Learning Japanese From Zero

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat May 28, 2022 4:56 pm

TTBJ

Yesterday, I took the TTBJ test. Luckily, it only took an hour to complete. The TTBJ is much shorter than the JLPT, mainly because of the extreme time limits. The TTBJ only gives you 4-5 seconds to answer for Spot and Kanji questions and only 10 minutes per 30 questions for the Grammar sections (20 seconds per question). It seems to be intended to test automaticity rather than knowledge like the JLPT does.

Image

The first three sections are the Spot questions. These give you a sentence with one kana replaced by a blank while a voice reads out the sentence, and you have to click on the missing kana. (All the TTBJ questions are multiple choice with four answers).

One challenge is that it is looking for a kana, not a word or even a syllable. This isn't too bad when the missing kana is just a syllable by itself, but sometimes it will just be part of a syllable. I remember one question where it was looking for the "せ" in せい. Maybe it is different for the Japanese with their whole "mora" thing, but us English speakers aren't used to thinking of a word like せい as consisting of multiple units, so it is very counterintuitive, and makes things more difficult. Obviously, it's not a major obstacle, but even a slight mental delay like this is killer when you only have a split second to answer the question.

Anyway, I did pretty well on the first Spot section, and was feeling kind of cocky afterwards. I got 23/30 (77%), but I feel like I got the hang of it over time. I missed four of the first five, meaning I got 22/25 (88%) if you exclude the first five questions.

Unfortunately, my confidence was utterly crushed on the second Spot section, where the voice was much faster and it was difficult to hear the answer. I felt like I just had to guess randomly on half the questions and only got 17/30 (57%).

As for the third Spot section, the voice was garbled and nearly impossible to understand, so I mostly didn't even bother. There were a couple questions where I did manage to hear the answer from the voice, but on most of them, I didn't even bother trying to listen and just did my best to guess what the missing kana was based on what was on either side of the blank. Unsurprisingly, I only managed 37%, only a little better than chance (25%).

Grammar has always been my weak point on the practice JLPTs (or with Japanese in general), so I wasn't expecting much here. I got 23/30 (77%) again on Grammar I, and that was despite rushing through the questions due to fear of time pressure. I might have been able to get a few more with better pacing.

Interestingly, the second Grammar section actually felt easier to me, despite the questions being more advanced. I'm not sure why. Despite pacing myself better this time, I only managed 16/30 (53%).

As for the third Grammar section, I was reduced to just guessing randomly on nearly every question. Fittingly, I ended up with 8/30, which is exactly what you'd get on average just by random guessing.

The Kanji section was also interesting. As with the Spot section, there was an extreme time limit on each question, so kanji knowledge alone only gets you so far. Usually, there isn't even enough time to try to read the whole sentence.

The kanji section was a mix. There were some questions where I felt like I understood it perfectly and knew the answer immediately. There were some where I recognized the word, but it was a challenge to read the answers and choose the correct one in time. There were also a bunch of questions where I just had to guess randomly, due to either not managing to hear the reading in the spoken voice or not intuitively recognizing the words in question.

The practice session at the start gave me up for a false sense of security. I got all five of the practice questions right, only to be blindsided by two questions I didn't know right off the bat on the actual test. Still, I managed 36/50 (72%), which is pretty damn good IMO, given how difficult the test format makes things.

As an example of the typical kind of question, I remember one where the sentence had something about money and the reading was "ka". I knew (or thought anyway) it was either 貸 or 借 given the context, but I had no time to think about which one it might be, or even read the sentence, so I just guessed the later.

---

Satori Reader

SR had another note about the Japanese school system, and this one really surprised me.

