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Learning Japanese |OT| ..honor and shame are huge parts of it. Let's!
- Thread starter I'm an expert
- Start date
Thanks!
So, I know hirigana and katakana, dipped a toe into the grammar river to get some ideas of sentance structure but I dont know what to do next.
I know I eventually need to do Joyo Kanji, but I dont understand it honestly from where to begin. I get the concept of varied meanings and understanding radicals to make building blocks to remember them, but I dont know how to go about "learning" when theres 5+ meanings and readings. Not sure what I should be learning and skipping as a beginner.
Then theres just general vocab. Should I go there now? Is this different from kanji? In conjunction?
I dont really know what to do at this point but I want to move forward.
I know I eventually need to do Joyo Kanji, but I dont understand it honestly from where to begin. I get the concept of varied meanings and understanding radicals to make building blocks to remember them, but I dont know how to go about "learning" when theres 5+ meanings and readings. Not sure what I should be learning and skipping as a beginner.
Then theres just general vocab. Should I go there now? Is this different from kanji? In conjunction?
I dont really know what to do at this point but I want to move forward.
I'm liking Wanikani so far. 6 months in and going great every day. Around 33% done so far.
At the end of the day, you have to check out some options by yourself and see what gets you to stick with it. For me, the greatest factor is the UI, it's a lot better than Anki and makes me want to study more. Some people love renshuu.org, but I can't make heads or tails of its UI... everyone's different.
At the end of the day, you have to check out some options by yourself and see what gets you to stick with it. For me, the greatest factor is the UI, it's a lot better than Anki and makes me want to study more. Some people love renshuu.org, but I can't make heads or tails of its UI... everyone's different.
Any good recommendations for dictionary apps on Android? Currently I am using Aedict and I wonder if it's dictionaries are accurate or good enough, since I read about people claiming some dictionaries are "useless".
Those are the ones I have installed
http://imgur.com/bf2FIL5
Those are the ones I have installed
http://imgur.com/bf2FIL5
I bought 新和英中辞典 and really like it. It uses Kenkyuusha's Japanese-English dictionary and so the entries have more information than Jisho. You have to know the reading for the word you want, though, and there are no furigana. So it's harder to use than jisho (because you can't draw the kanji) but also you will get a better definition.
It's not that Jisho is "worthless," it's amazing in many respects, but it's only generally going to give you the most common meanings while the (paid) dictionaries are going to be more exhaustive and cover meanings that will come up but that are not the common meaning.
In Jisho the definition of 差 is just "difference". In the app I use the definition covers two screens of text with sample clauses and sentences. (just picked that at random since it's one of the words in this Tobira chapter.)
It's not that Jisho is "worthless," it's amazing in many respects, but it's only generally going to give you the most common meanings while the (paid) dictionaries are going to be more exhaustive and cover meanings that will come up but that are not the common meaning.
In Jisho the definition of 差 is just "difference". In the app I use the definition covers two screens of text with sample clauses and sentences. (just picked that at random since it's one of the words in this Tobira chapter.)
Do you guys have any advice on how to actually remember kanji when writing (by hand)? Reading is not a problem and i regularly read novels, but I have huge problems with writing. Even writing the simplest and most common kanji is a struggle, even though i can recognize a significant amount of them by just a quick glance.
Zoe
Member
Writing with the correct stroke order over and over and over and over...
About to pull the trigger on the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course... its method looks similar to what I naturally try to do while learning Kanji: find what's more useful for retention of that specific kanji's meaning and reading. It can be mnemonics using its radicals, etymology, some historical anecdote, whatever... Seems like a good time!
Wish I could also finally buy my own Grammar Dictionaries. They are so expensive here in Brazil (~$125 a pop...).
Wish I could also finally buy my own Grammar Dictionaries. They are so expensive here in Brazil (~$125 a pop...).
My initial impressions of Tobira are that it's an amazing textbook (if you like textbooks, of course; I do). I feel so, so much more engaged working through the chapter than I did with Genki.
Let us know how it goes and what you think. If I could do it all over again, I would have bought the Kanji Learner's Course and made my own anki cards as I went along.
Let us know how it goes and what you think. If I could do it all over again, I would have bought the Kanji Learner's Course and made my own anki cards as I went along.
Master Milk
Member
if you're starting from zero, about how much time would you need to be ready to take the n1 test?
