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@matcha-s
JLPT N3 - うちに
【What Does it Mean?】
うちに actually has several different meanings. The one we will be looking at in this post is the "while A is true, B holds" meaning. Here is a chart to help you:
Let's say that you are in the mood for some Chinese food, but the store is going to close in an hour. You might say, "While the Chinese place is still open, let's order some food."
The idea is that you only have a certain amount of time to order while the shop is open. When that time is up, ordering will become impossible. An alternative way to say this is, "Before the Chinese place closes, let's order some food."
If you look at the Japanese, the "while" translation is closer to what is actually being said. However, the "before" translation may be easier to understand as you are getting used to this grammar pattern.
【How Do You Use It?】
Now that we know the meaning, let's look at how we can use うちに:
The chart above says that if you use うちに with a verb, it can be in positive or negative form.
いるうちに = while (the subject) is in or at a place...
忘れないうちに = while (the subject) doesn't forget...
If you use うちに with an adjective, keep the い ending.
若いうちに = while (the subject) is young...
Finally, if you use うちに with a noun, you have to connect them with the particle の. (This tells us that うち is actually a noun too!)
独身のうちに = while (the subject) is unmarried...
【Examples】
Finally, let's look at some examples:
①{年を取りすぎない}うちに{また、イギリスへ行きたい}。
= While I'm not too old, I want to go to England again
= I want to go to England again before I get too old.
②{独身の}うちに、{いろいろなことをやってみたいです}。
= While I'm unmarried, I want to try doing many different things
= Before I get married, I want to try doing many different things.
③ ちょっと冷まして、{熱い}うちに{食べないように}。*
= Let your food cool off a little; while it's hot, don't eat it.
= Let your food cool off a little; don't eat it while it's still hot.
Notice that in example #3, the "before" translation wouldn't work.
【Conclusion】
So there you have it! There are several other ways that うちに is used, but for now I think this N3 grammar point will help you express yourself in more natural Japanese. Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment down below!
Rice & Peace,
– AL (アル)
👋🏾
these are such good explanations, アルさん!! another use of うちに is 〜るか〜ないかのうちに, which expresses a much smaller window of time than just plain うちに. it gives the sense of the exact moment an action begins:
家を出るか出ないかのうちに雨が降り出した。 = i had hardly set foot out the door when it began to rain.
教室に入るか入らないかのうちに宿題を忘れてきたのに気づいた。 = i had just entered my classroom when i realized i had forgotten my homework.
so this usage of うちに represents an instantaneous moment right before an action begins or at the very beginning of the action. it’s a little different than what アルさん explained, but you can see how it’s related. rice and peace and happy studying!!
Whether baffled by riches or picking up sticks, cats and dogs make their appearance in a number of Japanese proverbs.
Japanese proverbs starring cats.
猫に小判 — Neko ni koban. The koban was a gold coin in the Edo period (1603–1868), and “giving koban to a cat” means providing something to someone who does not understand or appreciate its value, and thereby cannot benefit from it.
猫に鰹節 — Neko ni katsuobushi. Meanwhile, katsuobushi are dried bonito flakes. This phrase, meaning “placing katsuobushi alongside a cat,” imagines placing the tempting fishy treat next to the animal, and represents a dangerous situation or one where a high level of vigilance is needed.
猫の手も借りたい — Neko no te mo karitai. To say that one “even wants to borrow a cat’s paws,” despite knowing this feline companion is not going to help out very much, is a way of describing how extremely busy one is.
Among the next mixed bag of sayings are those that emphasize cats’ diminutive and cute side.
猫の額 — Neko no hitai. A “cat’s forehead” is used to refer to something that is extremely small, such as, commonly, a garden or plot of land.
猫をかぶる — Neko o kaburu. To metaphorically “put on a cat” or act like the animal is to pretend to be quiet and harmless, hiding one’s true nature. It also describes someone putting on an air of innocence.
猫も杓子も — Neko mo shakushi mo. When saying that all kinds of people were present at an event, one English phrase is “Every Tom, Dick, and Harry.” The Japanese equivalent is to say that “even cats and ladles” were there.
