日本語の道

Anyway

何れ (いずれ) which, anyway, anyhow, at any rate

A slightly different nuance to とにかく?

More Negativity

いつも来られない。。。

Does this mean 'can't always come...' or 'can never come'? Or does it depend? I can't seem to clarify these negative sentences in my mind.

Backwards

Japanese study has hit the backburner of late. My progress is often undone by these periods of inactivity but I don't seem to be able to sustain a constant effort with no course to follow. I took a small trip to a volunteer lesson last week to give me a boost.

The lesson was using みんなの日本語II, a book which I've used before. Most of the points that were raised I'd studied before. But that didn't mean that I could readily produce my own sentences using those grammar points. I'm so used to skim reading rather than actual sentence production. So I felt like the lesson was a little slow even though I couldn't answer all the questions perfectly.

The main grammar point was this kind of sentence:

日本語を勉強すれば、勉強するほど上手になる。
The more you study Japanese the better you will become.

Two interesting points I did come across were:

①家賃（やちん）は駅から近ければ近いほど高くなる。
I found this strange because やちん is the topic and yet the sentence refers to how far an unmentioned house is from the station. If I tried to write this I'd write something like:
家は駅から近ければ近いほど家賃が高くなる。
Is this correct? Perhaps just a different nuance in meaning?

②パソコンは操作（そうさ）が簡単ほどいいです。
This is what the Japanese teacher said, though later she realised that the book teachers a longer (more technically correct?) version. I think it's:
ぱそこんは操作が簡単ならかんたんなほどいいです。 (should the な be there before ほど?)

The teacher said I could try the more advanced group next time. The people in the advanced group were all Chinese and they were reading a Japanese newspaper article - way way beyond my skill level. Ah, what to do?