In this sentence:

Quote:この町は嫌いだ. 忘れたい思い出が染みついた場所だから.

why is 染みつく in the past form?

In the english subtitles they translated it as:

Quote:I hate this city. It's full of all the memories I want to forget about.

A more literal translation could be this?

"(As for) this city, I hate it. Memories I want to forget, (are the one) deeply stained in (this) place, so... (だから ???)"

or

"(As for) this city, I hate it. Memories I want to forget, (are the one) (this) place is deeply stained in, so... (だから ???)"

So I don't understand why 染みついた and not 染みつく. It's for the same reason as in english we say:

"I want to change my shirt, because it is SOAKED in wine"

and not

"I want to change my shirt, because it is SOAK in wine"

?

(Or another example is my translation of the above sentence, where I used "stained" and not "stain")

My translation: "I hate this city. Because it's a place stained with memories I want to forget."

It's past-tense because the city being stained with memories is a thing that already happened -- not that it used to be stained (and isn't anymore), but that it has been stained (and nothing has happened to get rid of those stains.)

Be careful with your syntax -- 'stained with memories I want to forget' is not the main verb in the sentence; the basic structure here is "I hate this city because it's a place [stained with memories I want to forget,]" and "stained with memories I want to forget" is a subordinate clause describing "place."

だから refers back to the previous sentence.

Fillanzea Wrote:My translation: "I hate this city. Because it's a place stained with memories I want to forget."

It's past-tense because the city being stained with memories is a thing that already happened -- not that it used to be stained (and isn't anymore), but that it has been stained (and nothing has happened to get rid of those stains.)

Be careful with your syntax -- 'stained with memories I want to forget' is not the main verb in the sentence; the basic structure here is "I hate this city because it's a place [stained with memories I want to forget,]" and "stained with memories I want to forget" is a subordinate clause describing "place."

だから refers back to the previous sentence.

Wow thank you Fillanzea! I know my mediocre knowledge of english doesn't help here :/
But thanks to you now it's clear, also why there is that "だから". I was fooled by the fact that "この町は嫌いだ." and "忘れたい思い出が染みついた場所だから." in the subs are in two distinct rows, but now it is clear the second sentence refers back to the first one

Fillanzea's explanation is very good, let me add something that you might or might not find helpful.

Another way of looking at the "past tense" here is that Japanese marks aspect, not tense. Rather than "past" and "present" there's imperfective and perfective. Imperfective (染みつく, for instance) verbs indicate habitual actions, or future actions/conditions. Perfective indicates something that is completed, or "actualized" (that is, it is real/actual).

One use of the perfective is to express something that happened in the past, but it's not the only use. A common use is to show the result of some change. Probably the first way anyone learns this is 分かりました to mean "I (now) understand", not "I understood." That's what's going on here too -- the place is/has been stained with the memories, so the perfective is used. If we wanted to show that the place was stained with memories in the past (and is no longer), we could use 染みついた場所だった.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Fillanzea's explanation is very good, let me add something that you might or might not find helpful.

I do find it really usefull, thank you very much!


Another couple of things:

Quote:- レストランで働いたことがありますか。(Have you worked at a restaurant before?)
- はい。ウエイターならしたことがあります。(Yes. As a waiter, I have.)

Why there is "した" in the answer?

Quote:毎日学校に通い、友達とだべり、帰りたくもない家に帰る (Go to school every day, chat with friends, and then go back to the home I don't even want to go back to.)

帰りたく is the adverbial form of 帰りたい? So 帰りたく describes 家に帰る? Or it is 帰りたくない with a も in between to add the "even"?

Quote:こうしていて、いつか何かが変わるんだろうか？

Why こうしていて?


I hope this is goind to help even other users!

1. したことがある is a common way of saying you've done something before. することがある would mean he sometimes works at restaurants.
2. 帰りたくない with an intensifying も (which doesn't have to translate to "even").
3. こうしている ("being like this"), in て-form because the sentence continues.

