@kudokupo Thanks a lot, it makes sense now, so you can "stack" them.

Edit: There is an unanswered question from the page before this one. It was not my intention to start a new page with my thanks post.

qwarten Wrote:I have two questions.
Text:

「代わってあげたいけれど、あいにく私たちには祐麒君みたいにそっくりな弟がいないものねぇ」
　いたらいたで、何かしら理由をつけて絶対に代わってくれやしないはずだ。由乃さんの可愛《かわい》い顔が、今は悪魔にも見える。

1) いたらいたで. Does it mean "even if it were the case" or something like that?

This is the grammar pattern V~たらV~で which 日本語文辞典 describes as "対照的なことがらを取り上げて、どちらにしても同じだというお意味を表す", and gives examples like "金というのはあったらあったで使うし、なかったらないで何とかなるものだ" and "息子には大学に受かってほしいが、受かったら受かったでお金が要って大変だ". In your example I'd go for something like "Even if she did". (The book has a longer explanation and more examples.)

(Incidentally I was amused to be able to correctly guess that this was MariMite even though I haven't read the volume this bit's from :-)

Isbilenper Wrote:@kudokupo Thanks a lot, it makes sense now, so you can "stack" them.

[I'm deleting what I wrote here because I don't know if it's right -- んじゃない can mean "shouldn't have done X" but I don't know if that make sense here.]

The の is not feminine, though -- it's only feminine in a statement. In a question, it is used by men and women.

Quote:3) 一丁上がり. Does it mean simply "going one level (or whatever) further" or something else altogether?

It's an idiom that means something like "one down"; you can hear it sometimes in video games when a person defeats an enemy.　

Someone had this explanation on chiebukuro, which I think is good:
これは、「ひとつ（一丁）、できあがり」ということを、勢いをつけて言う言い方です

(It can also refer to dishes ready to come out at a restaurant but I don't think that's the case here.)

What is the difference between しょうがない and 仕方ない

しょうがない actually comes from 仕様がない (しようがない）.
However, しょうがない and 仕方がない mean the same thing. 仕方がない would probably be favored in written or formal Japanese, as しょうがない is a spoken variant.

Where I live people say しゃあないな instead of しょうがないね. =)

A little frustrated with myself here.

1. How do I correctly decline shop/store clerks when they ask things like "do you want to heat this up?", "do you want that in a bag?".

2. Whenever I am asked "do you have a point card?" I usually say "持ってないです". But I don't know if I should be saying "持ってありません" or something else. What is the most common answer here?.

3. Finally, how impolite would it be to reply with "ええ" instead of "はい" when confirming something?.

1.
I say 結構です for heating (and I've heard Japanese people say it).
いらない or いりません for the bag (for some reason people say いらない a lot even though it's in plain form)

2.
持ってないです is fine; I've heard Japanese people say it.
I usually say ないです or ありません.
(Incidentally, 持ってありません is incorrect Japanese. The ない in 持ってない is a slurred negative form of いる. It's not the negative of ある. It would be 持っていません。)

3.
Not impolite at all.

Thanks @Tzadeck.
Flawless victory.

pm215 Wrote:(Incidentally I was amused to be able to correctly guess that this was MariMite even though I haven't read the volume this bit's from :-)

A fellow MariMiter (?) . The volume in question is 特別でないただの一日.

Thanks @pm215 and @yudantaiteki.

Tzadeck Wrote:1.
I say 結構です for heating (and I've heard Japanese people say it).
いらない or いりません for the bag (for some reason people say いらない a lot even though it's in plain form)

Probably because the customer-clerk relationship has the customer superior to the clerk, so it's not mandatory to use polite language or even -masu forms, even though a lot of people do anyway.

結構です is fine; いいです and 大丈夫です are good too.

Quote:Not impolite at all.

はい is more polite than ええ -- I remember being corrected by a teacher when I first started taking classes for my Master's program because I was using ええ to respond to her. I think that as long as it's not a superior it's completely fine, and probably even some superiors may not care.

The other versions of 'yes' and 'no', albeit even less polite than ええ, are:
うん (an informal equivalent of はい) and ううん (an informal equivalent of いいえ)

yudantaiteki Wrote:Probably because the customer-clerk relationship has the customer superior to the clerk, so it's not mandatory to use polite language or even -masu forms, even though a lot of people do anyway.

