I was almost going to give up on this. Thank you.

EDIT: I'm not so scared of the quirky のに anymore

delta, about the "wish" meaning - I noticed the examples in your link are:
[conditional verb] + [いい/よかった] ＋　[のに]

(Although) it would be good if X (that isn't actually the case)
(Although) it would have been good if X (that wasn't actually the case)

So not that much different from your explanatory "Even though she learned this before...(she forgot the answer)" Perhaps it's better to think of のに　as having its usual concessive sense in these examples too rather than meaning "wish"? I suppose the whole phrase can mean "wish" in the sense that you wish that circumstances were/had been different. But keep in mind that it might be more of a complaint or indirect admonition ("you ought to have...").

@Thora
Absolutely. Now, I didn't master のに suddenly, but I don't believe we need a separate grammar point such as wishful のに either. It's all the same thing.

Are the following interpretations valid of this sentence:

やってみないと分からない

*If you don't try and see, you don't know.
*You don't know unless/until you try.

EDIT: Thank you マガモ.

delta Wrote:Are the following interpretations valid of this sentence:

やってみないと分からない

*If you don't try and see, you don't know.
*You don't know unless/until you try.

Good in some context and wrong in other context. For instance, the speaker may be saying, "Don't know. No one has tried it." when talking about if a new idea works out. This is a very common usage, especially when following さぁ〜. Another very frequent use is to mean something along the line of "You can't win/succeed if you don't try." In this case, it's just a general phrase to encourage someone to do something when he hesitates out of fear etc. This is often used with the ending being 〜分からないじゃん, 〜分かんないでしょ or something along those lines. The literal meaning still kind of works though.

Are 辞書、辞典、字引 all interchangeable? Are there any notable differences?

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/thsrs/1...%E6%9B%B8/

As far as my personal experience goes, I've seen 辞典 in the names of dictionaries and stuff but everybody seems to use 辞書 when talking about dictionaries in general. I've never heard 字引 used at all ><

I'm not sure but I think 字引 is more of like a character dictionary.

I found a dictionary online that says that 辞典 is a somewhat newer word than 辞書, and is often used since the Meiji Era in the titles of dictionaries. And apparently 字引 is a slangy way to refer to a dictionary.

And in general my experiences line up with Ash_S's. Though, outside of titles I often here 辞典 when the type of dictionary is further specified (for example, English->Japanese dictionary is often said 英和辞典). If you're just talking about any old dictionary I usually hear 辞書.

Could someone shortly explain the difference between 広がる・広まる? Aren't they identical!?

So, one of my lang-8 posts' sentences was corrected to this:

バース大学での勉強が始まる

Can anyone explain wath the での means here?

Tori-kun Wrote:Could someone shortly explain the difference between 広がる・広まる? Aren't they identical!?

広がる - stretch/spread out
広まる - disseminate

The first is like physical spreading, while the second is like spreading the word.

Stian Wrote:So, one of my lang-8 posts' sentences was corrected to this:

バース大学での勉強が始まる

Can anyone explain wath the での means here?

"The studying that occurs at Bath University begins" is a fairly literal translation I think. There really isn't anything strange going on here I guess it just might be confusing since the two particles are used together. で refers to where the studying takes place, and の refers to the "studying at Bath University". It's kind of hard to explain (for me anyway) but I hope it's enough to be able to grasp the meaning.

on asking for things, can someone please explain to me the difference between:
僕に電話を掛かってくれる？
and
僕に電話を掛かったくれない？
nuance-wise...? thanks

dtcamero Wrote:on asking for things, can someone please explain to me the difference between:
僕に電話を掛かってくれる？
and
僕に電話を掛かったくれない？
nuance-wise...? thanks

Erm.. Shouldn't it be　電話をかけてくれる? The first one is wrong, because かかる is intransitive as far as I know and the latter one, I cannot see how た connects with くれる o_o

ya sorry thanks for pointing out two mistakes in my question... ok rephrased:

電話を掛けてくれる？
vs.
電話を掛けてくれない？

dtcamero Wrote:ya sorry thanks for pointing out two mistakes in my question... ok rephrased:

電話を掛けてくれる？
vs.
電話を掛けてくれない？

If I had to guess I'd guess that the only difference is in the (non-) directness of the question. Like how in formal settings you tend to say things in more roundabout ways.

