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[Moral Panic]

Does this sentence make sense

決定するのは難しいので、他の誰かは決定してくれたい人がある。

 

[marimorimo]

Does this sentence make sense

決定するのは難しいので、他の誰かは決定してくれたい人がある。

Nope, unfortunately it doesn't. What did you want to say??

 

[PreyingShark]

Does this sentence make sense

決定するのは難しいので、他の誰かは決定してくれたい人がある。

I'm guessing you're trying to say something like "Because making decisions is difficult, there are people who want others to make decisions for them."

That sentence is kinda just gibberish though. I would try keeping it simple (and refresh yourself on iru and aru while you're at it TBH).

 

[Sakura]

Does this sentence make sense

決定するのは難しいので、他の誰かは決定してくれたい人がある。

The first part of the sentence is grammatically ok.
The second part of the sentence I have no idea what is being said. You can't say してくれたい, it doesn't make sense. And when referring to people it is いる not ある.
To elaborate on たい a bit. It is used when you want to do something, or when you are talking about someone else's 'want' to do something. For example, 行きたい = I want to go, 行きたい? = do you want to go, 行ってほしい = I want you to go. くれる means someone else doing something for the speaker (or someone close to the speaker), the action being initiated by the other party. You can't say してくれたい, because it would sound like you are talking about yourself, while at the same time talking about someone else doing something, if that makes any sense. Sorry if my explanation is a bit too simple/missing stuff.

 

[Kilrogg]

The first part of the sentence is grammatically ok.
The second part of the sentence I have no idea what is being said. You can't say してくれたい, it doesn't make sense. And when referring to people it is いる not ある.

I think he means してほしい (as in "I want them to do it") but just doesn't know that particular structure and so tried to express with what he knows. Shame for him it doesn't work that way .

 

[Sakura]

I think he means してほしい (as in "I want them to do it") but just doesn't know that particular structure and so tried to express with what he knows. Shame for him it doesn't work that way .

In that case I think the sentence should be 他の誰かに決定してほしい but the 人がある throws me off at the end.

 

[Beckx]

dumb question but:

I'm having trouble with 知っておいた方.

The simple question is: what does this mean

The more complicated question is: why, explain the structure

I assume that 方 is used in the sense of "way of doing" "how to do". 知っておいた is throwing me completely. I know (heh) 知っている, but have never seen ~おく used with 知る. The only use of ~おく that I know is "action taken in preparation". So literally this would seem to come together to be "knew in preparation" together with "how to do" and I can't make heads or tails of it.

I've checked most of the usual sources and come up with nothing helpful.

 

[Kilrogg]

dumb question but:

I'm having trouble with 知っておいた方.

The simple question is: what does this mean

The more complicated question is: why, explain the structure

I assume that 方 is used in the sense of "way of doing" "how to do". 知っておいた is throwing me completely. I know (heh) 知っている, but have never seen ~おく used with 知る. The only use of ~おく that I know is "action taken in preparation". So literally this would seem to come together to be "knew in preparation" together with "how to do" and I can't make heads or tails of it.

I've checked most of the usual sources and come up with nothing helpful.

The 方 part is totally unrelated, in the sense that it's a different lexical/grammatical structure with no relation to what comes before. By the way, without context it's hard to tell what that character is supposed to mean. What's the sentence you read it in?

 

[Beckx]

it's this:

文を最後まで言わないスタイルも知っておいた方がいいでしょう。

Which I'm pretty sure means roughly "you should know the style of not finishing the sentence," but I just can't put that one piece together.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

It's ほうがいい, "you should ~" or "it's better to ~." Pretty much any time you see 方 attached to a past-tense verb or adjective it's going to be ほう.

Does this sentence make sense

決定するのは難しいので、他の誰かは決定してくれたい人がある。

In that case I think the sentence should be 他の誰かに決定してほしい but the 人がある throws me off at the end.

I think he's going for "There are people who..." I'm pretty sure the appropriate thing would be 他の誰かに決定してほしい人もいる。

 

[Kilrogg]

I had a feeling it was gonna be 方がいい .

