Hello everyone! I'm sort of new around here, anyway I hope you can help me out with this sentence:

お金があったら、車をかうんですけど。

I just came across it while studying the たら construction in Genki2 ch17. What I don't understand is the use of the んです in this sentence (why not 買います ?) and why is けど attached to it (does it convey some sort of tone? I can't find any reference to it in the chapter about the explanatory mode).

We need the surrounding context; in isolation, it's very hard to say why 買うんです is used instead of 買います.

けど at the end of a sentence is used for indirectness or politeness; it implies something (maybe "I don't have money" here?)

Thank you so much for your reply! As for the context this example sentence is meant to express an unreal/purely hypothetical condition and its probable result. The provided translation is 'If I had money, I would buy a car'.

Well, it helps to remember that the んです structure nominalizes the entirety of what precedes it, making a rough translation something like "(it) is that..." The structure's frequently used for giving and seeking explanations as an extension of this.

Given that, it seems like that the speaker is presenting an explanation of what he would do under the circumstances, and the けど, of course, works to soften up the end of the sentence.

Perhaps someone else can word that a little bit more succinctly, but from what you've said, I think that would be the case.

Yeh, something I can (hopefully correctly) answer. Someone let me know if I get it wrong.

The explanatory 'んです' coveys a similar attitude to saying 'The thing is...' at the beginning of an english sentence. And like yudantaiteki said, 'けど' softens what is being said so it doesn't sound like you're lecturing. Maybe something like a wistful trailing off denoted by an ellipsis '...' at the end of an english sentence.

So a closer translation might be something like "The thing is, if there was money, I would buy a car..."

Here is the section in Tae Kim which explains both of these constructs with more examples.

The sentence on it's own isn't a very good one because it implies there is more to the conversation than we are seeing. It seems to be an answer to a question. I think yogert909 explained it alright, except "if there was money" is not a good translation. It's a direct translation but the feeling is definitely "If I had money". I guess it depends on how you like to think about Japanese. My personal belief is if you rely too much on direct translation then you'll end up translating your own English into Japanese when you speak and you will sound pretty unnatural.

for example, if you went the other way "If I had money" -> "私はお金を持っていたら", everyone could understand what you are trying to say but it's also an unnatural way to say it. So I think it's best to think about thinks in their actual meaning.

Anyway, のです or んです as it's usually spoken is basically used to give information that you expect the listener to want. For example, answers to questions or implied questions. Or to ask questions when you have some presumption about the answer. Honestly, if I can give you advice, it's not to worry about it too much. Just know that it's there and have a rough idea of the meaning. After listening to Japanese for enough time, you start to get a feeling for it. It's not something you'll be able to force out. At least, that was my experience with it and I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out back in the day and never got anywhere. You'll hear it in every conversation so eventually it should click. Even now I can't tell you when I use it and don't use it... either it makes sense at the time or it doesn't. And sometimes with or without is fine. It's not a set in stone rule.

Quote:お金があったら、車をかうんですけど。

That example is not really helpful for the purpose of teaching のだ sentences because the one without のだ isn't different either.

のだ sentences are essentially an answer to a "why" question or your judgement or assumption for the situation.

"The road is wet" ("why?") "Ah, I see, it rained" あぁ、なるほど、雨が降ったんだ。（*…雨が降った makes less sense）

"What are they doing there?" → "They want to watch the game" 試合が見たいんですよ 。

(off topic; It needs よ, or it would sound as if it's saying "we want ...". In that case, you should avoid よ along with です・ます, or the nuance would be "..., or you thought of something else?". On the other hand, it's appropriate to use it when you deny what the opponent has said, but you don't particularly need it as long as you speak です・ます. In contrast, plain のだ is frequently accompanied with よ for some reason.)

けど implies the sentence is the halfway to お金があったら車をかうんですけど、ないから買えません. It softens the sentence as others say.

Wow! Thank you all for your replies I think I got the gist of it now and can move on with my studies. Once again thanks for all your help

viharati Wrote:

Quote:お金があったら、車をかうんですけど。

That example is not really helpful for the purpose of teaching のだ sentences because the one without のだ isn't different either.

