# つぎの＿＿＿せんのかん字によみがなをつけなさい。



## rosalind

Hi all:

This is my first time on the Japanese forum.  I post a lot in the French-to-English forums, because I do translation work in those languages... but my Japanese is very, very new!  Anyway, I hope you will be kind and patient with me, as I have always found people to be everywhere I have been on WR.

I have been studying Japanese for four months.  (My once-weekly class is on Ch. 4 of the Genki textbook).  I love studying it, so when my Japanese school announced that they were administering the Kanji Kentei test in January, I signed up to take it at Level 10 (80 kanji, first-graders).

My teacher gave me a preparation book to study from.  It is designed for Japanese six-year-olds -- who, I now realize, are the people who normally take this test.  I am in quite an interesting situation now, because, actually, memorizing the kanji is the least of my troubles!  I also need to learn a lot of vocabulary quite quickly.  And, alas, I don't have enough grammar to understand most of the directions!

That is why I have some extremely basic questions to ask here.  I hope you will be patient with me.  And please bear in mind that I don't know enough about verbs yet to know what many of their inflections mean, or even how to find the base verb from the inflected form. 

My first question comes from the test instructions for one of the sections.  It says:

つぎの＿＿＿せんの*かん字*に*よみがな*をつけなさい。

(Remember that this is written for first-graders, so only the first-grade kanji are used.)

Now, my try at understanding it: I take this sentence to mean, "For[?] each kanji's ____ , [fill in?] the yomigana."  That is, each kanji has a blank next to it: your task is to fill in the blank.

But what about the verb? I don't quite understand it.  What form is it in, what is it doing, and what exactly does it mean?

Working with Denshi Jisho ( www.jisho.org ), it suggests that the simple form of this verb is つける , and offered several possibilities: 就ける and 着ける seem the most feasible to me.  (浸ける and 点ける seem less likely.)  Can anyone help me understand what verb this actually is?  Also, what form is it being conjugated in?  Is it an imperative or some kind of equivalent?

Thank you very much in advance for your help!  And please be patient with me -- I know so much less than a six-year-old!


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## mikun

Hi,
I understand your situation, maybe some what similar to my challenge to Français-anglais forum.
Well, There is no kanji letters change in verb conjugation. We change verb by okurigana, attached after kanji letter.
つける　in the thread is 付ける and originally means ,attach, and this case means to write the pronounciation by hiragana letters.
Your feeling is correct, the thread means to fill the space by yomigana


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## rosalind

Thank you so much, mikun!

One more question: In [つぎの＿＿＿せん], what is the せん doing?  (There are so many words pronounced せん, and I don't know which one it is...)


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## mikun

Hi,
せん is line, 線.
＿＿＿せん means underline perhaps?


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## rosalind

That makes sense!

Again, thank you so much.   It is really wonderful to be able to understand.


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## Taro Ultra

Hello, 

I think, つけなさい is a form of imperative sence of つける（_attach_）.
Therefore, I translate つぎの＿＿＿せんの*かん字*に*よみがな*をつけなさい。 as follows:

(a) Attach the pronuciations to following kanji words with underlines.
or
(b) Fill in the pronunsiations on each blank next to following kanji words.

It depends on the rest of paper, where the kanji words are with underline or with blank. Maybe, I expect the former meaning. Because 'つける' normally means 'attach' and not 'fill in'.

Doudeshou?


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## rosalind

Taro Ultra said:


> Hello,
> 
> I think, つけなさい is a form of imperative sence of つける（_attach_）.
> Therefore, I translate つぎの＿＿＿せんの*かん字*に*よみがな*をつけなさい。 as follows:
> 
> (a) Attach the pronuciations to following kanji words with underlines.
> or
> (b) Fill in the pronunsiations on each blank next to following kanji words.
> 
> It depends on the rest of paper, where the kanji words are with underline or with blank. Maybe, I expect the former meaning. Because 'つける' normally means 'attach' and not 'fill in'.
> 
> Doudeshou?



Thank you, Taro Ultra.  (Please, what does "Doudeshou?" mean?  Is it "Do you agree?", or "What do you think?", or something like that?)

Your comments make a lot of sense.  Actually, the way the test is laid out is that the sentences are written vertically.  On the right side of each かん字 is a vertical line.  And then you are supposed to write the よみがな on the other side of the line.  So it seems as if you could consider it "attaching" the characters, as well as "filling in."

もありがとう！ (Can I say that?)


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## Taro Ultra

Hello,

Doudeshou? means ... "How about this?" and "What do you, and other posters think?", and "Does this help you?" and so on, as far as I use this phrase...



> もありがとう！ (Can I say that?)


You can say どうもありがとう！ I think you just missed first words. huhuhu


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## rosalind

Taro Ultra said:


> Doudeshou? means ... "How about this?" and "What do you, and other posters think?", and "Does this help you?" and so on, as far as I use this phrase...


 
Thank you!



Taro Ultra said:


> You can say どうもありがとう！ I think you just missed first words. huhuhu



Right, that's what I meant.   Thank you again.


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