a much better choice and can even be seen as the highest level of praise in regards to beauty.

While I've certainly heard this argument before from online discussions and other native Japanese speakers, it still confuses me a bit because I still hear native Japanese speakers use 美しい when praising people.

Some phrases I heard recently are:

今日も朝から美しいね。

食べる姿は美しい。

Is this a generational thing? Is the current generation simply bringing back an old word? Or am I simply overthinking the problem?

Any insight you can offer me would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Why is する used with things like 匂い・ネックレス・イヤリング?

texts: These don't seem like the standard Noun+する verbs to me (e.g 食事する) and I have noticed that they only seem to take the している・していた forms. Why is this, and if I wished to say "put a necklace on", would I use つける?


texts:
I'm attempting to practice my writing and tried writing this in Japanese

  Because its cold outside I went to eat Pho with a friend.

Originally I wrote

  寒い外なので僕は友達とフォーを食べに行きました。

I was then given multiple corrections by native speakers.

Person A and Person B both wrote

  外は寒いので僕は友達とフォーを食べに行きました。

Person C wrote

  外が寒いので僕は友達とフォーを食べに行きました。

Looking at these corrections the Person A and Person B one doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand why は is used twice in this case.

From what I understand, double は is used for comparisons. Where the first は is the "topic marker", so in this case outside (外), and the second は marks I (僕) which is where the comparison comes in.

But using this "comparison grammar" this way seems really odd to me because now I read the Person A and Person B correction as

  Because its cold outside I went to eat Pho with a friend opposed to other people in the world who may have not done this.

This seems very wrong to me. So what am I missing here / not understanding here?


texts: I am considering using this word to name a new brand however I don't want it to be named after the popular Anime character. Does Hizashi mean "rays of the sun" and can it be separated from the character?


texts:
弟はテレビをつけたままにしておいた

On Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar the translation is My younger brother left the TV on.  I do not understand why にしておいた is needed. I checked and it means : do something in advance? What do we need にしておいた for? Is it important?

 テレビがついたままになっている

Translation is  The TV was turned on and is still on  . テレビがついたまま should be enough right? It still makes sense so why do we need the になっている phrase there?


texts:
For example, "He knows that he's a lazy guy" or something like that.

Something along the lines of he/she is aware of something + the thing he/she is aware of.


texts: θ波はどういう意味ですか？~What does θ波 mean?

texts:
I've been listening to a couple 勉強用BGM soundtracks lately while I'm studying for any number of things, and I keep seeing this θ波 notation at the end of the title. It finally got to bothering me enough to look up what it meant, and all I could pull up on the thing was that it's a type of brain wave. However, I don't think I'm crazy when I say I still have no idea what that's supposed to mean exactly.
Anyone have any ideas for this one? Cause I sure don't (www)


texts: When would you use 敬語 in its plain forms?

texts: Are there any examples of people using verbs such as いただく, 参る, 申す, いたす (and their 尊敬語 counterparts, along with the various other humble/respectful verbs) in those plain forms, rather than conjugated as 丁寧語? I also mean at the end of a sentence, rather than as part of a larger clause that requires dictionary forms.


texts: I saw this translated in the first episode of FLCL as "It's wrong.", but checking the translation, I get "Different." Could someone clear this up?


texts: Understanding the sentence "人間では決して勝ちえることのできぬ存在"

texts:
While reading a book, I came across the following sentence:
人間では決して勝ちえることのできぬ存在
Even with the translation (fan-translated) "It was an opponent which humanity could not overcome", I am unable to understand it.
Let's focus on a slightly simpler version:
人間では勝ちえることのできない存在. I have highlighted the two parts that are confusing me:

人間では ... I cannot find on Particles: に vs. で a case which makes sense for this use of で, and am unsure what influence it has on the translation compared to its omission 人間は勝ちえること...
...ちえることのできない存在: I do not understand this use of の. It seems to neither indicate possession/adjectival, nor an のだ/んだ explanation.

Finally, I am unsure I understand how to properly assess the "direction" of the 勝ちえることできない, i.e. whether to translate "an opponent which humanity could not overcome" or "an opponent who could not overcome humanity". Indeed, it is my understanding that using 人間は rather than 人間が makes 人間 the subject of the sentence in the first case, and the subject of the verb in the second case (ex: 象さんは鼻が長い > "About elephants, their trunk is long"). Since there is no explicit object を in the sentence, I would be tempted to translate coarsely "About/Towards humanity, a being where winning is impossible", which is ambiguous as to the "direction" of 勝ちえることできない.
Thank you for helping.
Full context:


texts:
If I understand this correctly, ありがとうございます is formed as follows. First, the adjective ありがたい is turned into the adverb ありがたく. Then, in ありがたく+ございます, ウ音便 takes place and ありがたく becomes ありがとう.

