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1500 questions
11
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11
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Is "あらら" (arara) a word or just a "vocal noise"?
A friend just wrote this as a comment on a photo of mine on Facebook.
Is it an actual word or is it what I call a "vocal noise"?
By "vocal noise" I mean those things which convey some meaning but they're not really lexical and can't be used like…
hippietrail
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11
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What exactly is this でね construction?
The following dialogue is from the video game Final Fantasy VI:
宿屋{やどや}の[親父]{おやじ}は、[余所者]{よそもの}が[嫌]{きら}いでね。
I think I understand this sentence. It means something like "the old man at the inn doesn't like outsiders". But I'm not sure why it ends…
user1478
11
votes
1 answer
Legal characters for first names include: hiragana, katakana, jinmeiyo and joyo kanji. What about latin letters?
Is it legal for parents to give to their child a first name with latin letters (romaji, I guess), instead of using katakana, hiragana, or kanji?
For example, if Japanese parents want to give their children the English name John, can they avoid using…
Maxim
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Would 私は怖い mean "I'm scared" or "I'm scary"?
Or does it mean both? If so, is there any way to explicitly distinguish between "I'm scared" and "I'm scary"?
If it only means one and not the other, how would you say the other?
小太郎
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11
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2 answers
When writing vertically, where do small kana go?
When writing horizontally, small kana go right next to the syllable they modify as in ちょっと.
Also, when using katakana, long vowels are indicated by an horizontal dash, as in メール.
When writing vertically I know the long vowels in katakana (such as…
JNat
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へ or に particle for 曲がる?
i was wondering what may be the difference in nuance between 右へ曲がる and 右に曲がる ?
Example: Take a right turn and you'll see the library.
1) 右へ曲がると、図書館がある。
2) 右に曲がると、図書館がある。
As for [noun-location] with the verb 行く, the へ should be used when we want to…
Pacerier
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Is it actually impolite to say ご苦労様 to a superior?
Conventional ビジネスマナー tells us that ご苦労様 is used by superiors to subordinates and お疲れ様 used by everyone, and this is backed up all over the internet and stated on some questions here, like this.
But it seems that this isn't always such an ironclad…
ssb
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10
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Why is it (usually) wrong to say 人がある but OK to say ある人？
I fear I may be venturing again into "just because" territory, but this one bugs me.
We all know that you usually use いる (as in not ある) to refer to living things, as in 私は日本にいる（△ある）. Yet it is acceptable to use ある in the sense of "some" when the…
ssb
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What does exactly does さま mean in dictionary definitions?
I've been using Japanese-Japanese dictionaries for a while now and this keeps popping up. It seems to me like a kind of usage that is found for the most part only in dictionaries. Can anyone help explain what exactly さま means in the dictionary…
zzz
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10
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2 answers
X is near or next to Y. Is my understanding of this correct?
So I know that a few words could be used interchangably. But I wasn't sure if I got the nuance(s) correct. So I have this sentence: 車はどこにありますか。 車庫のそばです。 And as far as I can see, I can change そば in this sentence and the meaning stays the…
dotnetN00b
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4 answers
Difference between chiisai (小さい) and komakai (細かい)？
Both are い-adjectives meaning "small".
From what I gather (though I'm not sure), chiisai is used mainly for specifying objects as 'small'; while komakai can have uses like: "minute differences", "trivial matters", "finer details".
kammy
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10
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Why are movies/video-clips counted with 本?
I just noticed in my Facebook uploads that for my videos, it says I have 25本. What's the reasoning behind using 〜本 to count videos or movie clips? The only line of reasoning I can come up with would be thinking of the the movies as as old reel of…
istrasci
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Is しまった an appropriate translation for "Oops"?
In the course of localising an app for the Japanese language I have been tasked with translating the Google-style error string "Oops", which will presumably be used as in
Oops
Please check your password and try again
Presuming we want to…
ジョン
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10
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2 answers
What does "ちるの、びるの" mean?
Context: 織次{おりじ} the protagonist is trying to buy back a set of drawings from his father's friend, who is mysteriously evasive about the…
ento
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