Basic Japanese writing practice (~N5 / N4)

Someone correct me if i’m wrong but I think 曲がる is to bend / warp / twist by itself (not anyone causing it to happen - intransitive), whereas 曲げるis to bend as in you are actually physically bending something, like a spoon for example (transitive).

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You’re right about the transitivity, but it’s not really the case that for 曲がる there can’t be anyone causing it to happen. It’s just that it doesn’t take an object, so whether or not someone caused something to bend is just not specified, at least not directly grammatically connected to the verb, the only relevant information is that something bends.

For the intransitive verb, the subject is the thing that becomes/is bent.

For the transitive verb, the subject is the thing that does the bending, and the object is the thing that becomes bent.

WaniKani will sometimes translate the intransitive as a passive verb (to be bent), but that’s not quite the right way to think of them - however, English doesn’t really have any good way to indicate transitivity as far as I know.

So with that in mind

That’s not the only use for を. In the case of 曲げる you would be correct. However, in the case of 曲がる you won’t see an object marked with を.

In this sentence を is used with an intransitive movement verb to mark a location, similar to how you could use で. It’s not a grammatical object per se. More information on を: Particle を: Direct Object Marker

In this context it means to make a turn. At the third traffic light, turn right.

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Thank you so much for the generous explanation and the useful link! I get it now :blush:
Have a nice day btw!

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Hi, i thought i would make a new thread but maybe asking here is more convenient and doesn’t create a whole new one.

I’m at level 10, i do 15 lessons everyday and for the last two days i haven’t been allowed new lessons, it just shows greyed out, empty Lessons part. Is it normal? Is WK doing its spaced out memorization again?

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You’re gonna run out of lessons at some point - you need to level up for new kanji and radicals, then some of the kanji are locked behind the radicals you learn, and the vocab is locked behind the kanji you learn.

If the lessons are greyed out and at 0, that just means you’ve done all the lessons, and now it’s a matter of doing your reviews until you level some things up to Guru, then you get new lessons :slight_smile:

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Oh that makes sense, thank you. It differs person to person too right? :relaxed:

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No, everybody gets the same lessons as soon as they meet the prerequisites (level and guru’d radicals/kanji)

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にほんごがむずかしいですね。でも,だいすきです。

Summary

Japanese is hard isn’t it. But, i really like it. (Really basic I know but I haven’t practiced my own sentences yet).

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(I know it’s been months since this was posted, but I just came across it, and …)

If you think of 曲がる as “to curve” hear, then 左へ曲がる “to curve to(ward) the left” (your path, not the vehicle).

Other close translations (at least in British English) are: to veer (to the) left, to bear left, to steer (to the) left (if you’re in a vehicle).

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