Learn Japanese

けど and でも can both mean "but" or "however" but I think けど is more common when "talking out loud" like I was doing

I was reading some manga, and I saw some kanji that I didn't know the meaning of, but I had seen before I thought あの漢字見た事あるけど意味がわかんない [あのかんじみたことあるけどいみがわかんない] "I've seen that kanji, but I don't know it's meaning" here I use the た form of the verb 見る, and 事ある [ことある] to mention something I've done before (or not done, if using the negative of ある, which is ない)

適当 [てきとう] is a rare case of a word that can mean something, and something that is opposite of its other meaning it can mean "appropriate" or suitable" and it can also mean something like "sloppy", "careless", or "careless" for example 適当な語で空所を満たせ [てきとうごくしょをみたせ] means "fill the blanks with approriate/suitable words" and 適当なことを言う [てきとうなことをいう] means "make irresponsible comments" or colloquially "talk out of one's ass"

you might remember this from Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii, episode 6, about 2 minutes in, Narumi says this to Hirataka

I'm back, just not on a regular schedule, at least not yet

喧嘩売ってる？ [けんかうってる?] literallly means "are you selling a fight?" but is used to mean "are you looking for a fight?"

I don't mean to abandon the channel, but a close family member died recently, and I haven't had the time or energy to post here, or to practice or study Japanese, I will be back, just not right now

alright, the new semester has started, so I've been a little irregular with new stuff, I'll have a 3-day weekend starting tomorrow, so I'll be going over some common words, which I think will be useful

アダマンタイト級冒険者でしかお引き受けできない案件でしょう is read アダマンタイトきゅうぼうけんしゃでしかおひきうけできないあんけんでしょう I think with longer sentences like this, it gets easier to understand why having kanji is useful, with only hiragana, it's difficult to know where a word ends, and a new one begins, there's also a certain elegance to having a lot of meaning packed into a few characters

しか can mean "nothing but" for example, in episode 3 of Overlord Season 3, minute 13:45, the clerk says アダマンタイト級冒険者でしかお引き受けできない案件でしょう アダマンタイト級冒険者 = "adamantite-plated adventurer(s) で = indicates a means here しか = only with [the previously mentioned] お引き受け = "undertaking" in this case, it's the request done to the adventurer(s) できない = negative form of "can" or "able to" (so "cannot" or "not able to") 案件 = "matter" or "case" でしょう = kind of like ですね, that is, like saying "right?" at the end of a sentence, but this is more formal, and could be taken as "I believe" so the sentence is more or less "I believe for this matter nothing but adamantite-plated adventurers are able" if taken literally, a more natural translation would be "I believe only adamantite-plated adventurers are able to undertake this matter", or "I believe only adamantite-plated adventurers can take this request" (taking into consideration the context of an adventurer's guild receiving requests)

猿も木から落ちる [さるもきからおちる] "even monkeys fall from trees", really if you take it literally it's more like "monkeys too fall from trees" 猿[さる] = monkey も means "too", or "as well" or something else depending on context 木 = tree, or wood から is like "from", could be "because" if you're saying the reason for something 落ちる[おちる] = fall, to fall that's a phrase that means something along the lines of "everyone makes mistakes" oh, and 落ちる is a group 2 verb

group 2 verbs are the easiest of all, you basically change る from the dictionary form into whatever, so for the て form, you change る for て, for the ます form, you just change the る for ます for example:

dictionary form (also, present indicative, informal): 食べる
ます form (present indicative, polite): 食べます
て form: 食べて
negative form: 食べない

there are more forms, you can see them in tools like Japanese verb conjugation websites/applications/lists, but these are basically the most common you'll see, and others basically can be derived from these, and you should practice all forms several times to not really have to think about them anyway if you wanted to use conditional sentences, you would use the た form, which is basically the same as て form but with た, and adding after ら, here's an example: 運動しなかったら太る[うんどうしなかったらふとる] "if you don't exercise you'll get fat" 運動 [うんどう] = exercise 太る = "to get fat" (group 1 verb) now, しなかったら is a bit packed with meaning, so we'll go through it bit by bit する is the present form, it means "to do", it's used with nouns, like 'exercise', or 'study' (think about 勉強する [べんきょうする]) the past form (the た form) is した (する is a group 3 verb, it's irregular) the negative form is しない the negative past form is しなかった (yeah, you change い for かった) then, adding ら at the end, changes the meaning from "negative past form", to conditional so しなかったら means "if not do (the thing before)" now, it is "you'll get fat" and not simply "get fat" because the dictionary form of the verb can mean present, or future, and because of the context, of course that's why 運動しなかったら太る which is roughly "exercise if not done get fat", means "if you don't exercise you'll get fat"

oh, 作る[つくる] is a group 1 verb

I'll go over this in more detail later

fun thing, when using a verb's て形 for "sequencing", you should take care to understand what you're saying if you wanted to say "come over for drinks!" (let's say you were at a bar, and calling a friend over) if you said 「飲んで来てね」what you would be saying is "drink (or "get drunk"), and then come over" you would have to say 「飲みに来てね」 so instead of　飲んで [のんで], you use 飲みに[のみに] the first is "drink" (the verb to drink, in imperative mood), the second is "do X in order to do drink" (yeah, に used in this way conveys "do X in order to drink"), where X is the verb that comes before, in this example, it's "to come" = 来て[きて]

another example, this time with the た form of a verb て形 = て form 作る[つくる] means "to prepare" or "to make" お母さんが作った料理は一番美味しい[おかあさんがつくったりょうりはいちばんおいしい] I omitted putting です at the end, because it's not necessary, but you might see it in a textbook example お母さん = mom が = subject marker 作った = 作る[つくる]のて形 料理 = cuisine/cooking は = topic marker 一番 = the most/No. 1 美味しい = delicious the translation would be "the cooking made by my mom is the most delicious" in English, you would omit "made by" to sound more natural so the sentence in English would go "My mom's cooking is the most delicious" or to be even more natural-sounding, it'd be "My mom's cooking is the best"

oh, 学ぶ is a group 1 verb, it's て form is 学んで

continuing with the "verbed" nouns you can also do other forms for example to say "there are many ways to learn Japanese" you say 日本語を学ぶ方法はたくさんある[にほんごをまなぶほうほうはたくさんある] here 日本語 = Japanese language を = marks the object 学ぶ = study (verb) 方法 = way/method は = marks the topic たくさん = many/lots of ある = "there are" also ある is the informal form of あります we omit の before 方法, before it's not "the way", not just because we are saying there are many ways semantically, but we are not referring to a specific way

I'm having trouble sleeping... so I'll write something new

#JapaneseGrammar you can say ながら to say you do something, while doing something else for example 'talk while drinking coffee" コーヒーを飲みながら話します [コーヒーをのみながらはなしします] here the 'main" action is talking, not drinking, this is important, because of the order it's said in Japanese, you say the main thing after ながら other combinations are possible using this, for example 'let's talk while drinking coffee" would be コーヒーを飲みながら話そう [コーヒーをのみながらはなそう] 'wouldn't you like to talk while drinking coffee?" would be コーヒーを飲みながら話しませんか [コーヒーをのみながらはなしませんか] 'I want to eat chocolate while listening to music" 音楽を聴きながらチョコレートを食べたい [おんがくをききながらチョコレートをたべたい]