晴れる in addition to weather goes with 気 or 疑い, but I don’t think I’ve seen it used for general problems/issues.
解決 sounds good, or alternatively maybe you can work 済む in? It’s about something that finished in a satisfying way / without complications.
ちなみに、例の件はすでに無事に済んだ。
By the way, that issue has already been successfully resolved.
I’m in a restaurant where you get a free drink if you add them in line. Was wondering what this line meant:
ディナーは２杯目以降が対象です
Does it mean a free drinks at dinner only after you pay for the first two?
After you pay for the first one. ２杯目以降 is inclusive of the second one. So the second one, or any beyond that, can be your 1 free drink.
Generally speaking all of the 以～ words are inclusive.
So in this case the 対象 is like “applicable to”, right?
Yeah, that’s probably the best way to think about it.
so the expression ものか or ものですか means something like “as if, like hell i will”. the first is like manly language, and the second has the polite です so it can’t be used in casual conversation. is there an in between? like "ものなの ? " or something?
敬語 related question. Besides the very basic 敬語 that you learn in a textbook, is there a requirement to use EVERY piece of 敬語 in order to not be rude? Obviously ですます調 is necessary, and saying 「あなた」is a bad idea, but like, if I forget to say 「承りました」am I going to get looks? I’m fairly sure I can tell you the meaning of most 敬語 at this point but obviously knowing the meaning and being able to remember it to use in a conversation are two different things.
Firstly, every interaction you have has some kind of social hierarchy to it, and you can’t necessarily apply the rules of one interaction to those of another.
There are basically 3 things to keep in mind:
Are you familiar with them, or are they a stranger?
Are they older, younger, or the same age?
Is there a major social status difference (boss/employee, customer/employee, etc.)
Generally speaking, if you don’t know someone, and they’re a fellow adult, and you’re just meeting as random fellow adults, all you need to worry about is です・ます, and you can throw in appropriate isolated words like いただきます when necessary.
Natives only need to worry about strict keigo when talking to people in business situations or certain ceremonies.
As a non-native, no one expects you to use keigo basically at all. If you’re a non-native in a business situation, then you’ll likely have had to prove your business acumen to get the job in the first place, so you don’t necessarily need to worry about that if it’s not your goal.
Saying 承りました when you’re not serving a customer or something would make people think you’re joking around, or as a non-native, that you made a mistake.
That makes a lot of sense then, thank you a lot. It’s these little interactions that trip me up, but yeah, I guess as a non-native speaker you have a pretty good excuse to be rude.
I wouldn’t call it being rude… Like I said, as long as you use です・ます you’re not going to be rude (even as a native in most situations). Assuming the conversation doesn’t fall into those other “keigo-required” scenarios I mentioned.
(Just in case there’s any confusion about terminology, most natives would not consider 丁寧語 like です・ます to be using keigo, and that’s how I’m referring to it. I get that textbooks may categorize 丁寧語 as a component of keigo, but most people out in the wild consider keigo to be the humble/honorific stuff, and です・ます is just for politeness. So when I say “you don’t have to use keigo as a non-native” that’s how I’m thinking of it.)
As a foreigner in most foreigner contexts? No, it’s fine to just use です・ます調. You don’t have to overdo it beyond being 丁寧語 level polite (which by the way, is still grammatically considered to be 敬語) and by overdoing it you might either sound confusing to the other party or do too much 敬語 which ends up being awkward.
In a work or business context that’s a different story.
Regarding being able to use 敬語, sometimes it’s equally important to just be fluent in picking up on it when it’s used by a 店員、係員 or another official you would be interacting with.
