ああ 人が歩いて行く　毎日も過ぎてく
どうにかなってゆくよ　そんなこと口では言っても

どうにかなって?
どうにか どうにか (adv,vs) in some way or other; one way or another; (P) どうにかなってゆくよ　そんなこと口では言っても
is this it? natte parts kind've confusing me. is it nau (to do)? when is nau usually used if it is
http://youtu.be/puB0yhbQj8w

Tolerence91 Wrote:ああ 人が歩いて行く　毎日も過ぎてく
どうにかなってゆくよ　そんなこと口では言っても

どうにかなって?
どうにか どうにか (adv,vs) in some way or other; one way or another; (P) どうにかなってゆくよ　そんなこと口では言っても
is this it? natte parts kind've confusing me

Yes, basically どうにか + なる + ていく. I'd go for "even if I tell myself it'll all work out somehow" as a translation I think.

Quote:is it nau (to do)? when is nau usually used if it is

I hadn't encountered that meaning of なう before, which suggests to me that to a first approximation that you can assume it's always なる and never なう :-) Also EDICT says it's a suffix after a noun, which isn't the case here.

That なう "to do" never stands alone; it's a suffix that is part of certain verbs like 伴う and 商う. You should basically forget it exists.

I'm reading an article about Japanese monkeys and child-rearing. It talks about how mother monkeys balance caring for their young and forcing their young to learn to do things by themselves and be more independent. Sometimes the baby monkey tries to act hurt or something so the mother will pay attention to it and take care of it.

Then there's this paragraph:
こんな状況は、子育てをした人なら誰しも経験があることだろう。いつかも動物園で若い夫婦が子どもと歩いていた。子どもが転び、いかにもどこかけがをしたかのように泣き叫び、母親を見て助けを求めた。母親はちらっと見て、にっこり笑った。「さあ、自分で起きなさい」というわけが、子どもの方ががんばるので、母親は根負けして子どもを抱き起こし、泣きじゃくる子を一生懸命あやした。私たちの子どものころは、まるでサルの子同様に扱われていて、母親の邪険さを恨んだものだがと苦笑させられた。

A couple of questions.
What is the も in いつかも doing?

What's going on grammatically at 恨んだものだがと苦笑させられた part? I don't understand だがと.

Also, I'm wondering if this story about going to the zoo is supposed to be purely hypothetical or something that the writer actually saw. At the end he says 苦笑させられた--does that mean that when he saw the event above it made him laugh wryly since it reminded him of how monkeys treat their young? Or is it that it's hypothetical, and that since he's learned how mother monkeys treat their young, when he thinks about how human mothers do this too, it makes him wryly laugh?

I think the も is just emphasis. It looks like a hypothetical story -- something that happens a lot. The last part is quoting -- 母親の邪険さを恨んだものだが(まだ愛している、いい育ち方法だな、など）と（思って）苦笑させられた。

I felt like trying to translate this last phrase and here is my attempt, any comments?

(The English is broken, but as long as the translation is close to the original message I don't care.)

私たちの子どものころは、まるでサルの子同様に扱われていて、母親の邪険さを恨んだものだがと苦笑させられた。
"As for the time when we were children, handling in a completely the same way as ape’s child and blaming mother’s cruelty made me smile bitterly."

Inny Jan Wrote:I felt like trying to translate this last phrase and here is my attempt, any comments?

(The English is broken, but as long as the translation is close to the original message I don't care.)

私たちの子どものころは、まるでサルの子同様に扱われていて、母親の邪険さを恨んだものだがと苦笑させられた。
"As for the time when we were children, handling in a completely the same way as ape’s child and blaming mother’s cruelty made me smile bitterly."

Well, I would say that 'completely the same way' is too strong a statement for what the Japanese implies. It sounds a lot more like 'as if we were monkey children' to me.

Also, it should be 'having been handled' or 'being handled' rather than 'handling.' 'Handling' would be 扱っている.

恨む does not mean blame here, it means 'resent.' In this context, 'cruel' is probably also the wrong word since it sounds too harsh. Tough love, hardheartedness, or coldness might be better.

Also, in your translation you make the 'blaming' of the mother's cruelty as what made him smile bitterly, but that's not what's making him smile bitterly. He's reflecting on the whole situation, rather.

I think cruel was the translation of 邪険, which is fine. "Cruel" sounds harsh, but so does 邪険; I think it was intentionally chosen to be somewhat exaggerated.

I did simplify the translation and made couple of shortcuts but I wanted to see how far is my understanding of the sentence from what more proficient folks would come up with. I didn't have many successes in the past, so in general I'm happy that I was not completely wrong. Cheers.

There was no chance of your translation being correct, since what you wrote doesn't actually make any sense in English. So, I'm a little confused about what your purpose is. It's okay to leave it clunky when you're just worried about understanding, but I think you should at least make it cohesive.

