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Originally Posted by masaegu
Japanese or 英語?
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Ack, I know I've made that exact mistake before... I meant 日本語. Sorry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by masaegu
「くださいませんか」 sure is formal. but it's hard to decide how formal or informal I should go because i just don't know how the two of you have been speaking to each other.
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I haven't talked to him in months and we usually talk in English. I hate that I can't carry on in Japanese and revert to English, which is why I'm going back to that site to make a better attempt. If I do talk in Japanese (with him, or the other people on Lang-8) I just use formal speech, and they do too. But I dunno if that's because I use formal speech first which sets the tone for how we talk. That, and most of my friends on there are young guys, I'd probably be more comfortable using casual speech if I was talking to girls my age :/ So I tend to just play it safe with formal speech
Quote:
Originally Posted by masaegu
He must have wanted to say まだ rather than もう. Had he written in Japanese, he would have probably said:
「中国語の勉強を始めてまだ一週間なんです。」
If you use もう(already), you are saying you think a week is a long time. Use まだ(only), and the reader will know you think it's a short time.
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Cool! I didn't really know that before
And thank you for your input on what he probably said in Japanese. Very helpful.
Sorry, one more 'how do you say' question;
How do you say "revert back to English" (like in "I hate that I revert to English when I do Japanese-English language exchanges.")
Is it 「英語に戻す」？