I just learned this vocabulary: 先ず and it doesn’t accept “first” as a reply, only “firstly” and “first of all”. But all of the three example sentences use it as “first”:
先ず、下ごしらえをします。
First, we do the prep work.
先ず、その五十ねんかけてあつめた切手コレクションからだんしゃりしましょう。
Why don’t you declutter the stamp collection you’ve been working on for fifty years first?
先ずは、チキンの羽をむしりとって、それぞれの羽に名前をつけます。
First you need to pluck the chicken and then name each of the feathers.
So what am I missing? Or is this a learn it one way but use it another way type situation (which is always pretty silly …). And yes I know, I could just add it as a user synonym, but this seems so obvious that I wanted to ask about it.
Sorry, if this was asked already, the search didn’t find anything but then it seldom does … XD
It’s basically a matter of interpretation as far as I know.
Can also be translated as “First of all, we do the prep work.”
It means the same thing after all.
Same goes for the other sentences. But, translating it as “First,we do the prep work.” does sound more natural in English. Not sure if there is a another reason for translation choice.
And if “first” is easier to remember, then adding that as a synonym is fine. As long as you remember it’s “first as an adverb” and not “first as an ordinal number.”
It’s possible that’s why it’s not there by default, since the other ways of answering are unambiguous.
I believe that this is primarily a case of avoiding a misleadingly broad gloss that would allow students to burn the gloss without actually forming an understanding of what the word does.
If the gloss simply read “first”, people could get the impression that it’s used to say something like “The first drink costs 1000 yen.” or “Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?”
Adding “first” as a synonym should be fine, as long as you trust yourself to remember that it means “first” in the sense of “firstly”.
I think they don’t accept “first” because many beginners struggle with counting things in Japanese and may misinterpret “first” as a counter, while this word is only used as an adverb and never when counting things.
But as long as you remember this difference feel free to add a user synonym.
