When I first started teaching myself Japanese I found it so difficult that as I worked through my textbook I did only the Japanese to English translation exercises and not the English to Japanese translation exercises. So I would do the the Japanese to English sentences, then for additional practice translate the English to Japanese answer key back into English. But overall I found this particular textbook unusually difficult.

Now, a few years and a different textbook later, I find I can go back to this original "difficult" textbook and I can handle the English into Japanese translation exercises. I'm working through it again, doing only the English into Japanese translation exercises.

So sentences that originally left me stumped like "We are laughing at the one the tip of which is shining" I now can translate ("Saki ga hikatte iru no o waratte irun' desu"). I remember how originally when I looked at that sentence it left me spinning my wheels.

Conclusion: it just takes time to "get it" (and for some like me perhaps it takes somewhat longer but we all get there eventually) and it feels great when you realize you finally "understand".

Is the book Assimil?

The best feeling in the world.

cophnia61 Wrote:Is the book Assimil?

No, the book is Teach Yourself Japanese. See link below. The book is excellent but probably too difficult for absolute beginners. I think it's good as a thorough review after you've spent some time learning Japanese. The book places a very heavy emphasis on grammar. There are 30 lessons. Most lessons have 15 sentences to translate from Japanese to English and another 15 sentences to translate from Englisth to Japanese. There are dialogues with translations after the lessons. Of course answers to the exercises are included.


http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchRe...f+japanese

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Arupan Wrote:

john555 Wrote:So sentences that originally left me stumped like "We are laughing at the one the tip of which is shining" I now can translate ("Saki ga hikatte iru no o waratte irun' desu"). I remember how originally when I looked at that sentence it left me spinning my wheels.

Don't mean to spoil your fun, but the Japanese version sounds odd ^^;

PS: You should really start writing in 漢字／平仮名／片仮名, man.

Well, I guess it's a strange sentence to begin with, without any context. What would you suggest as a better translation?

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That English is super weird. The Japanese is ok- though it begs reference. Are they laughing at the one (one what?) with the sparkly tip or are they laughing at the fact that the tip is sparkling? Was this originally Japanese and already translated to English? I'd lean towards "the fact that the tip is sparkling" rather than "the one with the sparkly tip" but either works with context.

That re-translation changes some nuance n' things.


And yes, "getting it" is splendid like a herd of puppies jumping over a rainbow. ヽ(´ー｀)ノ

Edit: And by "super weird" I mean "exactly like something you'd expect to hear from the vast majority of Japanese people who can't speak English in any other form than "directly and awkwardly translated from Japanese.""

I agree with drdunlap; the sentence sounds odd not because the Japanese is wrong but just because the sentence is borderline nonsense in both English and Japanese.

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Well yeah- they're both odd- but neither is *grammatically* odd.
We don't have enough information to know if they're simply laughing at it or if they're ridiculing it, or if they are laughing because it is shining or at "the one that is shining," or any indication of time whatsoever.
The Japanese is fine but borderline nonsense due to lack of context. The English is fine but awkward and stilted and seems to be a fairly direct translation from Japanese.

At least it's a good example of the importance of context.

drdunlap Wrote:Well yeah- they're both odd- but neither is *grammatically* odd.
We don't have enough information to know if they're simply laughing at it or if they're ridiculing it, or if they are laughing because it is shining or at "the one that is shining," or any indication of time whatsoever.
The Japanese is fine but borderline nonsense due to lack of context. The English is fine but awkward and stilted and seems to be a fairly direct translation from Japanese.

At least it's a good example of the importance of context.

Some of the sentences are odd but I suspect they were formulated/chosen to test the learner's ability to understand and apply the grammatical rules. That is they may be odd but you should still be able to translate them correctly.

For example, here's another sentence from the exercises: Is the film which starts tomorrow an Italian one? (Answer: Asita hazimaru eiga wa Itarii no (no) desu ka).

The book does have extensive dialogues in the back that are more natural sounding.

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It looks fine to me.

(On the previous one, のだ has a wider application than just answering things, but without any context there's no way to know if it's appropriate.)

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If the goal is translation from English you don't want to add things that aren't in the original. I might add から after 明日 but that's about it.

