Angeldust Wrote:What is the more common reading of 日本? Is it にほん? or にっぽん? Or does it depend on context?

にっぽん fell out of common use after WWII because of its association with the name of Japan at the time. だいにっぽんていこく.

Since the end of WWII, にほん has become the common usage. Probably because of its softer (more peaceful) sound. Today, the reading にっぽん is limited to usage in sporting competitions and patriotic speeches. And the Japanese name of ANA airlines for some reason.

Basically,

にっぽん has nationalistic connotations
にほん is neutral

kitakitsune Wrote:

Angeldust Wrote:What is the more common reading of 日本? Is it にほん? or にっぽん? Or does it depend on context?

にっぽん fell out of common use after WWII because of its association with the name of Japan at the time. だいにっぽんていこく.

Do you remember the source for that? I'm pretty interested in this kind of thing.

Thank you so much!

Could someone explain what なんだけど means in these sentences? I think it means in conjunction with the 言う verb something like "I shouldn't be the one to say this" but this is just a guess from context (what's with me doing X).

もちろん手の込んだインチキかもしれない。電話を一本引いて、電話番を雇っておけばいいだけだから。映画の『スティング』みたいに。でもどうしてそこまでやるわけ。天吾くんは、こう言ってはなんだけど、搾り取れるほどのお金を持ちあわせているとは見えない。

天吾くん、今さら俺がこんなことを言い出すのはなんだけど、ひょっとして俺たちはどこかまずいところに足を踏み入れてしまったのかもな。

My impression is that it's a type of hesitation/filler.

Thanks, that makes sense

FooSoft Wrote:Thanks, that makes sense

I found one translation, ‘to speak frankly’, but I get the feeling the nuance is along the lines of what yudantaiteki mentioned. There's also a bit about it in a 1999 book on turn-taking in Japanese, but forgot the link.

Also see Google Books results for ‘itcha nan da kedo’ which seems to apply more clearly to the first instance?

Edit: http://books.google.com/books?id=MCDAP7w...&q&f=false

“Saying (this), it may be something (you don't want to hear), but; I hate to be the one to say it, but... ”

I don't know how this sentence is parsed...

"「ま、あんがとさん」"

Is it a name? I have noooo idea. I can give more context if people want.

nohika Wrote:I don't know how this sentence is parsed...

"「ま、あんがとさん」"

Is it a name? I have noooo idea. I can give more context if people want.

I think it's Kansai dialect for ありがとう, where ありがとう becomes あんがと and then there's the さん suffix: http://books.google.com/books?id=z0nRi62...an&f=false

Question:
Using たり and たい in the same sentence... do you conjugate each activity with both, or just the ending one?

ex. "This weekend I want to swim in the ocean and study Japanese."
is it 今週末、僕は海で泳ぎたかったり、日本語を勉強したかったりします。
or 今週末、僕はうみで泳いだたり、日本語お勉強したかったりします。

Achromatize Wrote:Using たり and たい in the same sentence... do you conjugate each activity with both, or just the ending one?

ex. "This weekend I want to swim in the ocean and study Japanese."
is it 今週末、僕は海で泳ぎたかったり、日本語を勉強したかったりします。
or 今週末、僕はうみで泳いだたり、日本語お勉強したかったりします。

I reckon it's the first; and a quick google for "たかったり" suggests that's right; eg

Quote:たかがタバコやめたくらいで　眠かったり食いたかったり吸いたかったり
する私ってﾒｯﾁｬ負けてる気がする

Note that you can have some parts of a たりーたり construction in たい form and some not; another example:

Quote:モノを買ったり買いたかったりする話ばっかりで

I'm a bit hesitant about talking about whether something's natural Japanese or not, but I'm wondering if the two items in your example aren't a bit too disparate to work well together; たり is a non-exhaustive list and I think usually the list items are a bit more of a coherent set.

PS: the たり form of 泳ぐ in your second option is wrong: it should be 泳いだり -- たり form is "plain past tense plus り".

Thanks for your help pm215

Achromatize Wrote:Question:
Using たり and たい in the same sentence... do you conjugate each activity with both, or just the ending one?

