I have a question regarding one example sentence from Tae Kim:

お酒は好きというか、ないと生きていけない。
I like alcohol or rather, can't live on without it. 

I understand the first half, but I have no idea what grammar is used in 「、ないと生きていけない」

It looks like have to (verb); must (verb) ないといけない with jammed in verb in te form... or something.

と is a conditional, like "If"

生きていけない is the potential negative form of the verb 生きていく (live on)

（お酒が）　ないと　生きていけない
If I don't have (alcohol), I can't live on

All together,

お酒は好きというか、ないと生きていけない。
Rather than saying that I like alcohol, if I don't have any (alcohol) I can't live on.

Thank you very much. That was perfect explanation, now everything is clear to me.

After this last sentence is fixed, I will be done making revisions to Nary's Core 5k anki deck and post an upload after I add sentence glosses.

The problem sentence:

4010: 町の水道は豪雨で重大な支障をきたした。 (this is one of a handful that Nayr got from the Tanaka corpus, so I trust it less)

The town water supply was seriously obstructed by heavy rainfalls. (Ignore the fact that the bad translation says "rainfalls")

The dictionary says 来す is transitive, so why does it seem like in this sentence there should be an intransitive at the end? Is the Japanese sentence correct? If it is, what is a good translation for it? Right now it seems to me like "The town water supply, by means of heavy rain, caused a hindrance."

It seems funky to me.

(2016-05-03, 11:22 pm)rainmaninjapan Wrote: 4010: 町の水道は豪雨で重大な支障をきたした。 (this is one of a handful that Nayr got from the Tanaka corpus, so I trust it less)

The dictionary says 来す is transitive, so why does it seem like in this sentence there should be an intransitive at the end?

It is transitive though. 支障を indicates that 支障 is the direct object of きたす. I don't see the problem.

In Japanese, verbs that must take an object with を are by definition transitive verbs (他動詞). Verbs that cannot take an object with を but only describe the actions of the subject are intransitive (自動詞). Verbs that sometimes take an object with を but aren't required to are both.

That's not what is strange to me. I said that it is transitive, what I'm saying is that the way the sentence is structured, it looks to me like the ending should be intransitive/passive (I really don't know the difference at this point), because 町の水道 is not what is causing the trouble (or at least, if the sentence is intended to convey that, I think it is strange).

The heavy rain is the thing causing something, so I would expect a sentence with that rough English translation, to be in Japanese:
豪雨は町の水道に重大な支障をきたした。= Heavy rain caused a hindrance to the town's water supply.

To have 町の水道は as the beginning, I would expect it to be:
町の水道は豪雨に重大な支障をきたされた。= A hindrance was caused to the town's water supply by heavy rain.

Thus, I don't see how the original sentence can be considered correct, or I'm confusing something.

Apart from English, reflexive use of verbs is not rare. If you are an English speaker, the passive-like structure may feel more familiar to you.

I was wrong. English is more familiar with reflexive use in a sense, since many transitive-intransitive pairs share the same form.

(2016-05-04, 12:06 am)rainmaninjapan Wrote: Thus, I don't see how the original sentence can be considered correct, or I'm confusing something.

Maybe you're confused by the fact that there's no subject in the sentence.

If it were, 町の水道は嵐が豪雨で重大な支障をきたした would you feel better about it?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the sentence, although it doesn't strike me as the smoothest way to say it either... but you'd have to ask a native speaker for an accurate assessment of how natural sounding it is.

Some stuff from a game. Spacing/line breaks are as per the source text:

Speaker A:
よく　わからなかったけれど
話がまとまって　よかったわ
Someguyが入会するのね？

Speaker B:
Speaker Aったら
あいかわらず
話が見えてない。。。。

Unclear on what 話がまとまって and 話が見えてない mean. If I had to guess, I'd say "conversation was finished" and "conversation was not being followed."

I get the impression the that Speaker A wasn't paying attention to the previous conversation, missed the fact that Someguy wasn't joining anything, and Speaker B is calling them out on their lack of comprehension/attention?

(2016-05-04, 8:32 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

(2016-05-04, 12:06 am)rainmaninjapan Wrote: Thus, I don't see how the original sentence can be considered correct, or I'm confusing something.

Maybe you're confused by the fact that there's no subject in the sentence.

If it were,  町の水道は嵐が豪雨で重大な支障をきたした would you feel better about it?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the sentence, although it doesn't strike me as the smoothest way to say it either... but you'd have to ask a native speaker for an accurate assessment of how natural sounding it is.

町の水道 is the subject of 重大な支障をきたした. Japanese sentences don't necessarily use reflexive pronouns but it's something like "I sit (myself)".

Saginaim I'd say you're pretty much right.

A: I didn't understand much but I'm glad they settled it. S will join them, don't you think?
B: oh my, as usual you don't get it.

According to Midori:
まとまる: to be settled
話が見えない: not to understand what is being talked about

(2016-05-05, 6:23 am)Kuroro Wrote: Saginaim I'd say you're pretty much right.

A: I didn't understand much but I'm glad they settled it. S will join them, don't you think?
B: oh my, as usual you don't get it.

According to Midori:
まとまる: to be settled
話が見えない: not to understand what is being talked about

Thanks! I just checked 話が見えない on jisho.org and got the same definition -- I think I was mistakenly trying to look it up in the non-negative form :S

What does this sentence mean in english?

"あぁん？　お前が俺たちの応援に駆けつけた民警だ" (esp. "民警")

......

(2016-05-12, 10:06 am)satanael Wrote: What does this sentence mean in english?

"あぁん？　お前が俺たちの応援に駆けつけた民警だ" (esp. "民警")

民警 is short for 人民警察，meaning people's police. I can't tell you how important the distinction from a normal police force is in this context though, as I'm not knowledgeable in how they operate.

