Sometimes you may find yourself learning a new word or grammar point, and then see it nonstop for the next week.
No matter what your read, or what Japanese you listen to, you just keep seeing that same point.
How is it you never noticed it before? Was this such a common grammar point and you just were blind to it?
It’s easy to think that you are the problem, that you just don’t pick up these things, or that you’ll never be any good because you can’t remember things as well as you think others do. But it’s also important to realise that many parts of Japanese have links to another if you look hard enough.
One area of this where I notice it all the time is verbs.
Shifting meanings, shifting readings
I was looking up the word 脅かす・おどかす recently. This is not the most common word, and I’m more familiar with 脅す・おどす. When looking up the word in the Japanese dictionary (always try using a Japanese dictionary than an English one), it pointed out that there are two usages of the word:
While the word means to intimidate, it can also mean to surprise someone. That is clear enough from the number 2 definition via びっくりさせる. But then notice that the second word is 驚かす・おどろかす. I know this word from 驚く・おどろく which means to surprise someone.
So hopefully you can see how close these words are, and how in both instances か is used to show it is acting more as an intransitive verb.
On top of that, it made me realise that there is a difference between おどろかす versus おどかす. Because you can be surprised pleasantly such as if you got a free cake, or because you walked into what you thought was an empty room only to notice someone sitting in the corner, startling you.
If you’d like to have personalised Japanese lessons, be they 1-on-1 or group lessons, contact me today via the website’s contact form. You can checkout my youtube channel for examples of what lessons will look like, and I have a professional home studio setup with microphone, lighting and software so that I can display anything on screen including articles, videos and much more.