 

[Alanae]

it's this:

文を最後まで言わないスタイルも知っておいた方がいいでしょう。

Which I'm pretty sure means roughly "you should know the style of not finishing the sentence," but I just can't put that one piece together.

If one were to try and force it into english, it might help to think of it being "side" here, as in:
"the side of also knowing about the style where one does not finish your sentence, (as opposed to side of not also knowing about the style where one does not finish your sentence), is better."
As for its meaning, generally its that verb-た方がいい has the sense of "it would be better if you do/you should do"
and without the past tense its usually used for comparison like "(doing) x is better than (doing)"
its not a construction only limited to verbs, as one can say things like "(nounAよ&#12426nounBの方がいい'

 

[Beckx]

I had a feeling it was gonna be 方がいい .

I prefaced it with "dumb question"

Holy fuck I'm an idiot.

in my (weak) defense, this chapter is awash in "話し方" and "書き方" so my brain was just reading 方 as かた at that point. (._. )

 

[Kilrogg]

I prefaced it with "dumb question"

Holy fuck I'm an idiot.

in my (weak) defense, this chapter is awash in "話し方" and "書き方" so my brain was just reading 方 as かた at that point. (._. )

No worries, man.
Just remember, as a rule, that translation questions should always have as much context as possible. I tend to be the de facto linguist among my peers and at work, and I hate it when people ask me "hey, how do you say this" or "what does this word mean", cause, well, how should I know? Words are often more complicated than "table" or "balloon" .

But anyway, it's alright, don't beat yourself over the head because of this, we're all here to learn .

 

[Beckx]

I gotcha, normally I would, this time I had 100% convinced myself it was a compound word. lesson learned lol

 

[Moral Panic]

The first part of the sentence is grammatically ok.
The second part of the sentence I have no idea what is being said. You can't say してくれたい, it doesn't make sense. And when referring to people it is いる not ある.
To elaborate on たい a bit. It is used when you want to do something, or when you are talking about someone else's 'want' to do something. For example, 行きたい = I want to go, 行きたい? = do you want to go, 行ってほしい = I want you to go. くれる means someone else doing something for the speaker (or someone close to the speaker), the action being initiated by the other party. You can't say してくれたい, because it would sound like you are talking about yourself, while at the same time talking about someone else doing something, if that makes any sense. Sorry if my explanation is a bit too simple/missing stuff.

I think he means してほしい (as in "I want them to do it") but just doesn't know that particular structure and so tried to express with what he knows. Shame for him it doesn't work that way .

I think he's going for "There are people who..." I'm pretty sure the appropriate thing would be 他の誰かに決定してほしい人もいる。

Thanks a lot guys. I caught the iru/aru but forgot to update the question so sorry if that through you off. Thanks for the te hoshii explanation I actually didn't know that.

 

[marimorimo]

I think he's going for "There are people who..." I'm pretty sure the appropriate thing would be 他の誰かに決定してほしい人もいる。

If the sentence Moral Panic was going for was indeed "Because making decisions is difficult, there are people who want others to make decisions for them.", I think your sentence is grammatically correct but it feels a bit off to me semantics-wise.

I have a feeling I'm going to get flak for this again, but I consider ～てほしい one of those "bomb words": words/grammar that everybody studying Japanese learns early on but actually require great care to use. ～てほしい means "want somebody to do something for somebody" and has an assertive/haughty tone to it (even if that's not the intention). I've used it plenty (since that's what the book taught me) but I've always second-guessed myself because it's relatively rare that I hear Japanese say it. If they do it's usually with people they're very close with. I have a feeling I may have inadvertently said something impolite to relative strangers when I used ～てほしい。 There are so many ways to say the same thing in a more polite way: ～てもらいたい、～ていただきたい、or even better (in the context of asking a favor), ～は可能でしょうか？ 、or even ～出来ますか？and plenty of others.

So personally I would change it to: 決定するのは難しいので他の人に決定して貰いたい人がいる。

Which, by the way, I think still feels a bit awkward although perfectly understandable. If it were me I would say:

決めるのは難しいため他人に決断を任せる（任せたい）人がいる。
Since it's difficult to make a decision, some people let others decide for them/want others to decide for them.

決定 is also right but I like to use 決断 here because I imagine it's a life/death, all or nothing situation.