Porcile
Member
Murakami's last two novels were rubbish. I haven't tried to read any of his stuff since I started learning Japanese though. I would like to go back and read Wind-Up Bird but I dunno, I feel like I should start tackling some novelists whose books I liked in English but only a couple were ever translated, like Masuji Ibuse's books.
TheSporkWithin
Member
I've got a copy on the way because I had enough T-Points to get it with no money out of pocket, and I know it'll be a "noteworthy" read that I can talk about with people.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
So this is such a rudimentary question, but does anyone have any tips on how on earth to begin memorizing Hiragana and Katakana? I am so overwhelmed with it. I made flashcards, so maybe that will help? But even still, it's a whole different thing to learn how to associate symbols with sounds. It's like the old tests in grade school where you had to remember that "A lep is a ball."
Also, any good iOS apps to help me learn on the go? Anything I can do to practice during any bit of free time will be useful. iPhone and/or iPad apps would be helpful. I'll be picking up an iPad Pro soon with the Pencil, so I was considering importing Trace Sheets into Procreate or something so that I can practice writing, too.
Note: I am willing to go the extra mile as we are going to Japan in April of 2018. We're also visiting Germany, Italy, and France in October of this year...I can't fully learn ANY language in this amount of time, but I'd like to be able to at least stumble my way through things. The other 3 languages aren't as hard since my wife and I both have SOME Spanish under our belts. But Japanese is a whole different beast.
Also, any good iOS apps to help me learn on the go? Anything I can do to practice during any bit of free time will be useful. iPhone and/or iPad apps would be helpful. I'll be picking up an iPad Pro soon with the Pencil, so I was considering importing Trace Sheets into Procreate or something so that I can practice writing, too.
Note: I am willing to go the extra mile as we are going to Japan in April of 2018. We're also visiting Germany, Italy, and France in October of this year...I can't fully learn ANY language in this amount of time, but I'd like to be able to at least stumble my way through things. The other 3 languages aren't as hard since my wife and I both have SOME Spanish under our belts. But Japanese is a whole different beast.
I was really overwhelmed by Hiragana and Katakana in the beginning, too. What really worked for me were the TextFugu lessons. They really take you by the hand and tell you what to do and how to do it.
TextFugu is an online Textbook with a not so low pricetag and with not that much content, but the Hiragana and Katakana lessons are available for free:
http://www.textfugu.com/season-1/reading-writing-memorizing-hiragana/why/
http://www.textfugu.com/season-3/learn-katakana/
After you nailed those down, keep practicing, reading and using both and you will never forget them anymore
Allow me to go "I'm an expert" on you and give you a very boring answer that you might not want to hear, but: just drill it. That's it.
Write every character many times, repeat the pronunciation, and do that every day. No magic trick, no fancy method.
Before you know it, you'll know them by heart. After all, when you boil it down, it's just like learning the alphabet, except 3-4 times bigger. A few months from now you'll wonder why you were even worried about them in the first place. The real fun will start with kanji.
A few tens of very simple characters is nothing to anyone with a normal brain. Be you a child, a teen, an adult or an old-timer.
Hiragana and Katakana I found the best way to learn was to do something like this:
http://realkana.com/hiragana/
You can click certain characters you've learnt and then quiz yourself on them. I first wrote each character down 20 times and after that did the quiz for those characters until I remembered all of them, slowly adding more until I didn't get any wrong.
I learnt it all in about a week. Although I think I was lucky in terms of how quickly I picked it up. I know a lot of people find it hard.
http://realkana.com/hiragana/
You can click certain characters you've learnt and then quiz yourself on them. I first wrote each character down 20 times and after that did the quiz for those characters until I remembered all of them, slowly adding more until I didn't get any wrong.
I learnt it all in about a week. Although I think I was lucky in terms of how quickly I picked it up. I know a lot of people find it hard.
drilling works.
it's not a complete solution to language - for more complete learning, you need context and connections between ideas, sounds, images and meaning. but drilling lets you not have to pause between connecting all of them so you can focus more on grammar and overall understanding of things.
i think daily flashcard drilling is a baseline for language learning. Eventually you'll get to the point where katakana and hiirigana is like alphabetical characters to you and reading あいうえお won't even give you pause.
it's not a complete solution to language - for more complete learning, you need context and connections between ideas, sounds, images and meaning. but drilling lets you not have to pause between connecting all of them so you can focus more on grammar and overall understanding of things.
i think daily flashcard drilling is a baseline for language learning. Eventually you'll get to the point where katakana and hiirigana is like alphabetical characters to you and reading あいうえお won't even give you pause.