School lunches in elementary schools are really interesting affairs. Kids don't bring packed lunches or go to a central cafeteria to eat. Instead, a delegation of kids from each classroom goes to a kitchen to pick up food for everyone and bring it back to their classroom. They're hauling back meals for 30-40 kids, so it can take perhaps five to eight kids to bring it all back.
Meanwhile, another group of kids sets up serving tables in the front of the classroom. When the food arrives, this second group of kids, wearing tiny white aprons and face masks, apportions out the food to everyone.
This kind of lunch service is called kyuushoku. Kids take turns in the different roles, and the typical tour of duty is perhaps one week out of each month. When it's your turn to be on kyuushoku duty, you are a kyuushoku touban, "a person on kyuushoku duty."
It varies by location and school, but kyuushoku can continue through middle school. By high school, things switch mostly to packed lunches.


Despite studying Japanese for two and a half years and watching lots of anime, I had never heard of this before. Going by anime, Japanese students always have homemade bento for lunch. I remember a scene in Erin's Challenge where they buy lunch at the cafeteria, and the cafeteria probably showed up at least once or twice in anime I've watched, though I can't remember specifics. Still, I'd never heard of the 給食 thing at all.

Admittedly, most anime deal with high schoolers, rather than elementary schoolers, but I did watch Card Captor Sakura and Erased, which are set in elementary school, and I don't recall ever seeing anything like that even then. In Kotaro Lives Alone, the students definitely do bring bento from home - it's a major plot point in one episode. Admittedly, Kotaro is four years old and goes to preschool rather than elementary school, but it seems rather odd that that they would have this practice specifically in elementary school, but not in preschool or middle school.

---

クミコはお盆を持って、列に並んで順番を待った。

This sentence confused me, due to the mention of Obon. Obviously it made no sense in context for Kumiko to wait for Obon (as usual, I misread 持 as 待 to boot - amusingly, this sentence has both in the same sentence), but I had no idea what it could mean. Apparently, お盆 can also mean "tray" of all things. WTF?

In fact, the first comment on SR is complaining about the same thing. Someone responded explaining that the name of Obon (the festival) actually derives from the trays once used to make offerings, although modern Japanese people probably don't recognize any connection between the two meanings.

---

Glass Mask

Glass Mask ep33 is probably the last episode I watched when I was younger. At any rate, this episode had the last specific event that I remembered from before (Maya's performance as Puck). It will be interesting to be going into the show blind again. Of course, I only remembered the vague outlines from before and forgot or misremembered a lot of stuff, so it was still interesting, but now I will have no idea what's going to happen.
3 x

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Tue May 31, 2022 5:13 am

I did extremely, unbelievably well at Wanikani this morning, and to a lesser extent with Satori Reader as well.

---

Last Thursday, I ran into a card on JPDB for 入る, except that it was read iru rather than hairu. I was kind of suspicious and figured that it would be uselessly misparse-prone and blacklisted it, but I looked up the hairu/iru thing out of curiosity and found this Stack Exchange post.

What I found really interesting is that it said that hairu was originally written as 這入る, as crawl + iru. I found it notable because I encountered 這 (as 這い這い) way back at the beginning of 濁った瞳のリリアンヌ ch6 several weeks ago, so it was cool to see it show up again. I also heard Hayato say haihai in this video.

---

Glass Mask ep34: I thought this episode was completely new to me, but then the scene with Maya hiding under the tables felt familiar, so maybe I did watch the episode before after all. Not that it matters much, I guess.

---

おそらく、見張りに重大な欠陥があったんではないかと考えています。
I think that it likely that there was a major fault in the lookout.

I was surprised by the reading of 見張り (mihari) here, since 張 is usually "ba" in -張り compounds.

---

Satori Reader

Yesterday morning, I decided to start trying to rush through Satori Reader more quickly. For the last couple months, I'd been aiming to read two chapters every day, and rarely even managed to hit that goal. However, I read four chapters yesterday and another three today. (It helps that today was a holiday of course). One of the problems is that it tends to be mentally taxing, especially Akiko, and I sometimes give up towards the end and just skim the rest.