 

[Porcile]

I don't think I've heard an adult at school say hoshii except when obviously trying to sound a bit childish. Even the students don't say it much from what I hear, except to purposely sound a bit childish. It's like the equivalent of just saying "Want!".

 

[Kilrogg]

I don't think I've heard an adult at school say hoshii except when obviously trying to sound a bit childish. Even the students don't say it much from what I hear, except to purposely sound a bit childish. It's like the equivalent of just saying "Want!".

Huh? Not doubting you, but it's not that rare or special in my experience. Sure, it's less formal/polite than もらいたい and いただきたい, and you wouldn't use it in every situation because it can sound a bit forward and egocentric, but it's still fairly common.

Paging I'm an expert... wait :/.

Zefah? You in here boi?

[EDIT] To be clear, I meant 「してほしい」, not 「ほしい」 on its own.

 

[Wisker]

Has anyone tried out or can recommend any of the udemy online classes for learning Japanese? (Complete beginner).

I'm thinking about ordering one of the classes while the sale is still going and I don't know which one to pick. So far I'm leaning to the, "Comprehensive Essential Japanese for Beginners", class.

 

[Porcile]

I've never heard anyone use てほしい either. I'm sure they do, but I don't hear it said in the classroom or staffroom.

 

[hamauzu kaito]

I've never heard anyone use てほしい either. I'm sure they do, but I don't hear it said in the classroom or staffroom.

I have heard てほしい , paired with つまり, used to rephrase or paraphrase something .

このプロジェクトはかなり時間かかりそうですが、期末試験はあと2週で、提出日を同じく今月の２８日にします。つまり、期末試験までのこの二週間頑張ってほしい。

please forgive my horrible grammar, i'm out of practice T-T.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Huh? Not doubting you, but it's not that rare or special in my experience. Sure, it's less formal/polite than もらいたい and いただきたい, and you wouldn't use it in every situation because it can sound a bit forward and egocentric, but it's still fairly common.

Paging I'm an expert... wait :/.

Zefah? You in here boi?

[EDIT] To be clear, I meant 「してほしい」, not 「ほしい」 on its own.

Yeah, I don't think it's weird at all, honestly. It really depends on the situation, of course, but it's definitely a useful word to know and be able to use.

 

[scotcheggz]

Does anyone use any of the (possibly, probably) dodgy paid sub IPTV options out there to watch |Japanese TV abroad? I used to use JPHD but it seems they've been shut down or something as it's no longer available since a few days ago and my sub just run out so I can't renew it. Think I'll try a one month sub to JapanTV and see how it goes. Anyone tried this 'provider'?

 

[Sage00]

Yeah, I don't think it's weird at all, honestly. It really depends on the situation, of course, but it's definitely a useful word to know and be able to use.

Seconding. People around me use してほしい on a regular basis. Usually on me. In izakayas. With things they know I'll not like and have a ridiculous reaction too.

 

[Beckx]

some random updates

I've mentioned before that I'm a recovering Heisig learner and finally got serious about learning all the readings. So as of today, 500 kanji down! (this is in addition to all the random readings I've picked up along the way). Basically I made an anki deck with the Joyo kanji and their readings on the back, and each day as new cards come up I review the entry in the Kanji Learner's Dictionary (amazing) and add vocabulary to the front of the card. It's going to be a long process but hey, the first 500 milestone is down.

Tobira is a phenomenal textbook. Like, miles ahead of Genki in terms of how engaging & intellectually stimulating it is. Tobira really forces you to learn and understand the grammar point before you even reach the exercises. I feel like I'm really picking up speed on what I can read and understand.

Even so, I'm still at a point where I try to pick up a light novel and immediately get depressed because I struggle to read much. (Also bummed out because the small font is murder on my eyes at the end of the day, I'm going to have to get reading glasses because my prescription glasses aren't cutting it, lol.) Also while my listening skills are improving, Tobira's audio materials still show how far I have to go.

Long sentences are the hardest thing for me. Listening, I get lost, and reading I have to read and re-read several times to put it all together. In contrast, listening to and reading spoken dialogue is much easier (though I still get lost listening to really casual dialogues). Like there's this one sentence in the first Tobira chapter describing old castles, going into detail on how old they are, how the shape resembles birds, etc. etc. That sentence - while beautiful and full of interesting grammar - can go fuck itself.