Right. Drilling especially works for something as basic as learning an alphabet or syllabary. You don't even need much context to solidify that knowledge. Just power through the characters and you'll be fine.
i do like flashcard spaced repetition drilling because it makes the time more manageable, but i'd have to imagine that whiteboard method (brute forcing it every day) would probably be more... perhaps not 'efficient', but it'd be faster, if only because of the amount of times you're repeatedly exposed to characters you're trying to memorise.
I'm not even talking in the context of the whiteboard method. It's just that, in the grand scheme of things, memorizing 40*2 characters that are all between 1 and 4 strokes, have one single reading and no meaning is nothing and therefore shouldn't take more than a couple weeks of drilling.
Of course, if you go about it the lazy way like some of my students did back in the day, you will "learn" them for 4 months and yet not even know them by heart by then, but that's because they weren't that passionate about them. Those that were passionate had no trouble learning them at all even though they were essentially learning Japanese on the side.
I'm self taught and memorized the basic kana/gana through casual exposure and went hard on the kanji and I think that severely fucked me up in some ways because I'm pretty sure I'm more capable of visualizing and drawing something like the kanji utsu for depression than say a basic hiragana like mi lol.
I can't even write utsu and I have the N1. What the heck are you doing? 笑
Oh I was just talking generally about drilling, not necessarily just for hirigana/katakana.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Thanks for the open discussion guys.
Let me ask a dumb question - what makes Japanese so hard to learn after you learn the kana? Is it just learning kanji, or is it the grammar?
Let me ask a dumb question - what makes Japanese so hard to learn after you learn the kana? Is it just learning kanji, or is it the grammar?
Nothing is too hard if you keep up your motivation and study everyday consistently. Even if you reach a low and are demotivated. That's where most people fail and stop studying, I guess.
It's a combination of things, but as has been said, it's not impossible, just hard. Here are a few things to consider:
- kanji of course, both because they are so numerous and because it's so different from alphabet-based languages where letters have no meaning and one base reading
- sentence structure ( which is(subject)-object-verb in Japanese) and grammar (particle-based, no gender, no plural, no conjugation, etc.)
- speech rhythmn, especially if you mother tongue has a stress accent (which is the case with English)
- culture. There are just many things that are said in a fundamentally different way in Japanese, or that don't exist, or that exist but are hard to find an equivalent of in English
Porcile
Member
I don't think the learning part of Japanese is particularly hard if the goal is to consume media. I've been studying on and off for a year and a half now, with a couple of intense periods here and there, and I can handle a lot of media if I have a dictionary by my side. I would say keeping track of a real life conversation is much harder for me because of how much the topic of a conversation can change, so it's easy to get lost.
On the other hand, I think production is really difficult . How some things "work" but don't really sound natural for a given situation, or how some patterns or conjugations simply don't apply to certain kinds of words and ways of speaking, even if they kind of make sense. Like 可愛そう (かわいそう doesn't work to say "Looks cute!" even if you think it would because it actually it means 可哀想 (かわいそう. I used this one as an example in a post I wrote a little while back, because it appears correct usage, but isn't for a couple reasons. I'm surprised no one picked me up on it. The lesson being that rules are okay to learn, but often they don't work for a given situation even if they appear to. Rules are just their to help you process how the language is being used naturally. Therefore the best way to learn the correct usage of rules is through exposure and that takes a long time and a lot of skill because first you need to know all the rules, and then you need to be able to process and reproduce to say the things you want to say.
I suppose this is common for any language though. Once you delve down the rabbit hole and actually start trying to express things you want to say in an interesting and natural way instead of stuff like "寒いよ！" or "新宿が好き！" then I think Japanese is hella difficult. This the opinion of someone who isn't very good at production though. I have also never learned a second language, so learning Japanese is a completely new experience for me.
Would be interested to hear other peoples opinions, especially the J-masters out there. We don't need to keep talking about how 上 can be じょう or うえ like it's a crazy mystery, come on people.
