I’ve seen “////” used as a symbol of someone blushing (in kaomoji e.g. (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄ ). Maybe it’s somehing like that?
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Are we talking a… um… “mature” visual novel, here? Is that why you’re not providing context? An example sentence? Because surely you’ve been here long enough to know how important context is.
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Sorry, had to step away from the computer for a bit. (Kinda makes it look like a large ummm… was my reaction lol)
Anyways while it does have that sort of content, that’s not the focus. The title’s name is Floral Flowlove and it’s supposed to be a nakige (crying game) more in the vein of a Key work than just mindless fanservice. There’s even an all ages version coming out in like a month.
The scene was that one of the characters trying to loan the main character a dvd, but because she doesn’t talk to many people and both of them are pretty aloft ends up being nervous when doing so. There’s a bit more to that like how the main character is a pretty detached personality in general (something which actually can make it hard to sympathize with him as a result) and how they sort of needed their mutual friend to even really talk with each other despite knowing each other for a while, but it’s for the most part innoceous
Edit: Honestly, I’m probably overthinking it and it’s more of a slang, emoji sort of thing like was mentioned before. I think I’ll just assume that and move on.
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I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to represent blushing as well.
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So I was just on http://www.comico.jp looking for something to practice my reading when I came across a title that seemed weird to me. 私を笑わないで. I think this means to say “don’t laugh at me” but it’s always been my understanding that you can’t use を with intransitive verbs. I looked it up and this seems to be a common thing with the word 笑う which I guess I never noticed before. Can somebody explain what exactly is going on here?
It has both transitive and intransitive definitions. So… No breaking of any を rules.
Oh the dictionaries I looked it up in only states it as being intransitive. I should probably switch to a Japanese dictionary sometime since I’m assuming they don’t have these kinds of mistakes.
I’m unsure if this is the right place to post this but does anyone know how to say you don’t want a straw at a restaurant? Would you use 無し?
Maybe something like ストローをくれなくてもいいです
I’ll explain what this is doing briefly in case you don’t understand it. I’m assuming you at least know the very basics of を and です.
くれる can mean to give or to receive, but in this context it means to give. It is being put in the negative form then conjugated to the て form. ~てもいい basically means “it’s alright to …” but since this is being put in the negative it comes to “you don’t have to …”
All together this roughly translates to “You don’t have to give me a straw”
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ストローなしで(結構です) should also work 
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It just changes the sentence to be more polite. Other than that, the sentence is basically the same. Since it didn’t specify whether to be polite or not, I wouldn’t really use that as an indicator for if your answer was right or wrong. It would be like accidentally adding “please” to the end of a question, it doesn’t really change the fact you knew how to say it. Just so long as you know that です is polite and don’t use it without considering that.
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That’s what I figured, thanks! I used the typo correction so it wouldn’t count as a mistake, but I wanted to be sure.
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Use of みんな to refer to objects?
An exercise in the Genki 1 workbook asks the student to translate this sentence into Japanese:
Today’s exam was easy because I memorized all the vocabulary.
And the answer key says:
単語をみんな覚えたから、今日の試験はやさしかったです。
I thought it would be …全部覚えた… Is my answer wrong?
No, 全部 is not wrong.
But neither is みんな.
The first definition of みな (and by extension みんな) is 全部, すべて. Then the second definition is そこにいる人全部.
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Thanks, I guess I should have just gone and looked it up. I was pretty surprised; I didn’t realize it could be used for things as well as people.
I came across this […]しないでね. I understand it means “please, don’t do […]” and that the で is the shortened part of でくれる, but since we have a negative verb, shouldn’t it be しなくて（くれる）?
ないで is an alternate て-form for the negative ending.
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Tae Kim also has a section on an addition usage if you’re curious.
Question about 「っつたら」found in Persona 5.
I understand that it’s 話し言葉 but I’m not sure what it translates to. My guess is「と言ったら」but I’m very unsure.
Context:
(Two kids walking to school, person 1 talks about how they don’t understand why they have to come the morning school meeting. Person 2 says the following)
意味分かんないっつたら、ホラ、鴨志田（かもしだ）に届いた予告状。