How are your studies going? What's your biggest hurdle/challenge right now?

 

[Kurita]

I've never heard anyone use てほしい either. I'm sure they do, but I don't hear it said in the classroom or staffroom.

?
I hear it all the time

 

[Jintor]

time. i'm doing a graduate diploma in a totally different field as well as full time work and about the only time i have for japanese really is keeping up to date on anki.

i'm barely adding words anymore. I tried to pick up my old copy of read real japanese and couldn't get through the first murakami essay without having to look stuff up. I mean, i got the grammar mostly, but I never anki'd the words so I didn't drill them...

 

[Porcile]

?
I hear it all the time

I listened out for てほしい being said this week in the staff room but came up empty. I mean, I go to a bunch of the school activities, classroom activities, club activities and meetings but I didn't hear it once. I'm not saying people don't ever say it casually or even in a professional context but clearly in my situation its not used often, if at all.

 

[Hypron]

How are your studies going? What's your biggest hurdle/challenge right now?

I'm also going through Tobira at the moment. I finished Chapter 2 last week. At the moment I'm doing 2 grammar point and 10 new vocabulary cards from the book a day in Anki. I read the passages when I have the time (which is mostly during the weekend).

I agree with you that it's a great textbook so far. The articles are a lot more interesting than what's in Genki. I feel like I'm learning something other on top of learning Japanese when I read them, which makes them much more interesting than the relatively boring day-to-day situations that make up most of Genki. That day-to-day stuff is important to know of course, but it's not particularly interesting.

Apart from that, I'm at 834 Kanji in the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course (and the associated 3.3k vocab) and I recently passed a total of 10,000 seen cards in Anki. So yeah it's going I guess. I'll have finished all my current decks by the end of November this year. After that I'll know 10k+ words and 2,300 Kanji so I'll scale back on using Anki and put more focus on reading. I can't wait to be honest. Motivation-wise I have no issue doing my reviews every day, but it's still a pain in the ass haha.

I also joined that club I mentioned a month ago and went to two of their meetings. It's actually pretty huge, 100+ people each week and more than a third of that are actual Japanese people. Very few people from NZ were there either, most people I talked to that weren't Japanese were from other Asian countries like China, Singapore, and Korea.

The first meeting I got some good (albeit simplistic) practice talking to a guy from Fukuoka for about an hour - half in English half in Japanese, with a little bit of French here and there since he was studying that as a minor. The second meeting wasn't as good - I got there late and then only managed to talk to this girl from Tokyo for a bit. We were in a group with some other guys who didn't speak Japanese and kept on interrupting to ask and explain what we were saying, which really threw me off.

After that there was a quiz night but I got unlucky and put in a team with only 1 Japanese guy out of 8 team members. Not much room for practice. The Japanese questions in the quiz were also stupid hard since they assumed the teams had Japanese people to answer them. For example, "write the name of all the members from this Japanese band in Kanji", "spell lemon in Kanji" (which our Japanese team member couldn't actually do haha, but thankfully we had a Chinese guy who could), "what do these Kansai-ben sentences mean", etc.

Still good practice though, I just need to keep on going and trying to talk to different people until I find a conversation partner that clicks with me.

I also found out that the university next door to mine has another pretty big Japanese club, but the meetings are at an inconvenient time for me. I might still try to go there but I'm not sure yet. I really need more practice speaking the language. I guess my biggest issue right now is conjugating verbs as I talk (it's easy when you're writing and have all the time in the word to figure out what you're doing - when you're speaking, not so much) and arranging sentences logically by properly using the grammar points I know. That'll all come with practice though.

On top of that I'm still doing a weekly 2-3 hour French-Japanese language exchange with another gaffer, which has always been very helpful.

 

[Beckx]

you just blew my mind Hypron. How do you like the Learner's Course? What's it like?

 

[Resilient]

i've played Zelda for like 2 weeks straight now and it feels fkn good

 

[Hypron]

you just blew my mind Hypron.

In what way haha?

How do you like the Learner's Course? What's it like?