EN: "Hmm? You're the 'people's police' who came running to support us"

I've been watching a couple of grammar videos on youtube and I understood the meaning to the structure just fine in the first 2 sentences. But the last example combines more than one grammar point in a way that I'm not sure I get it.

このカバンは無理をしなければ買えないことはないけど、やめておきます。
Link to the video

Would that sentence mean, "[(1) it's not that it would be unreasonable for me to buy this bag (2) it's not that I can't afford it], but I've decided against it."? If I had to choose one of the 2, I'd probably go with the first one, but either way this sentence is relatively confusing to me.

2 is correct, and based on 1 your problem is the 無理. 無理をする is something you can do but which would be difficult (even without the ことはない, you could still buy the bag but you'd have to eat ramen for the rest of the month or something to make ends meet).

"It's not that I can't afford the bag, but (it's still kinda expensive so) I'll pass".

Interestingly, Kenkyūsha has a definition specifically for the financial case:

5 〔金銭的負担の大きいこと〕
▶ちょっと無理してこのダイヤ買っちゃった.　I knew I couldn't afford it, but I bought this diamond.
「誕生日にはフランス料理でも食べにいくか」「あんまり無理しなくてもいいのよ. 何でもいいわ」　"For your birthday, would you like to go out for French food?"―"You don't have to go overboard for the occasion. Anything's OK."
▶私の資力から言って住宅購入にはちょっと無理があった.　Getting a house was a strain on my resources.
▶〔購入する時など〕 そう無理をするな.　Spare your money.
かなり無理をして新車を買った.　I broke the bank buying this new car.

Okay guys, I have a question that's really puzzling me now. Not in the sense that it hinders comprehension much though. What bugs me is that I can't find neither a word fits the case or grammar point covers it. I'd like to understand not only the meaning of it, but always what the hell is actually going on in the sentence.

This comes from the OP of an anime airing this season called 甲鉄城のカバネリ. Anyway, here's part of the lyrics for context, along with tricky part in bold.

思い出すだろう
あの日の蒸気に多くを失って

無数にある過ちの跡
進めど道が見えぬ時に
お前は言った憎む血燃ゆる
その血に問え答えろ鼓動

It makes more sense for this to be a grammar point of sorts in my opinion, but rikaichan doesn't recognize ど as part of the word. The closest thing I've found in the dictionary is 行けども行けども, which might be a clue, but is still fairly different considering how a single syllable can change everything in Japanese. There's also the N1 grammar point といえども, but once again it has も attached to it at the end. Not only that, these 2 expressions have very different meanings - one is about moving on, and the other seems to indicate contrast.

I was  actually able to find 2 other songs that have the same grammar point. Not sure if they'll help much, but I'll post a link to the as well as part of the lyrics.

Song 1
行けど進めど　麦また麦の
波の探さよ　夜の寒さ
声を殺して　黙々と
影を落して　粛々と
兵は徐州へ　前線へ
Song 2
時として突発　起こりうるイレギュラァ
歩めど歩めど　前に進めど

Sorry for the wall of text.
TL;DR - I'd like to know what grammar point is being used in the words in bold.

I've been thinking of it as an archaic equivalent of (some uses of) -ても. Kokugo dictionaries are good at this, Daijirin:

活用語の已然形に接続する。
（１）逆接の確定条件を表す。実際に起こった事柄を条件としてあげ，その条件のもとでは，反対の結果が現れることを表す。が。けれども。
（２）一定の条件を示して，その条件のもとでは，それと背反関係にある事態がいつも起こることを表す。たとえ…たとしても。

(example sentences omitted on account of being in the neighborhood of 1000 years old)

〔現代語では，「といえど」「と思えど」など，限られた言い方の中でしか用いられない。「暑いといえ―，我慢できないことはない」「言うまいと思え―今日の暑さかな」〕

(2016-05-16, 1:34 am)FlameseeK Wrote: The closest thing I've found in the dictionary is 行けども行けども, which might be a clue, but is still fairly different considering how a single syllable can change everything in Japanese.

も and は rarely change everything: も often functions as an intensifier, while は is a softener or contrastive. とは言え is actually とはいえど with the ど omitted.

Core 10k sentence:

夏休みももう終わりだ。

is translated as 

Summer vacation's already over. 

I don't know why there is も particle though... shouldn't it be は particle instead?

Multiple good answers by native speakers: http://lang-8.com/506726/journals/271515...1285472702

(2016-05-17, 8:19 am)Vempele Wrote: Multiple good answers by native speakers: http://lang-8.com/506726/journals/271515...1285472702

Thanks.

So, it seems that も particle is there, because original Japanese sentence / meaning had more stuff than just 夏休み , that is over, which was omitted eventually, but English translation does not reflect it. Should be "Summer vacation's also already over." or something.

A:
This is from a dialogue about building an Ark, and the lines immediately after it are concerned with ship building ("We build this boat out of logs, and furnished it with rooms" from what I remember), and don't seem to have anything to do with this:

肉からなるものとその母が皆、絶やされようとしている

Thinking this is "All fleshly beings and their mothers are on the verge of being destroyed" but not at all confident about that.


B:
Also, as an unrelated comprehension check, the following line was from a different dialogue, said in response to someone describing a carnival as a "楽しい" place.

カニバル?　たくさんの人が集まるのですか?　たんのためにそんなことを？

I'm assuming this is a sort-of-pun: the listener misheard the speaker, and is thinking a carnival is a place where a lot of people gather because they have chest congestion (tan instead of tanoshii)

I've just found this sentence in Tobira and I couldn't help but ask myself whether 考ながら was meant to be 考えながら.

漢字を書く時は、文字のバランスもよく考ながら、点や線をきちんと書いて下さい。