On the other hand, I think production is really difficult . How some things "work" but don't really sound natural for a given situation, or how some patterns or conjugations simply don't apply to certain kinds of words and ways of speaking, even if they kind of make sense. Like 可愛そう (かわいそう
doesn't work to say "Looks cute!" even if you think it would because it actually it means 可哀想 (かわいそう. I used this one as an example in a post I wrote a little while back, because it appears correct usage, but isn't for a couple reasons. I'm surprised no one picked me up on it. The lesson being that rules are okay to learn, but often they don't work for a given situation even if they appear to. Rules are just their to help you process how the language is being used naturally. Therefore the best way to learn the correct usage of rules is through exposure and that takes a long time and a lot of skill because first you need to know all the rules, and then you need to be able to process and reproduce to say the things you want to say. I suppose this is common for any language though. Once you delve down the rabbit hole and actually start trying to express things you want to say in an interesting and natural way instead of stuff like "寒いよ！" or "新宿が好き！" then I think Japanese is hella difficult. This the opinion of someone who isn't very good at production though. I have also never learned a second language, so learning Japanese is a completely new experience for me.
Would be interested to hear other peoples opinions, especially the J-masters out there. We don't need to keep talking about how 上 can be じょう or うえ like it's a crazy mystery, come on people.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
So how do you go about getting more exposure when you're not in a place where there are a bunch of native speakers? Reading books, watching soaps, podcasts? Are there free services for skyping with native speakers or anything like that? Sure, it's not perfect, but it's a start?
In my case, Indiana is not exactly a hot bed for Japanese speakers. Sure, there's colleges, but I don't live close enough to make it something I can find folks to engage with regularly.
In my case, Indiana is not exactly a hot bed for Japanese speakers. Sure, there's colleges, but I don't live close enough to make it something I can find folks to engage with regularly.
I don't think the learning part of Japanese is particularly hard if the goal is to consume media. I've been studying on and off for a year and a half now, with a couple of intense periods here and there, and I can handle a lot of media if I have a dictionary by my side. I would say keeping track of a real life conversation is much harder for me because of how much the topic of a conversation can change, so it's easy to get lost.
On the other hand, I think production is really difficult . How some things "work" but don't really sound natural for a given situation, or how some patterns or conjugations simply don't apply to certain kinds of words and ways of speaking, even if they kind of make sense. Like 可愛そう (かわいそう
I suppose this is common for any language though. Once you delve down the rabbit hole and actually start trying to express things you want to say in an interesting and natural way instead of stuff like "寒いよ！" or "新宿が好き！" then I think Japanese is hella difficult. This the opinion of someone who isn't very good at production though. I have also never learned a second language, so learning Japanese is a completely new experience for me.
Would be interested to hear other peoples opinions, especially the J-masters out there. We don't need to keep talking about how 上 can be じょう or うえ like it's a crazy mystery, come on people.
Not a J-master, but I like the idea of "production". Especially since different kinds of Japanese only ever come into use through different kinds of production, e.g. formal letters versus creative writing versus speaking with someone you meet at a bar, which all use their own unique vocabulary and inhabit different cultures of speech that you won't really learn in self study or academics. When it comes to having natural conversations with others I find that basically gets easier only by direct interaction over a long period of time, like all of a sudden you will be using a local dialect without realizing it. And that's completely different from being able to write a letter or a novel. Being able to speak and read Japanese is one thing but coming even close to natural in higher levels of production is incredibly difficult, I think -- and of course that's true for any language.
I'd love to be able to write creatively in Japanese, but I'm a long ways off myself. Just started poking through N1 kanji and realized how few of them I know lol.
edit:
And yes if you don't have ready access to native speakers, just absorb yourself as much as you can every day in dramas, radio, etc., it really helps if you can keep your ears in tune with the language constantly.
Aside from kanji I don't think I've encountered much difficulties learning the language. Obviously I'm not fluent yet, but learning grammar etc... is just fun at this point. I don't think I've ever been frustrated during my studies.
Maybe like Porcile said the culture? When I speak Japanese my brain kinda switches to a different mode because my French mind doesn't really work with Japanese language.
I don't know how to really explain but I'm sure someone out there knows what I'm talking about lol
Also at some point it's easier to learn grammar points/meaning of words and expressions by looking at explanations in Japanese cause a translation won't always showcase the nuances that might be crucial to know if you want to properly use them.
marimorimo
Member
For me this is hands down the most difficult...or should I say it's just plain different to how it works in English or other languages. I have to change my mindset when I speak Japanese, even more so when it's a formal/business situation. You can make a lot of grammatically correct sentences but they would sound awkward or downright rude because no one in Japan would say them that way. And when you're in a room speaking with actual people you have to watch how you act as well. There's always this balance you're trying to achieve between yourself and the other people in the room, based on each person's standing in the social group (空気を読む
. It's a function of a highly contextual culture. Although I have to say beginners shouldn't worry too much about this yet. It's only when you've mastered enough Japanese that they start expecting you to talk and act like a Japanese as well.But yeah, as Porcile said I agree consumption is the easy part. Production is where it goes awry because of the cultural difference.
