Mmm, I see, would お届きのご希望時間 mean more or less the same thing?

I guess I'm not clear enough?

delta, if you get a chance to take a look at the ALC sentences, you'll see that when 手元　is used in the sense of keeping something "handy" (eg "Have your passportｓ/ID handy/ready"), it means physically readily available, at hand, close by, etc. It's not synonymous with "convenient" [more generally]. It wouldn't make sense in your sentence to say that the delivery times are [convenient b/c they're] 'in your hand', 'readily available', 'near you' etc.

btw, 手元　doesn't have to be literally in one's hand, but nearby or in one's possession as in: keeping supplies 'on hand', 'local' copies of documents', 'local' terminals, request to have something 'kept' for you, etc. It's a way of describing who has possession of a product - so a rental agreement might calculate the rental period from the date the product arrives in customer's お手元 to the date it gets returned to company's 手元.

Quote:would お届きのご希望時間 mean more or less the same thing?

I see various combination which appear to mean the same thing. Not sure if including お手元 can affect the meaning or not. It might just be a matter of what sounds better in a particular sentence. If お手元に can convey a distinction between acceptance by the customer and mere delivery to a location, though, that might be significant in some situations. edit in []

What do you mean? Taking @yudan advice (that conceded you were saying the same thing) "the time you would like to have the package in your hands" I rephrased it to お届きのご希望時間. I think I don't have a problem understanding the general idea of 手元 "at hand, ready", like in most example sentences I've read, the issue is understanding its usage in the current (my) example.

Maybe I'm not understanding. :-) To clarify:

If you meant that you were to select the redelivery period that was handy for you (= convenient time), I don't think that's interpretation works.

As yddt mentioned, if the sentence is from the automated voice, there seems to be some transcription oddities. Perhaps you could double check the sentence. For eg, why is it only 5 to 7? Could it be 'select one from the x numbers' or something? Is one of the をs possibly a 表　or の? Are the instructions also written on the card?

One possibility is that お手元の希望時間　refers to the unsuccessful delivery notice you already 'have in your hand'. They're instructing you to enter the number corresponding to your desired redelivery time by referring to the list of available times printed on that card.

For the bare bones noun modifier interpretation already mentioned ('the time that you want to receive the package'), perhaps it's worth mentioning that sometimes noun modifiers in Japanese require you to fill in a bunch of stuff? In other words, the modified noun isn't necessarily the subject or object or any obvious element in a modifying clauses. But if you google, you can see many examples where all the elements are explicit.)

[edit: I enjoy thinking about these kinds of questions, but I hope that tossing out possibilities is more likely to generate other responses rather than stifle them.]

I have a quick question...

ティッシュを取ってください。
Tissue as direct object and "take" for the verb in polite imperative form. What causes it to mean "Please pass a tissue" instead of "Please take a tissue"?

Just idiomatic use. The ください means that the taking of the tissue will be for the speaker's benefit, so 99.9% of the time that would indicate "give me the tissue". (EDIT: This same technical-but-not-really ambiguity exists in English if you say "Get a tissue for me".)

放課（ほうか）とは、小学校・中学校・高等学校で、その日の授業が終わることを言う。

What does その日 mean?

delta Wrote:放課（ほうか）とは、小学校・中学校・高等学校で、その日の授業が終わることを言う。

What does その日 mean?

"That day"

"放課 means the ending of that day's classes in elementary, middle, or high school."

Tori-kun Wrote:This has been bothering me for a quite a while now and I was thinking of opening a topic on that, but decided not to hoping the explanation is short and fits this thread better

This troubles me: たら・と・とき. A friend sent me an email using たら in an unconditional sense, which I understood, but I have troubles differentiating when to use とき（に／は） and when たら to express "when" in Japanese. Besides, と can be used also to express purely temporal stuff.....

In general I would say that the two have virtually the same meaning, however depending on the context and what it is exactly that you want to say, which one you use could vary.

When you study ～たら you learn that once X happens, then Y can happen (so the cause for Y is based in X, which is the conditional). So for example, 映画館に行ったら、ポップコーンとアイスクリームを買います。 means that you buy popcorn and icecream when you go to the cinema (and perhaps with the nuance that if you don't go there then you don't really buy them). Where as 映画館に行く時に、ポップコーンとアイスクリームを買います。 just suggests that you buy popcorn and icecream at the cinema. I think there is more intention or relationship between the two things with ～たら vs. general statement for 時に/は, which also includes the ～たら meaning somewhat.

Have a look at the following explanation

「～とき」と「～たら」の違い

SendaiDan Wrote:Where as 映画館に行く時に、ポップコーンとアイスクリームを買います。

This means "Before I go the cinema, I buy popcorn and ice cream."

yudantaiteki Wrote:

SendaiDan Wrote:Where as 映画館に行く時に、ポップコーンとアイスクリームを買います。

This means "Before I go the cinema, I buy popcorn and ice cream."

*行った時に

yudantaiteki Wrote:

delta Wrote:放課（ほうか）とは、小学校・中学校・高等学校で、その日の授業が終わることを言う。

What does その日 mean?

"That day"

"放課 means the ending of that day's classes in elementary, middle, or high school."