Vempele Wrote:1. したことがある is a common way of saying you've done something before. することがある would mean he sometimes works at restaurants.
2. 帰りたくない with an intensifying も (which doesn't have to translate to "even").
3. こうしている ("being like this"), in て-form because the sentence continues.

Ahahah point 3, it's so obvious ._. I've studied it in Genki, it's a basic thing, but still I didn't recognize it in the wild ._. I was being overwelmed by the other things that I didn't recognize something like that

2. I didn't knew も could be used like this, it fits a specific grammar point in jlpt?

1. I wasn't not sure about it so thank you also for this clarification!

Thank you!!!!!

About も: read magamo's posts here. Actually, you should read all of magamo's posts ever, he's awesome.

Another similar particle insertion point is between -て and いる (probably not limited to いる, I just can't think of any other examples right now), e.g. -てはいるが..., -てもいない, -てばかりいる.

I've never studied grammar for the JLPT, or even in terms of "points", so I can't answer your question.

I've been told that ている simply turns into past form when used in a relative clause.

この場所に思い出が染み付いている。

思い出が染み付いた場所。

edit: When describing a continuous state, I should have added.

Thank you for the link, I'm reading magamo's post right now, very informative!

But, here an user had the same doubt, with exactly the same sentence taken from Clannad xD

So I still don't understand if 帰りたく is the adverbial form of 帰りたい + も + ない, or not... If it's so, what is the verb targeted by the adverb? ない, or (家に)帰る?

I've difficulty in this because I can't think of a similar way to use an adverb in my L1 :/

Instead if it is 帰りたくない (simply a negative verb) with a も in the middle, it is surely simpler to grasp as a meaning...

Both たい and ない forms are i-adjectives and also treated and conjugated as such.

On mobile right now, so not really feeling like typing a lot, but considering them adjectives should make these conjugations relatively straightforward.

If the 帰りたく were adverbial rather than part of the negation of 帰りたい, then ない家 would mean "a home that doesn't exist" and the sentence wouldn't make any sense.

This might be a good resource to look into for も
http://maggiesensei.com/2013/10/08/japan...%E3%80%8D/
(BTW, this is probably the one of the most amazing and helpful sites I've found during my studies.)

It also explains some of the things magamo was talking about in the linked thread.

cophnia61 Wrote:Thank you for the link, I'm reading magamo's post right now, very informative!

But, here an user had the same doubt, with exactly the same sentence taken from Clannad xD

So I still don't understand if 帰りたく is the adverbial form of 帰りたい + も + ない, or not... If it's so, what is the verb targeted by the adverb? ない, or (家に)帰る?

I've difficulty in this because I can't think of a similar way to use an adverb in my L1 :/

Instead if it is 帰りたくない (simply a negative verb) with a も in the middle, it is surely simpler to grasp as a meaning...

帰りたく connects to ない. In modern Japanese, a lot of old negative conjugations have disappeared, and just been replaced by the adjective ない. In addition as apirx said, the たい itself is an adjective that goes on to the stem of a verb (かえり in this case).

So what you really have is the stem of 帰る, which is かえり, plus the adjective たい. Since we want to connect たい to ない for the negative meaning, we have to use the adverb form たく. So you end up with 帰りたくない. Often the -tai forms are considered as one unit but this is the underlying structure. It's essentially the same structure as 帰りたく + なる -> 帰りたくなる. If you've never seen that, it's used in cases like 電話で母の声を聞くと家に帰りたくなる。 "When I heard my mother's voice on the phone, I want to go home (literally "I become wanting to go home").

As for the も, because there is already a break between 帰りたく and ない, you can put も there. You can't use も anywhere you want, but this is one of the cases where it's allowed.

Ok now I've understood, finally! Thank you all! If I can quote a part of ADoIJ, just to add on what you said:

Quote:(ii) Adj(i)stem くもある / くもない

安くもある (s.t. is also cheap)

安くもない (s.t. is not cheap, either; s.t. is not even cheap)

安くもないのに、どうしてそんなものを買うんですか。
(Why are you going to buy a thing like that which is not even cheap?)