It depends on what you mean by a start. I mostly use niconico/youtube videos and videogames as a mix of a listening/reading exercise to stay sharp with some phone flashcards when I want to focus on kanji. Were I currently able to focus a little more on it, I'd use an online news site like Yomiuri or get some books or manga off ebookjapan. Speaking's important too but unless you're going to Japan in the immediate future or taking classes I don't think it's priority number one, especially early on.
Whiteboard method sounds like hell, especially when you come home tired from work at 8:30, and knowing you have some tough deadlines near the corner.
Sometimes I have thought of night study sessions but I might end up being inefficient. I have tried sleeping early and waking up around 5:00 am, but sometimes I hit the snooze button and I wake up like a (regretful) baby that's ready for work. ... That's life :'(
My weekend study sessions are quite good though! I just wish I paid more attention on the bolded text to have more time for study. I'd pick up to read up on grammar or review some old cards on Ankidroid, but when it comes to kanji (damn the jinmeiyou)... paper and pencil until I can recognize with ease or even "draw" on my head, which would take more than a couple days depending on the complexity of the character.
Might come up later with details on my roadmap in regards to learning, but like most of you , the objective is to be there at the olympics with a peace of mind and clear understanding on what's being said, read, or about to be expressed from myself. The latter is the hardest if you're looking for something that's not a cookie cutter textbook example.
Sometimes I have thought of night study sessions but I might end up being inefficient. I have tried sleeping early and waking up around 5:00 am, but sometimes I hit the snooze button and I wake up like a (regretful) baby that's ready for work.
... That's life :'(My weekend study sessions are quite good though! I just wish I paid more attention on the bolded text to have more time for study. I'd pick up to read up on grammar or review some old cards on Ankidroid, but when it comes to kanji (damn the jinmeiyou)... paper and pencil until I can recognize with ease or even "draw" on my head, which would take more than a couple days depending on the complexity of the character.
Might come up later with details on my roadmap in regards to learning, but like most of you , the objective is to be there at the olympics with a peace of mind and clear understanding on what's being said, read, or about to be expressed from myself.
The latter is the hardest if you're looking for something that's not a cookie cutter textbook example.
Sakura
Member
As others have said, the best way to learn kana is drilling. Flashcard the shit out of it, and once you actually start trying to read kana you'll be able to do it fine.
Basically all you are doing is associating an image with a sound. Just like kids can look at pictures of hundreds of Pokemon and know all their names.
In regards to your 可愛そう, this only appears to be correct usage to people who don't quite understand what the そう is supposed to convey. For example consider 悲しそう. You might translate this into 'looks sad' because that works and can convey the meaning, but it's not quite the same meaning in Japanese. The そう means that you, as an observer, don't actually know, but based on what you see (or hear, etc) you get that impression. If I say in regards to a girl 悲しそう, I don't truly know how she feels. She could be happy, she could be mad, etc it's not 100%, it is just the feeling that I get. But when you say 可愛そう, this doesn't work, because if I look at her, I can decide if she is cute or not. I can see her face. She is either cute, or she isn't.On the other hand, I think production is really difficult . How some things "work" but don't really sound natural for a given situation, or how some patterns or conjugations simply don't apply to certain kinds of words and ways of speaking, even if they kind of make sense. Like 可愛そう (かわいそう
I think the problem is thinking something in English (I want to say that looks cute!) and then trying to translate that literally into Japanese (I know, I will say 可愛そう!). I guess what I am trying to say, is this isn't a situation of the rule not working, but the rule not being understood.
You just watch lots of anime. Worked for me.
marimorimo
Member
Go to italki.com or download Hellotalk on your phone to find language partners. I personally prefer iTalki but I have friends who use Hellotalk. Don't be shy to reach out to multiple people even though most of them probably won't reply back. There will always be a few that will bite. And most of all, have fun!