We can't let this 'nice feeling' continue undefined~

This feeling may be characterized by a sense of accomplishment, or a recognition & awareness of one's abilities.

One might imagine a 3-4 year old acquiring new skills. He begins to walk, clap, and snap his fingers. He becomes a young lad aware of his abilities, satisfied by his attainment.

Painting and coding relate well to this domain of skill acquisition because both fields require immediate feedback. With experience, both painter and coder will find their errors quickly, and they learn how to improve their work. Their skill becomes more refined, precise as they grow more aware of the areas they excel in and the subskills they need to work on. If they can't work out the kinks, they'll know where to find the right advice or inspiration, through mentors or online sources.

Aspiring Wrote:We can't let this 'nice feeling' continue undefined~

This feeling may be characterized by a sense of accomplishment, or a recognition & awareness of one's abilities.

One might imagine a 3-4 year old acquiring new skills. He begins to walk, clap, and snap his fingers. He becomes a young lad aware of his abilities, satisfied by his attainment.

Painting and coding relate well to this domain of skill acquisition because both fields require immediate feedback. With experience, both painter and coder will find their errors quickly, and they learn how to improve their work. Their skill becomes more refined, precise as they grow more aware of the areas they excel in and the subskills they need to work on. If they can't work out the kinks, they'll know where to find the right advice or inspiration, through mentors or online sources.

For me it feels like when I was learning the drums... anyone who learned an instrument could relate I guess ; that feeling, after weeks and weeks of practice, when you are finally able to nail that one tune in its entirety. You know the theory, and you can get every part just right when practiced separately, but when you manage to piece everything together and make it flow for the first time... man, that's what joy feels like.

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Arupan Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:It looks fine to me.

(On the previous one, のだ has a wider application than just answering things, but without any context there's no way to know if it's appropriate.)

I dare you to name one other function which のだ may have in this kind of sentence and which makes sense.

I guess I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "answering," the construction can certainly occur outside of an explicit question. Typically it would be providing the explanation for something that was previously said or understood. That sentence is so bizarre I'm not going to attempt to come up with a context for it, but if you search "を笑っていたんです" on google there are many hits for phrases that are not answering anything, just explaining the situation (or を笑っているんです as per the original post, although that predictably gets fewer results).

Arupan Wrote:PS: Don't lecture me on both Japanese and translation please. I still remember the thing which you said about ～てある, so I don't really think you can teach me anything.

In which case you're still probably confused on how てある works in Japanese.

And if we're going to play that game, I remember in the same thread how you claimed that NounはVerb meant that the noun had to be the doer of the verb.

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Hi Arupan, I'm just curious--what is your background in Japanese? Thanks.

Arupan Wrote:PS: I can always prove you wrong on the ～てある if you want btw.

If I'm wrong, that benefits both me and the community, since I've given the same explanation for てある multiple times (the explanation was taken from Japanese: The Spoken Language, although Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar has essentially the same information.)

But to start things off, here's part of Daijisen's definition for ある:
１ 動詞の連用形に接続助詞「て」を添えた形に付いて用いる。
㋐ある動作や行為などの結果が現在まで引き続いている意を表す。「花が生けて―・る」「ドアが閉めて―・る」

And here is the 明鏡国語辞典：
変化した動作の結果が現在まで維持されている意を表す。
「壁に絵がかけて―」「机に本が置いて―」「荷物が乱雑に積んで―」
語法：もとの文（「絵をかける・本を置く・荷物を積む」）の「を」が「が」に変わり、全体で自動詞化する。「て」は助詞。

I was unaware of how てある worked until I had to teach it (which is true of most Japanese grammar, actually...)

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So, in response to the OP. I guess I could take this as a sign of progress, but the things I don't know are getting harder to look up...which gets a little annoying.
For example: something I found out recently: のだ can also be used to signify a command, as in 行くのだ！ I'm pretty sure it wasn't in any of the textbooks I read. Maybe it's time to start some new ones.

PS: Just out of curiosity, at what stage in your grammar studies do you think you'll start learning kana and kanji? English is fine and all, but eventually (at least I did) you hit a point where it's much faster to find answers in Japanese rather than English.