Native speakers correcting my use of に

Related to OPs question - if you can’t use あるく for movement, even if it means “to walk” without attaching it to いく, what can you use it for?

I said you can’t use it alone with に

There are situations where you can use it for movement with を

こうえんをあるきました
“I walked through the park.”

Another can of worms though.

But you can use it in any other situation where you’d describe the action of walking. Just not for getting somewhere.

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Ah, that clears it up plenty, thanks.

I most certainly second this sentiment due to the nature of Japanese and native Japanese speakers. I’ve found that sometimes when I’m corrected by a native speaker and provided with a corrected alternative of what I should say, the correction doesn’t express what I was trying to convey originally. This due to native speakers being accustomed to deducing what someone has said to them. Although this phenomenon is not unique to Japanese or it’s speakers, when something like what I described happens, it means the listener may not be on the same page as you based on how you said something. So if you’re unable to tease out why you were corrected the way you were, then ask them why (if they’re able to explain) or do some research.

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行く(いく) is to move from A to B

歩く(あるく) is to move your legs in a way that can be called “walking”.

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While this might not be a natural way to say it, would it be grammatical to say:

スーパーに歩くので行きました。

If one was trying to say “I walked to the supermarket” (lit: I went to the supermarket by walking).

I’m guessing your intention is to nominalize あるく and then use the “by” meaning of で… but to me it reads as ので, which means “because”. I don’t think it can mean what you intend, even if it is grammatical (and nonsensical) as ので. Which I’m not 100% sure it is grammatical that way because of the tenses.

Long story short… no.

EDIT: Not sure why I wasn’t sure… it’s not grammatical as ので either because of あるく and に obviously.

Would it be fixed by removing the の? As in:

スーパーに歩くで行きました

As opposed to if I wanted to say that I drove to the supermarket, like:

スーパーに車で行きました

No, as far as I know, you can’t use で with verbs (nominalized or not) the way you’re proposing. Even if you went with あるくこと or あるき

Again, as far as I know.

EDIT: I asked my girlfriend (native Japanese speaker) and she doesn’t know how to explain why, but she said those both sound wrong and recommended スーパーにあるいていく as mentioned above.

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