I'm having some trouble with the second sentence in the following paragraph:

女性の労働力率を１０年前と比べると、未婚者は９６年の６０．４％から６３．７％に増えたのに対し、既婚者は５１．０％から４８．５％に低下。晩産化の影響で、子どもを持っていない人が多い２５～２９歳の既婚者の労働力率が上がる一方、育児が忙しい３５～３９歳層では１．３ポイント減った。

Is the で in 晩産化の影響で indicating cause, like "due the influence of the trend to have kids at later ages"? Or is it being used to mean "and" here?

What exactly is the 一方 doing?

The 忙しい is modifying 35-39 year olds, right? So child rearing has decreased 1.3 points in the busy 35-39 year old group? I'm a bit unsure about the がーーでは here.

I'm pretty sure I know what the sentence is saying, I'm just unsure on exactly how the grammar is working.

Thanks!

Elenkis Wrote:Is the で in 晩産化の影響で indicating cause, like "due the influence of the trend to have kids at later ages"? Or is it being used to mean "and" here?

The former.

Quote:What exactly is the 一方 doing?

Often it's used on "On the one hand... on the other hand" kinds of constructions. So, childbirth at later ages has two effects: on one hand, more childless women between 25 and 29 are working, but on the other hand, fewer women are working between 35 and 39 years because they're busy raising children.

Quote:The 忙しい is modifying 35-39 year olds, right? So child rearing has decreased 1.3 points in the busy 35-39 year old group? I'm a bit unsure about the がーーでは here.

Actually, 育児が忙しい is a phrase that's modifying ３５～３９歳層. For 35-39 year olds [who are busy with child-rearing] it (the labor participation rate) decreased 1.3 points. では is just で meaning 'in' and は indicating the topic, so the topic is 'among 35-39 year olds, who are busy with child-rearing.'

The subject is not present in this part of the sentence -- you have to get it from the first part of the sentence:
子どもを持っていない人が多い２５～２９歳の既婚者の労働力率が上がる一方、育児が忙しい３５～３９歳層では１．３ポイント減った。

Oh wow, I really got that one wrong. Thank you for the response, it's much clearer now!

Edit: Though now I'm wondering what exactly the 多い in the first part of sentence is modifying, as I don't think I'm sure on that either :/

The entire phrase 子どもを持っていない人が多い is modifying ２５～２９歳の既婚者.

yudantaiteki Wrote:The entire phrase 子どもを持っていない人が多い is modifying ２５～２９歳の既婚者.

Thanks, that's what I figured but for some reason I couldn't make sense of it when I tried putting it together. I was probably too focused on trying to convert it to English.

Me again. This is the start of a paragraph:

女の仕事がふえた社会に適応して一部の女は変身し、結婚しても仕事をやめないことにしました。

Is 一部の女 working as the subject of 適応して, and if so then why the て form? I'm assuming 女の仕事がふえた社会 is all one noun clause (a society where the work of women has increased).

Thanks!

I am pretty sure it means one section of women who are adapting to a society where woman's jobs have increased. I just can't think of another way it can be interpreted. I can't answer why the te form is used though.

I think the use of the -te form is like in English if we would write "Adapting to the society where more women work, some women..."

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think the use of the -te form is like in English if we would write "Adapting to the society where more women work, some women..."

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks to you both!

I don't get the relevance of meaning of もの. It makes something as if it was a tangible object- umm.. what's the point of that exactly?

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I don't get the relevance of meaning of もの. It makes something as if it was a tangible object- umm.. what's the point of that exactly?

You could do with being a bit more precise here; もの gets used in a large number of different grammatical constructions. (日本語文型辞典 has 13 top-level entries for various もの expressions, many of which it then subdivides into two or three sub-categories.)

When I was initially trying to get to grips with もの I found it helped to split the various different kinds of expression my textbook provided up and think about them separately. If you try to roll them all up into a single big "makes something a tangible object" category I think you just wind up with something that's so vague you lose sight of the actual meaning of the various different expressions. (For instance there's not a lot of common meaning in「だって、よくわからないんだもの」 and 「昔はよく映画を見たものです」 . This is one area where I think the DoBJG is (unusually) not so useful; it doesn't have enough detail really.)

Yeah I forgot about the other uses of the word, sorry.

だって、よくわからないんだもの and other DoBJG examples are exactly what I don't understand. I understand why it's used in something like 建物 but here I fail to see what purpose it is serving.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:Yeah I forgot about the other uses of the word, sorry.

だって、よくわからないんだもの and other DoBJG examples are exactly what I don't understand. I understand why it's used in something like 建物 but here I fail to see what purpose it is serving.

On this specific subcase (end of sentence もの marking an explanation/reason) 日本語文型辞典 says: くだけた会話中で文末について、理由を表す。自分の正当性を主張するために用いることが多い。 「もの」は若い女性や子供が使うことが多い。「もの」のさらにくだけた形が「もん」だが、(年齢層の若い)男女とも使う。「だって」とともに使うことが多い。「だって」と一緒に使うと、甘えた調子の理由表になる。子供、若い女性が主として用いる。
It's not adding any factual distinction in meaning, but the tone is a lot different from a mere よくわからないんだ.

