ruiner Wrote:

Nuriko Wrote:I just remembered another question I have. I can't seem to find the pronunciation for the word "ざら” (as in "common")．
Definition: どこにでもあって珍しくないさま。ありふれているさま。
Example sentence: "このような例はざらです"

Is there an accent for this word? If so, is the mora on 1 or 2?

ちょっとした完全主義者です。

You can find the pronunciation here: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-b...dic.cgi?1C

Had no idea this website had such a feature, thanks so much

椅子が台所にあった。
Is が natural here for a sentence without a context? doesn't this sound like " what was in the kitchen is the chair" or an answer to "what was in the kitchen?"

椅子が台所にあった means "A chair (or chairs) was(were) in the kitchen"

が is similar with は, both tells the word just before it is the subject. the difference is が emphasizes the subject itself but は stresses the following words.

in the sentence used が, therefore, 椅子 is important. they imply not a table or something else but a chair is there.

in contrast, 椅子は台所にあった has the same meaning (A chair was in the kitchen) but it stresses 台所. so a chair is in the kitchen not the living room.

that said, が is often used in the same way as は. the difference is small and vague

I would like to add that when you say that sentence without any context. It makes slightly more sense because it's new. When you use は, it might sound like the person you are talking to acknowledged the chair, you two were talking about the chair, or something about the chair is obvious (like the listener knows you've been staring at it for a while).

が might in some contexts sound like it's answering a question such as, "台所にあったのは何？” But without context, this doesn't sound like the case.

が does emphasize what's before it but not so much as if you were shouting that word at someone. In this instance 椅子 is important because it's carrying out あった and 台所 is just the place it happened to あった in.

I don't know if I made it too clear, but in short, は sounds like the chair is an established topic.

@benkyou @Canary, thanks guys, it's clearer now

Sorry, I think you have it backwards benkyou.

You are right that が generally stresses what it marks, where as は builds anticipation as to what will come, essentially throwing the listeners attention forward. However, は typically notes something as "this particular something" eg this particular kind of furniture. It is generally accepted that the best translation for は (but obviously not in all cases) is As for. So in this case. As for the chair, it was in the kitchen (to say nothing of the other pieces of furniture/(something that is comparable to this chair)).

You can see how it builds anticipation. The neutral sentence is to say が in this case, which does stress the chair, but if you have not introduced it as a topic then you need to use something so the stress is mostly negated. If it is already know as the topic, then 台所にあった is the neutral response.

It is also worth noting that in the case that speaker and listener both are aware of this chair and aware each other is aware, then は is used, the sentence becoming something like "The chair was in the kitchen". が is more "There was a chair in the kitchen".

For a really good explanation of the difference between は and が check out Making sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin, or if anyone is interested I know of a book in Japanese that explains it (need to check what it is).

Hi guys!
I have a question here. I´m currently working my way through KO2001, and will be done soon. I´m starting to get a bigger vocab, but I struggle with knowing what readings to use, at least sometimes.
Just take this (probably very simple/stupid) example:

I have a Japanese OS X, and when I open a file it says:
ファイルを開く。
Should I use "ひらく" or　"あく"? My guess would be "ひらく", but that´s just my gut-feeling.
What can I do to improve this? I´ve experienced this in a lot of reading-material, when I know several readings for a kanji, and the kana-ending isn´t giving me a clear guide on how to read it.
I know I can rely in google/this forum/Rikaichan, but eventually I want to be able to read with confidence, and last, but not least, avoid reading kanji incorrecly, so that it might turn into a bad habit.
Thank you guys so much!

Z..

開く（あく） means:

広辞苑 Wrote:そこを塞いでいた物が除かれ、通り抜けができるようになる

aka, "open something that was closed (or more accurately, eliminate something that was blocking) so that it can be passed through".

It is used to refer to doors being opened (so you can walk through), people getting out of a seat (so you can sit down), cars leaving parking spots (so you can park), freeing space on your computer (so you can download more AV), etc.

Obviously this does not apply to opening a computer file, so one is left to choose from ひらく or はだく.

はだく refers to a big open place, not the physical act of opening something, so that's also out (it's also a pretty rare word).

We are left with ひらく.

