"今日はたくさんおよぎました。"
Translation:I swam a lot today.
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たくさん = many/much/a lot, and comes with a positive verb. E.g. たくさんの本を読みます -> "I read a lot of books".
あまり = often used as 'not very (many)'/hardly, and comes with a negative verb. E.g. あまり本を読みません -> "I don't read many books"
Note: あまり can be used with positive verbs too, in which case it means "too much" (or, when written as 余り; "the surplus/remainder/rest"), but you'll probably see that less frequently.
In "あまり本を読みません" You use "を" and not "は" even though the sentence is negative. Why?
The sentence being negative doesn't change the particles. は makes books the topic of reading in 本は読む. を makes books the objects being read in 本を読む. They both translate to "I read books" but the connotation is different.
The voice recording says "kyou" but the text says "ima hi" when tapping on it. Is it pronounced "kyou" but written with the kanji of "ima" and "hi"? Or perhaps im missing something?
It is indeed the kanji of 'ima' and 'hi' together that form the word 'kyou'; "now + day" = "today".
How can you tell when it should be spoken differently than the individual parts. I understand how in this case the two give the meaning of today but why was it not written as きよう instead of 今日 ?
You can't really tell, you just have to learn and remember the cases in which that happens. Most of the time, when you see a word with multiple kanji, you can combine their individual pronunciations (the Sino-Japanese ones, aka "onyomi"), but this is an exception. I suspect that's why Duo shows the kanji sooner rather than later.
It dose not share meaning with takusan. Iroiro means veried/various and not so much many.
Indeed. Still, "many kinds of" indicates you're speaking of different things, whereas takusan is simply "much/many" of the same.
Technically speaking, this could be either, as well as (s)he, we, or they, since Japanese verbs do not change with the speaker and hardly use personal pronouns in general. However, as Ryan says, Duo seems to have used "I" almost exclusively throughout its Japanese course. (unrelated to verb endings though!)
I put you this time and now it says I. I'm confused lol Probably my mistake.
Hi Ryan, this is probably not the answer you want, but I have noticed so far DL is presenting only sentances that are statements by first person, so I am guessing "imas, imasen, imashita", etc. endings all have I or we as the speaker. I am sure someone else can give both of us a better explanation. : )
No, とっても indicates a degree of something (like "very" or "really"), not an amount of something.
本日(ほんじつ) is far more formal than 今日(きょう) so you'll mainly hear 今日 in daily conversation.
"Today I swam a lot" was marked wrong? "I swam a lot today" is OK... Come on!
You teach me the words "see" "write" and "listen" then you throw the word "swam" at me like I'm suppose to know it. 10/10
How are you supposed to know the difference between past and present verbs?