Short Grammar Questions (Part 1)

I think that’s pretty much how I would read it, too. Just like it’s rude to brag about yourself, it’s not good manners to brag about your family either.

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as @Saruko mentioned the family is basically seen as an extension of yourself so you shouldn’t brag about them either (I think they same goes for your company/workplace as well but I’m not sure).

For example I work in Japan there are a few students I know who are my fellow teachers’ kids. Most of them are pretty smart kids or they are great at some sort of sport or something. But if I bring it up to their parents they will just deny it and point out all of their kids flaws and not say a single compliment. Like:
“Oh I hear your son got accepted into the top school in the city”
“Yeah he did but he’s really an idiot who never studies”
or
“I watched your daughter’s performance last week. She’s really good.”
“Not really. Compared to the other kids she’s really bad. Maybe she should quit…”

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…oh. Was this dude being very rude all the time then??

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Yup, but he’s a Lieutenant Colonel, so who’s really going to say anything. :wink: Roy and Ed showed their annoyance at his constant doting about his family quite often. Of course, because he’s actually a great dude underneath the obnoxious ball of genki, they deal with it (since Roy technically outranks him, and Ed just doesn’t tolerate much nonsense in general).

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Thank you! And did you know that already beforehand or did you learn it just now by looking it up?

Learned by looking it up :slightly_smiling_face: that’s actually why I like trying to answer people’s grammar questions, I learn as I go!

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I would go である more literary or 書き言葉 than “formal”, it is used more in writing and if you are trying to be formal when speaking でございますis what you’d use, である is mainly used when you need to modify a noun as だ can’t do that (Not sure if です has such a restriction but it is used that way).

In speech it is kind of haughty but that is because it is old-sounding.

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Wow, that’s interesting to hear. I understood that bragging was certainly discouraged, but to have them actually downplay any compliments to that degree is definitely something I’m not used to hearing. In the US it’s pretty standard for people to speak well of their kids, after all (“Oh, Junior just got into this prestigious university”, etc.) Thanks for the detailed info!

This isn’t a grammar question, rather, a vocabulary one, but i’ll ask here anyways to avoid making a thread.

I’m trying to learn the n4 vocabulary using the vocabulary resource featured here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt4/vocab/, but for some reason there’s two separate decks; one for kanji-kana, and a separate one for kanji-eng. Which one would you suggest I use, if even neither?

Personally, I would use neither. Its stupid to have to choose between seeing how a word is read and what it means. I would just get a deck that has the word and both how its read and meaning on the back. Mark the card as wrong if you get either wrong, like how WK does it.

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Ahhhh I see, thanks!

So this huge nerd of an MC was tryna strike up conversation with a girl and it didnt last too long (shes the token quiet one). Afterwards, he says this:
天気は万人共通の話題だが、長続きしないことが立証された。

鳴沢がもっと興味もってくれそうな話題を出さないと。

So, I get what hes saying (or at least I think I do), but I dont understand the reason behind the bolded part. Why does he add the そう to what I assume is the potential form of もってくる. I assume its being used as “seems like”, but I just feel like the sentence would make more sense without it.

Obviously I’m wrong, so can someone tell me why?

くる has an irregular passive. So take a look at the sentence again

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yep, I meant potential, sorry. Ill fix.

Try one more time :slight_smile:

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The passive and potential are both こられる so it’s not くる

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Wait, Im an idiot.

That raises another question then. Whats the proper way to break that down. Is it 持って呉れる?

Except for the fact that no one uses that Kanji, yes. And 興味を持つ is fundamentally the same
as 興味がある. Other than that it’s the standard 〜てくれる・〜てあげる・〜てもらう thing.

Yeah haha, I just wanted to make sure I had the right word. Had to look for the kanji on jisho.

So then my question about そう still sorta persists. Why couldnt he have said もっと興味もってくれられる話題. I understand the meaning would be slightly different, but it seems weird to say that he has to come up with something that seems like it would be more interesting to her as opposed to “he has to come up with something that would be more interesting to her”.

If thats actually how its intended, I can accept that, but I just assumed it wasn’t. This is the first time I have seen そう used where it felt off, so I thought I was just missing something.

EDIT: Missing something outside of the fact that I forgot くる was an irregular, that is. But lets forget about that part lol

興味持ってくれそうな話題 refers to bring conversation that at least appears interesting. Like, looking like he brought a interesting conversation would be more of a literal translation.

So basically, the one guy is saying that the listener should appear to bring forth a topic that is interesting, if that makes sense.

It’s a little difficult to translate in English, but something like that.