Well I'm not exactly following the prescribed methodology so I can't really comment on that. If you follow the book to the letter you should learn one or more English keywords for each Kanji using the mnemonics the book gives you. For example:

I personally don't really like mnemonics so I don't do that. Instead, I learn the associated vocabulary.

But I do like the way this vocabulary is introduced; it only contains Kanji you've already seen so you are constantly consolidating what you have already learnt. I also like that they introduce similar Kanji in batches which makes you learn how they differ.

At this point I do not really use the physical book anymore though. I spent a good chunk of time creating an Anki deck that contains most of the content of the book. I started from 2 existing decks, combined and modified them until I got something I was happy with. I have word cards (front, back) and kanji cards (front, back). For the latter I just try to remember 1 word that uses the Kanji - I found doing that was necessary to learn how to differentiate similar Kanji. The word cards have native speaker audio and links to useful websites.

It turns out this setup works well for me. I do 6 kanji(1.5 pages in the book) and the associated ~15-20 vocabulary words a day.

So I guess I'm just using it as a glorified vocabulary list but I like it haha.

 

[Hazaku]

After that there was a quiz night but I got unlucky and put in a team with only 1 Japanese guy out of 8 team members. Not much room for practice. The Japanese questions in the quiz were also stupid hard since they assumed the teams had Japanese people to answer them. For example, "write the name of all the members from this Japanese band in Kanji", "spell lemon in Kanji" (which our Japanese team member couldn't actually do haha, but thankfully we had a Chinese guy who could), "what do these Kansai-ben sentences mean", etc.

Wait a minute ...

Were you at JAM's Pizza/Quiz night? On team 1 Japanese guy?

 

[Hypron]

Wait a minute ...

Were you at JAM's Pizza/Quiz night? On team 1 Japanese guy?

waaaaaaaaat

yes I was

I take it you were there too? Please don't tell me you were on my team that'd be the weirdest coincidence.

 

[Kilrogg]

Also, where do you guys (I mean Hypron and Hazaku) live? Are you French? Living in France? Cause Hypron was talking about French.

If so, hook me up with those quiz/pizza night thingies. Do those take place in Paris?

 

[Hypron]

Also, do you guys (I mean Hypron and Hazaku) live? Are you French? Living in France? Cause Hypron was talking about French.

If so, hook me up with those quiz/pizza night thingies. Do those take place in Paris?

I am French, but I (we?) live in Auckland New Zealand, sorry :/

I moved here about 10 years ago.

 

[Kilrogg]

I am French, but I (we?) live in Auckland New Zealand, sorry :/

I moved here about 10 years ago.

Awww . Would have been a nice opportunity to do a J-GAF meet up.

 

[Hazaku]

waaaaaaaaat

yes I was

I take it you were there too? Please don't tell me you were on my team that'd be the weirdest coincidence.

Yeah I was there. A table across from ya on team OP though. Also your team probably just needed a Japanese girl to answer the boy band and "What drama is this song from?" questions

To be fair though you had 2 non Japanese trump cards on your team with that Taylor guy and the girl I forget the name of ...

Awww . Would have been a nice opportunity to do a J-GAF meet up.

Well if you're ever in Auckland, NZ on a Friday night feel free to pop in!

 

[Hypron]

Yeah I was there. A table across from ya on team OP though.

Haha awesome. Good luck for the results!

Also your team probably just needed a Japanese girl to answer the boy band and "What drama is this song from?" questions

Yeah that's true.

To be fair though you had 2 non Japanese trump cards on your team with that Taylor guy and the girl I forget the name of ...

Ah dammit I'm terrible I don't remember her name either - but her Japanese knowledge was really good, she answered quite a few questions. I think she's one of the organisers of that お茶の時間 club.

On the other hand I was pretty bad at that quiz, the only things I could answer that weren't braindead easy were the NZ movie questions haha.

Well if you're ever in Auckland, NZ on a Friday night feel free to pop in!

Yeah, come visit NZ sometime

 

[Beckx]

In what way haha?

Well I'm not exactly following the prescribed methodology so I can't really comment on that. If you follow the book to the letter you should learn one or more English keywords for each Kanji using the mnemonics the book gives you. For example:

I personally don't really like mnemonics so I don't do that. Instead, I learn the associated vocabulary.

