TIL… で Particle

 I’ve been using Duolingo to practice Japanese for 149 days today… so sayeth the graphic they want you to share on social media to encourage other people to sign up…


And I’ve done lots of lessons, including earlier lessons in the Position unit and the Activity unit… And until today when I paused during a lesson after entering a number counter and wanted to put the verb, but was frozen due to a lack of particle, I hadn’t realized that the location that で indicates that an event takes place in could be metaphorical rather than physical - and yet, I have gotten the answer write on previous lessons in the unit. And they have talked about eating alone or drinking alone or traveling alone lots of times. Both that they never, or always do it - even 時々！

I don’t know if they had given other particle choices before, or none, or if I wasn’t paying attention before, or if talking about に、へ、and で in class made me notice it more. Plus, I confess, I had googled on the difference between に and で after we talked about them in class as they seemed rather finely shaded between the use of the two of them.  And read some interesting articles with examples. 

Maybe that’s why this morning, I froze with only a location particle available and actually noticed that it was acceptable as a virtual or metaphorical location - alone. 



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