Learning Japanese From Zero

[eido]

I don't think there's anything particularly weird about the school store salesman talking to the kids in casual forms.
...
Oh, and there's nothing particularly tough guy about ごめんね, it's just a very informal and cordial sort of apology.

You would know best, sir! Just trying to help.

Question, if I may invade @golyplot's log: -ね. Is it a guy thing or just a regular sentence ending? When I was scouring the Internet for an answer, I couldn't find one that came to a definite conclusion. There were three different kinds of casual "sorrys" - ごめんよ, ごめんね, and ごめんな. I couldn't find a conclusive answer between the difference in all three, except some might be more masculine or feminine or at times gender neutral. Do you have any insight on this, @vonPeterhof?

[vonPeterhof]

Question, if I may invade @golyplot's log: -ね. Is it a guy thing or just a regular sentence ending? When I was scouring the Internet for an answer, I couldn't find one that came to a definite conclusion. There were three different kinds of casual "sorrys" - ごめんよ, ごめんね, and ごめんな. I couldn't find a conclusive answer between the difference in all three, except some might be more masculine or feminine or at times gender neutral. Do you have any insight on this, @vonPeterhof?

In general just ごめん by itself is already a casual "sorry" in its own right, and there's no rule that it has to be followed by an emotive particle. But I guess ごめんな is the most masculine-sounding one out of the three, though not quite as masculine as すまん(な). Don't think I've ever heard -ね described as a "guy thing", in fact I have heard the exact opposite - which is an exaggeration, but with a bit of truth to it in that softening and agreement-seeking phrases like -ね are traditionally seen as playing a bigger part in feminine than in masculine casual speech.

As for ごめんよ I have to confess that I'm drawing a total blank as to any usage examples. Not that it sounds somehow ungrammatical or stylistically impermissible, I'm just struggling to recall any sort of situation where I'd have heard it. If I had to imagine a situation where it might be used I guess I wouldn't really think about it in terms of gender, but instead picture a somewhat emotionally tense situation where the apology is actually needed either to prevent an escalation or to deescalate, but seriously do not quote me on this

[eido]

In general just ごめん by itself is already a casual "sorry" in its own right, and there's no rule that it has to be followed by an emotive particle.
...but seriously do not quote me on this

It's alright. Your answer was better than most I found on Stack Exchange or various scattered sites. You're helping all of us Japanese learners out by sifting through the nuances so we can be better speakers I appreciate your service.

[golyplot]

I gave up on trying to understand the details of the advanced skit and decided to move on and go through the rest of lesson 2. Each lesson of Erin's Challenge also includes a short video explaining a particular grammar point. In this case, it was tekudasai (and only for ru verbs at that!). I of course knew that grammar like the back of my hand, but it was still interesting to try to guess the verbs that they were using as examples to stick kudasai onto the end. It's a bit ironic, since that's basically the opposite of the goal of the video. Incidentally, the video taught it as "remove the masu and add te", which seems like a rather unhelpful way to explain the te form. At least use the dictionary form!

I also watched Natsuki Hanae's third Craftopia video last night. There was one point where the door to the dungeon refused to open (presumably a bug). I noticed they were saying 開ける and the like a lot. I wouldn't have gotten it without the context, but it's still a nice since I doubt I would have noticed that five months ago. There was also one bit where Hanae joked about refusing to open his treasure chest at the end of the dungeon.

[devilyoudont]

...or ramen shops.

I spent a few minutes vainly trying to search "polite language ramen shops" for an article which would explain that there are a number of stores where the owner will not use polite forms with you, but no luck XD And I felt it was useless to say "Yeah, sometimes people in stores don't use polite language, it's a thing at some kinds of shops" XD XD So really glad that someone else knew this because the internet apparently has no idea what I was talking about.

[kraemder]

Just to give some light at the end of the tunnel. よう and many other words that sound the same but have different meanings.. at least with words like よう which are so common, they really do sink in and your brain adjusts according to the context and it's not painful at all. It's all a patience thing. I don't remember how long it took for me though. It helped that I enjoyed my Japanese classes that reviewed this for sure. We had great sentences like.. たなかさんは　かみさまのよう　です。At least I liked them

[kraemder]

However, I'm puzzled by the very first scene.

おじさん： ごめんね。やきそばパン、終わっちゃったなあ。ごめんね。

This line has two grammar points I looked up: ちゃった and なあ.

Is that really grammar? lol. They're like nothing filler words that just add emotion or feeling... I guess everything is grammar until you understand it.

[golyplot]

While browsing Tae Kim's grammar guide today, I noticed an example sentence using ちゃった (貧乏ながらも、高級なバッグを買っちゃったよ). I was surprised and figured this meant that Tae Kim must have already introduced that grammar.

I did a search and it turns out it was in fact covered on a previous page. It turns out that ちゃった is just the casual form of てしまった (te + shimau), meaning "an action that has taken place unintentionally often with unsatisfactory results".

I guess this shows how simply reading about grammar isn't enough to actually remember it. I'd already read about this grammar and still completely forgotten about it.

Incidentally, I think the English translation of the example sentence ("Even while I’m poor, I ended up buying a high quality bag."), doesn't really capture this nuance. The English version doesn't imply that the purchase was unintentional and/or unfortunate at all.

[golyplot]

Last night, I watched A Silent Voice: The Movie. I watched it with English subtitles, so it was more for entertainment than Japanese practice. The one thing that stuck out to me most was when Shouya went to Shouko's home and saw her about to commit suicide, and still paused to take off his shoes before rushing in to save her. That little detail seemed so Japanese.

I also completed my first "fast level" on Wanikani last night. I'd been debating whether to do the fast levels at maximum speed (double the already fast pace of normal levels), but I decided to go for it. I expected that the review load on Wanikani will get pretty crushing by the end (the review piles are often exhausting already and fast levels will nearly double that), but it's only 10 weeks (9.5 now) and I figured I'll be able to manage.

I'm not sure how much I'd learn powering through (though admittedly the later levels are mostly rare kanji to begin with), but it will be nice to just get the kanji study over with so I can move on to other things. That's also the reason I didn't subscribe to Bunpro when my free trial ended a couple weeks ago. I figured that I won't have much time for non-WK stuff like that. I plan to start doing Bunpro again once I've finished level 60 on Wanikani in late December. Assuming all goes well, I'm on track to pass level 60 the morning of December 23rd, shortly before Christmas. Talk about a nice Christmas present.

Anyway, this means that following my level up last night, I unlocked 154 lessons. I've never seen the image for when you have 100+ lessons before, but I'll be seeing it a lot in the future. It only gets worse from here.

[golyplot]

This evening I moved on to EC lesson 3 Basic skit.

Looking at the script, I was puzzled by the line " あーいけない！あーあ、あげすぎちゃったあ。", with the translation listed as "Oh, no! Darn! I deep-fried it too long.".

I recognized ちゃった as the grammar I discussed previously, about doing something accidentally, and figured that the すぎ must be a form of sugiru (too much). However, I didn't recognize あげ. Apparently, although it normally means to raise (上げる), it can also mean to deep fry, per Jisho. I wonder where that meaning came from.


I also wasn't sure what おいしそう meant, but after looking at the translation ("That looks delicious..."), I realized it must be oishii + sou (seeming). I guess they chop off the i in this case. I recall having a hard time back when I was doing Bunpro trying to keep straight which grammar points used which forms of the preceding words. Especially since in some cases there are distinct grammar points using the same ending word with only subtle changes in the form of the preceding word. All those sous and yous and mitais and the like get really confusing.