Professional audio engineer, specialized in DSP and audio programming. I love digital synths and European renaissance music. I also speak several languages, hit me up if you’re into any of that!
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Cake day: Jun 06, 2023
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こんにちは皆さん！
久しぶりですね。このコミュニティが結構静かで少し復活しようと思っていました。
それに従って、これから（できる限り)日本語の週刊練習スレッドを始めます。
何でも書いても大丈夫ですから、ごゆっくり自由に日本語を使って、チャットしたり、自分にノートを残したり、なにか最近勉強した文法を練習したりしてくださいね！
Hello everyone!
It's been a long time. This community has been pretty quiet for a while, so I've been thinking about reviving it.
Therefore, I've decided to start a weekly (as much as possible) Japanese language thread.
You can write anything, so use Japanese as you please, chat with others, leave notes for yourself, or even practice any recent grammar you've learnt.
よく考えると、なんかこのポストを書くのも自分にとって練習になって草
One trope you’ll see repeated all over anime, manga, novels and even in real life is that of the ボケ (the idiot) and ツッコミ (straight man). Once you know a bit more about its dynamics and some of the more famous 芸人 duos, you start seeing it everywhere.
Downtown is one of the more famous ones, but if you want a shortlist of some of the most famous and relevant duos, the [M-1 Grand Prix](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-1_Grand_Prix) as well as the contestants of the [Documental streaming series](https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HITOSHI_MATSUMOTO_presents_ドキュメンタル) are great places to get into Manzai.
Manzai is certainly one of the most relevant media in Japanese, and it is so important you start to see language trends as well as cultural shifts reflected in manzai performances. At the same time you also get to see manzai actively shape Japanese culture and set new trends. It’s a great step if you want your Japanese to improve considerably and get closer to real Japanese humour.
I thought this was a very interesting vieo about the use of "huh?" or 「はぁ？」 and how many languages around the world have found a quick way to let the other party know that there has been a problem in communication.
The Japanese level is rather advanced but I encourage intermediate learners to give it a try and see if you manage to pick up a good chunk of the vocabulary you didn't know from context as well.
I just switched to Android after being a very long time iOS user and I'm somewhat at a loss at the best apps and must-haves of Japanese content, dictionaries and similar stuff.
What are your best recommendations?
This channel is pretty fun whenever I need something to watch and relax without thinking much about it. It has also helped me realise I make a lot of mistakes when writing by hand which inevitably leads to messier characters. Definitely recommend watching if you’re into this type of stuff.
I started because I was super into Japanese music. This was almost 10 years ago already. But over time I’ve come to appreciate the lenguaje itself. Especially Kanji. Now I love it, and is the main reason why I still go out of my way to learn new vocabulary that I may never use.
That being said, I’m also trying to get into a Japanese university for my masters degree, and I use Japanese every day at my job, so it has financial and professional uses for me as well, and has sort of gone beyond a mere hobby at this point
This video by Kotorabo, one of the best YouTube channels about language and etymologies talks about the question we’ve all wondered at some point: why doesn’t Japanese just get rid of Kanji?
Assuming English is your native language:
Pronunciation is a majorly difficult thing for most native English speakers. I know people look at Japanese vowels and consonants and think “wow, only 5 vowels and a limited set of consonants and combinations, this is super easy!” And I guess it is easier than… Russian, Hungarian or French. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
But that’s mostly because they’re thinking of the “a” sound in English and the “o” sound, and so on. In reality, Japanese vowels are so radically different from English vowels, the vast majority of learners are going to completely butcher their pronunciation. You have to learn how to simplify all of them to their real sounds, because English vowels are usually rather complex, while Japanese are more similar to Spanish vowels. You also have to get rid of the plosives, which are also a dead giveaway when someone is a native English speaker.
As for what makes Japanese easier than others… hmm… well, not a lot, actually. I guess tenses and verb conjugations are considerably simpler than most Romance languages, for example. There are no gendered nouns but you have Kanji which is far more time consuming to memorise, and grammar structure and logic is usually completely different from English, and you’ll have to learn how to think differently to get your head around many concepts. This happens with most languages but even more so with Japanese.
So uh… the only thing that I think makes Japanese easier is that it’s arguably one of the most studied, documented and resource-rich languages to learn. There are millions of resources focusing on efficient and thorough study methodologies, as well as a lot of very popular media, books, TV shows, you name it. Cultural relevance is, in my opinion, Japanese’s biggest advantage, which is only rivalled by Spanish in the United States, or perhaps (I honestly have no clue but I’m guessing) French in the UK.
Alright everyone! JLPT is tomorrow. Discuss anything related to the test, success or failure stories, fun anecdotes and everything in-between in this thread!
Good luck to all of you taking JLPT within the following hours!
