I’m only beginning to learn but even within the first three levels of WaniKani I am finding different vocabulary items which have the same English translations, I can only imagine I will be finding more of them later on. My guess is that they have nuanced definitions.
So to bring up a few of the synonyms I’ve encountered:
“Very” 大いに, 中々 and one I found elsewhere とても
“Woman” 女, 女の人
“Girl” 女子, 女の子
In the short term my question is what is the difference between the words shown here?
For the long term, how should I approach synonyms while learning vocabulary?
4 Likes
Leebo
July 10, 2019, 10:57pm
2
Often we discuss them here as a way to get more acquainted with them.
I have a thread where I went through all the “girl” words.
My goal is to make this the definitive thread to link to when the question comes up. Suggestions for more words are welcome. Examples of usages or phrases are in the summaries.
There are a lot of examples, so I haven’t added furigana yet, but maybe later.
女の子 (おんなのこ)
*all girls from newborns to roughly mid-teens
*in slang usage, other young women
Summary 女の子が公園で遊ぶ
a girl plays in the park
人形を抱いた女の子
a girl holding a doll
女の子を授かる
to be blessed with a girl
可愛い女の子
a cute girl
六年生の女の子
a …
I’ve also made some videos on ways to learn how to tell words apart on your own.
I made a video breaking down a few different thesauruses and what you might want to think about when you choose one, or use one.
Sorry that the audio still sucks.
[ - YouTube]
If you’ve heard people mention it, but weren’t sure how to find it or use it, hopefully this video can be of use to you.
If you have no idea what it is, it’s a database of written Japanese that is intended to be used for research, but any random person can use it to do their own queries as well.
[ - YouTube]
10 Likes
Many thanks! These are very useful. I’ll probably be going back to these references when I have reached a more advanced level of Japanese.
1 Like
Turok
July 11, 2019, 10:04am
4
Is 中々 a synonim for “Very” tho? I always learned it as “Quite”
As of not a lot, but not a few, quite.
1 Like
Leebo
July 11, 2019, 10:31am
5
Turok:
Is 中々 a synonim for “Very” tho? I always learned it as “Quite”
As of not a lot, but not a few, quite.
It’s “quite” as in “more than expected, to a considerable degree.”
予想した以上に。意外に。かなり。
“Quite a difficult problem.”
中々難しい問題
That “quite” is synonymous with “very.”
“Very” is the main meaning of 中々 on WK btw.
8 Likes
Turok
July 11, 2019, 3:38pm
6
I probably focused on quite to differenciate it from the others, newbie mistake.
I understand, thanks Leebo!
2 Likes
system
Closed
July 10, 2020, 3:39pm
7
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