fakewookie Wrote:

FooSoft Wrote:I've got a couple of new questions (as always):

「誰が勝てそうにないか、だいたい予測はつきますが」
Does this mean "unlikely to win" or "show no signs of winning"? I thought this kind of そう only came after v.masu, but I guess it works after て form too?[/color]

This is the stem of the potential form (勝てる) of 勝つ. て form is 勝って.

勝てそうにない = very unlikely to win

Or “doesn't seem they can win” or whanot. Yeah I think it works here similarly to the example on p. 412 of DOBJG, where it has:

“この問題は学生には出来そうにない。
It doesn't seem that the students can solve this problem.”

To pair up the 勝て here: “Potential form 勝てる(kateru)/勝てます(katemasu) is a shortened form of katsu koto ga dekimasu.

Stating that something is possible. Potential form sounds more natural to Japanese people as they don't usually speak katsu koto ga dekimasu, since it is somewhat stiff to say.” - via

FooSoft Wrote:しかし天吾は一定の距離を置いて小松とつきあうように心がけていた。あまり近づきすぎて、下手に深入りしたところで足元の梯子を外されたりしたら、たまったものではない。
Any idea what たまったものではない means here? I can't figure out what verb comes before もの here, none of the possible definitions make any sense here. Looks like a set expression of some kind.

Top google hit for たまったものではない says it's from たまる "to bear, endure" and gives you the meaning ("unbearable, intolerable").

FooSoft Wrote:しかし天吾は一定の距離を置いて小松とつきあうように心がけていた。あまり近づきすぎて、下手に深入りしたところで足元の梯子を外されたりしたら、たまったものではない。
Any idea what たまったものではない means here? I can't figure out what verb comes before もの here, none of the possible definitions make any sense here. Looks like a set expression of some kind.

Is it something related to this?

http://books.google.com/books?id=SszxbMt...le&f=false

A related phrase seems to be たまったもんじゃない.

Edit: Oh I see someone who actually knows Japanese replied. ;p

[Edit: I also didn't realize it had been answered already. :-) Might as well leave the dictionary examples.]

It's like ....たまらない, which you've probably seen. From たまる (堪まる)

毎日彼の愚痴やいらいらをぶつけられる部下はたまったもんじゃない.
For his subordinates, who suffer his complaints and bad temper [irritation] every day, it's absolutely intolerable.

そんなことをされてはたまったもんじゃない.
I cannot bear such treatment (of me). That kind of treatment is simply unbearable [I won't tolerate, I won't put up with].

Or...for a more Mr AJATT-esque flavour: :-)

すげえいやな, たまったもんじゃねえ, むかつく.

On the other hand Martin's description of it as a "vaudeville refrain" has a flavour I wouldn't want to have missed out on :-)

FooSoft Wrote:だから作家たちは小松とはできるだけ事を構えないように注意していた。雑誌に執筆を依頼されれば、できるだけ断らないようにした。少なくとも何度かに一度は引き受けた。そうしないとコラムで何を書かれるかわかったものではない。

My attempt at translating this, really shaky on it:
"That's why the novelists were as careful as possible not to meddle in in Komatsu's work. If they left writing the column to him, he did his best so that they would not get rejected. At the very least he did this a couple of times (this probably very wrong). If he didn't do this, he wouldn't know what's written in the column.

"That's why the novelists were careful not to make any trouble with Komatsu. If they were asked to write a piece for the magazine they would not refuse if they could avoid it. At the very least they would agree every so often. If they didn't then they had no idea what might be written about them in the column."
(I guess Komatsu's the editor of the magazine; at least that's what it sounds like.)

(事を構える: to stir up trouble, ie to annoy Komatsu. 執筆を依頼する: to commission a piece of writing; here it is in the passive. 何度かに一度は引き受けた : from some number of requests to undertake (agree to do) one. Notice that the topic in this passage is 作家たち, set in the first sentence; it is then the implicit subject in the following three. I think where your translation has gone off the rails is in trying to drag Komatsu back in as the subject instead.)

Lest my post become forgotten, it has still not been answered. ._. #2553.

Wow you guys are great, thanks so much! It all makes sense now

TheVinster Wrote:Lest my post become forgotten, it has still not been answered.

Yeah, みられる was next on my list; I've been putting it off because it's one of those "know what it means but can't explain" things, as Pete Townshend would put it.

Quote:約2時間後に鎮火しましたが、住宅やアパート、空き家など少なくとも9棟が全焼したとみられます。

This is I think what is sometimes called the spontaneous passive.

My textbook glosses "Xとみられる/とみられている" as "「Xと考えられている」という意味の硬い表現", which still leaves you with a passive but possibly a less confusing one.

The section on natural potential in Jay Rubin's _Making Sense of Japanese_ is also worth reading (do get a copy of the book if you don't have it, the whole thing is full of useful ways of looking at various tricky grammar issues.)

If you have the patience you might also go wading through this forum looking for threads where magamo talks about 自発 type passives.

I guess the most plausible English translation would be something like "It is thought that at least nine buildings were completely destroyed." (Or "At least 9 buildings are believed to have burned down".) I think it's a fairly common usage in news articles so hopefully you'll pick up the idea soon...

pm215 Wrote:On the other hand Martin's description of it as a "vaudeville refrain" has a flavour I wouldn't want to have missed out on :-)

Ha. For some reason it makes me think of Seinfeld—“Can't-Stand-Ya!”

