I think its okay now to ask questions related to the JLPT N5 exam that happened yesterday?
There were a lot of questions that needed you to choose the correct particle. I’m afraid I might have got a lot of them wrong. I don’t quite remember the complete questions but perhaps you can answer in a general way what particles these sort of sentences would take?
毎日さんぽします。でも雨の日 ＿＿ しません。There were some four options of particles which included は and で. Which of these two or other possible particles would be correct to fill in the blank?
きのう へや ＿＿ そうじ や せんたく しました。Again, there were four options of particles of which two were の and を. Which would be correct?
いっかげつ ＿＿＿ 二回 ギター を れんしゅうする。Again, there were four options of particles. I picked に. Would another particle be more appropriate there?
＿＿＿＿＿ とき よく およぎました。Amongst the options (this was a longer question), were 19 さい、19さいの、19さいに and some others. Which would be correct?
Thanks in advance for taking the trouble to reply!
the sentence is saying “yesterday i cleaned my room and did laundry…” so “room cleaning” in itself is a noun, therefore making へやのそうじ the best answer ^^
if you said へやをそうじ you’d expect the しました to come right after, if that makes any sense…?
を marks へや as the direct object. So now we are using two verbs (そうじする and せんたくする) on the object. This becomes “Yesterday, I cleaned and laundered, and did some other stuff to (oops!) my room”. (The “other stuff” is implied by や). Change を to の and you get:
きのう へやの そうじや せんたく しました。
Maybe you already know this, but in case someone else doesn’t, “へやのそうじ” is a noun phrase meaning something like “room cleaning” or “cleaning (my) room”. So now because there isn’t an を in the sentence, there is no direct object, so if you translate it very literally, it becomes “Yesterday, I did room cleaning and laundry and some other stuff.” Again, the “other stuff” is implied by the use of や. A more natural translation would be “Yesterday, I cleaned my room and did laundry”.
Thank you all for your help! Its possible that the second sentence isn’t copied correctly. There was a preceding sentence in the question. But it didn’t seem like it would affect the particle that went into the blank so i don’t remember it. Since they don’t let you take the question paper home, this is from memory and from some keywords i jotted down on my test voucher.
The test certainly taught me that I need to study particles a lot more. There were some 8 or 10 questions on particles alone! I was surprised that you are expected to be that thorough with them even for N5. Genki only gradually introduces you to the various uses of a certain particle. I was told a textbook Nihongo Shoho teaches you the rules to particle use very well but i haven’t managed to find that book anywhere (except a very expensive copy on amazon).
