Hi 
My answer is different than the one in the
answer key, and I’m not sure why…
(Chapter 5, p 7 in みんなの日本語 problems collection)
answer key, and I’m not sure why…
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I’m not sure if I can help you, but you certainly have a beautiful handwriting!
What were the questions?
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I believe it has to do with verb choice based on the exact question in the book. I do not have the book here, but I can at least tell the slight differences between each sentence.
いく is to go (conjugated as いきました）
くる is to come (conjugated as きました）
Q1: So your answer seems to say “I went to Japan last month”, but the book is looking for “I came to Japan last month”. If I were to guess, it is implying that you arrived in Japan a month ago and you are still there.
EDIT: Or it could be the subject is not necessarily “わたし”, so you could be in Japan and saying “he/she/they will come to Japan.” Since it is your current location.
See: 行く・来る: Japanese Verbs for "Go" and "Come" for a bigger breakdown of when one is used vs the other
かえる is to return (conjugated as かえります）
Q2: Similar to Q1. “Next August, I will go to Japan” vs “Next August, I will return to Japan”. “Next August, I will go home” vs “Next August, I will return home”.
The implication being that you’ve been to Japan before and are planning another trip.
Note: I can’t exactly tell what the 「くしこ」is meant to be, so my translation may change slightly, but the vibe of going vs returning is the main difference to point out.
Final edit because I’m wanting to check later. I am assuming the questions were something like:
Q1 いつにほんにきましたか。
Q2 いつくににかえりますか。
Let’s see how accurate I was :3
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Tbh, that looks more like くに to me 
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Looking at how they wrote い, I think you’re correct. I’m just used to it being a rounded corner on the first stroke rather than a strong angle. Happy to have more practice reading different fonts.
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You can’t return to a place you’ve only visited with 帰る - that’s used for returning to a place where you call home. So the implication is that the speaker is returning to their own country. Last month they came to Japan, and next August they’ll be going home.
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Once I looked up the translation for くに, I figured my shoddy translation would have been different as well. I didn’t know the specific bit about “home” regarding 帰る. Thanks for the tip!
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There’s no English at all in the textbook, but these are the questions
(section 3). Please excuse the digital copy, my physical ones are arriving from Japan next week.
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Is this the right page? Those questions don’t match the answers.
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Yeah, but, the page of questions you posted don’t correspond to those answers. They’re different questions.
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Can’t find my problems collection, but if you have the studying books you’ll see at page 42 the example sentences for chapter 5, you have:
へ行きます
と日本へ来ました
国へ帰ります
So they teach about going to, coming to and returning to.
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So sorry, you are correct. I accidentally posted the wrong question page.
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Wrong page, sorry. The correct one is above
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Thank you for all your help
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Yeah, ok, without context, those questions are rather ambiguous. If you travelled to Japan last month, but have come back home again since, then いきました would be the correct answer, but if you travelled to Japan last month and you’re still in Japan now, then it’d be きました. Same with question 3 - who’s to say which country you’re travelling to? So yeah, your answers are perfectly valid.
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Thank you
I disagree. 国 in this case is not any country but either the speaker country of origin or where they resides now, hence the 帰ります, which corresponds with the material being taught in that chapter. If it was another country, they wouldn’t use 国.
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Honestly, I don’t think I’d use 国 at all, regardless of what the chapter says, though perhaps that’s personal preference. I’d just name the country.
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