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Learning Japanese |OT| ..honor and shame are huge parts of it. Let's!

Nakho

Member
Now that is some dedication. Dude practically wrote a thesis in the form of a Wikipedia article about bowel movements in bookstores, really?
 

Makai

Member
mG4cfjm.jpg
 
Does anyone know if there's any difference between 少なくても and 少なくとも? I believe this page says something on the matter, but I may be wrong.
 
Does anyone know if there's any difference between 少なくても and 少なくとも? I believe this page says something on the matter, but I may be wrong.

They aren't different. Just one is correct. 少なくとも is the original way to say it but "とも" is not used very much in modern Japanese outside of this phrase, so 少なくても has become more common in recent years as people say what they take to be the correct saying, since they're more used to "ても" phases like してもいい.

So basically 少なくても is wrong, but it's not terribly uncommon even among natives, and may continue to become more common.
 
They aren't different. Just one is correct. 少なくとも is the original way to say it but "とも" is not used very much in modern Japanese outside of this phrase, so 少なくても has become more common in recent years as people say what they take to be the correct saying, since they're more used to "ても" phases like してもいい.

So basically 少なくても is wrong, but it's not terribly uncommon even among natives, and may continue to become more common.
I see, so that's why I couldn't find it on Jisho. Thanks a lot :)
 

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
少なくても isn't technically wrong though. It just means something and you would use it in a different context. It would mean "even if there are few...", while 少なくとも obviously means "at least".
 

Oare

Member
So basically 少なくても is wrong, but it's not terribly uncommon even among natives, and may continue to become more common.

It's not wrong, but...

少なくても isn't technically wrong though. It just means something and you would use it in a different context. It would mean "even if there are few...", while 少なくとも obviously means "at least".

... as Kilrogg says it doesn't mean the same thing.
「具が少なくても日本のカレーは美味しい」is correct whereas 「具が少なくとも日本のカレーは美味しい」doesn't make any sense.

-「少なくとも」means "at least"
-「少なくても」means "even if there's only a small quantity" of something

(edit: added quote with Kilrogg's post, I had the tab open for a while and forgot to refresh before I replied so I ended up saying exactly the same thing...)
 
Well, sure, but the article he linked is about the people who misspeak 少なくとも as 少なくても. The conclusion is that it doesn't really matter when speaking because the meaning gets through and nobody will be overanalyzing your words (although this is less true for foreigners, of course), but when writing you should be careful because the mistake stands out.

And even then, I'd very rarely use 少なくても to mean "even if there are a few" because I'd generally be inclined to put that on the verb. 人があまりこなくてもイベントが行う or 選択肢はあまりなくても、選ぶしかない for example.
 

Oare

Member
Well, sure, but the article he linked is about the people who misspeak 少なくとも as 少なくても. The conclusion is that it doesn't really matter when speaking because the meaning gets through and nobody will be overanalyzing your words (although this is less true for foreigners, of course), but when writing you should be careful because the mistake stands out.

Fair enough.

And even then, I'd very rarely use 少なくても to mean "even if there are a few" because I'd generally be inclined to put that on the verb. 人があまりこなくてもイベントが行われる or 選択肢はあまりなくても、選ぶしかない for example.

Sure, but there are cases where it would definitely be first choice, like in the example I gave. Some words tend to be used more naturally with some other words, and 少なくても feels perfectly at home in expressions where you'd naturally use 少ない.

Edit: also, now that I think of it, using 少なくても instead of 少なくとも doesn't feel nearly as commonplace as other similar mistakes such as replacing みたいに with みたく.
I don't think I've ever heard it in the mouth of an adult, actually. The article in the URL was originally published in the Mainichi Shogakusei Shimbun which is an offspring of the Mainichi newspaper aimed at elementary school students.
 

Borgnine

MBA in pussy licensing and rights management
Why isn't the thread titled Learning Japanese |OT| I Think I'm Leaning Japanese, I Really Think So.
 