Ah, I think I see it now. I think it would be better to say "the" instead of "that" though, as it (in this case) doesn't refer to a particular day but all possible days when there is class.

"the end of the day's classes"

By the way, does this mean 放課 = 放課後?

Not really, 放課後 is after 放課. I'm not sure 放課 is used that often on its own, tough.

To me, "the end of that day's classes" is perfectly natural in a definition like that. ("That day" meaning "the day you are talking about").

Tori-kun, I know you asked for something brief, but here's a paper comparing the use of toki, tara, and tokoro (your other favourite). It provides an overview of previous explanations (Dict of BJG, Martin, Kuno et al) and tries to improve on them. There are plenty of examples (it's shorter than it appears) and no theoretical goobledygook. :-)

The author, Priya Ananth, compares them based on:
1. Time clause vs conditional
2. Effect of particles following
3. Tense/Aspect sequences
4. Subjects in each clause
5. Volitional action
6. Time gap between the events in the 2 clauses
7. Continuity between the two events

Conclusion:

Quote:For past events, while tokoro constructions have restrictions on the usage of non-volitional actions/states in S1, —tara and toki are not restricted in that aspect. In case of volitionality in S2, same subject control as well as speaker control is not allowed for both —tara and tokoro. Relatively speaking, of the three, toki seems to be the least restricted and can be used almost in all the situations where —taro and/or tokoro yield ungrammatical sentences. However there is restriction on the usage of toki based on the inherent aspect of subordinate as well as main clauses.

I think if you pay attention to how tense/aspect works with toki, and jot down when the connectors are not interchangeable, you'll have all you need. (Don't expect to remember everything, though. Just refresh your memory with a brief summary from time to time, as needed.)

Thora Wrote:The author, Priya Ananth

Hey I know her, she went to OSU.

Yeah, I thought you might. I often come across stuff by OSU people. It seems like a strong program.

Thora Wrote:Tori-kun, I know you asked for something brief, but here's a paper comparing the use of toki, tara, and tokoro (your other favourite). It provides an overview of previous explanations (Dict of BJG, Martin, Kuno et al) and tries to improve on them. There are plenty of examples (it's shorter than it appears) and no theoretical goobledygook. :-)

The author, Priya Ananth, compares them based on:
1. Time clause vs conditional
2. Effect of particles following
3. Tense/Aspect sequences
4. Subjects in each clause
5. Volitional action
6. Time gap between the events in the 2 clauses
7. Continuity between the two events

Conclusion:

Quote:For past events, while tokoro constructions have restrictions on the usage of non-volitional actions/states in S1, —tara and toki are not restricted in that aspect. In case of volitionality in S2, same subject control as well as speaker control is not allowed for both —tara and tokoro. Relatively speaking, of the three, toki seems to be the least restricted and can be used almost in all the situations where —taro and/or tokoro yield ungrammatical sentences. However there is restriction on the usage of toki based on the inherent aspect of subordinate as well as main clauses.

I think if you pay attention to how tense/aspect works with toki, and jot down when the connectors are not interchangeable, you'll have all you need. (Don't expect to remember everything, though. Just refresh your memory with a brief summary from time to time, as needed.)

Interesting paper but the romaji in there made my head want to explode...

Romaji is standard in linguistic papers. Very recently they've started including kanji/kana in addition to the romanization, though. (EDIT: I think many papers use the Hepburn romanization instead of Nippon-shiki/JSL, but Priya's time at OSU probably influenced her choice of JSL there.)

From Core 6K -

彼には貸しがあるの。 = He owes me one.

What's the best way to understand this grammatically?

How would one say "I owe him one" instead? (Different verb?)

What would 彼は貸しがあるの mean in comparison? (He has an active loan, with no idiomatic meaning?)

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm confused.

headphone_child Wrote:From Core 6K -

彼には貸しがあるの。 = He owes me one.

What's the best way to understand this grammatically?

I have lent him. (he should return) Thus, he owes me.

headphone_child Wrote:How would one say "I owe him one" instead? (Different verb?)

彼に借りがある。

headphone_child Wrote:What would 彼は貸しがあるの mean in comparison? (He has an active loan, with no idiomatic meaning?)

He has lent (someone else), and thus someone owes him. But I don't think you'd find this to be a very common expression.

Quick Q: How do I say "whatever"

Like, "this song isn't that great."
"whatever"

Jombo Wrote:Quick Q: How do I say "whatever"

Like, "this song isn't that great."
"whatever"

I would shoot:
まあいいや。

and dunk...

Jombo Wrote:Quick Q: How do I say "whatever"

Like, "this song isn't that great."
"whatever"

Without hearing the context or tone of voice I can't tell what "whatever" means here -- there would be various ways to say it depending. Inny Jan's suggestion is good if it means "That's fine, play it anyway."

The feeling is supposed to be sort of "It's fine, I don't really care" like I'm shrugging it off.

Also, when would you use "どうでもいい"? Would it work here?

Hope excluding the rest of the sentence still allows people to help me, but I was stumped on 「電流が流れていようといまいと」. This is from Hunger Games and earlier in the sentence she grabs her bow and quiver, and later in the sentence it says how the electric fence was successful in driving off all the carnivorous animals. So in the sentence in question I understand it's talking about electric current flowing but not sure as to いようといまいと in particular.