from harry potter book 1, at the start when professor mcgonagal has just heard that Lilly & James Potter have died.

マクゴナガル先生は声を震わせながら話し続けた。

why is it 声を震わせる? Doesn't this make it sound like Professor Mcgonagal is deliberately making her voice tremble? Would you always need to put in a word like "deliberately" to make it sound like that? Why didn't they translate it as an intransitive instead?

I think i've read somewhere that things like this are often like this, but doesn't it cause confusion?

apirx: Probably ほか. Outside of compounds, その他 is often read as そのた but other than that I think it's ほか.

iceCream:
震わせる 【ふるわせる】 (v1) to be shaking, to be trembling
Goo:
［動サ下一］［文］ふるは・す［サ下二］小刻みに揺り動かす。震動を与える。ふるわす。「怒りに声を―・せる」「爆音が窓を―・せる」

I think that not all XをY phrases involve deliberate action even if they can be seen as transitive or volitional.　　(Note the second example there has 爆音 as the subject so that's not really "deliberate" either)

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think that not all XをY phrases involve deliberate action even if they can be seen as transitive or volitional.　　(Note the second example there has 爆音 as the subject so that's not really "deliberate" either)

Like for example 顔をしている, 色をしている or 形をしている.

I was just watching the (probably well known in this forum) Youtube video "How to speak fluent Japanese without (hardly) saying a word PART 3" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNtzMUy4vs

Anyway, though I've watched it a million times, I finally realized that what Remi says at the end is 「ふざけんなよ、おまえ」. Rikaichan translates this as vulgar: "You're ***** kidding me", "Stop ***** around", etc.

But, to me it sounds like it's just a slurred negative imperative ふざける. That is, 「ふざけるなよ」 becomes 「ふざけんなよ」. That doesn't really sound all that vulgar to me--just sounds like "Hey, stop kidding around already."

Anyone have any additional information on this phrase, and does anyone have a guage on how offensive it is?

It's offensive if you say it to someone. Japan doesn't really have the same concept we do that there are certain words that are offensive just to hear, whether they're fictional or real or directed at you or not (with a couple of exceptions). ふざけんなよ is pretty strong, but you'll still hear it on kids' shows.

@yudan, rayath:

yeah, of course! i forgot about 顔をしている etc when i wrote that...

hmm, but the grammar of these sentences still confuse me i think...

爆音が窓を震わせる　　　　the sound of the explosion shook the windows

but not マクゴナガル先生は声を震わせる professor mcgonagall trembled her voice

... i guess it's just one of those translation things. But i would always be tempted to say or write 爆音で窓が震えた instead. But why isn't it just that? What's the actual difference between the two sentences in Japanese? What would make someone choose to use one over the other?

but then, i came across another example after that one...
ハグリッドは肩を震わせ、マクゴナガル先生は目をしばたかせ、ダンブルドアの目からはいつものキラキラした輝きが消えていた

isn't しばたかせ causative? Or is there a しばたかせる verb too...? If not, then, shouldn't 震わせ also be the causative of 震う　and not 震わせる after all?

The window is not shaking by itself, it's being shaken by something else. McG's voice isn't trembling on its own, she's trembling her voice -- we don't say that in English, but that's how it's expressed in Japanese. 震わせる is the causative of 震う but it's become a verb in its own right.

Reading something like HP that's been translated from English into Japanese doesn't always give you a good feel for natural Japanese since they often write in sort of a "translationese" style that mimics the English more closely than would happen if someone just rewrote the story from scratch on their own.

could someone explain what ハンパ無い means? I hear it like a million times everyday and I still have no clue what it is

It means "good". It's either a shortening of 中途半端じゃない or maybe just 半端じゃない, which literally means "not incomplete" or "not half-assed".

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1413590889

この間抜けが
You idiot!／((俗)) What an ass you are!／Blockhead!

I recently have encountered couple of sentences that ended with が. What's the meaning of it here? Is it connected with that sentence ending が that expresses that we didn't say everything we wanted to say, or is it slang/dialect of some sort?

That's a good question; I'm not really sure what the answer is. It can't be the "but" meaning of が because that has to come after a predicate (so it would have to be 間抜けだが). It has to be the subject marker, but I'm not really sure what the function is -- I guess there's some understood predicate after it but I have no idea what that would be. It mostly shows up in insults.

Can anyone tell me what にしたって in the following sentence is doing? Would it be a casual version of にしたところで meaning "even if"?

「脳天ぶっ叩きゃ、息の根止めるのは無理にしたって記憶ぐらいは飛ぶだろうよ！」

So would the translation be something like: "Even if beating you on the head can't end you life, it should be enough to make your memories fly!"?