--------------
I just came back from a casual business meeting with some Japanese businessmen who wanted to offer me a part-time gig. We had lunch and coffee and the meeting lasted for 4 hours. It's the first time in over a year that I used non-brain-dead Japanese (by that, I mean the simple day-to-day conversational stuff that revolve around more or less the same 50 words) and before the meeting I was seriously wondering if I could still manage to keep up. It did take me a few minutes to get into gear but fortunately it was smooth sailing after. I mispronounced a couple of words (which I caught immediately) and I had to think a bit more thoroughly before speaking but any problems I had were very minor. But I think what really helped me "get into gear" was being in the same room with them and hearing them speak among themselves. When I'm with a group of native speakers, I feel much more immersed vs. when I speak to only one person. 3+ persons make a "language bubble". Even though I'm an introvert at heart, I like being in a group as I learned most of my useful spoken vocabulary from observing Japanese people speaking with other Japanese. I've been told I speak and write (relatively) naturally and that's because I am only repeating what I hear the natives say verbatim. I try not to make up my own phrases as much as possible and use only patterns/expressions that I have encountered IRL. I realize now this strategy worked so well it disincentivized me from hitting the higher level grammar books. My Japanese could be so much better than it is now if I had actively worked on it after N3-N2-ish.
Anyway, my point is that for people who want to learn how to speak, I advise joining a Japanese group even if your level isn't that high yet to sustain a conversation. You can stay at the fringes, observing and listening to what the natives say and throwing in your 2 cents when you can. I imagine this is easier to do in universities with exchange programs and plenty of Japanese students coming over. Online, I don't know of any live chatrooms but it would be nice if there were a Japanese equivalent of NeoGAF....2chan is cancer. The closest I could think of is Chiebukuro (Japanese yahoo answers) although it has fewer trolls and responders have at least 20 IQ points higher than your typical yahoo answers poster. People in Chiebukuro tend to give serious and in-depth answers to questions and their responses give a unique insight into the Japanese mindset.
And oh, we still have to finalize the details this week, but I'm 99% sure the gig will push through
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
So I decided to try out the Dr. Moku apps on iOS since it was a flashcard, writing, quiz "all-in-one" app. For whatever reason, my brain latched onto it hard and I was able to get through and memorize the hiragana in about 2 hours. Of course, I still have to deal with the modified hiragana, but you guys were right...Drilling works.
Do you guys have any children's books you can recommend to practice reading hiragana and katakana? Or really any sort of media I can grab to just practice reading it when I'm not diving into the nuts and bolts of things?
Do you guys have any children's books you can recommend to practice reading hiragana and katakana? Or really any sort of media I can grab to just practice reading it when I'm not diving into the nuts and bolts of things?
Just かわいい. After all, the word itself describes looks. Adding something would be like saying "it looks like it's cute". It's either cute from the looks of it, or it's not
.[EDIT] Maybe add a "ね". That would make it closer to "it looks cute" than "it's cute" I guess.
Just かわいい. After all, the word itself describes looks. Adding something would be like saying "it looks like it's cute". It's either cute from the looks of it, or it's not
[EDIT] Maybe add a "ね". That would make it closer to "it looks cute" than "it's cute" I guess.
I knew it. ugh.
Would 可愛いらしい / 可愛いっぽい be something like "kinda cute" or "sort of cute" in a "looks like it could be cute but it's really not", something else, or doesn't exist?
I'm with Kilrogg. Either something is cute or not. I'm not sure what's natural though. Maybe a conjunction would be good to give reason why it's cute but not.
Note that 可愛いらしい exists, but it's slightly different from かわいい. For most intense and purposes, you would just say かわいい.
Here's what this page has to say: http://chigai-allguide.com/可愛いと可愛らしい/
Basically, 可愛いらしい means "it looks like a cute thing", as I was saying. If you were describing a girl for instance, you could use it if you're not simply talking about her looks, but also her personality, as in "her whole demeanor is cute".
Here's what this page has to say: http://chigai-allguide.com/可愛いと可愛らしい/
Basically, 可愛いらしい means "it looks like a cute thing", as I was saying. If you were describing a girl for instance, you could use it if you're not simply talking about her looks, but also her personality, as in "her whole demeanor is cute".
I thought ～らしい implied "according to hearsay or reputation" or the like, while ～そう was more "looks like"? and you really don't want to use かわいそう since that's it's own word, "pitiful".
Plus one syllable off is 可愛らしい, "lovely".
Plus one syllable off is 可愛らしい, "lovely".
Sorry, misspelling on my part, I obviously meant 可愛らしい. Yeah, it's basically "lovely".
らしい is according to hearsay, but it can also be used with the meaning of "seem"... Though I won't go into specifics because my grammar is failing me. I need to brush up on it, honestly.
らしい is according to hearsay, but it can also be used with the meaning of "seem"... Though I won't go into specifics because my grammar is failing me. I need to brush up on it, honestly.