Could someone help me out with this sentence? I believe I understand how it's structured, but I don't get what it's supposed to mean.
医者として人を大事にしなければなりません。
 

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
Could someone help me out with this sentence? I believe I understand how it's structured, but I don't get what it's supposed to mean.
医者として人を大事にしなければなりません。

Literally "As a doctor, I/you need to care about/value people".

Which part are you struggling with? It's probably just a grammar thing.

[EDIT] yo urfe, "human life" might be overtranslating though, don't you think? The Japanese just says 人
 
"As a doctor, one needs to value human life." is one way of translating it.
Literally "As a doctor, I/you need to care about/value people".

Which part are you struggling with? It's probably just a grammar thing.

[EDIT] yo urfe, "human life" might be overtranslating though, don't you think? The Japanese just says 人
Thanks to both of you. I totally misunderstood the として, as I thought it was "attached" to 人 (something like "a person as a doctor").
 

urfe

Member
Literally "As a doctor, I/you need to care about/value people".

Which part are you struggling with? It's probably just a grammar thing.

[EDIT] yo urfe, "human life" might be overtranslating though, don't you think? The Japanese just says 人

Yeah, agreed. I couldn’t think of a way to say it properly and was lazy. Your translation is more spot on.

Thanks to both of you. I totally misunderstood the として, as I thought it was "attached" to 人 (something like "a person as a doctor").

That would be 医者とする人
 
Just wanted to put this out here:

One of the best methods I used for learning Japanese early on was to speed-read sentences, starting from the end and working my way forwards adding on from each particle. Just start with the verb, speaking it at a native speed. It may help to have a native speaker correct you on your pronunciation if you have that option available. Then add the preceding words and continue to the end, and continue further back in that pattern. In a number sequence, the sentence would read as such: 6, 5 6, 456, 3456, 23456, 123456.

Since the part of the sentence predeceasing "wa" is the subject, and the last verb is the action the subject takes, it is easy to start reading from the end to figure out the speaker's intentions. This is the common practice in Middlebury Language School.
 

L Thammy

Member
Maybe just me being dumb, but here goes.

So I finished Human Japanese Intermediate and I'm putting together an Anki deck to practice and learn new vocabulary. I went through the two Human Japanese textbooks and jotted down all the words in there, and I grabbed a list of most common words to add in as well.

Then I figure that since I'm trying to familiarize myself with these words anyway, I should also practice the verbs and adjectives in different forms so I get used to seeing them outside of dictionary form. So I tried to keep track of all the different forms that were included in the textbooks while I went through them:

VERB
polite positive present
polite negative present
polite positive past
polite negative past
polite positive present progressive
polite negative present progressive
polite positive past progressive
polite negative past progressive
polite let's do
polite te form
informal positive present
informal negative present
informal positive past
informal negative past
informal positive present progressive
informal negative present progressive
informal positive past progressive
informal negative past progressive
informal let's do
informal te form
tai form
garu form
negative te

ADJECTIVE
positive present
negative present
positive past
negative past
te form
adjective form
negative te​

Now going by Wikipedia I see some forms I don't recognize so I think I'm missing some things, but I'm also wondering if it's even reasonably possible to get a full list considering how some of these combine, like how you can go 行く → 行きたい → 行きたくない → 行きたくなかった. Plus, I'm not sure if things like "tai" that tag onto the end of the verb are basic enough that I can learn them all or just part of a wide category of words.

I did try googling this and there are a whole bunch of charts, but not all of them seem to be comprehensive, so I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right things.
 

Beckx

Member
There are a lot of things you can do with Verb stems, listing each verb's possibilities seems like overkill and a half. Just learn to form the stem and then you're good for all of them.

Like you wouldn't list 見に行く for 見る, right? So don't list 見たい either, just learn the meaning of vstem+たい & fact that it conjugates like an adjective.
 
It's not wrong, but...



