Even if it can't be quite translated to English, someone should be able to explain it better than Tae Kim's, でしょう？

EDIT: Is this のだ the plain form of のです? Because here is perhaps another attempt to explain it, from Tim Sensei's tutorial.

turvy Wrote:Thanks @yudantaiteki. By the way, I wish I had figured out long before on my J studies that grammar is in fact very useful, not in order to compose sentences but to understand native material.

It is the biggest mistake I ever made - I was awesome at French and Spanish Grammar at Sixth form and neglected Japanese grammar I swallowed the lie it was easy compared to romance languages. I am currently searching for someone to teach me... I think if I spent more time in Japan (I've only spent ten days there) I would be better at grammar.

turvy Wrote:EDIT: Is this のだ the plain form of のです?

～のだ。　＝　～の／んです。 I guess you are right The latter is just more 丁寧.

丁寧に、丁寧に！
That's what my kinder students yell at me when I am checking their homework and have to trace this part with a grayed out checkmark (✓) on their workbooks. Apparently, I was not doing my job so well.

@HonyakuJoshua If I understand the grammar it helps me understand better the Japanese that I read or listen to, as simple as that.

@turvy
Try Maggie-sensei's explanation here and lesson 15 here for more explanations of のです. I hope they're of some use

Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin also has a good explanation of the のだ/んだ. Highly recommended because the book explains a lot of other things that trip up learners and it's hilarious because Jay Rubin is the ***** man.

Thanks I will check it out, I am sure I've seen that book before and you are right about the author if it's the same one who translated Norwegian Wood.

***

About the following sentences (please check if the translation is correct):

1) その試合は、雨のために中止されました。
2) その試合は、雨のために中止した。

1) The game has been cancelled due to the rain.
2) The game was cancelled due to the rain.

The implication is that (2) could have happened 10 years ago but (1) just did, that is, is in the recent past.

Number 2 is wrong. Number 1, just means the game was cancelled. There is no statement about when. される is passive. I think 中止になった would be more common. The implication of number 2 is that someone (probably the speaker) cancelled the match.

While I agree that there's no time implication here, I don't know about the "probably the speaker" part -- while the "indirect politeness" does leave the possibility that the speaker is the one who cancelled it, is it really the most likely assumption?

Yeah, usually you see 中止になった in that kind of situation.

I'm confused why you say that number two is wrong? 中止 is a transitive verb, and my dictionary gives examples like 「交渉を中止する」.

So, can't you say その試合は、雨のために中止した in some situations? For example, using a contrastive は. (As for that game, [the baseball association] canceled it due to rain.)

Or am I missing something?

I meant that the translation given was wrong.

edit: In my original reply, I meant to write: "The implication of number 2 is that someone (probably the speaker) cancelled the match."
that was a typo. I've fixed it now.

@yudan (edit: we actually agree, I had a typo in my original post)
Yeah, you could be right. Grammatically who cancelled is unstated so it is an assumption on my part. However when I try to consider the possible context of that sentence, it seems odd to me to use する unless the speaker is or represents the one doing the canceling. with された it's clear the match is the subject. But with した it leaves ambiguity regarding the subject and outside of some very particular contexts, I think the listener will interpret the speaker as the canceler.

@Tzadeck
Grammatically the sentence is fine, just odd I think. Unless [the basketball association] or whoever else is clear from context, I think the speaker will become the default implied subject.

Ah, I see, the typo really confused me about what "Number 2 is wrong" meant, haha.

Oh yeah, I agree 2 implies the speaker.

Oh I see it, I think. I forgot about the subject (what was I thinking?) and was thinking about passives and other evils, I mean, tenses. What I described was the difference between the simple past and perfect present in English, but that has nothing to do with what was going on there.

1) The game was cancelled due to the rain.
2) (Subject) cancelled the game due to the rain.

Is this ok?

墓の中で出産した子の為に
幽霊となって飴を買いに来る

Just lost...

blackbrich Wrote:墓の中で出産した子の為に
幽霊となって飴を買いに来る

Just lost...

Provide some context when you just post a quote, and be more specific about what you don't understand...

Something like "For the child that was born in the tomb, (s/he) becomes a ghost and comes to buy candy."

The quote was pretty much all of it. but heres the rest.

飴買幽霊
あめかいゆうれい

出現場所
京都

分類
幽霊

Its a sentence about a certain 妖怪

Link
I understood it apparently, it just doesn't really seem to make any sense anyway.

It makes sense.

I think it is from a catalogue listing different youkai.

飴買幽霊(name)
あめかいゆうれい

出現場所(where it appears)
京都(kyoto)

分類(type)
幽霊(ghost)

説明(explanation)

墓の中で出産した子の為に
幽霊となって飴を買いに来る( it (the youkai) turns into a ghost and comes to buy sweets for the kid it gave birth to in the grave)

The story of Amekaiyoukai, is that a pregnant woman gives birth to a child after being buried, and turns into a ghost each night for 7 days and buys sweets for her baby using the 六文銭 (fair for crossing 三途の川 in the underworld) for the first 6 days, and her 羽織 (short outer kimono jacket) on the seventh day. When the owner of the store hangs out the haori to dry the next day, a rich man (the woman's father) recognizes it and the owner retells what happened. The father visits the grave, and can hear a baby crying. He digs up the grave and finds a baby eating the sweets and the 六文銭 is gone.

You can read about it on wikipedia.

[edit: I suppose I should have googled before responding. haha]

This is just a guess, but one kind of ghost in Japan is thought to be women who die in childbirth. They stick around in this world in order to help their children. Could it be that the 墓の中で　isn't where the children are born, but where she appears as a ghost to buy candy for her children?

At first, I wondered if it meant 'children born in the grave', as in stillborn and aborted babies, b/c there's a custom of going to a temple (or to places those little stone statues with red bonnets are) to remember the souls of dead children and such babies. But if that were the case, they would be the ghosts, not her.

Maybe there's a particular tale associated with this 飴買幽霊 that you can find online.

nadiatims Wrote:The story of Amekaiyoukai, is that a pregnant woman gives birth to a child after being buried, and turns into a ghost each night for 7 days and buys sweets for her baby using the 六文銭 (fair for crossing 三途の川 in the underworld) for the first 6 days, and her 羽織 (short outer kimono jacket) on the seventh day. When the owner of the store hangs out the haori to dry the next day, a rich man (the woman's father) recognizes it and the owner retells what happened. The father visits the grave, and can hear a baby crying. He digs up the grave and finds a baby eating the sweets and the 六文銭 is gone.

You can read about it on wikipedia.

Yeh, there we go.
I guess I understood the sentence afterall, but didn't have the background for the story so it seemed ridiculous. I guess I should have took it for what it was considering its a "story" about 妖怪.

About this sentence:

ドアをバタンと閉めないで。

What is the function of と?.

turvy Wrote:About this sentence:

ドアをバタンと閉めないで。

What is the function of と?.

It's marking the the thud sound when you close a door

Thanks but how is that? I still don't understand. What's the grammar point so that I can look it up.

EDIT: I think it's the same case here:

雪がしんしんと振り積もる・・・オレの体に。

think of バタンと as adverbial phrase "with a thud". と means "with", and shows the manner with which an action takes place.

ドアをバタンと閉めないで。
Don't close the door with(と) a thud(バタン) > don't slam the door shut.

雪がしんしんと振り積もる・・・オレの体に。
snow silently and steadily (しんしん) collected... on my body.

Basically と affixes to the following adverb to show the manner in which the action occurs.

Ah! I see, that makes sense to me.