Here’s a fun explanation of past contrafactual statements from the 日本語総まとめN2 読解 workbook!
“But Sasha,” you ask, “what is a past contrafactual statement?” Lucky for you, I’m a student of linguistics as well as Japanese, so I am disproportionately familiar with nerdy grammar items such as these! Anyways, let’s get to business.
A contrafactual or contrary-to-fact statement is one that relays a scenario that has not yet happened or did not actually happen (notice this textbook’s frequent use of 実際に・は).
More broadly, contrafactual statements can differ from each other by what tense they occur in, either present (which has a future flavor) or past. Here’s an example of each in English.
Present contrafactual: If I studied every day, I would learn faster.
The implication here is that the speaker is not currently studying every day; thus, a change in their actions would lead to a different result. (This idea of possible change gives present contrafactuals that future flavor.)
Past contrafactual: If I had studied every day, I would have learnt faster.
The implication here is that the speaker is reminiscing: “If I had studied every day,” they say, but they didn’t; thus, the expected result of studying every day did not occur. Change is not possible in the past contrafactual. (Compare てしまった in Japanese: the action is finished, occasionally with a tinge of regret.)
Contrafactuals in Indo-European languages
In Indo-European languages, contrafactual statements are often marked by moods of unreality, such as the subjunctive, and conditional verb clauses. If you’re familiar with Romance languages, Latin, or Greek, consider these Spanish contrafactuals:
Si estudiara cada día, aprendería más rápidamente. = If I studied (were to study) every day, I would learn faster.
Estudiara is an imperfect (past) subjunctive. Aprendería is a conditional in the indicative.
Si hubiera estudiado cada día, habría aprendido más rápidamente. = If I had studied every day, I would have learnt faster.
Hubiera estudiado is a pluperfect subjunctive construction. Habría aprendido is a perfect conditional construction in the indicative.
The subjunctive even appears vestigially in English contrafactuals (“if I were a rich man”), though many Englishes nowadays accept “if I was,” too.
Contrafactuals in Japanese
Lucky for us, Japanese contrafactuals don’t have nearly as many moving parts as do Spanish! For one thing, grammatical mood doesn’t exist in Japanese (or if it does, it’s just the indicative); for another, conditionals using たら are really simple to form because all you do is add a volitional piece. Let’s take a look.
もし毎日は勉強したら、速く習うだろう。= If I studied every day, I would learn faster.
The conditional here, accompanied by もし, is implanted directly into the verb of the first clause: する → したら. Where Romance languages use the subjunctive, Japanese simply tacks on a volitional だろう.
Side note: because of the conflation of present and future in Japanese, the conditional + volitional construct can feel vividly futuristic. Not to mention if you remove もし, the たら form can mean “when.”
もし毎日は勉強していたら、速く習っていただろう。= If I had studied every day, I would have learnt faster.
Marginally more complicated. する takes the auxiliary いる and transforms the whole thing into a conditional: する → している → していたら. Same thing with the volitional: 習う → 習っている → 習っていただろう。
簡単ですよね!Now, let’s finally return to the example sentences from my textbook and the all-Japanese explanations given.
The past contrafactuals from my textbook
これは写真に書いてあった例文です。Here’s what’s written in the photo:
もしあの飛行機に乗っていたら、事故にあっていただろう。
↓ ↓
実際は飛行機に乗っていない。実際は事故にあっていない。
“If I had gotten on that airplane, I would have been in an accident.” BUT: In reality I didn’t get on the airplane. In reality I haven’t been in an accident.
あのときもっと勉強していたら、今ごろ博士になっていただろう。
↓ ↓
実際は勉強が足りなかった。実際は博士になっていない。
“If I had studied more back then, I would have had a PhD by now.” BUT: In reality I didn’t study enough. In reality I haven’t become a PhD.
Conclusion
There are three takeaways from this mini-lesson:
There are two types of contrafactuals: present and past.