... as Kilrogg says it doesn't mean the same thing.
「具が少なくても日本のカレーは美味しい」is correct whereas 「具が少なくとも日本のカレーは美味しい」doesn't make any sense.

-「少なくとも」means "at least"
-「少なくても」means "even if there's only a small quantity" of something

Am I having a stroke or as those sentences the same?

edit: te vs to.... fuck
 

L Thammy

Member
There are a lot of things you can do with Verb stems, listing each verb's possibilities seems like overkill and a half. Just learn to form the stem and then you're good for all of them.

Like you wouldn't list 見に行く for 見る, right? So don't list 見たい either, just learn the meaning of vstem+たい & fact that it conjugates like an adjective.

yeah what ur doing is overkill. You'll learn conjugations best through usage/reading anyway.

Mmm, I kind of like going overboard though. But those are good points. I think I'll shave it down to just present/past positive/negative, plus maybe -te and -masu.
 

Resilient

Member
You anki people, what time split you reckon you spend actually studying VS housekeeping your decks? Looks like a 50/50 split going by some of the posts in here. Something to think about 🤔🤔🤔
 

Makai

Member
Tofugu podcast is way better than expected.

I translated the first couple pages of おしりたんてい. Gotten much better at parsing kana-only text.
 

Hypron

Member
You anki people, what time split you reckon you spend actually studying VS housekeeping your decks? Looks like a 50/50 split going by some of the posts in here. Something to think about 🤔🤔🤔

Sure it's better not to go overboard, but having good decks does help remembering.

I spent tons of time making my decks late last year/early this year (maybe 30 hours total) but now it's all set up so I don't need to spend any extra time on them. I'm at 640 hours of Anki thus far.

Having said that, I made my decks from existing vocabulary lists. Creating all the cards manually would have been extremely time consuming for little return.
 
They aren't different. Just one is correct. 少なくとも is the original way to say it but "とも" is not used very much in modern Japanese outside of this phrase, so 少なくても has become more common in recent years as people say what they take to be the correct saying, since they're more used to "ても" phases like してもいい.

So basically 少なくても is wrong, but it's not terribly uncommon even among natives, and may continue to become more common.

Just want to say that from a linguistics standpoint, native speakers don't "get it wrong". Modern English is significantly different from Old English. Modern English and the transitions that led to it weren't wrong.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
Me and my fiancee are going to Japan next October, so we have a year to catch up. I completed Japanese I in college and I have an okay grasp on the basics, only thing that fucks me up is kanji. A year should be enough time to learn and make the trip a better experience right?
 
I was thinking of trying to play the Ace Attorney games to get some practice. They are probably a bit outside my abilities, but I'd imagine they are easier than something like Danganronpa (despite some similarities between the two). Also, the Android port seems excellent (and pretty cheap).
 

Resilient

Member
Just do it then. Search your books and Google everything you don't understand. Don't move on from that text box until you do. That goes for grammar and vocab. Write down the things you didn't understand. That's how you'll learn. And feel good. Feeling good while studying is a big thing in this thread.
 

Jintor

Member
if you can find youtube japanese vids that are subbed in eng and jpn and can be slowed down to .75 or .5 that's ok practice

i started weekly classes again btw, not really structured as such but enforced talking in jpn and it's helpful. probably better if i jump onto italki or something tho eventually...
 

KtSlime

Member
Trying to understand everything at first blush is overrated, just try your best, have fun, and if you get stuck, use a guide or check out a video on YouTube.

Just like catching more flies with honey, you will progress more if you are enjoying your time, so don't stress parts you don't fully understand, unless you enjoy doing that, then by all means.
 
So have any of you planned out where you'll be hanging out from now on?

I haven't, and it'd be a shame if this whole thread wasn't archived. There's tons of good tips and resources on it. I haven't really started learning a lot, but I'd like to thank everybody who contributed to this.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Thanks to whoever put this in Off Topic Community.

For those interested, there is a Learning Japanese Discord going right now. Quote for link.
 
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