Anyway, here are some notable sentences from today's chapters:

明日、車にはねられて死んでしまうってことだってあるかもしれないんだよ。

I initially misread the 車にはねられて as kuruma ni wa nerarete... (which I guessed to be the passive of 寝る), but it turns out that the は is actually part of the verb here, not the topic particle! It's a bit annoying how hard it is to tell occasionally.


あの時、自分で作り上げた恐怖心に負けずにシアトルに飛び立って、本当に良かったと心から思った。

I thought of 負ける as "to lose" and so initially misinterpreted this as "without losing my fear", but it turns out to mean the exact opposite! It really means "without being defeated by my fear".


辛い時や、悔しい時、それに悲しい時もたくさんあって、ああ、私は弱いなあって思った。

I initially misread 辛い (tsurai) as saiwai (幸い) here. Why do words that mean the exact opposite have to look so freaking similar? They even have the same okurigana! Likewise, I misread 悔しい (kuyashii) as natsukashii (懐かしい). So annoying.


僕は、頭に血が上った。そして、体がわなわなと震えてきた。

I'd always thought of わなわな as "excitement" or "feeling excited" or the like, and all the occurrences I'd noticed in the wild before were positive uses like that, so I was surprised to see it used in a negative sense here. I had no idea that it also meant stuff like "anger".

---

Wanikani

(copied from my WK log)

This morning, I was really on a roll with WK, and did way more than usual. But what is really interesting is how bizarrely consistent it all was. I did three sessions of 100, 75, and 100 reviews respectively in 20, 15, and 20 minutes. In all three sessions, I averaged exactly 5 reviews per minute and got exactly 87% accuracy (well technically 65/75 on the second one). I’ve never seen anything like it.

I also gurued 吾 this morning, so 12 kanji left to level 47. Also, I’m annoyed by how similar the readings are for 削る and 刻む, so I get them confused and can never remember either one correctly.

Edit: I decided to press my luck and try a fourth session this morning, and finally broke my streak… by doing much better! It was kind of amazing how everything suddenly felt so easy and I kept getting lucky even guessing on things I wasn’t quite sure about. I ended up doing 100 reviews with 90% accuracy in only 15 minutes (6.7 reviews per minute). It was just unbelievable! I also finally guru’d 股.

Edit 2: My fifth session went poorly, as I made a bunch of stupid mistakes and quit almost immediately. Oh well, I guess my lucky streak had to end sooner or later. It was still an amazing run though.

---

It’s under two thouusaaaanndddd!!!
After the amazing four sessions this morning (described above), I was down to around 2100 reviews with the big 2000 was in sight, so I decided to go for it. Unfortunately, my luck turned and all the subsequent attempts at Wanikani had lackluster results, but I forced myself to keep going and eventually hit 1999. And that’s despite the fact that I also did nine new lessons today, so my effective review count without new lessons was only 1990!

Another amazing thing is that my review count plunged by so much today that I could do no reviews at all for the next two days and still be below my previous record (set only yesterday!):
Image

Mon May 30 2022:
Time spent: 98m
Reviews completed: 496
Reviews remaining: 1999
Reviews in next week: 2701 (+702)
Reviews in next month: 3636 (+935)
Accuracy: 84.68% (420/496)

Current item counts:
Apprentice: 1101
Guru: 1245
Master: 1002
Enlightened: 1484
Burned: 2344

---

Glass Mask (again)

Ep36 marked a return to Tsukikage's Acting Lessons Via Physical Torture, except that now she's tutoring both Maya and Ayumi. In this case, she locked them in a freezer (set to at least -22.8C!) to fix their acting.

Image

Also interesting is that I noticed "sunao", a word I had recently encountered on JPDB, show up towards the end here. (Not that the English subtitles really show anything, but whatever)

Image
3 x

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:00 am

I watched this Touhou-themed comedy video with English subtitles. Luckily, it doesn't require knowledge of Touhou and I found it pretty funny. However, one thing stood out to me. I was mostly just focused on the subtitles, but I could hear them saying "katachi" a lot (I think it was part of the catchphrase that Alice objected to several times) even though "shape" wouldn't make any sense. It made me wonder if it had some other meaning that was being used here.