As I said, I don't care about being correct in English - I care about Japanese, or rather understanding of thereof.

To fix somewhat the English version though, I would rephrase it to:
"As for the time when we were children, being handled in the same way as the ape’s child and resenting my mother’s cruelty made me smile bitterly."

But this time it's an exercise in English and it adds nothing to my understanding of the Japanese.

I'm not sure why you think that. Your second post (while it still has a couple mistakes that I can see more clearly now) is a lot closer to the Japanese than your first post, in a really direct way. Not just in a 'being better English' way. It better reflects, for example, what's going on grammatically in the Japanese.

English is my second language and, for the purpose of Japanese studies, I let myself lower the bar. I'm not using my native language because most of the materials I have are in English and going from Japanese through English to Polish would just be waste of time.

In the process, I may sometimes come off as not being cohesive in English - my apologies.

___事を悩んではいけない。
を
で
に

I run into situations all the time where I want to say something but dont know which particle seems appropriate and searches show all of them being used with various frequency. It is rather frustrating to attempt to learn particles with a seemingly arbitrary set of rules. The above example is one of such times. Which one is right? Does it matter?

sikieiki Wrote:___事を悩んではいけない。
を
で
に

I run into situations all the time where I want to say something but dont know which particle seems appropriate and searches show all of them being used with various frequency. It is rather frustrating to attempt to learn particles with a seemingly arbitrary set of rules. The above example is one of such times. Which one is right? Does it matter?

In this case they all look rather odd since you don't generally have a particle at the start of a sentence. The closest would be で but I'd expect a following comma. Have you not given us the first half of an example sentence, perhaps?

pm215 Wrote:

sikieiki Wrote:___事を悩んではいけない。
を
で
に

I run into situations all the time where I want to say something but dont know which particle seems appropriate and searches show all of them being used with various frequency. It is rather frustrating to attempt to learn particles with a seemingly arbitrary set of rules. The above example is one of such times. Which one is right? Does it matter?

In this case they all look rather odd since you don't generally have a particle at the start of a sentence. The closest would be で but I'd expect a following comma. Have you not given us the first half of an example sentence, perhaps?

Yeah, did you blank out the wrong part of the sentence or something?

Oops, meant something like...

XXX事_悩んではいけない。

に悩んで　feels the most natural to me.

Space alc is often good at times like this because it has so many example sentences. Search for 悩んで and you get hundreds.

pm215 Wrote:

Tolerence91 Wrote:ああ 人が歩いて行く　毎日も過ぎてく
どうにかなってゆくよ　そんなこと口では言っても

どうにかなって?
どうにか どうにか (adv,vs) in some way or other; one way or another; (P) どうにかなってゆくよ　そんなこと口では言っても
is this it? natte parts kind've confusing me

Yes, basically どうにか + なる + ていく. I'd go for "even if I tell myself it'll all work out somehow" as a translation I think.

can you or someone break it down a little more. naru as in to become or something else?

Tolerence91 Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:Yes, basically どうにか + なる + ていく. I'd go for "even if I tell myself it'll all work out somehow" as a translation I think.

can you or someone break it down a little more. naru as in to become or something else?

Yes, that naru. (That is such a basic and common word that if somebody is talking about 'naru' in a grammar discussion without some other context/kanji/labelling then you can assume that's the one they mean.)

okay thanks for the help pm215. I guess I interpret it as
どうにか + なる + ていく
by becoming one way or another I will go on. I hope thats right. sounds kindve weird to me

Tolerence91 Wrote:okay thanks for the help pm215. I guess I interpret it as
どうにか + なる + ていく
by becoming one way or another I will go on. I hope thats right. sounds kindve weird to me

It sounds weird because you're interpreting なる　as the person becoming something and going somewhere, when it's more like the state of affairs will become something and go on into the future.

"Somehow or other it becomes something that goes on" ... this literal translation also sounds strange but is closer to the meaning, if you think of the 'it' as the generic 'it' of the related English phrase "It will work out somehow."

@somecallmechris okay thanks for the literal translation. i get it now

So I just started reading the manga 日常 - technically it's not the first manga I've read in Japanese, but it might as well be.

I'm understanding most things with the help of dictionaries and Google, but this sentence has stumped me a bit. I think I get the gist of it, but the grammar seems weird. Context: a kokeshi doll has just fallen from the sky and hit a girl on the head.

「でも人生の中でこけしに当たるなんてなかなかないからね」

I'm pretty sure of the non-bold parts (But of all the things in the world, being hit by a Kokeshi doll...); but correct me if I'm wrong. The bold part is what I'm struggling to understand.

Could someone explain to me the meaning and grammar involved? I think なかなかない is like 'is by no means' and から is... well, I don't know! Nothing it could be seems to make too much sense to me.