The problem you are having is from relying on bad dictionaries/definitions. EDICT is virtually useless and even the Green Goddess is seriously lacking compared to just about any monolingual dictionary.

Came across an interesting phrase today... let's see if anyone can get both the literal meaning and the nuanced meaning. Might be common, not too sure though.

重箱の隅をつつく

Zorlee Wrote:I have a Japanese OS X, and when I open a file it says:
ファイルを開く。
Should I use "ひらく" or　"あく"? My guess would be "ひらく", but that´s just my gut-feeling.

In this particular case, the presence of that を is a hint -- you want a transitive verb and あく is intransitive (except for the special case of 自分の目や口をあく, apparently. I didn't know that :-)).

Quote:What can I do to improve this? I´ve experienced this in a lot of reading-material, when I know several readings for a kanji, and the kana-ending isn´t giving me a clear guide on how to read it.

I don't think there are all that many cases, once you weed out the transitive/intransitive issues. Other than that, as Jarvik7 says, where there are two near-synonymic verbs with the same kanji particular nouns or classes of noun will take one verb and the others the other. I dunno, maybe read enough stuff with furigana to pick up the patterns?

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Came across an interesting phrase today... let's see if anyone can get both the literal meaning and the nuanced meaning. Might be common, not too sure though.

重箱の隅をつつく

Those kinds of idioms are pretty much impossible to guess XD (at least to me). Kinda like if a learner of English were to read "beat around the bush" for the first time. "Beat what around the bush?"

If I didn't look it up, I would have no idea it would mean something like "nitpick." I suppose that makes it all the more interesting though :B

edit: I'm not sure if this means much, but denshi jisho doesn't label it as common: http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E9%87%8D%E7%...dict=edict

But it does get 93,600 results on google~

Ryuujin27 Wrote:重箱の隅をつつく

I thought something like 'scrap the bottom of the barrel', which kind of gets the meaning but at the same time doesn't. But that's what you get for trying to think of a matching English idiom from just the literal Japanese :p

When looking it up, someone called it a 辞書的な表現. I'm not sure exactly what that is supposed to mean, though. More of a phrase you'd find in a dictionary than one people would normally use? (Though people do seem to use it, so many this person isn't correct/I'm wrong.)

Jarvik and pm: Thank you guys so much for your time! I really appreciate it!
I really want to make the jump to mono-dics, but I find it really hard at the moment. Maybe I just have to push through it, I don´t know.

What does it mean when you follow the て-form of a verb with another て?
For instance: あーもうプロバイダーともめてて、嫌だよ・・・。

It's the te-form of te-iru form of a verb, with the i omitted (in order to make it easier to say - typical of casual speech).

I don't know the verb in your sequence, so I will use とめる:

とめるー>とめてー>とめているー>とめていてー>とめてて.

Zorlee Wrote:Jarvik and pm: Thank you guys so much for your time! I really appreciate it!
I really want to make the jump to mono-dics, but I find it really hard at the moment. Maybe I just have to push through it, I don´t know.

Using monolingual dictionaries is always worth it. At first it's not necessary to go through the entire Japanese definition, and of course you can use an English dictionary to look up the definitions within the definition. As you're doing that little by little, you get more and more used to it and before long you'll be zooming through one definition after another. And since reading a monolingual dictionary helps you gain vocabulary, your need for the monodictionary itself will become more and more obsolete anyway. Good luck! I remember the feeling exactly. The feeling of frustration was there for some time but once you reach a certain point you may find yourself feeling very proud of your Japanese

Quick question, this sentence from Core2000 got me thinking:

この町は人口が増えた。

Isn't it also possible to express this as:

この町の人口が増えた。

Why would you choose one over the other? Is it just to do with emphasis?

Other examples I have come across recently would be:彼は様子が変だ。　as opposed to: 彼の様子がおかしい。

SammyB Wrote:Quick question, this sentence from Core2000 got me thinking:

この町は人口が増えた。

Isn't it also possible to express this as:

この町の人口が増えた。

Why would you choose one over the other? Is it just to do with emphasis?

