電気がついたままですよ。

I don`t understand what ついた is doing here or where it comes from. Anyone know?

callmedodge Wrote:電気がついたままですよ。

I don`t understand what ついた is doing here or where it comes from. Anyone know?

点く

What does this sentence mean? I saw it in a instruction manual:


重りをつけた糸は床の垂線になる。

yudantaiteki Wrote:

tnall Wrote:Hi everyone. I was reading 日本人の知らない日本語 and came across a page that I couldn't really make heads or tails of. Could someone tell me what this sentence means? ”いにしへ奈良の都の八重桜けふ九重に匂ひぬるかなって句が有名じゃない？” Here's the page for context:

It's a classical Japanese poem, which is probably why you had trouble -- it's poem 20 in the 百人一首 (which I promise i'll continue! Don't shoot me!"

The って句が有名じゃない? Just means "Isn't that poem famous?" Which it is, being in the 百人一首.

A rough translation of the poem is "The eight-fold cherry blossoms that bloomed in old Nara capital are now especially brilliant in the palace." There's a wordplay on 九重, which is a poetic word for the palace, and I suppose a "nine-fold cherry blossom" which doesn't really exist.

Thank you for the explanations, kitakitsune and yudantaiteki. Just one more question about the allusion to this poem: I'm not getting the pun in "ならだけに匂う." What's the joke? o_o

animehunter123 Wrote:What does this sentence mean? I saw it in a instruction manual:


重りをつけた糸は床の垂線になる。

What kind of manual is that?

It's a strange sentence and I wish I knew what the bigger picture is. It's basically like, "the weighted string becomes perpendicular to the bed". Which of course makes no sense to me.

Its from a fishing rod manual. It had a picture of a bodder.

Thanks so much. I think it means maybe, the weight from the string makes it fall and become perpendicular to the ground?

Maybe its saying the weighted string becomes perpendicular to the floor. I could see that making slightly more sense, for what I'm not sure. I see why context is so emphasized in this thread.

edit: I'm no fisher, but before you cast out the rod do you need a certain length of line to start casting?

床 can be a riverbed so it makes sense now.

Thank you so much. That made a lot of sense!

tnall Wrote:Thank you for the explanations, kitakitsune and yudantaiteki. Just one more question about the allusion to this poem: I'm not getting the pun in "ならだけに匂う." What's the joke? o_o

It's a pun on 奈良 (the city) and おなら (fart). 匂う in the poem means "pretty", but she's implying that it means "stinky".

animehunter123 Wrote:What does this sentence mean? I saw it in a instruction manual:

重りをつけた糸は床の垂線になる。

The 重り here would be a "sinker" in English fishing terminology: オモリ

It's not referring to the weight of the line itself.

Does this sound odd? Particularly the underlined part.
研究の焦点が私の興味と合わせそうかもしれません。 ("Your research focus and my interests seem to overlap.")

I'm trying to write something that passes as close to semi-formal as I can manage, to a professor at a Japanese uni. (Probably don't even need to do a translation to JP since most profs should have some English ability and since its a Top 3 school....).

Wouldn't it be more clear to say kenkyuu no shouten to watashi no kyoumi
- I don't think kyoumi is the right word but I don't Know what you're writing Abt exactly

And I think the last part should be
Atte iru kamoshiremasen

Post it on lang8 for corrections before you send it

Typically in writing formal messages to professors, you don't say anything that can be taken to imply that you are putting yourself at the same level as the professor. Rather than saying your interests overlap, it's better to say something like "I am interested in X so I think I can learn a lot from you" or the like.

The relevant line from my initial mail to the professor I'm working with now was:XX大学で聴講生として受け入れていただき、源氏物語の旧注釈研究に御高名なXX先生のご指導を仰ぐことができますならば幸いです。 (Of course, if the rest of the e-mail isn't that level it will sound odd; I used a guide and had my e-mail read by several native Japanese so this was not my own writing.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:Typically in writing formal messages to professors, you don't say anything that can be taken to imply that you are putting yourself at the same level as the professor. Rather than saying your interests overlap, it's better to say something like "I am interested in X so I think I can learn a lot from you" or the like.

And just goes to show the cultural gap between West and East mindset. That never even really occurred to me :facepalm:. I guess part of that might be though that I saw/experienced some of the mental reprogramming that goes on in Western grad school programs. My mentor, and I heard from other students too, constantly emphasized the need to stop referring to other professors and the like as "Dr.so-so" since they were soon going to be Dr.'s themselves and be fairly equal. Also professors like when people have interest in their fields.