But I do like the way this vocabulary is introduced; it only contains Kanji you've already seen so you are constantly consolidating what you have already learnt. I also like that they introduce similar Kanji in batches which makes you learn how they differ.

At this point I do not really use the physical book anymore though. I spent a good chunk of time creating an Anki deck that contains most of the content of the book. I started from 2 existing decks, combined and modified them until I got something I was happy with. I have word cards (front, back) and kanji cards (front, back). For the latter I just try to remember 1 word that uses the Kanji - I found doing that was necessary to learn how to differentiate similar Kanji. The word cards have native speaker audio and links to useful websites.

It turns out this setup works well for me. I do 6 kanji(1.5 pages in the book) and the associated ~15-20 vocabulary words a day.

So I guess I'm just using it as a glorified vocabulary list but I like it haha.

man, if only I had known about this book before starting Heisig I'd basically be done with learning the Joyo kanji (and would've been done a long time ago). As it is I'm basically reconstructing the vocabulary part now to get readings. But that means choosing from lists of common words for each word rather than an incremental building approach.

thanks for taking the time to discuss the book in detail. will point people to this post when they're asking how to learn kanji.

 

[Hazaku]

Haha awesome. Good luck for the results!

Likewise. Hopefully you'll find a cool group/partner next week!

 

[Kilrogg]

Well if you're ever in Auckland, NZ on a Friday night feel free to pop in!

Yeah, come visit NZ sometime

Someday hopefully. Bit expensive though!

 

[Beckx]

Senbatsu thread if you like Japanese baseball or just want free streams of Japanese listening practice: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1353609

 

[Trakdown]

Hey all, looking for some advice. Just got my N4 certificate in the mail and am looking to move on to the N3. Any good resources for this, especially for listening?

 

[Porcile]

I heard hoshii and te hoshii today at school (teachers speaking to student). Consider everything I say and have ever said as completely invalid, if you haven't done so already.

 

[marimorimo]

I heard hoshii and te hoshii today at school (teachers speaking to student). Consider everything I say and have ever said as completely invalid, if you haven't done so already.

It's not that ～欲しい and ～て欲しい are never used-- it's that, as in my opinion, they require great care to use. They are words that may be used among buddies at an izakaya, or a teacher to a student, but they are not words that I would use towards a superior, or even to our family patriarch (basically my husband's uncle).

I think it also depends on the personality (or even the gender) of the person talking. Most of the Japanese I have worked with and especially my husband's family tend to be the reserved, very polite type. As an example, my sister in law does not like using 「どういたしまして」because to her it sounds presumptuous, while the first thing my husband (then-bf) taught me about Japanese was to NOT say 「いいえ」to mean "no".

I am the person who has used ～欲しい　and ～て欲しい　the most all these years, and since I noticed the people around me used these words much less frequently, and depending on the person, never at all, I have tried to minimize my use of them--not too hard to do when there are literally dozens of other more polite ways to say the same thing.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

As an example, my sister in law does not like using 「どういたしまして」because to her it sounds presumptuous, while the first thing my husband (then-bf) taught me about Japanese was to NOT say 「いいえ」to mean "no".

I found it interesting that these two examples came back to back since something like いいえいいえ、とんでもないです would be exactly what someone might say if they feel that どういたしまして is too presumptuous in response to words of thanks from another person.

Of course, I know you were referring to いいえ as it would be used to express refusal.

 

[Aizo]

I heard hoshii and te hoshii today at school (teachers speaking to student). Consider everything I say and have ever said as completely invalid, if you haven't done so already.

I was one step ahead of ya.

 

[Hypron]

So I went to that other Japanese club today. It's pretty much the same thing as the other one - lots of Japanese people there. I talked for maybe 45 minutes in (broken) Japanese (the session was 2 hours long). Could do better but it's a start.

I'll keep on going to those clubs and doing that language exchange on Sundays. In total it's about 5 hours a week of being in a Japanese speaking environment, which should be very helpful.

Someday hopefully. Bit expensive though!

Yeah definitely... I've only been back to France once since I came here since it's so expensive...