I think ChatGPT works fine for reviewing your text. It will usually manage to point out the bits that sound wrong or inaccurate in your text, and it’s surprisingly precise at doing it.
However, as everybody else pointed out, don’t expect accurate or well-researched answers from it, and take any grammatical or nuanced statements with a mountain of salt, because it’s highly likely that it’s completely wrong.
But I’ve also asked ChatGPT to proofread and adjust my emails for coworkers and clients, and to make sure they sound formal and are respectful enough, and I’ve found it to be very good at this. But I would suggest knowing enough Japanese to be able to fix anything that sounds off or is lost in translation.
I wouldn’t recommend it as a tool for beginners, but I definitely encourage advanced learners to give it a shot, since it really does improve, summarise and rephrase texts successfully a lot of the time.
I don’t remember where I read this first, but I liked this quote:
What’s so confusing about AI is that it’s good at things you wouldn’t expect it to, and it’s terrible at tasks that are stereotypically machine-like. Fact checking? Sourcing? Citations? It’s awful. But writing human-like text? Proofreading? Maintaining natural conversations? It’s awesome at that.
I've found that any time I'm interested in a game, looking up let's plays in Japanese has helped me make a lot of connections between the game's contents and Japanese vocabulary.
I'm linking a good example of that with Metroid Dread, which is a game I played last year and I spend a few weeks watching let's plays and reading online content about it in Japanese, mostly because I loved the game, but I also thought that doing so might be a good exercise for intermediate learners as well.
The key to searching for a let's play is to just enter the Japanese name of the game (for example: バイオハザード４ or ダークソウル３）and then adding 実況 which is the keyword here. Any popular game followed by 実況 is likely to yield tons of results, so give it a try if you're into games, and you may learn a lot of vocabulary from it!
Hello everyone, and welcome to our (kind of) daily JLPT thread! I'm sorry I couldn't post one of these for the past week. I was busy with work and couldn't get the time to prepare an entire review of a new structure. I'm back and hopefully will be posting these more regularly again. With that said, let's get started!
本日の文法：JLPTN3の「～（という）わけではない」
**～わけではない** Is a pretty common expression that you're going to find in a lot of media such as anime, manga, manzai and dramas. It's also used in everyday conversation, though, so you will get a lot of mileage out of this one.
For the most part, its meaning is close to "it's not like..." or "...doesn't mean that...", so basically, it's an expression for a partial negation of a statement. You'd use it when you don't want to fully deny something, but still want to point out that something isn't quite correct.
So a few example sentences would be
お金があるから、必ず幸せにる**というわけではない**。"Having money **doesn't necessarily mean** you will be happy."
成績が良かったから、他の生徒に教えるのが得意な**わけではない**。"Having good grades **doesn't mean** you will be good at teaching other students"
So right now there are a few additional things you may be wondering:
First of all, what is という in this instance, and why is it optional? Is it really always optional or does it have a more nuanced use most of the time?
Generally speaking, where you can use a simple わけではない, you can also use a というわけではない. They're grammatically equivalent in that sense. However, they do have a very slightly different meaning, where という gives the impression that you're taking a less opinionated and more objective approach to the conversation. You would use というわけではない when you perhaps want to make a general statement. Looking at our first example sentence, you will notice that we're talking about a general perspective "money doesn't mean happiness in general", and as such, it doesn't feel like you're talking *about* anyone in particular, and you're just making a statement. But for our second sentence, you may notice the situation is most likely referring to a successful student that has decided to teach the rest of his class, and is probably not great at it. In this case, leaving out という makes the comment slightly harsher, almost like a criticism to a specific person in question.
So do keep those differences in mind.
Also, it's important to point out that わけではない is a rather stiff way to use this expression, and you may want to use わけではありません in formal contexts, or わけじゃない in more casual contexts. わけではない sounds a bit academic, kind of like the one speaking is a figure of authority. The type of speech you would find in textbooks, newspapers, academic research and similar scenarios.
Some examples for different settings would be
この道まっすぐ行ったら、すぐに図書館に到着する**というわけではありません**。その前、公園も渡らなければなりません。"You **will not** reach the library immediately if you walk straight down this road. You have to cross the park first as well."
いや、別に俺の妹が天才な**わけじゃない**けど、結構頭がいいし、頑張れる人間だから。"Nah, **it's not like** my sister is a genius or anything, but she's pretty smart, and she works hard."
The first example could be someone giving directions to another person, presumably a complete stranger. In this scenario, using full-on 敬語 would probably be overkill, but using a more informal form would come off as rude. This is why a polite form like this one might work.
The second example is far more informal, but you will also encounter a lot of this in every day life. I've personally found myself speaking to many of my co-workers like this in the office. Definitely not to my boss or other superiors, though, so watch out for that.