So what I understand from that description young women and kids mainly use it? "Mon" is used by both men and women?

I think I'll read the rest of the book first and then get back to this one.

「まとめた資料を作る」

I am having a hard time with the sentence above. I "understand" its meaning but I don't know how to put it into English that makes sense.

作る to make / write

まとめた summarized / collected
資料 material / document

Make a summary of the data?
Make a report with the collected data?

What do you think?

まとめた資料を作る=making the data that was summarized. In Japanese when a noun follows a verb you add a "that" or "which" or "who" in English. It is "was" because the verb is in the past tense (ta)

本を読んだ人 The person WHO read the book
肉を食べる猫 The cat which/that eats the meat.

I think this site explains is better http://www.learnjapanese.com/relative-clauses/

bcrAn Wrote:「まとめた資料を作る」

Compile a summary/summarisation document?

So these are a couple of core6k sentences, talking about people's strengths and weaknesses:

君の長所は明るいところだね。

彼の弱点はスタミナが足りないところです。

Can someone please explain the grammatical use of ところ here and what meaning it takes on in this situation...? Thanks very much!

When is 怒る　read as おこる　VS　いかる ? How do i know when do read it which way? Thanks

dtcamero Wrote:So these are a couple of core6k sentences, talking about people's strengths and weaknesses:

君の長所は明るいところだね。

彼の弱点はスタミナが足りないところです。

Can someone please explain the grammatical use of ところ here and what meaning it takes on in this situation...? Thanks very much!

I think this is not so much grammatical as it's one of the meanings of the word ところ. ところ has a million meanings and one of them is an abstract place. One of the definitions of ところ on Yahoo under the 'abstract place' section is this: 部分。箇所。点。「悪い―を直す」「粋な―のある人だ」

Progressive (a J->E dictionary) also gives this meaning with example sentences like
それが彼のよいところなんだ。
That is his good point.
そこが彼が君に勝る所なんだ。
That is where he surpasses you.

So, it basically means 'part' or 'point', but in English it sounds reduntant.
「君の長所は明るいところだね」 basically means 'Your strong point is the point that you are cheerful.'

That was awesome, thanks!

animehunter123 Wrote:When is 怒る　read as おこる　VS　いかる ? How do i know when do read it which way? Thanks

I've always wondered this myself... so I Googled it and looked at a bunch of those silly explaining sites.

One difference between the words is that いかる can be made into the noun form いかり and mean 'anger.'　おこる means to get angry also, but if you try to make it into a noun form, おこり, it means something like 'source' or 'origin' and loses the angry meaning. いかり would be written 怒り and おこり would use the kanji 起こり when written as a noun. So if you see 怒り you can be sure it's pronounced いかり.

Another difference is that おこる has a tendancy to be used with anger that comes from physical sources. So if you're angry because someone punched you you would use the word おこる. いかる has a tendancy to be used when the anger is from something abstract or mental. So if you were angry because someone insulted you, you would use いかる.

Another difference is this: When a child says something like 父におこられた, it means that his father got angry and scolded him. いかる does not carry a meaning of scolding with it.

If someone is in a violent rage, such as cursing and punching, you would usually use いかる to describe them instead of おこる.

And last, いかる has a separate meaning of being rugged, angular, or square that おこる does not have. You can say 肩のいかった人 to mean 'a person with square shoulders', but you can't say 肩のおこった人.

In other words, in a lot of cases both readings would be acceptable. In certain situations native speakers would probably tend to use one of the two readings.

Tzadeck, thank you very very much. This was very helpful.

Question: What does 味なことをする mean? (i found this from yahoo dictionaries)

I have another question from Norwegian Wood.

Background: A 31 year old woman was seduced by a kinda psychopathic underage girl, and eventually told the younger girl to stop and the girl got very angry. After a while the 31 year old noticed that people in her neighborhood greet her but don't really talk to her anymore.

One day one of her better friends in the neighborhood comes and tells her that people have started a lot of bad rumors about her. The story continues...
(31 year old) 「どんなのよ？」
「どんなのって言われても、すごく言いにくいのよ」
「言いにくいったって、あなたそこまでいったんだもの、全部おっしゃいよ」
(The 31 year old is writing)それでも彼女すごく嫌がったんだけど、私全部聞きだしたの。まあ本人だってはじめからしゃべりたくって来てるんだもの、何のかんの言ったってしゃべるわよ。

First, what is おっしゃいよ? The sentence seems to mean 'It might be difficult to say, but you've already told me this much, so tell me everything.' So I assume it's a command form of 'tell me.' But I don't know where it comes from or how it's used. (Dialect? I believe I've heard it before and I live in Kyoto).

And, the entire last sentence is pretty confusing to me. What's going on? Lots of って and ったってs, haha, and I'm confused by what かん means heres?