This is how I would say it:「海で泳いだり、日本語を勉強したい」

Achromatize Wrote:Question:
Using たり and たい in the same sentence... do you conjugate each activity with both, or just the ending one?

ex. "This weekend I want to swim in the ocean and study Japanese."
is it 今週末、僕は海で泳ぎたかったり、日本語を勉強したかったりします。
or 今週末、僕はうみで泳いだたり、日本語お勉強したかったりします。

Would it not just be

今週末、僕は海で泳いだり、日本語を勉強したりしたいです。 ?

The first one sounds to me like you're saying that when the weekend arrives, you will begin wanting to do those things, rather than you want (now) to do them on the weekend.

fakewookie Wrote:Would it not just be
今週末、僕は海で泳いだり、日本語を勉強したりしたいです。 ?

Doh, completely forgot about that option.

fakewookie Wrote:The first one sounds to me like you're saying that when the weekend arrives, you will begin wanting to do those things, rather than you want (now) to do them on the weekend.

If that's what I wanted to say, I would say 「今週末、海で泳いだり日本語を勉強したくなるだろう」

彼女が私の隣に座ってくれるといいのだが。

What does くれる means in this context?

Es2Kay Wrote:彼女が私の隣に座ってくれるといいのだが。

What does くれる means in this context?

"I wish that she COULD be sitting next to me."

Without it, "I wish that she was sitting next to me"

source: google translate, removing くれる and seeing what changed in the translation.

nest0r Wrote:Also see Google Books results for ‘itcha nan da kedo’ which seems to apply more clearly to the first instance?

Edit: http://books.google.com/books?id=MCDAP7w...&q&f=false

“Saying (this), it may be something (you don't want to hear), but; I hate to be the one to say it, but... ”

Oooh, interesting. Seems to be pretty close in meaning to what I expected. They are both about saying something, so perhaps what exactly comes before なんだけど doesn't matter so much.

Achromatize Wrote:

Es2Kay Wrote:彼女が私の隣に座ってくれるといいのだが。

What does くれる means in this context?

"I wish that she COULD be sitting next to me."

Without it, "I wish that she was sitting next to me"

source: google translate, removing くれる and seeing what changed in the translation.

...a nice demonstration of why you shouldn't really rely on google translate for Japanese :-)

This is くれる, one of the verbs of giving and receiving, in its auxiliary-verb usage. Basically it indicates that somebody is doing the action for you/as a favour to you (or in this case that the speaker would think of it in that way), rather than merely doing the action. English doesn't really have an equivalent piece of grammar (sometimes "do verb for me" works but not in this case), which is one of the reasons why machine-translation with and without the aux.verb doesn't really give the right answer.

See the grammar reference of your choice, because てくれる (and its cousins てあげる and てもらう) are important basic grammar.

Achromatize Wrote:source: google translate, removing くれる and seeing what changed in the translation.

Yeah, don't do this.

pm215 Wrote:

Achromatize Wrote:

Es2Kay Wrote:彼女が私の隣に座ってくれるといいのだが。

What does くれる means in this context?

"I wish that she COULD be sitting next to me."

Without it, "I wish that she was sitting next to me"

source: google translate, removing くれる and seeing what changed in the translation.

...a nice demonstration of why you shouldn't really rely on google translate for Japanese :-)

This is くれる, one of the verbs of giving and receiving, in its auxiliary-verb usage. Basically it indicates that somebody is doing the action for you/as a favour to you (or in this case that the speaker would think of it in that way), rather than merely doing the action. English doesn't really have an equivalent piece of grammar (sometimes "do verb for me" works but not in this case), which is one of the reasons why machine-translation with and without the aux.verb doesn't really give the right answer.

See the grammar reference of your choice, because てくれる (and its cousins てあげる and てもらう) are important basic grammar.

Tnx, I've figured it out.

Sorry about the google translate, I had no idea how messed up it was.

Best example I can come up with:

Try converting "statistically insignificant" to Japanese using google translate.

Achromatize Wrote:Try converting "statistically insignificant" to Japanese using google translate.

Strange...You'd think that the number times that 'statistically insignificant' would (could) be translated as that would be......"statistically insignificant."