のだ sentences are essentially an answer to a "why" question or your judgement or assumption for the situation.

"The road is wet" ("why?") "Ah, I see, it rained" あぁ、なるほど、雨が降ったんだ。（*…雨が降った makes less sense）

"What are they doing there?" → "They want to watch the game" 試合が見たいんですよ 。

(off topic; It needs よ, or it would sound as if it's saying "we want ...". In that case, you should avoid よ along with です・ます, or the nuance would be "..., or you thought of something else?". On the other hand, it's appropriate to use it when you deny what the opponent has said, but you don't particularly need it as long as you speak です・ます. In contrast, plain のだ is frequently accompanied with よ for some reason.)

けど implies the sentence is the halfway to お金があったら車をかうんですけど、ないから買えません. It softens the sentence as others say.

Great post, viharati. I think you explained it well.

The only thing that catches me as being a bit off is your example of "What are they doing here?" as it's weird to say [彼らは]試合が見たい. If you changed the subject to be "I" or "we" it's fine, but in general you can't use したい for what other people want or 見たいそうだ or 見たいって or 見たがる (weird in this case) or something else to show it's 2nd hand information, which it must be if it's not involving yourself personally. To illustrate your point, I think something like 「試合が見たいんですって」 would make your point and be more natural. It seems as you probably know this so I'm just pointing it out for those who might get confused.

I believe Viharati's example is fine as is. While it's not okay to say [彼らは] 試合が見たい, it's okay to say [彼らは]試合が見たいんですよ 。Nominalizations and evidential markers can lift the first person constraint. In other words, the の in のです　or 　ので　makes it okay to use the direct experience Vたい　with a third person experiencer. The speaker is adding a comment regarding the proposition, not asserting the proposition itself.

[試合が見たい] + [んです] + [よ]
[proposition] + [evidential marker] + [speech marker]

The speaker might be explaining “[It's because] [they want to watch the game] [I'm telling you/new info]” in response to the question about their observed location or behaviour. Maybe they had climbed onto a roof or something.

(Reason is just one of several possible meanings of the のだconstruction.　So in this particular instance, you could say something similar with　彼らは試合が見たいので、[...]。
and 彼ら could be the subject of 見たい. But note that in 彼らは 試合が見たい時、[...]。 彼ら cannot be the subject of 見たい. Unlike の, 時 doesn't lift the person constrain.)

While not exactly the same, it might be helpful to consider an example with the ことnominalizer:
[彼らが]　試合が見たいことは、だれも疑わない。
No one doubts that [they] want to watch the game.

Again, the speaker is talking about the fact [they want to watch the game] but isn't directly reporting the desires of third parties.

「edit: Removed a comment regarding use of よ. It was a lousy explanation and didn't really add anything to viharati's earlier aside.]

Well I'll concede that both of you must be correct and I'm wrong as you seem to have a deeper understanding of each grammar point. So apologies to Viharati. That being said, it sounds pretty weird to me so I can't say as I've heard it spoken like that much. It must be done, as you both have explained, but seems odd that such a basic way would go over my head.

Anyway sorry again. I guess I spoke out of my beliefs based on personal experience rather than textbook knowledge.

I think OP is already content with everyone's answer, so I'm going to complement my comment about よ.

試合が見たいんですよ↓

When I wrote it, I imagined falling intonation, which stands for, after all, a bit of uncertainity of the speaker's judgement, in the case of judgement usage. However, if it's your own feeing, in other words, "I/we want", it's no longer a judgement but only an explanatory tone, and the よ↓ can sound "a counterargument to the listener's possible wrong thought" (note; perhaps this expression sounds serious, but it's not. It's rather safer to use よ when you say something that doesn't get along with what the listener is believing or expecting). Now I'm thinking that in this example, it's not a problem even if it's interpreted that way.

試合が見たいんですよ↑ (or …ですよ？)

The rising tone, nevertheless, doesn't stand for one's judgement. It implies the speaker is much more informed about it than the listener. The nuance is "sure?", "ok?" or "how would you not know?".