Accordingly to ADoIJG you can do something similar with な adjectives and nouns.

(I hope this is not seen as a copyright infringement)

I remember this sentence from the beginning of Clannad btw. You might want to consider not brooding over everything you don't understand and just read on if you actually want to finish some routes. Clannad is more than 5000 book pages long after all.

apirx Wrote:I remember this sentence from the beginning of Clannad btw. You might want to consider not brooding over everything you don't understand and just read on if you actually want to finish some routes. Clannad is more than 5000 book pages long after all.

I know ._. I'll try to not overanalize everything in future! I've chosen Clannad because I was thinking those sort of anime are simpler than things like sci-fi, thriller etc.. In fact I see vocabulary is simple, but grammar is still real-japanese for nihonjin so I think I must concentrate on vocabulary and simply ignore the things I don't understand right now, I'll understand them eventually when I advance in my study of grammar (maybe one day I'll understand all points in ADoIJG, who knows xD )

You are watching the Clannad anime, not reading the VN, right?

yudantaiteki Wrote:You are watching the Clannad anime, not reading the VN, right?

Right!

Ah I thought you were reading the VN for some reason.

cophnia61 Wrote:I know ._. I'll try to not overanalize everything in future! I've chosen Clannad because I was thinking those sort of anime are simpler than things like sci-fi, thriller etc.. In fact I see vocabulary is simple, but grammar is still real-japanese for nihonjin so I think I must concentrate on vocabulary and simply ignore the things I don't understand right now, I'll understand them eventually when I advance in my study of grammar (maybe one day I'll understand all points in ADoIJG, who knows xD )

Well if you don't mind watch the new Pokemon X/Y series. (or something else which is not that hard) It is really easier to understand and most of the time the grammar is not so advanced, although there will be harder parts as well.
I think that this will be more effective than something were you don't understand many parts.
The more you understand the more you will learn from the context. (except if it get's too easy)

And after you got better in listening, know more words and learned some grammar points, go back to Clannad. I'm sure you will enjoy it more this time. (I know how painfull it can be to stop every second because you didn't get something)

He4rtl3ss Wrote:

cophnia61 Wrote:I know ._. I'll try to not overanalize everything in future! I've chosen Clannad because I was thinking those sort of anime are simpler than things like sci-fi, thriller etc.. In fact I see vocabulary is simple, but grammar is still real-japanese for nihonjin so I think I must concentrate on vocabulary and simply ignore the things I don't understand right now, I'll understand them eventually when I advance in my study of grammar (maybe one day I'll understand all points in ADoIJG, who knows xD )

Well if you don't mind watch the new Pokemon X/Y series. (or something else which is not that hard) It is really easier to understand and most of the time the grammar is not so advanced, although there will be harder parts as well.
I think that this will be more effective than something were you don't understand many parts.
The more you understand the more you will learn from the context. (except if it get's too easy)

And after you got better in listening, know more words and learned some grammar points, go back to Clannad. I'm sure you will enjoy it more this time. (I know how painfull it can be to stop every second because you didn't get something)

It feels good to be understood! So you're not heartless after all! xD
I could watch it but there are subtitles avaiables? Other things as simple as pokemon but not fight-centered? Better if it is something for girls

I have no idea how easy it would be to get Japanese subtitles, but shoujo relationship-drama anime are definitely pretty easy to understand! Marmalade Boy and Hana Yori Dango would be the first things I'd go to -- I don't know what's out there lately in that genre, both of those are pretty old.

Fillanzea Wrote:I have no idea how easy it would be to get Japanese subtitles, but shoujo relationship-drama anime are definitely pretty easy to understand! Marmalade Boy and Hana Yori Dango would be the first things I'd go to -- I don't know what's out there lately in that genre, both of those are pretty old.

How about Doraemon? I love Marmalade Boy but it seems there are not japanese subtitles available