Contrafactuals convey situations that have not yet happened or did not actually happen.
In Japanese, contrafactuals are formed by using conditional and volitional verbs.
If you think you’ve got a handle on these takeaways and the example sentences, then fantastic—congrats on learning a fairly advanced (N2-level) grammatical item! If you have any questions or comments or even if you just want to chat, my ask box is always open!
ようやくすっかり終わりました!読んでくれてありがとうございました!
Walking down the street in Sendai and what’s this I see?
Does this vending machine say 昆虫食 (konchū-shoku) insects + ...eating?
It does! This is the last thing that I expected.
I guess the buttons with just bug names are just... bugs? Some of them have tasting notes telling you that they're sweet or rich or, uh, big, but no meaningful description of the preparation or flavoring. All of them are ¥1000 a pop.
The purple one that says 昆虫チョコ (konchū choko) is bug chocolate. The brown one that says コオロギクッキー (ko-orogi kukkī) are cookies made with a type of cricket (Grylloidea family, if that tells you anything). The blue one is a mystery (何が出るかな? nani ga deru kana? / What will come out?).
I'm actually kinda keen to try But when I do eat bugs for the first time (or the first, uh, intentional time) it's gonna fair! It's gonna be something that's actually potentially tasty—like a mealworm taco or some crispy sweet-soy sauce Japanese preparation or one of those grilled Chinese market skewers—I'm not gonna sabotage it with a Hamilton worth of rando insects of unknown providence and expiration date from some back-alley Tohoku vending machine.
When what looks like onyomi is actually kunyomi:
Especially in business and financial contexts, you might see words such as the following, made up of two kanji put together. You might expect them to be pronounced using the onyomi readings that would typically be used for such kanji compounds, but instead they’re read with their kunyomi readings. It’s possible it’s the noun form of a compound verb from which the hiragana has been omitted! See below for the two-character versions (left) and how you would write them with full hiragana (right).
洗替 洗い替え araigae
組立 組み立て kumitate
組付 組み付け kumitsuke
売上 売り上げ uriage
押出 押し出し oshidashi
引合 引き合い hikiai
切替 切り替え kirikae
取組 取り組み torikumi
釣合 釣り合い tsuriai
取崩 取り崩し torikuzushi
引当 引き当て hikiate
借入 借り入れ kariire
取下 取り下げ torisage
Luckily, most dictionaries have both variations under the same entry, so looking up the two-character version of the word shouldn’t prevent you from finding the meaning. Once in a while the two-character version can also be read with onyomi (such as 借入, shakunyuu).
And this may or may not be related, but I’ve noticed that my coworkers like to shorten English words similarly, in ways that I’m not expecting as a native English speaker. Here are some examples!
F/L forklift
I/P input
S/V supervisor
late last night i watched an episode of arthur where buster says “osamu tezuka is the god of manga” in japanese and strangely enough i wasnt dreaming
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My favourite part of this is there are no translation errors in this picture. The fish is a bottom feeder that’s called kinki in Japanese, Channel Rockfish in English, and the Mandarin name is actually honest to god Idiot Fish (okay, maybe Silly Fish, but silly as a word is more…. loveable, doesn’t quite capture the full rage and frustration at whoever you’re terming “傻瓜”)
Amazon: 日本字フリースタイル・コンプリート: たのしい描き文字2100
via kogumarecord
my god
is that..?
IT IS
it’s an ACTUAL がてら
like in the WILD
I thought they only lived in JLPT N1 grammar lists
~がてら while doing~, on the way to ~
If you put a がてら between two things, that means something like “while we’re doing [thing 1] we might as well also do [thing 2]” or “We did [thing 2] as part of doing [thing 1]” Goes after nouns or verb stems:
散歩がてら買い物に行く to go shopping while out for a walk
勉強がてら遊んでみる? Wanna try playing [this educational game]? You can do it as part of studying!