But in cases like this, what exactly is ございます? Is it a politer version of ある? If so, could one in theory form sentences in the form of "adjective連用形 + ある" like 高くある? And what does ある(ござる/ございます) mean in this context? It certainly makes no sense for ある mean "to exist/to have". Does it mean "to be"?


texts:
This is a two part question.

1.) When spelling out a word in kana, what is the correct way to call the small つ (for example the small っ in ちっちゃい)?

I only have experience with my Japanese friends using the informal sounding

  小さい『つ』

or

  ちっちゃい『つ』

Is there a formal grammatical term for this "character"?

2.) If there is, but in reality it sounds too academic, which term would be the most immediately understandable in an informal setting?


texts: Is it true that the word "Omar" means "baby toilet" in Japanese?

texts:
I know it sounds funny, but my name is Omar, and one of my friends said that my name means "toilet for babies" in Japanese. I wanted to check if this is correct, because Google Translate did not help me.

I would appreciate if you would also give me some information about the word: explain weather or not it is a common word, formal or informal, etc.


texts:
I was reading a manga about a boy who turned into a girl. I found this odd line.

つまり... 目が覚めたら突然女の子になっていた... という事でいいですか?

When the girl-boy arrived at school, his kouhai didn't recognize him at first. After he explained to him everything, the junior was shocked and said the line above.

Why「なっていた」is used here? He became a girl and he hasn't transformed back to a boy yet. It is supposed to be「なっている」based on my understanding. Is it an error?

What「...でいいですか」means? My intuition tells me it means "...is it true"? Did I understand it correctly?


texts: Interrogative/Counters with か、も、でも, but also with particles

texts:
I know that by attaching か、も、でも to the end of an interrogative word can form a new meaning, but if particles are also used, where should the position of each thing be?
Example:
Which day? いつの日？
Some day... いつの日か…
But, "Until someday" should be which of the following?
いつの日までか　OR　いつの日かまで?
Also, I have the impression that counters work differently than these interrogative words. For counters, it's always 「counter」+「か、も、でも」+の+「noun」， unless counter is used after the noun. For example:
With some students:
何人かの学生と　✅
何人の学生かと　❌
何人の学生とか　❌
Buy however many cars:
何台でもの車を買う　✅
何台の車でもを買う　❌
車を何台でも買う　✅
On some websites:
いくつかのウエブサイトで ✅
いくつのウエブサイトかで ❌
いくつのウエブサイトでか ❌
Am I correct about these? Or the ones that I think are wrong are in fact correct?


texts: When to use おなかすいた and when to use はらへった?

texts:
From what I understand from listening to anime, both mean I'm hungry. But when do I use them properly? Is one more formal/polite than the other? Or is neither of them polite/formal enough?

In addition, how do I inform the other party that "I'm hungry let's go eat" politely?


texts: I got this from a Japanese bar owner, she said it means "bamboo", but I used Google translate and can't find a similar word that looks like that. Also, is it possible to type out this word?


texts: Meaning of this sentence, confused by まで

texts:
So, Google translate shows this as meaning After 7pm on the day... But doesn't まで mean "until" so why would it be after 7.. And not up until 7?

フロント【内線8番】にて当日19:00まで受付しております


texts: How to express the idea of "I continue to study"

texts:
I am writing a short text in Japanese and I would like to say that now I am continuing with my study of the Japanese language. Is it better to use the verb 勉強する or 学ぶ?

日本語を勉強し続けている。

日本語を学び続けている。


texts:
I found it twice. First in a song:

  いつもその本はハッピーエンドじゃないの。

And then the title of a manga:

  遊びじゃないの。

じゃない alone is for negation (no happy end, no playing).
What I can't understand is the の at the end of the sentence... what does it stand for?


texts:
Could you explain to me the difference between さえ and でさえ?

Example:

  そんなこと、子どもでさえ知っている。

Can I use さえ instead of でさえ in this sentence?

  そんなこと、子どもさえ知っている。


texts:
I am trying to figure out head-internal relative clauses. A paper I looked at presented two versions of the same sentence, one with the head word (りんご) outside the relative clause:

  [皿の上にあった]りんごをくすねた。

And one version where it is inside the relative clause:

  [りんごが皿の上にあった]のをくすねた。

Do these two sentences mean exactly the same thing, or are there differences in nuance? When are head-internal relative clauses usually used in Japanese?


texts: -かける in 出かける, 話しかける, 見かける, etc

texts: Verbs of the form V-始める mean 'begin to V'. Is there such a pattern for V-かける verbs?


texts: How would you say "if you don't mind my asking"?

texts:
This is something that is often said in English to politely ask a question while avoiding sounding overly intrusive.  For example,

  What do you do for a living, if you don't mind my asking?

