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tdecklast Monday at 5:45 AM2 repliesview on HN

English uses a lot of prepositional phrase idioms. Now that I'm learning Japanese, I find there are relatively few like that (although not zero, compare "と相談" to discuss with and に相談" to consult). But it instead uses many, many compound verb expressions that are often not intiutive to a learner and just have to be memorized, so the effect is similar.

It also has words with opposite meanings like 断る (kotowaru, to reject, to ask permission), and 適当 (tekitou, suitable, appropriate, half-assed, careless).


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fluoridationlast Monday at 7:32 AM

Thanks. I'm learning Japanese too. The other day I learned that 在る can be used with either で or に and didn't make this connection, though I guess whether it counts as different meanings depends on how you look at it, since in both cases you're specifying the position in spacetime of something.

Gander5739last Monday at 9:14 AM

> [Japanese] also has words with opposite meanings

These are known as contronyms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contronym).

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