This seems like it’s going to be a really helpful grammar point, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to get said in my presence. Like, ever XD
UNTIL NOW
Know your mochi! Cute chart by @T_marohiko listing famous mochi cakes variations (my favourites is kinako mochi -especially if served with kuromitsu syrup :D)
First row - zunda mochi ずんだ 餅 / bota mochi 牡丹餅 / yomogi mochi 蓬餅 / kinako mochi 黄粉餅
Second row - kashiwa mochi 柏餅 / sakura mochi 桜餅 / warabi mochi 蕨餅 / uguisu mochi 鶯餅
Third row - daifuku 大福餅 / mame daifuku 豆 大福餅 / ichigo daifuku 苺 大福餅 / pudding daifuku プリン 大福餅
Fourth row - age mochi 揚げ餅 / imo mochi 芋餅 / habutae mochi 羽二重餅 / kagami mochi 鏡餅
Something that was going around Japanese Twitter a few days ago. The onsen one is to help Japanese speakers understand English prepositions. The rest are riffs on that.
Here we have an English version with one made with Instagram for the Japanese version.
Finally this one is an advertisement for Maritozzo.
When I have time I'll make a version of this and share it.
Click for better quality (unfortunately I had to use my phone for these).
Handy reference chart showing the difference between blossoms (ume/plum, momo/peach, sakura/cherry, anzu/apricot, ringo/apple). Note the colors, how the buds sit on branches, and of course petals shapes.
Apricot and apple are veeeery rare as kimono/obi patterns. Morover, what I usually simply call “plum” (ume) is in exactly the Prunus mume (or Japanese apricot/plum) and come with red/white/pinkish flowers.
a german walks into a japanese bar and sneezes while ordering a beer the bartender gives him a concerned look and pours him 8 glasses
Japanese Last Names
Last names in Japanese are important because it is more common to refer to someone by their family name than their given name. It is estimated that there are nearly 300,000 different surnames currently in use in Japan.
In Japanese, the family name comes before the given name, and the title (Mr./Mrs./Ms., Dr., etc.) comes after both of these names.
Example: 田中太郎先生・たなか たろう せんせい ・Tanaka Tarō-sensei・Dr. Taro Tanaka Where Tanaka is the surname, Taro is the given name, and sensei is the title of Dr.
Surnames occur with varying frequency in different regions and certain surnames can be primarily associated with certain regions. Japanese last names are generally written in kanji. Two characters usually make up the most common last names, but one character or three characters are also typical.
名字 みょうじ myouji last name, surname, family name
名前 なまえ namae name, first name
History of Last Names
Family names were used variously for nobles and samurai throughout history, but for the general population they were usually prohibited from using a family name (with a few exceptions) until 1870 (during the Meiji period). When commoners were finally legally allowed to have last names in a bid towards modernization, many people changed family names that had been passed down from their ancestors to ones they liked better and others simply made up new last names. Some people took names from historically famous families even if there were no blood ties. Read about the extensive history of last names HERE.
Interestingly, legally, women and men had to keep their respective last names after marriage due to a law passed in 1876. However, another law was passed in 1898 that legally required women and men to have the same last name (either party's last name, just the same one). Currently, women in Japan (especially professionals) are petitioning for the right to retain their own last name after marriage, which the 1898 law prohibits.
Common Last Names
While it's impossible to memorize all 300,000 or so Japanese surnames, a ranking of the most common family names is available in Japanese HERE (you can choose by the whole country [全国] or by prefecture, and the ranking lists surnames by increments of 500, then click to display by using the 表示 button). This list only goes up to rank 39,520 so there are a considerable amount of last names missing. The most common family names have over 1 million people sharing the name, while the names around rank 39,520 have only about 60 people estimated to share the name.
Here are the top 10 most common Japanese surnames according to the ranking site:
佐藤 さとう Satō
鈴木 すずき Suzuki
高橋 たかはし Takahashi
田中 たなか Tanaka
伊藤 いとう Itō
渡辺 わたなべ Watanabe
山本 やまもと Yamamoto
中村 なかむら Nakamura
小林 こばやし Kobayashi
加藤 かとう Katō