---

タケシは泣きべそをかいていた。

In one episode of her podcast (which I've listened to dozens of times over over the last two years), Noriko sings the theme song of the anime Candy, Candy, and while I mostly can't understand the lyrics, I do remember one part where it goes "nakibesonante", so I found it interesting to learn that 泣きべそ is a word, presumably the same as in the song.

---

I also watched the recent Zero Punctuation video, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that he put some Japanese text up during the credits as a joke. I was really happy that I could actually read it. Finally, the last two and a half years of studying Japanese are actually good for something!

Image

---

I finally finished reading ch7 of 濁った瞳のリリアンヌ tonight. Unfortunately, as usual it was pretty boring. The main problem is that a large part of the story consists of the MC experimenting with their magical power, which is incredibly boring. However, the other parts are entertaining, which is why I keep going back and forth on whether to drop it.

For example, the first half of ch7, which I talked about earlier, is an amusing description of his brother and sister's bizarre obsessions with trees and flowers respectively. However, the second half was just another tedious digression about his magical power experiments. I think I'll probably stop reading it for now, as hard as it is to give up.

I was also feeling a bit burned out about reading and JPDB in general lately. I also switched my JPDB deck from "chronological" to "by frequency", so that I can make Number Go Up faster.

---

Wanikani

Another great day, with high speed and accuracy in both the morning and afternoon sessions. I also guru’d 瞬 today, leaving just 11 to go.

This also means I did six new lessons today, including 瞬く and 瞬き. One thing I found interesting is that 瞬く is listed as matataku, with mabataku as an alternate reading, while 瞬き is mabataki with matataki as an alternate reading. They even have different mnemonics for the two readings. I wonder where the difference comes from.

Wed Jun 01 2022:
Time spent: 33m
Reviews completed: 172
Reviews remaining: 2071
Reviews in next week: 2671 (+600)
Reviews in next month: 3599 (+928)
Accuracy: 84.30% (145/172)

Current item counts:
Apprentice: 1078
Guru: 1244
Master: 981
Enlightened: 1523
Burned: 2356
2 x

vonPeterhof
Blue Belt
Posts: 879
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 1:55 am
Languages: Russian (N), English (C2), Japanese (~C1), German (~B2), Kazakh (~B1), Norwegian (~A2)
Studying: Kazakh, Mandarin, Coptic
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1237
x 2833
Contact:

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby vonPeterhof » Thu Jun 02, 2022 9:06 pm

golyplot wrote:I was mostly just focused on the subtitles, but I could hear them saying "katachi" a lot (I think it was part of the catchphrase that Alice objected to several times) even though "shape" wouldn't make any sense. It made me wonder if it had some other meaning that was being used here.

形 does have a non-physical meaning that's pretty similar to the non-physical meaning of "form" in English. 同居という形になります is pretty much "It will end up being in the form/format of cohabitation".
1 x

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:46 am

vonPeterhof wrote:形 does have a non-physical meaning that's pretty similar to the non-physical meaning of "form" in English. 同居という形になります is pretty much "It will end up being in the form/format of cohabitation".


Thanks for the explanation!

---

きっとマイケルとは、200本以上のトレイルを一緒に歩いたことだろう。

Really surprised by the use of 本 here, since I always thought it was "counter for long thin objects", like rods, poles, needles, etc. I had no idea it could be applied to trails of all things.

私は、嬉しさと同時に、歯がゆさが混じった気持ちになった。

Another case where I misparsed things due to stupid kana words. I mistook the が for a subject particle, but it turns out that 歯がゆさ is all one word. Clicking on it helpfully shows that it is normally spelled 歯痒い and means "impatient/tantalized". I'd of course already learned 歯 and 痒い individually, but never heard of 歯痒い before. I find it interesting that in Japanese, tantalized is "itchy teeth".


