I do understand これ、それ、あれ、どれ and この、その、あの、どの.
This one (near me)
that one (near you)
That one over there (not near me and Not near you)
Which one?
I Just don’t understand when to use This much and when to use that much. Even in english I don’t understand when to use which one. English is not my native language.
I would suggest just learning about it in japanese anyways then.
Do you have some sentence you saw this in that you want help understanding? Or some idea you wanted help expressing?
These are the example Sentences of my textbook.
I think in German we only have one Expression to say This much and that much.
The sentences still follow the same pattern. The bread is with the listener (as they bought it) therefore そ. The money and the sushi are with the speaker therefore こ. The fish is with neither (or at least we don’t know) therefore あ.
And yes, this pattern does not exist in German therefore you need to study it explicitly (just like me) 
Thank you. For some reason I thought the amount is important.
I’ll go through them and highlight the differences in how I would interpret it
The translations use “much”, but it actually isn’t about amounts at all, but about a way/maner. It’s more “in such a way like this”,
Yes, in a lot of cases, “in such a way" references some amount seen as a threshold.
But those words are not numeric/comparative in nature. Just like この、その、… they reference something, which is not a noun (otherwise ～の、~れ versions would be used) but something like an adjective/adverb. While これ is a pronoun that replaces a noun, こんな is a “pronoun that replaces an adjective” (I’m not sure such a thing exists in English or German)
? Not sure I agree with the wording here. ”It’s not about amounts at all”? Its like…primarily about amounts, no? The exact breakdown I gave above
こんなに→これ*ほど*
highlights that pretty well. The 3 of the 5 example sentences are also basically literal quantities with the other two being more abstract amounts maybe.
This is more like こう、そう、ああ or maybe こんな、そんな、あんな. “in such a way like this” maps to こう pretty cleanly. “as much as this” or “an amount as much as this” even would be こんなに
But because of context (and now I think at it, the “counter” before the verb is kind of an adverb in Japanese); but you could have something like
今日はもうこんなに寒い。
Yes, it is some kind of “amount”, but not necessarily one easily mapped to a number.
(Maybe I misread the focus on “much” given previously. Or maybe, now that I think of it, I mixed “much” and “many”)
There are pronouns which replace nouns, but I’m not sure if adjectives can be replaced.
I interpret こんなに, etc as specifically referencing some sort of ‘extreme’ limit. You are talking about something big/small/far/close/high/low/etc, and are using a pronoun like structure “this/that” to reference an example of this limit.
I think the choice of using the こ, そ, or あ variant of any of these structures is often up to interpretation if the thing you are talking about is not currently being held by either the speaker or the person being spoken to.
Hello !
In Genki 1, lesson 9, we are learning about から as well as informal past + past negative
In the workbook, the sentences for から use the informal language before から and then formal after.
Exemple : 今日は病気だから、運動しません
Do you have to use informal speech before から ? It wasnt stated in Tokini Video that I follow nor in the grammar ressource of the workbook
EDIT : nevermind I saw this " Before the conjunction から, you find both the long and short forms. Thus the から clauses in the above examples can be rewritten as あした試験がありますから and 寒かったですから. The long form before から is more polite, and is frequently found in request and suggestion sentences."
From what I understand informal/common is Short Form から Long form
Formal is Long Form から Long Form
Short + short is not possible
It’s a continuum. Short + short is also possible. 病気だから、運動しない。 is totally grammatical.
から、運動しない | 57 pronunciations of から、運動しない in Japanese (Cute child using ~だから、運動しない)
Formal/informal has often nothing to do with being grammatical or not. It only is concerned with politeness.
I think Genki mostly teaches a “normal” formality level, which is acceptable to use with strangers.
~ですから、~です starts to already feel a little stiff depending on the situation.
Politeness/Formality is really complicated, though. There are different verbs, different expressions, different pronouns, ます/です, different grammatical constructs that sound more stiff/formal.
It goes from giving a speech before the 天皇, to cracking jokes with your friends, and everything in between.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the details for now, and try to absorb it over the long run. If you remember ~だから、~です now and use it like that, you’ll do fine.
I think this misunderstanding probably comes from thinking “short” form is some special thing thing. It’s literally the most standard form of the verb so there is going to be no virtually no grammar where using it is not possible. It’s the other way around. Even when speaking in 丁寧語, Japanese people don’t put a ます and です whenever they can and sometimes it’s actually ungrammatical to attatch ます. The most basic way of speaking with no deliberate addition to formality or politeness just exists. And then from there you can add things to certain words, conjugate, or swap words out entirely to reach your desired level of politeness/formality
Gotcha thanks a lot!
I think my initial confusion was due to Genki ditching the ます form all of a sudden, or switching back and forth in this lesson with から, so I was wondering if there was a “rule” to it. I do wonder why all textbooks start with ます and ditch it halfway
Thanks! I think I will try to keep it simple yeah, just felt like. a curveball from Genki that they are ditching ます form at the end, or switching back and forth in the workbook when working with から 
I can’t say for sure, but I think the biggest reason is because at the start they want to provide people with immediately usable Japanese. 丁寧語 is a pretty safe choice in a large variety of situations. If the goal was to just give the best working understanding of the language, I definitely wouldn’t start out with ます
There’s not a rule as such, but a good initial rule of thumb is “you only need to mark the politeness on the verb at the end of the sentence”. In some situations there are places you can increase the politeness/formality level by using the masu form in other verbs, but that is optional (and as vanilla says there are places where using masu isn’t possible), so for talking to people as a beginner “make the verb at the end polite” works fine.
That will be useful! This kind of unspoken rules is really valuable for beginners I think, I wish I saw more of these instead of “top 10 tricks to become N1 in 10 days”
That’s what I was getting at in my reply to you about this from a month ago