Or am I totally off here?

Thanks!

たって is a casual equivalent of ても. So this is 無理にしても (which still means "even if")

(I've never heard of ところで meaning "even if"...)

My grammar book has ~としたって as the colloquial form of ~としたところで, meaning 'even if'. No ～にしたって though.

Hmm, that's interesting. たって is more general than this, you can use it with any predicate -- 悪くたって is 悪くても, 言ったって is 言っても, etc. To me this looks like the same thing as にしても, but as I said, I've never heard of ところで meaning "even if" so there may be some other subtlety I'm not aware of.

yudantaiteki Wrote:That's a good question; I'm not really sure what the answer is. It can't be the "but" meaning of が because that has to come after a predicate (so it would have to be 間抜けだが). It has to be the subject marker, but I'm not really sure what the function is -- I guess there's some understood predicate after it but I have no idea what that would be. It mostly shows up in insults.

My guess is that there's usually a contextually implied predicate.
eg.
この間抜けが（全てめちゃくちゃにしやがって） or some such

I mean it's an insult right so it's gonna be in response to some action or state of being by insulted party that dissatisfies the speaker.

Kind of like how in English you can say something like "Now you've really gone and done it!", and "it" can refer to any number of things depending on context, pissed off the boss, caused a rip in the space-time continuum, caused WW3, you name it.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Hmm, that's interesting. たって is more general than this, you can use it with any predicate -- 悪くたって is 悪くても, 言ったって is 言っても, etc. To me this looks like the same thing as にしても, but as I said, I've never heard of ところで meaning "even if" so there may be some other subtlety I'm not aware of.

The examples my book gives are
これは忘れようとしたところで、忘れない出来事だ。
あの頑固な父にタバコを辞めさせようとしたって、無駄だよ。
今から急いだとしたって間に合わないだろう。

So I suppose rather than 'even if' it's 'even if you try to~you can't'. It very similar to Vたところで･･･ない though. 家を売ったところで、借金を返せない。

yudantaiteki Wrote:たって is a casual equivalent of ても. So this is 無理にしても (which still means "even if")

(I've never heard of ところで meaning "even if"...)

Thanks, that makes sense!

I struggled to find anything online, but for what it's worth the following is supposedly from the Kanzen Master Level 1 book:

~としたところで / ~としたって / ~にしたところで / ~にしたって
意味：　Even if~ ; Though~
接続：　[動・い形・な形・名]の普通形＋としたところで　　＜ often [な形・名] don't use [だ]＞
例文：　全員が参加するとしたところで、せいぜい３０人位だ。
類語：　「~たところで」
注意：　「~したって・~にしたって」spoken language

Elenkis Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:たって is a casual equivalent of ても. So this is 無理にしても (which still means "even if")

(I've never heard of ところで meaning "even if"...)

Thanks, that makes sense!

I struggled to find anything online, but for what it's worth the following is supposedly from the Kanzen Master Level 1 book:

~としたところで / ~としたって / ~にしたところで / ~にしたって
意味：　Even if~ ; Though~
接続：　[動・い形・な形・名]の普通形＋としたところで　　＜ often [な形・名] don't use [だ]＞
例文：　全員が参加するとしたところで、せいぜい３０人位だ。
類語：　「~たところで」
注意：　「~したって・~にしたって」spoken language

yudantaiteki also helped me with this grammar point, and it's on pg 113 of this thread if you want to take a look. There's an entry about the たって/ったって/だって grammar point in the Dictionary of Advanced Japanese grammar.

Thank you for answers yudantaiteki and nadiatims. Yeah, it seems right that it's something like "You idiot, (you always [do something wrong])".

I was going over some of my old notes, and i found the following sentence, that i can't quite figure out. It is about the second は and its meaning in the following sentence.

今日は日曜日なので、銀行は休みます。

I wonder if one は is meant as being the topic marker, and the other は, to put an emphasize that it is only on Sundays, that banks have closed. But i couldn't really find any information that backs this up. So i hope that someone here could explain to me which は does what.

Not "sundays", but "banks" -- the banks, at least, are closed.

both は are topic markers. That example consists of two sentences connected via a conjunction (ので）.
今日は日曜日だ + 銀行は休みます。

nadiatims Wrote:both は are topic markers. That example consists of two sentences connected via a conjunction (ので）.
今日は日曜日だ + 銀行は休みます。

分かりました。 面白いだね。 I wasn't aware of the fact that ので can also be used to combine two sentences. Another thing learned. どうも。

yudantaiteki thank you!

Nagareboshi Wrote:面白いだね。

Just as a heads up--you can't use だ with an い-adjective. Either 面白いね or 面白いですね.