Other examples I have come across recently would be:彼は様子が変だ。　as opposed to: 彼の様子がおかしい。

I think that the ～は～が～だ。pattern is a very common one... um, I asked a friend this question once and got a strange answer (her english wasn't great) but it was something like this:

If we say 私の髪が長いです。then it makes the hair sound like it is not a part of you, as if it has been separated from you. So instead, it's better to say 私は髪が長いです。

Again... I don't know how much sense this makes... doesn't really make a ton to me, but that's what I heard

Any advice on deciding when to pronounce 上下 as うえした or じょうげ based on context？

The following iKnow sentences are examples of how differently they are used. They are a bit different, but I'm not going to let my mind set it in stone just basing it off of these examples.

彼は上下おそろいの服を着ていますね。＜ーーーうえした
彼は旗を上下に動かした。　＜ーーーじょうげ

Examples with pronunciations I am not sure of:
上下で曲を選んで
その人のくちびるは上下に広がって、(I'm reading The Witches by Roald Dahl in Japanese, and the witches in the book have mouths that grow wide from top to bottom as they smile and their lips resemble raw meat... love this book)

edit: Seconds after posting this, I came across another one in the dictionary:
口の中の前面に並んだ上下4枚ずつの歯.

Nuriko Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:Jarvik and pm: Thank you guys so much for your time! I really appreciate it!
I really want to make the jump to mono-dics, but I find it really hard at the moment. Maybe I just have to push through it, I don´t know.

Using monolingual dictionaries is always worth it. At first it's not necessary to go through the entire Japanese definition, and of course you can use an English dictionary to look up the definitions within the definition. As you're doing that little by little, you get more and more used to it and before long you'll be zooming through one definition after another. And since reading a monolingual dictionary helps you gain vocabulary, your need for the monodictionary itself will become more and more obsolete anyway. Good luck! I remember the feeling exactly. The feeling of frustration was there for some time but once you reach a certain point you may find yourself feeling very proud of your Japanese

Hehe, I´ll give it a shot then! Hopefully I´ll be able to do it, if I just take my time! Thank you!

I have a quick question. This sentence popped up in KO2001, and I just don´t fully grasp it.

日本テームは前半２点取ったが、後半３点取られて、逆転された。
The Japanese team scored 2 during the first half but the opponents scored 3 in the other half and the winning position was reversed.

Now, If I were to read it without that translation, I would read it as "The Japanese team scored 2 points in the first half, then 3 points in the second half." I know that 逆転された is added in the end, so is this the word that´s supposed to reveal that the opponent team scored 3 in the second half? Because both times when mentioning points scored the book uses 点る。I´m just confused, since the same verb is used, but the meaning is completely different. Help a brother? Thanks =)

The conjugation is different in 後半3点取られて
Three points were taken and with the nuance that it affected them (negatively).

As well as 取られて being passive (as Smackle points out) you can tell that the Japanese team lost just from 日本テームは [...] 逆転された , because this also is in the passive form. 逆転する is to move into the winning position from behind; 逆転される is to have your opponent do it to you. So the Japanese ended up losing.

I think it's worth making sure you've got a firm grasp of the passive (and the causative) forms; they do turn up a lot.

Thank you guys! Made things clearer!
I´ll hit grammar HARD once I finish KO2001... =)

Another one, if you guys have the time:

草原で草食動物が草を食べ、その草食動物を肉食動物が食べる。
Herbivores eat grass on the plain and carnivores eat herbivores.

I know that this is probably basic stuff, but the last confused me a little:
その草食動物を肉食動物が食べる。

I think I would´ve guessed that the carnivores eat the herbivores from the setting, but grammatically speaking - does the が article tell us that they are "the ones" that are eating? I´m so used to hearing/reading: blablaを食べる。where "blabla" is eating. When I first read the sentence I automatically thought that the herbivores were eating, because of the を article, but well... Obviously not! =)
I´m sorry for my stupidity, and I thank you guys for your patience!

Z...

Whenever を follows something, it has something done to it. So even omitting the 肉食動物が食べる part, you should suppose that something is happening to the 草食動物. From the first part talking about 食べる, I would suppose the second part would also have 食べる in it from context. But this is getting off subject and I don't know where I was going with this.

The が does mean that it is the 肉食動物 eating.

All in all, when you saw を, you should have assumed the opposite. を indicates that they are not doing the action.