I've came across this one page comic panel about an apprentice girl and her
teacher, the teacher then give her a job which he said will be "handy" (手頃な)
for the apprentice but the truth it is actually not.

After she done with her job, the apprentice said this:

> **あなたの「手頃」は本当に信用なりません。しっかりしてください。**

So what does _しっかりしてください_ mean in this? I have known that it has some meaning
like _" Pull yourself together/Get it together"_ but I do not think it will
suit with the above context.
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2023-02-28T23:03:25.653
98742
2023-03-01T05:29:14.113
2023-03-01T00:01:46.023
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question
meaning japanese-to-english
What does しっかりしてください in this context mean?
Not sure of the exact context, but I suppose 手頃な should mean more precisely
'easy enough' in the conversation. And the apprentice says the phrase because
it wasn't easy at all. しっかりしてください means 'pull yourself together' with respect
to the assessing the difficulty of the job on the teacher's side, so more
literally means something like 'think more about how _really_ difficult/easy a
job is' (= pull yourself about thinking).
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2023-02-28T23:17:51.433
98744
2023-02-28T23:17:51.433
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answer
As you can see in [this entry](https://jisho.org/word/%E7%A2%BA%E3%82%8A),
しっかり has various meanings. It is not only an antonym for _confused_ or
_drowsy_ , but also an antonym for _unserious_ , _messy_ , _loose_ , and so
on. しっかりして in a context like this means "get serious and do your job right".
She is asking her teacher to think again and give her a task of appropriate
difficulty.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-01T05:29:14.113
98748
2023-03-01T05:29:14.113
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98742
answer