The way that I would think to translate it is:

  聞いてもよろしければ、何の仕事をしているのですか。

But I'm not entirely confident, because that's a literal translation, and there may be a more natural sounding set-phrase for it. Is my translation correct? Or is there a better way to say it?


texts: I just confuse about kanji. I just learn a bit of kanji. But I want to know when exactly we use it? is there a rule about that?


texts: Japanese equivalent of saying to keep something to yourself?

texts:
What's the Japanese equivalent to saying for people to keep something to themselves?

Like, "Keep your toilet humour to yourself," or something?


texts: It may be a dumb question, both mean circle/round thing but 玉 is more of a jewel/sphere/ball. Could I say "5円丸" instead of "5円玉"? Or should I just stick with "5円硬貨"


texts:
I know from my dictionary that 病気がち means "proneness to being ill". 病気 just means illness, so where does the がち come from?

My research so far: I think がち might be the ます-stem of the verb 勝つ. The dictionary supports this hypothesis as it lists 勝ち as a suffix meaning "apt to do; tend to do (used to describe a negative tendency)". It also lists 涙勝ち as an "archaism" for "prone to crying" which further supports my hypothesis.

I have the following questions:

Is 勝つ really the origin of がち in 病気がち?
Why is a very positive verb such as 勝つ used to describe "being prone to something" in a negative way?
Are there any other examples of 勝つ being used in a negative way?
Are there any similar commonly used words ending in 勝ち?


texts: What's the difference in usage between に対して and にとって?

texts: I often used に対して when speaking, and have noticed にとって as the favorite expression of the author who's book I'm now reading. What's the difference in usage? Are there any other similar  expressions I should be wary of misusing?


texts: Is の上 required in エスカレーターの上を歩く

texts:
エスカレーターの上を歩くと、ほかの人にぶつかって落ちる危険があるため、やめてほしい。
  Because there's a risk of bumping in to other people and falling when you walk along the top of the escalator, we want people to stop doing it.

I'm a bit confused about the use of 上 in this sentence. Can't I just say エスカレーターを歩く? After all, there's no other part of an escalator you can walk on.

I see the same in thing in:
氷の上を歩く


texts: Is honorific speech ever used in the first person?

texts:
I'm just starting out learning Japanese, and I've read that when using honorific and humble forms and conjugations, you use humble forms to refer to yourself, and honorific forms to refer to others, such as the person you're talking to.

Is there any context in which a person might refer to themselves using honorific speech? A CEO, the Queen of England or Emperor Akihito, some fictional villain who thinks they're a God, someone trying to be insulting?


texts: Which is the difference between 詳しい and 細かい？

texts:
I would like to know which is the difference between 詳しい and 細かい？

When do I use each one?

Thank you so much in advance!


texts:
https://www.uta-net.com/song/248289/　From this song,

I can't translate " 僕らは目をそらしてはなりたい" and I don't know what's "そらしてはなりたい"


texts:
In this 4コマ漫画{まんが}, a four panel comic, a young attractive woman walks through a station ticket gate, but there's something wrong with her ticket. The station attendant calls after her, first by calling out お客{きゃく}さん！, which is "customer" or "passenger", a usual way for a staff to refer to a patron. She does not respond. So then he calls out おネエさん！, which is something like "miss" or "young lady". She still does not respond. He calls out おネエさま！, which is again "miss" or "young lady" or something like that, just with the politeness upped a little. She does not respond.

Finally, he calls out お嬢{じょう}さま！. Which, as far as I've understood its usage, is still just a way of saying "young woman" or "daughter". My dictionary also says it means "unmarried woman".

My feeling is that this comic isn't wildly hysterical in any case, but there's some kind of nuance to the fact that she only responds to お嬢{じょう}さま！ that is supposed to be kind of amusing. But to my non-native Japanese level of comprehension, it's just different ways of referring to a young woman, so I'm not seeing the extra connotations that support the humour.

What is it about her responding only to お嬢{じょう}さま！ that is in any way noteworthy? Is the fact that the man beside her is more distant from her in the last panel relevant (in that he is clearly not her husband)?

Lastly, I thought おネエさん！ would be too casual for a station attendant. Wouldn't it translate to something like "hey, babe"?


texts: Can I use suffixes (な、ね、さ、わ...) before と思う?

texts:
I always hear ～なぁと思った, but I don't know if it comes from:

食べるかなーと思った。 or like
きれいだなーと思った。 or
寒いなーと思った。

I think this sound　なーと思う is so relaxing and so nice, that I want to use it. But actually I would like to know how is used and where.

Related to it, I was thinking if we can use a suffix before と思う, like:

そのパソコンは高いねと思ってた。I was thinking how expensive is that computer (is it ok?)
あの道は危なくないさと思う。I think that street is safe.
。。。