I think that will be all for today! Hope everyone is having a nice day, getting ready for JLPT in only 12 days!
I love this podcast. They discuss a lot of the more mind-blowing quirks of language from a Japanese perspective. It has led to some truly mind-blowing moments for me, where I have understood English from a completely new perspective, and I really enjoy it.
The catch is that it gets pretty hard at times! But if you want to discuss it here, that could be pretty fun! This episode was particularly interesting.
For some additional context: they're discussing how amazing "vocabulary" is, and they start the podcast joking around a bit before getting into the subject matter. Hope some of our most daring members give it a try!
Hello everyone, I realised we don’t really have an introductory or meta thread for this community, and I thought it might be wise to create one.
So first of all, you might be wondering what japaneselanguage’s particular scope is and how it might be different from other Japanese communities in other instances.
Generally, I don’t like to think that we will be competing with other instances, but rather that we will be filling a niche for people that might be interested in discussing the language itself rather than it’s study methods. This community isn’t going to be a place to discuss the speedrunning or the efficiency of learning Japanese as there are other communities dedicated to those subjects.
Instead, this will be a place where we can discuss how the Japanese language *works*, it’s phonetics, it’s writing system, calligraphy and other related topics, our handwriting, as well as all other sorts of topics.
Learning materials, media, and literary discussion are very much welcome and encouraged! The only subject that will be discouraged (though not downright banned) is discussion of study methods exclusively without also including discussion about the language itself. So threads in the style of “how I learned 1,000 Japanese sentences over a three-week period” and similar threads focusing more on the methods than the language will probably belong in more specific communities.
Thank you very much for browsing this community and I hope we will be able to build a fun space for all of us who love Japanese.
Hello everyone, and welcome to our daily JLPT thread! Let's hope we keep growing as a community. I've seen a lot of growth in this sub, and last thread even got one comment, which is already pretty impressive for such a grassroots place! Let's talk about more Japanese grammar from now on!
本日の文法：JLPTN3の「～によって」
**～によって** Is a structure that you're going to be seeing quite frequently throughout your Japanese journey. It is used in all sorts of contexts, from the very informal to the academic and highly complex. It has a few *different* meanings that are mostly unrelated to us, non-natives, so let's take a look at them.
**～によって As "depends"**
If you've ever wondered how to give some nuance to your speech, によって is a great way to do it. Sentences like "depending on the circumstances" or "that depends on the weather" can be constructed using this structure.
A few example sentences for this could be
明日の天気**によって**、散歩に行きます。”We'll go for a walk **depending** on tomorrow's weather.”
どんな家族**によって**、子供の教育が変わっていきます。”A child's education will change **depending** on their family”
**～によって As "using / by means of"**
Another common use of によって, is to indicate the means by which you achieve something. It can be similar to the particle で in some cases, but it might be perceived as a more formal alternative, frequently found in academia and formal writing. Let's look at some examples:
人間は、言語**によって**コミュニケーションする。"Humans communicate **using** language."
教科書**によって**、新しい知識を得ることができる。"You can obtain new knowledge **using** a textbook."
Do keep in mind this does not replace the verb "to use" and it's not equivalent. If you want to emphasize the *usage* aspect of that verb, you will need to use the verbs 使う or 使用する, and build a different structure. In these sentences we're using によって because the mentioned nouns (言語 and 教科書 respectively) are a means of achieving something, and that's what's important. So always keep in mind "do I just want to say 'use' as a verb, or do I want to explain how this item helps me accomplish a particular goal?"
**～によって As "by (authorship)"**
This one is very simple, but still really important. In Japanese, when you want to mention the author of a specific work or text, as well as the person that brought a specific project to completion, you can use によって。Let's look at some examples:
この面白いファンタジーシリーズは有名なイギリス人の作家**によって**書かれた。"This fun fantasy series was written **by** a famous English author."
韓国人の漫画家**によって**描かれた漫画は日本の漫画と違うところがかなりあります。”Manga written **by** Korean authors is considerably different from Japanese manga."
**～によって As "due to / as a consequence of"**
Finally, we have another form frequently used in formal speech, particularly in news reports, journalism and similar scenarios. I frequently imagine reporters using this form to explain current or ongoing events. Here are some examples:
東京における今晩のイベント**によって**、会議が中止されました。"The meeting was canceled **due to** this evening's event in Tokyo."
25日の地震**によって**、国中のいくつかの道路が非公開になっております。"Several roads in the country have been closed to the public **due to** the earthquake on the 25th."
These are the most common uses you'll find for によって, though as always, try not to approach grammar as a 1:1 equivalent for English structures, and instead make sure you pay attention to the different contexts in which you'll see it used, so you can get a better feel of how this structure works.