This is true, but I pointed it out because people use the plain form いらない very often, even if they otherwise use です・ます form when talking to store employees.

I often here people do every other sentence with an employee in です・ます form, except いらない. Just kind of a strange thing I've observed.

Or maybe I'm wrong or exaggerating...? Or it could be a Kyoto thing?

Yesterday a girl said to me 「明日は雨でした。」
I said "It was rain tomorrow?" It seemed very strange, but she explained that it really means. "I found out it will rain tomorrow."

Anyone have any other examples of this strange mix of future and past? It was new to me.

eubankp Wrote:Yesterday a girl said to me 「明日は雨でした。」
I said "It was rain tomorrow?" It seemed very strange, but she explained that it really means. "I found out it will rain tomorrow."

Anyone have any other examples of this strange mix of future and past? It was new to me.

These example sentences are from the book はじめての人の言語学. It's a pretty light read but the target audience is native Japanese speakers so it makes for good practice.

明日は運動会だった！ - This is the sort of sentence you could expect to hear
someone say if they remember something that is going to happen in the future.

やっぱり、ここにあった。 - You could hear someone utter this sentence when they find
something they have been searching for.

買った、買った！ - This one is a bit different. It's actually a sort of imperative expression
that could be used by a salesman towards potential buyers for example. This type of usage make a lot more sense when you view た as a marker used to code not only tense but also aspect.

eubankp Wrote:Yesterday a girl said to me 「明日は雨でした。」
I said "It was rain tomorrow?" It seemed very strange, but she explained that it really means. "I found out it will rain tomorrow."

Anyone have any other examples of this strange mix of future and past? It was new to me.

We do this in English too, in spoken language.

"I'm not sure about going hiking tomorrow. I looked at the weather forecast in the paper today, and tomorrow was rain."

Fleskmos Wrote:買った、買った！

What's the meaning here?

Rayath Wrote:

Fleskmos Wrote:買った、買った！

What's the meaning here?

"Verb-た、verb-た!" is used as a sort of imperative command.

Imagine a hot dog salesman adressing people passing by his hot dog wagon with a phrase like: "Come buy some hot dogs! Fresh tasty hot dogs!". 「買った、買った！」 is used in a similar way.

Another example would be "どいた、どいた！" which would mean something like "Get out of my way!".

Actually, a 先輩 at my university wrote a descriptive account of this "imperative た" for his masters thesis so if you want to read more about it you could check out his paper: http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=...Id=1585445

Fleskmos Wrote:

Rayath Wrote:

Fleskmos Wrote:買った、買った！

What's the meaning here?

"Verb-た、verb-た!" is used as a sort of imperative command.

Imagine a hot dog salesman adressing people passing by his hot dog wagon with a phrase like: "Come buy some hot dogs! Fresh tasty hot dogs!". 「買った、買った！」 is used in a similar way.

Another example would be "どいた、どいた！" which would mean something like "Get out of my way!".

Actually, a 先輩 at my university wrote a descriptive account of this "imperative た" for his masters thesis so if you want to read more about it you could check out his paper: http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=...Id=1585445

Wow, this is so fascinating! I had to read your explanation very carefully to get the gist of that meaning, which I never heard about before, and even when I grasp it it felt odd that past tense can be used to create imperative. But then I looked at the link to the masters thesis that you have posted and there was also a little about that construction in my native language (Polish) there. But I wasn't aware that it exist when I read about similar construction in Japanese at all. And that construction really exist in Polish! So in fact it must be rather natural construction, to be in so many other languages as well. It's so cool. Thank you for your post, and thanks to your 先輩!

Rayath Wrote:

Fleskmos Wrote:

Rayath Wrote:What's the meaning here?

"Verb-た、verb-た!" is used as a sort of imperative command.

Imagine a hot dog salesman adressing people passing by his hot dog wagon with a phrase like: "Come buy some hot dogs! Fresh tasty hot dogs!". 「買った、買った！」 is used in a similar way.

Another example would be "どいた、どいた！" which would mean something like "Get out of my way!".