TheVinster Wrote:Lest my post become forgotten, it has still not been answered. ._. #2553.

There's also: http://books.google.com/books?id=ro5ZAAA...CEEQ6AEwBQ (“it can be said to appear as if”)

I think JMW p. 227 might apply here as well.

Thanks pm215 and nest0r. News articles are so hard to interpret in my opinion. It takes me a long time with a ton of new vocab that makes me feel even worse at Japanese than I already do. I guess that's what I get for using dramas to study, initially. I've done only a few news sentences (that's right, sentences, not entire articles) so far.

I think news articles really are harder, and you don't get the sustained text on a single subject that tends to make books get easier as you go along, either. You might try starting by looking for articles an a subject you already know about so your background knowledge can help you out. (The Mainichi is good here because you can browse the English site for something interesting, and then follow the link from the bottom of the English article back to the Japanese original.)

I wrote a bit philosophical article on lang-8 and a guy who had previously said that he wants to become friends with me to talk about music.

And as a reply to that article he wrote:
哲学的な感じですね！作曲したりもしますか？

What's the meaning of the second sentence...Any Ideas? I don't understand whether he asks about the article or about me composing music.

したり is the -tari (inexaustive listing) form of suru. Here it just means, "composing music (amongst other things)". So the question is "Do you also do things like compose music?"

FooSoft Wrote:したり is the -tari (inexaustive listing) form of suru. Here it just means, "composing music (amongst other things)". So the question is "Do you also do things like compose music?"

I first encountered –たり in the Death Note anime, hehe:

「ふん、楽に死なせたり苦しませて死なせたりできるって事か．．．」
“Hmm. So you can let people die peacefully, or make them suffer... ”

FooSoft Wrote:したり is the -tari (inexaustive listing) form of suru. Here it just means, "composing music (amongst other things)". So the question is "Do you also do things like compose music?"

Thanks

The following sentence talks about someone singing in German:

音程はそれほど確かではないが、彼女のドイツ語の発音は明瞭で驚くばかりに正確だった。

Is ばかりに here meaning "just because"? So the translation would be something like:

"The rhythm wasn't that accurate but her singing sounded authentic simply because her pronunciation of German was so surprisingly clear."

Does that sound about right?

I have only found the translation ‘astonishingly’ or ‘amazingly’ for 驚くばかりに (and also the variation 驚くばかりの). My made-up explanation is that adverb + ばかり makes it more like ほど to emphasize extent and then the に gives that -ly sense. Yep.

Edit: Looking at ばかり, though, perhaps a better explanation would be that it simply means ‘only’ here but since 驚く is such a nebulous term when it comes to positive/negative that ばかり is more like ほど when paired with it? ‘It's nothing less than astonishing.’ And the に also ‘indicates manner or extent’ (JMW 43).

Thanks nest0r, I didn't realize that 驚くばからに was a whole expression. Interestingly it's in the weblio thesaurus but not in the weblio dictionary, go figure. When I was saying "ばかりに" I was just referring to that grammar point from DAJG. It doesn't really fit that well though I think.

What you are suggesting is actually something I thought might be the case just from context (kind of like a ことに thing going on), but had absolutely no grammar to back it up. It's good to know it's a type of an expression.

I wonder how it gets that meaning though. Is it an expression/idiomatic thing?

Maybe it's kind of close to what you said, it's the adverbial/-ly form of "驚くばかり" so that it's "can only be surprised"? Nebulous indeed.

I wonder if this is related to what 日本語文型辞典 files under the heading of 比喩 with examples like 「頂上からの景色は輝くばかりの美しさだった。」「用意された品々は目を見張るばかりの素晴らしさである。」 and describes as 比喩を使って程度がはなはだしいことを表す。慣用的な表現が多く、書きことば敵な言い方で、物語などによく使われる。 ?

FooSoft: your translation seems a little askew to me: 驚くばかりに applies to 正確, not 明瞭. I would vote for something more like "but her pronunciation of German was clear and amazingly accurate."

I'm having trouble getting anywhere with translating this sentence.

俺は八つ当たり気味の決意を燃やすのであった。


Is 妙ちきりんな some kind of casual expression? Are they two different words? I'm a bit confused here.

この妙ちきりんなＤＶＤ持ち主のことが、だ。



I've seen this being used right after quotes, but I'm not really sure what it means.
とやら


「。。。」とやらのＤＶＤケースの中に。。。 for example

Manske Wrote:I've seen this being used right after quotes, but I'm not really sure what it means.
とやら


「。。。」とやらのＤＶＤケースの中に。。。 for example

I found this: http://books.google.com/books?id=SszxbMt...22&f=false - I guess ‘what might be called’ is the rough translation? Wow that ローマ字 is annoying. ;p

Manske Wrote:Is 妙ちきりんな some kind of casual expression? Are they two different words? I'm a bit confused here.

http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E5%A6%99%...A%E3%82%93 - Seems to mean odd/strange/curious?

For the sentence, hard to know without context, but I learned a new word:

八つ当たり やつあたり
八つあたり やつあたり
(n) outburst of anger; (P)
Audio

Maybe it's something like ‘I was burning with a sudden angry determination’? Or ‘I was burning with determination felt in an angry outburst’? Or perhaps someone committed arson? ;p