PD:
Let me know if any of you have a request for future structures or grammar that you think would be fun to discuss in its own thread, and I'll be happy to oblige.
That would be all for today, hope everybody has a very nice day!
Hello everyone, and welcome to our daily JLPT thread! It’s insane seeing the community grow up to 20 users. I want to keep these posts up in hopes of building an active community that focuses on what the Japanese language is, and how it works. It really is a fascinating subject to study!
本日の文法：JLPTN4の「～くらい/ぐらい」
～くらい/ぐらい Is a single word that is most commonly found when talking about approximations or approximate values. Keep in mind that both くらい and ぐらい are the same and 100% interchangeable, so it’s up to personal preference you how say and spell it. This word has a few more uses that may be more idiomatic and make your Japanese sound more natural as well, so let’s look at some examples.
A few example sentences for this could be
明日のテストは30分**ぐらい**かかります。”Tomorrow’s test will be **about** 30 minutes long.”
彼女の息子は前回会った時、身長がもう120センチ**ぐらい**だったよ！”Last time I saw her son, he was already **around** 120cm tall!”
Although this form is rather casual, and for more formal speech you would use other forms, it is still extremely common, and you can find it in a lot of places, from media, to casual speech and even advertising. This isn’t even the only casual way to mark approximate values, but I think it might be the best to learn first, as it’s both versatile enough, and quite useful to know.
Now, some uses of ぐらい may be a bit confusing for a student at first. This is because a second common use for the word is as a level indicator. That means, as a word you use to emphasise the degree of things.
Let me show you a few examples
こんな簡単な文章**ぐらい**、小学生でも読める。”Even a grade schooler could read a text **as simple as** this”
And for a more complex one, if you want to challenge yourself:
お寿司は世界中の何百万人も食べたことがあるぐらい有名な和食です “Sushi is a Japanese dish **so popular that** millions of people around the world have tried it”
In both of those sentences くらい is used to indicate the degree of situations. In the first case it indicates just how simple a text is (simple enough for a grade schooler), while in the second case it indicates how famous sushi is (famous enough to have been eaten by millions around the world). I understand this specific use may be a bit more challenging, so feel free to create your own examples to practice and play around with it as you get more comfortable! Remember that writing and speaking are important parts of learning a language as well.
That would be all for today, hope everybody has a very nice day!
Hello everyone, and welcome to our daily JLPT thread! As the tests get nearer and nearer, I'm thinking on focusing on N4-N3 grammar for a few days, since I think those are probably the most popular tests, and the bulk of potential readers will fall under that level most likely. That said, let us begin!
本日の文法：JLPTN3の「～のように・のような」
～のように・のような Is a very common structure that could translate to “just like” or simply “like”, implying resemblance or any commonalities between two things. It's especially common when you want to use someone's attributes or features to link them to someone else.
A few example sentences for this could be
弟は、父のような優しい人ではない。
“My brother is not a gentle person like my dad is”
彼女は、状況をよく理解できる方のように説明しました。
"She explained it like someone who understands the situation very well."
It's not a particularly formal or colloquial form (although it might be more unusual in highly formal speech), but it *does* change depending on how it's being used.
Notice that the first sentence is linking two nouns 「父」 and 「優しい人」, and thus のような is used. The structure would become NOUNのようなNOUN.
For example:
「師匠のような先生」"A teacher that's more like a mentor" or 「太陽のような光」"A light like the sun".
However, you can also change the structure to のように to make more specific comparisons. We can modify our previous examples to make them evaluate a specific feature or quality about someone or something.
For example:
「師匠のように話する先生」
"A teacher that speaks like a mentor."
「太陽のように明るい光」
"A light as bright as the sun."
Hope everybody has a very nice day!
Hello everyone, and welcome to our daily JLPT thread!
The July tests are coming up quickly, so I thought we could have a daily thread where we discuss questions, or talk about what we've been practicing. In this thread I will also be sharing one graded grammatical structure every day, so feel free to use it for your own reference.
**本日の文法：JLPTN1の「～極（きわ）まりない」**
～きわまりない
Is a very interesting structure that could translate to "extremely" or "as can be".
A few example sentences for this could be
図書館で大声を出して騒ぐなんて、迷惑きわまりない。
"Speaking loudly and making a ruckus at a library is as annoying as it gets"
昨日、彼の態度は失礼きわまりない
"His attitude yesterday was extremely rude"
This structure could be considered relatively similar in meaning to 「非常に」 though naturally the way it's built is different. In this case you mostly just attach it to a noun. That makes it relatively easy to use! Remember that this is a relatively literary or formal structure, so you probably won't be hearing it too much when speaking casually or colloquially.
Hope everybody has a very nice day studying for your upcoming test!
おお！すごい！6月から勉強していますか！頑張って！