トムは恐らくついて行きたがらないだろう。
Tom probably won't want to tag along.

What kind of grammar is 行きたがらない? It seems like the -tai form, except the i was chopped off and replaced by garu or something.

---

I finally finished Akiko's Foreign Exchange yesterday. It has definitely been more challenging than Hole in the Wall. There's a reason that I was reading two chapters of Hole in the Wall and one of Akiko each day this week. I think I'll try to stick to the easier stories on SR for now.

---

Glass Mask ep39:

Up to now, every time Hayami's father showed up, his face was conspicuously hidden, including an appearance in just the last episode where his face wasn't shown. So it was rather jarring when ep39 begins with showing him from the front for the first time in the series, including his face, with absolutely no fanfare or buildup.

Image

Episode 39 was also jarring in other ways. In particular, it begins with Hayami taking Maya out on some dates, and her suddenly seeming to fall for him. Up until now, she always hated him (with good reason to be fair), so it seemed like this came out of nowhere. It's even more odd since Maya doesn't know the identity of Purple Rose Person and would thus feel like she is in a love triangle with him if she goes for Hayami instead, not knowing they are in fact the same person.

And of course, the show went all in on the love triangles this episode, bringing back Sakurakojinkun after he disappeared like a billion episodes ago. Naturally, Sakurakojinkun has a girlfriend who is upset with the time he is spending with Maya (allegedly for work, as they are costarring in a play), while Hayami also sets himself up with an arranged marriage, seemingly to make Maya jealous.

This episode also requires considerable suspension of disbelief on one point. Maya's next (and apparently last) role is Jane the Wolf Girl, who was raised by wolves Tarzan-style and walks around on all fours. Of course in reality, the human body just isn't built for walking on all fours. Even if a human baby was somehow raised without any human role models, I'm almost certain that they would still learn to walk bipedally. Crawling around to mimic a wolf is just very obviously slow, difficult, and uncomfortable, and even with the benefits of animation, they still have to cheat it by having Maya mostly locked up in a small room and not crawling around all that much.

---

(誰かが)車を盗んだ。

I'm so used to thinking of んだ as "explanatory no" that it took me a while to realize that -mu verbs conjugate to んだ in the simple past. Why does Japanese have to be so confusing?!


メアリーはいつも氷のような冷たい手をしている。
Mary's hands are always as cold as ice.

It's interesting that the Japanese involves Mary "doing" cold hands. I think I've seen suru used to describe making emotional faces, so this isn't that different, but it's still surprising to see how Japanese phrases things so differently than English.

---

Glass Mask ep40:

I found it interesting how Maya's pupils disappear while she's playing Jane:

Image

In fact, even within this very scene, they use Maya's eyes turning back to normal to show when she snaps out of acting (presumably due to getting distracted by her love for Sakurakojinkun)

Image
2 x

vonPeterhof
Blue Belt
Posts: 879
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 1:55 am
Languages: Russian (N), English (C2), Japanese (~C1), German (~B2), Kazakh (~B1), Norwegian (~A2)
Studying: Kazakh, Mandarin, Coptic
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1237
x 2833
Contact:

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby vonPeterhof » Sat Jun 04, 2022 8:32 am

golyplot wrote:トムは恐らくついて行きたがらないだろう。
Tom probably won't want to tag along.

What kind of grammar is 行きたがらない? It seems like the -tai form, except the i was chopped off and replaced by garu or something.

Yeah that's pretty much it. It's another example of what I mentioned earlier about avoiding talking with certainty about other people's feelings. It's pretty customary to talk about what other people want in terms of them "showing signs of wanting".
1 x

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Jun 05, 2022 6:56 am

先月二千円貸したよね?そろそろ返してほしいんだけど。
I lent you 2,000 yen last month, didn't I? I'd like it back soon.