Taishi Wrote:"The studying that occurs at Bath University begins" is a fairly literal translation I think. There really isn't anything strange going on here I guess it just might be confusing since the two particles are used together. で refers to where the studying takes place, and の refers to the "studying at Bath University". It's kind of hard to explain (for me anyway) but I hope it's enough to be able to grasp the meaning.

Like Taishi says, it's best to think of this as the plain ol' particles で and の, and not as some new construct "での". Then it makes sense. It's a pretty common usage. Here's another example from きみにしか聞こえない　by 乙一:

シホにはアサトの力のことを話していなかったので、街灯の下でのオレらの無言のやり取りを理解できなかった。

It starts to make sense now. Thank you, guys!

A girl who likes and keeps pets says, when asked of how she's been:

今朝、飼いネコのねこ吉に、ひっかかれそうになったんだ。信じてだからショックで...。

Does this mean she fell into a box of cat litter? And then was scared she was really trapped?

TheTrueBlue Wrote:A girl who likes and keeps pets says, when asked of how she's been:

今朝、飼いネコのねこ吉に、ひっかかれそうになったんだ。信じてだからショックで...。

Does this mean she fell into a box of cat litter? And then was scared she was really trapped?

Looks like she thought she was going to get scratched. ひっかく also means 'to scratch', so ひっかかれる means 'to be scratched'.

ひっかかる can mean to be trapped, but ひっかかれそう means 'it looked like I was going to be able to get trapped', which is really odd.

I'm not sure where you think it says litter box? ねこ吉? I don't know exactly what that means but was thinking it was the name of the cat (there's a pet magazine called 犬吉猫吉 so maybe she took the name from that?).

(Litter box is usually 猫砂）

Also, are you sure it's not 信じてたから rather than だから?

Tzadeck Wrote:

TheTrueBlue Wrote:A girl who likes and keeps pets says, when asked of how she's been:

今朝、飼いネコのねこ吉に、ひっかかれそうになったんだ。信じてだからショックで...。

Does this mean she fell into a box of cat litter? And then was scared she was really trapped?

Looks like she thought she was going to get scratched. ひっかく also means 'to scratch', so ひっかかれる means 'to be scratched'.

ひっかかる can mean to be trapped, but ひっかかれそう means 'it looked like I was going to be able to get trapped', which is really odd.

I'm not sure where you think it says litter box? ねこ吉? I don't know exactly what that means but was thinking it was the name of the cat (there's a pet magazine called 犬吉猫吉 so maybe she took the name from that?).

(Litter box is usually 猫砂）

Also, are you sure it's not 信じてたから rather than だから?

I agree with the meaning of ひっかかれそう. I think 吉 is used as a suffix in names similar to 丸, as I saw it being used that way in a TV show recently.

信じてだからショックで...。 makes perfect sense to me as it is. "(Please) believe me, because (I) am in shock/it was a shock..." something along those lines.

Taishi Wrote:信じてだからショックで...。 makes perfect sense to me as it is. "(Please) believe me, because (I) am in shock/it was a shock..." something along those lines.

That could be, but the punctuation for that interpretation is pretty strange so my initial thought was that it's a typo. Could just be lazy typing on her part though.

If it were 信じてたからショックで it would mean 'I trusted that cat, so I was surprised (that it tried to scratch me).'

Tzadeck Wrote:

Taishi Wrote:信じてだからショックで...。 makes perfect sense to me as it is. "(Please) believe me, because (I) am in shock/it was a shock..." something along those lines.

That could be, but the punctuation for that interpretation is pretty strange so my initial thought was that it's a typo. Could just be lazy typing on her part though.

If it were 信じてたからショックで it would mean 'I trusted that cat, so I was surprised (that it tried to scratch me).'

Ah, now that you say it, that definitely sounds like a possible interpretation. It does sound very natural considering the context.

Ok I had thought it was nekokichi brand cat litter -
https://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en...pn2N5Gjf8o

but it turns out it is indeed the name of their pet cat. I had read that nekokichi means a cat enthusiast but that doesn't make too much sense in this sentence.

Also 信じてたからショックで is right, Tzadeck got it.

Thanks again to Tzadeck and Taishi.