Hi, can someone please help with this sentence? I'm confused about the structure. The sentence is:

気が付くと平山さんが食べている御飯の中から古い銅貨が出て来ました。

(Ki ga tuku to, Hirayama-san ga tabete iru gohan no naka kara hurui dooka ga dete kimasita).

Translation in back of the book:

Mr. Hirayama noticed that in the rice he himself was eating there had turned up an old copper coin.

I would have thought that the "ki ga tuku" part would be at the END of the sentence. I just don't "get" the structure.

Is there an alternative way of translating the English translation into Japanese that might be a bit more transparent to a learner of Japanese?

Thanks!

Due to it's use of particles, Japanese doesn't have such a strict word order. I'm no expert, but as it seems to me you could easily flip the 気が付くと and the 平山さんが, and retain the same meaning in Japanese.

If'n you want a less natural English translation, it would be something like this "Noticing, from the rice Mr. Hirayama was eating, an old copper coin was sticking out. " In the Japanese the subject of the main clause is the coin, not Mr. Hirayama.

Literally it's something like "When he realized, an old copper coin had turned up in the rice Hirayama-san was eating." Which sounds weird in English. (And a bit illogical, because surely the copper coin was there even before he realized it.) But it's like this: 気が付く is the moment that he realizes there's something that isn't rice mixed in with his rice. So, when he realizes (気が付くと), he looks closer and the result is that 古い銅貨が出て来ました.

Fillanzea Wrote:Literally it's something like "When he realized, an old copper coin had turned up in the rice Hirayama-san was eating." Which sounds weird in English. (And a bit illogical, because surely the copper coin was there even before he realized it.) But it's like this: 気が付く is the moment that he realizes there's something that isn't rice mixed in with his rice. So, when he realizes (気が付くと), he looks closer and the result is that 古い銅貨が出て来ました.

Thanks, now I think I get it.

"When he realized [what had happened], [it turned out that] an old copper coin had turned up in the rice Hirayama-san was eating."

This example is precisely the kind of thing that's giving me the most trouble at this stage of my Japanese learning (more of a problem than learning kanji or vocabulary in fact).

What I would suggest in addition to doing this reader is to go through a grammar guide. I personally wouldn't worry two much about production, but more about do I understand what this grammar point means when I see it. Tae Kim's guide is pretty good for a base, and for upper grammar I think either the Sou Matome Series or the Kanzen Master Series is pretty good. The Sou Matome will be a little bit easier to understand as there are translations for all levels where the Kanzen Master N2 and N1 have no translation but are more in-depth. There are Anki decks floating around for all of them.

RandomQuotes Wrote:What I would suggest in addition to doing this reader is to go through a grammar guide. I personally wouldn't worry two much about production, but more about do I understand what this grammar point means when I see it. Tae Kim's guide is pretty good for a base, and for upper grammar I think either the Sou Matome Series or the Kanzen Master Series is pretty good. The Sou Matome will be a little bit easier to understand as there are translations for all levels where the Kanzen Master N2 and N1 have no translation but are more in-depth. There are Anki decks floating around for all of them.

Thanks, I'll take a look at those.