Japanese study group

[sister555]

Dear Friends,

 

I happened to find this site:  https://www.marugoto-online.jp/info/

 

I'm sorry if you already know this, but for those who don't know, this site might be your good teacher!!

[Murieleirum]

2 hours ago, sister555 said:

Hello!

 

I happened to find this thread!!  :D

 

I am a Japanese, but I'll bookmark this thread for my English study!!

 

Talking about the sentence "Why don't you want to see that movie?", it's a bit difficult case, because usually Japanese is not so demanding in asking the reason (s)he doesn't want to see that movie.

 

But if one should say this, it might be:

その映画にあまり興味はないのですか？

（Are you not so much interested in that movie?)

 

Japanese people tend to evade the "demanding" or "straightforward" situation and ask from a different angle. 

 

Aaaaah  Thank you! I think I should be able to remember this. 

I am actually quite the opposite. I don't know if it has something to do with my culture (italian), or just my personality, but I tend to be familiar straight away with people and say things as direct as possible and see how they respond. If they like the familiarity, then we are already half-way to being friends. If they don't like it, I back off and try to be more distant and polite 

 

I've chosen a complete opposite culture to study. Oh, well, love is blind 

[Hydroblade]

I tried duolingo's japanese course and the placement test put me a checkpoint away from finishing the course.

I took the checkpoint shortcut  and i am testing out the lessons instead of doing them. It was released 3 days ago i think.

The thing is, i can't really recommend it, which sucks because i love duolingo, but i feel like the course structure isn't newbie friendly

Check it out if you want but i don't like it that much...

Might be because of what Miyuki has been saying here, the grammar of japanese is hard to translate into a one size fits all learning model...

[yuzuangel]

1 hour ago, Hydroblade said:

I tried duolingo's japanese course and the placement test put me a checkpoint away from finishing the course.

I took the checkpoint shortcut  and i am testing out the lessons instead of doing them. It was released 3 days ago i think.

The thing is, i can't really recommend it, which sucks because i love duolingo, but i feel like the course structure isn't newbie friendly

Check it out if you want but i don't like it that much...

Might be because of what Miyuki has been saying here, the grammar of japanese is hard to translate into a one size fits all learning model...

That makes sense, i think that might be why it took them a long time to come out with Japanese when Japanese is probably one of the most popular languages people want to learn.

[kaaaaaaat]

On 6/6/2017 at 13:00, Hydroblade said:

I tried duolingo's japanese course and the placement test put me a checkpoint away from finishing the course.

I took the checkpoint shortcut  and i am testing out the lessons instead of doing them. It was released 3 days ago i think.

The thing is, i can't really recommend it, which sucks because i love duolingo, but i feel like the course structure isn't newbie friendly

Check it out if you want but i don't like it that much...

Might be because of what Miyuki has been saying here, the grammar of japanese is hard to translate into a one size fits all learning model...

I was a beta tester for the Japanese Duolingo and I'm surprised they released it now for everyone. It's still imo pretty rough on the edges and yes, definitely not newbie friendly. I'd suggest it as supplementary to various other methods (goes for any Duolingo class, really, but more so for Japanese), though, once it's more cleaned out.

[Hydroblade]

5 hours ago, kaaaaaaat said:

I was a beta tester for the Japanese Duolingo and I'm surprised they released it now for everyone. It's still imo pretty rough on the edges and yes, definitely not newbie friendly. I'd suggest it as supplementary to various other methods (goes for any Duolingo class, really, but more so for Japanese), though, once it's more cleaned out.

So far I've been using Duolingo to learn the basic grammar of my target languages, and is pretty good for that. But I felt confused by the Japanese course, although I already tested out the whole tree (I was so disappointed in the last lesson lol, you get to learn senshu but WHY NO YUZU RELATED SENTENCES? )

[kaaaaaaat]

10 hours ago, Hydroblade said:

So far I've been using Duolingo to learn the basic grammar of my target languages, and is pretty good for that. But I felt confused by the Japanese course, although I already tested out the whole tree (I was so disappointed in the last lesson lol, you get to learn senshu but WHY NO YUZU RELATED SENTENCES? )

haha we need a Yuzu fan on the inside!  (On a more serious note, I think there's only a limited number of words in the sentence builder of Incubator [where they build the language courses], that's why the names in the Duolingo sentences are so generic.)

 

 ngl tho if every Japanese sentence I encountered had to do with Yuzu I'd probably be better at Japanese now.  