Actually, a 先輩 at my university wrote a descriptive account of this "imperative た" for his masters thesis so if you want to read more about it you could check out his paper: http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=...Id=1585445

Wow, this is so fascinating! I had to read your explanation very carefully to get the gist of that meaning, which I never heard about before, and even when I grasp it it felt odd that past tense can be used to create imperative. But then I looked at the link to the masters thesis that you have posted and there was also a little about that construction in my native language (Polish) there. But I wasn't aware that it exist when I read about similar construction in Japanese at all. And that construction really exist in Polish! So in fact it must be rather natural construction, to be in so many other languages as well. It's so cool. Thank you for your post, and thanks to your 先輩!

If you had to read my explanation carefully, that's probably because a sign that my writing is a bit unclear today. I've been struggling with my own thesis the whole day so I'm really tired

The thing about た is that it doesn't only mark tense (as in past tense) but also aspect (as in perfective aspect meaning that an action has been completed). In the sentence 「日本に行ったとき、寿司を食べるつもりです！」 for instance, た doesn't mark past tense as that would mean that the action has already occurred. Rather, it marks perfective aspect: "when I've gone to Japan" (at the time when "going to Japan" has been completed).

By the way, absolutely awesome to hear that you found the Polish example sentences useful! Talk about a nice coincidence ^^

Fleskmos Wrote:If you had to read my explanation carefully, that's probably because a sign that my writing is a bit unclear today. I've been struggling with my own thesis the whole day so I'm really tired

The thing about た is that it doesn't only mark tense (as in past tense) but also aspect (as in perfective aspect meaning that an action has been completed). In the sentence 「日本に行ったとき、寿司を食べるつもりです！」 for instance, た doesn't mark past tense as that would mean that the action has already occurred. Rather, it marks perfective aspect: "when I've gone to Japan" (at the time when "going to Japan" has been completed).

By the way, absolutely awesome to hear that you found the Polish example sentences useful! Talk about a nice coincidence ^^

Not at all, your explanation was good, it's just that the concept was rather hard for me as I haven't had any conscious contact with it before.
And seeing how much you know about the language, I'm sure your thesis will be perfect! Incidentally, I also will start writing mine in a couple of days, and it is about aspects! (damn, I know that I should know more about them, but to defend myself I will be writing about ている ておく and てしまう and not た)

Rayath Wrote:

Fleskmos Wrote:If you had to read my explanation carefully, that's probably because a sign that my writing is a bit unclear today. I've been struggling with my own thesis the whole day so I'm really tired

The thing about た is that it doesn't only mark tense (as in past tense) but also aspect (as in perfective aspect meaning that an action has been completed). In the sentence 「日本に行ったとき、寿司を食べるつもりです！」 for instance, た doesn't mark past tense as that would mean that the action has already occurred. Rather, it marks perfective aspect: "when I've gone to Japan" (at the time when "going to Japan" has been completed).

By the way, absolutely awesome to hear that you found the Polish example sentences useful! Talk about a nice coincidence ^^

Not at all, your explanation was good, it's just that the concept was rather hard for me as I haven't had any conscious contact with it before.
And seeing how much you know about the language, I'm sure your thesis will be perfect! Incidentally, I also will start writing mine in a couple of days, and it is about aspects! (damn, I know that I should know more about them, but to defend myself I will be writing about ている ておく and てしまう and not た)

While I am of course very happy to receive your compliments I still have a long way to go on my Japanese journey! Good luck with your thesis! Aspect is a very interesting subject and I'd be happy to read your thesis when you're done if it's going online

What is the line this man speaks in this video at that moment?

Sounds like あんまり自殺で「ひさぎをくしるなって」ことはありえないと思いますけれどね

TheTrueBlue Wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...f8#t=1087s

What is the line this man speaks in this video at that moment?

Sounds like あんまり自殺で「ひさぎをくしるなって」ことはありえないと思いますけれどね

あまり自殺で潔く死ぬなんてことはありえないと思いますけどね

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/109...%E3%81%84/

Thank you Ash_S.

This is actually a reverse phrase question.

When you give someone omiyage/food and they say ごちそうさま. What do you reply in response usually? Co-worker relation.