Quote:The relevant line from my initial mail to the professor I'm working with now was:XX大学で聴講生として受け入れていただき、源氏物語の旧注釈研究に御高名なXX先生のご指導を仰ぐことができますならば幸いです。 (Of course, if the rest of the e-mail isn't that level it will sound odd; I used a guide and had my e-mail read by several native Japanese so this was not my own writing.)

Ya that sounds so much more like what I am aiming for. My keigo is such crap. I guess I'll hold off on this email till I can run it by more Japanese people after I have written it out in 'Barbarian.'

Lavasioth Wrote:

Crispy Wrote:

Lavasioth Wrote:雨が降ったなら試合はなかったはずです。明日雨が降るなら試合はないでしょう

Why is the first one a legit use of nara, while the second isn't?

I suck at explanations so apologies in advance but generally なら is used for giving advice or an opinions. The second one doesn't seem to give any opinion, it's just saying "if it rains there won't be a game" and so it's not "proper" use. The first however suggests the game should have been cancelled if it rained. Hope that helps, someone feel free to jump in and give a better explanation if they can.

Thanks, got it. In the second one then, what conditional could you use instead of nara?

I think you could just use 〜たら or 〜ば they're pretty much just plain old "if" statements. 〜たら sounds more natural to me personally but (that's not saying much and) I don't think there's much of a difference anyway.

Hello all! I've been catching up on the posts of my favorite Japanese blogger lately, and I keep coming up on this word that neither Jisho nor wwwJic bring up. She keeps saying

登園していきました

I gathered by pictures and surrounding text, that it has something to do with a school or Kindergarten. Maybe it's "To pick up from school"? Or "To drop off"? Or maybe something to do with commuting in general? Anybody out there who knows what this means? Thanks!

http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E7%99%BB%E5%9C%92

baikinman Wrote:Hello all! I've been catching up on the posts of my favorite Japanese blogger lately, and I keep coming up on this word that neither Jisho nor wwwJic bring up. She keeps saying

登園していきました

I gathered by pictures and surrounding text, that it has something to do with a school or Kindergarten. Maybe it's "To pick up from school"? Or "To drop off"? Or maybe something to do with commuting in general? Anybody out there who knows what this means? Thanks!

It just means kindergartenera are going to day school or whatever youchien is in English.

Have you heard of words like toujou or toukou

It's a variation of that

animehunter123 Wrote:Its from a fishing rod manual. It had a picture of a bodder.

Haha, why would you not say this at the beginning?

Tzadeck Wrote:

animehunter123 Wrote:Its from a fishing rod manual. It had a picture of a bodder.

Haha, why would you not say this at the beginning?

animehunter123 doesn't give context; that seems to be his thing. I've asked him so many times to give context for his requests that I've just given up. If I see one of his posts and I don't immediately understand it, I just skip it and don't waste my time.

(Especially in cases like this -- one of the things that annoys me the most on this forum or on TJP is when a question goes like this:

Q: What does this sentence/word mean?
Me: [I'm not sure, so I do google search/etc, and find the answer] Here's the answer.
Q: Oh thanks! Now I'll give you the relevant context that would have let you figure out the answer immediately if I had given it to you before.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:

animehunter123 Wrote:Its from a fishing rod manual. It had a picture of a bodder.

Haha, why would you not say this at the beginning?

animehunter123 doesn't give context; that seems to be his thing. I've asked him so many times to give context for his requests that I've just given up.

Haha, my comment was meant to be a new strategy in encouraging him to post context. Telling him straightforwardly doesn't seem to work.

Few quick questions her:

1. うちの息子は遊んでばかりいる - Why is there an iru at the end?

2. Whats the difference in. 上がる　上る　あがる、のぼる、when they both can mean go up?

Lavasioth Wrote:Few quick questions her:

1. うちの息子は遊んでばかりいる - Why is there an iru at the end?

That's how you use ばかり with a te-iru construction; you put it between the -te form and the iru. You see this with さえ also, for example トキ…病んでさえいなければ!!

Lavasioth Wrote:Few quick questions her:

1. うちの息子は遊んでばかりいる - Why is there an iru at the end?

To add on to yudantaiteki's answer, this is a standard grammar item that you should be able to find in any grammar dictionary. It may even be JLPT2 or something like that.

Lavasioth Wrote:2. Whats the difference in. 上がる　上る　あがる、のぼる、when they both can mean go up?

They are used with different subjects/objects. Check out some example sentences for each one and you should start to see some patterns.