[Hydroblade]

5 minutes ago, kaaaaaaat said:

haha we need a Yuzu fan on the inside!  (On a more serious note, I think there's only a limited number of words in the sentence builder of Incubator [where they build the language courses], that's why the names in the Duolingo sentences are so generic.)

 

 ngl tho if every Japanese sentence I encountered had to do with Yuzu I'd probably be better at Japanese now.  

I didn't see names in any of the tests just mother, farther, sister, brother, friend...

[kaaaaaaat]

1 hour ago, Hydroblade said:

I didn't see names in any of the tests just mother, farther, sister, brother, friend...

Haha, I think it's because you tested out of the different courses, yeah? I think there's a John and a Maria and possibly a Mr. Tanaka, but, yeah, most are common nouns.

[kitsune]

Sorry for a rather random question but is isu (chair) written in katakana or hiragana. I always thought it was hiragana but I think I saw it on television written in katakana and now I'm a bit confused.

[Hydroblade]

Lmao this is eating me.... Japanese speakers pls help me with this one. Which sentence is better?

a)このプレゼントはだれにもらったか？

b)これはだれにもらったプレゼントですか？

[Murieleirum]

47 minutes ago, Hydroblade said:

Lmao this is eating me.... Japanese speakers pls help me with this one. Which sentence is better?

a)このプレゼントはだれにもらったか？

b)これはだれにもらったプレゼントですか？

 

I know less Japanese than you but the first one kind of resonates with my guts more?  although my guts have 0% reliability
(Now I want to know the answer as well so Imma wait for a Japanese person together with you )

[sister555]

16 時間前, kitsune said:

Sorry for a rather random question but is isu (chair) written in katakana or hiragana. I always thought it was hiragana but I think I saw it on television written in katakana and now I'm a bit confused.

 

Well, the answer is ALL.

The most popular way is Kanji, 椅子 .　This is especially so when combined with another Kanji.

Ex:  座椅子　（ざいす）

 

Then hiragana, いす。

 

Thirdly, イス。

I can't think of the situation where イス should be used now, but I've found a very interesting example:

Look at this page:  http://www.kaunet.com/rakuraku/category/0/1/005/005010/

 

This is from a very popular Japanese shopping site, Kaunet.

And they use all of "チェア／椅子／イス"!!! 

Apparently they are doing so just for SEO (= search engine optimization).

As they are an online site, they want to take the TOP place of the Google search result.

 

So I can say 「イス」 can be used, but in most cases we use 椅子 or いす.

（Generally いす is used by children.  Adults usually use 椅子.)

 

[sister555]

1 時間前, Murieleirum said:

 

I know less Japanese than you but the first one kind of resonates with my guts more?  although my guts have 0% reliability
(Now I want to know the answer as well so Imma wait for a Japanese person together with you )

 

OKOK!!!

 

First of all, comparison of a) and b).

a)このプレゼントはだれにもらったか？

b)これはだれにもらったプレゼントですか？

 

b) is far better than a), especially the end of a): 「だれにもらったか？」 sounds like a Tarzan asking all of a sudden.

 

b) is gramatically correct and quite understandable, but is rather redundant.

 

We say,

a) In a polite situation:

これはどなたからのプレゼント（or贈り物）ですか？

 

b) In a casual conversation:

これは誰からのプレゼント？

 

Please note the difference of どなた and 誰.

どなた is far politer than 誰.

 

You might be interested in the origin of the word どなた.

The Kanji for どなた is 何方.

You might notice the contemporary Japanese phrase 「どのあたり」 has quite a similar sound.

 

In fact, in the old era, Japanese people used the words which denotes place or direction, because they (probably) felt calling someone directly was rather inpolite and not sophisticated.

 

So あなた comes from 彼方（かなた）, far place.

Ref.:  http://gogen-allguide.com/a/anata.html

 

So どなた most probably have meant "in what direction".

 

Some vestige of this beautiful culture still remains when one introduces someone, like:

「こちら、〇〇△△様です」

 

So much blabbering!

 

So please remember「誰からの（or more politely, どなたからの）プレゼント」 instead of lengthy「誰からもらったプレゼント」.  And never mingle "polite" words and "colloquial" words, because that would sound very strange. 

[sister555]

P.S. - You CAN say「これは誰からのプレゼントですか？」 in a friendly atmosphere or relationship.