I found the だけど at the end interesting, as it seems like perhaps an example of politeness that the provided translation doesn't convey. If I'm understanding it correctly, it seems to me like the けど is just a way of softening the statement and the true English equivalent would be something like "It's just that I'd like it back soon." Is that correct?


するとタケシは、「ユウト!お前、覚えてろよ!」と怒鳴り、その男の子を睨んだ。

I found the appearance of 睨 here interesting, as it came up as a new card on JPDB earlier this week, and I've been struggling to remember it ever since. (Incidentally, I've been doing pretty badly on JPDB the last couple days and struggling to keep my review pile cleared.)
1 x

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:15 am

Glass Mask ep41: The only previous time that Hayami's father's face was seen, he was mostly shrouded in light and shadow, so it was surprising when his face was clearly shown for the first time in this episode with absolutely no fanfare.

Image

---

Just for fun, I took the first five N2 practice questions here. I didn't expect much, since I've never tried to specifically study N2 vocab before, bu I did better than expect. A couple questions required educated guesses, but I still managed to get all five correct, so that was a nice confidence boost.

---

Glass Mask ep43:

One thing I found strange is that during the play, Maya had blue eyes (presumably contacts), but then immediately after the play when the power goes back on, she has her normal brown eyes again, despite still wearing the wig and costume. It seems odd that she would immediately take off her contacts (and in the dark no less) but not any of the other stuff.

And then on the second night of the play, the same thing happens. Right before the play starts, Maya is shown waiting in costume, but with brown eyes, then has blue eyes during the play, and then brown eyes again during the curtain call. She must really hate those contacts and not want to spend any more time in then she has to, I guess. Very strange.

Image

Image

Image
2 x

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby bolaobo » Wed Jun 08, 2022 1:40 pm

golyplot wrote:I found the だけど at the end interesting, as it seems like perhaps an example of politeness that the provided translation doesn't convey. If I'm understanding it correctly, it seems to me like the けど is just a way of softening the statement and the true English equivalent would be something like "It's just that I'd like it back soon." Is that correct?



Yes, exactly, it's a sentence softener. Since Japanese people don't like being direct, it's seen as more polite to speak like that.
1 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1027

Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby alaart » Wed Jun 08, 2022 2:03 pm

Just tuned in again to say that I find your approach of just posting questions and unclear things from immersion interesting, and maybe I'll try that too. Also your consistency is inspiring.

golyplot wrote:先月二千円貸したよね?そろそろ返してほしいんだけど。
I lent you 2,000 yen last month, didn't I? I'd like it back soon.

I found the だけど at the end interesting, as it seems like perhaps an example of politeness that the provided translation doesn't convey. If I'm understanding it correctly, it seems to me like the けど is just a way of softening the statement and the true English equivalent would be something like "It's just that I'd like it back soon." Is that correct?


The けど here, I would understand as a case where you leave out the second part of the sentence, which is also done with と、て、ですが and maybe some other conjunctions sometimes. Because sometimes the second part is obvious and not needed, or because it is too direct to say and thus a bit more polite to not say it (but it is clear anyway), or because you are uncomfortable saying something (like in あなたのこと[考えてます、好きです。].

Sometimes the omission of part of the sentence can be part of an expressed emotion.

I quickly spoke it into my microphone:
In the first example I spoke it like: "I want it back soon, but... [you are being difficult]" - so with a slight accusation undertone. But I leave that out, you know anyway.
In the second example I spoke it like "I want it back soon, but... [it's useless anyway, since I won't get that money back]" - as part of an emotion, so it's useless for me to wish that anyway since it won't happen, my frustration and that stuff I leave out, you know I'm frustrated, so I don't need to say it and bring negative emotions forth.

I would need to hear to be hundred percent sure but seeing that there is the んです、and よ、that probably would imply it spoken as an accusation.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
4 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: merino_iceberg and 2 guests