yudantaiteki Wrote:I'm pretty sure you can do command form of continuous actions. It works out to "Do this and keep doing it" or something like that. I've never seen an accent or dialect where ている was ていろ.

Okay, I'll remember that there is a continuous command form.
(I found one on ALC, 砲撃があるかもしれないから、頭を低くして隠れていろ。// There may be gunfire, so keep your head down.)

However, I have trouble believing the case in question is a command form. Maybe it's just a typo. I can't find any examples of command+ってな other than this one.

It is a command form. If u search google with quotes you will find more. The person is just combining Those two grammar things its perfectly fine. Maybe they were quoting someone or emphasizing it or whatever

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:I'm pretty sure you can do command form of continuous actions. It works out to "Do this and keep doing it" or something like that. I've never seen an accent or dialect where ている was ていろ.

Okay, I'll remember that there is a continuous command form.
(I found one on ALC, 砲撃があるかもしれないから、頭を低くして隠れていろ。// There may be gunfire, so keep your head down.)

However, I have trouble believing the case in question is a command form. Maybe it's just a typo. I can't find any examples of command+ってな other than this one.

Google Sensei is a smart feller

A typo in an extremely popular manga would be fun but it's not a typo.
It's a command form but it's not being thrown directly at the people he's talking about. He's just "speaking for everyone" when he says that those guys should just go out and play war. The "quote" here is the equivalent of him saying something like, "It's like, "..." am I right?"

If it's not a command, this scene suddenly makes less sense.
(But don't worry, it's a command.)

[PS. you can also have a continuous action volitional sentence.]

Yeah, ろ it's usually abbreviating だろう or the imperative for いる, I was confused about the な actually (embarrassed). ああ, so it's like a masculine form of ね, ったく I think I knew that too (well I had to…).

Anyway, here's a bit more of the scene:

ハンネス「それに壁の外をうろつくヤツらを見かける機会があるんだが…ヤエレン「じゃあそもそもヤツらと戦う覚悟なんてないのね！？」

ハンネス「ねぇな」

エレン「だったらもう駐屯兵団なんて名乗るのやめて壁工事団にしなさいよ！」 にこの50mの壁をどうこう出来るとは思えねぇんだ」

ハンネス「しかしなエレン…俺たちが役立たずで馬鹿にされてる時の方がみんな平和に暮らせるんだぞ？」

エレン「うぅ……」

兵士「ハンネスの言うとおりだ、まったく…壁の外にでる調査兵団って連中の気が知れねぇ…」

兵士「勝手に戦争ごっこに興じてろってな」

エレン is frustrated that these guys are not fighting titans so he's implying that they should go and fight them. The other guard is like saying to himself "that<って> we have to be having fun (imperative) <興じてろ> playing soldiers<戦争ごっこ> eh?<な>"

youasuki Wrote:エレン is frustrated that these guys are not fighting titans so he's implying that they should go and fight them. The other guard is like saying to himself "that<って> we have to be having fun (imperative) <興じてろ> playing soldiers<戦争ごっこ> eh?<な>"

Just for further clearing up-ness,
The previous sentence, followed by the guard's use of "勝手に" and a commanding sentence makes this seem to be pointed at the soldiers outside the walls. He can't understand why they would want to be there but they can go and do that- if they want.

They're not playing war inside the gates- they're just getting drunk and laying around. That's what Elen's mad about.

Actually, nothing like it shows up by searching google with quotes, but the addition of excluding ってなに I hadn't thought of, and that does get some examples.

Anyway,
I -think- that if it were ている it would say,
"They are amusing themselves playing at war"
but since it's apparently ていろ then it must say,
"They should amuse themselves playing at war"
... I think.

If not I don't know what this usage is doing.

I don't see how it makes more sense to say that they 'should' do ... what they are actually doing.

It's not "should", it's imperative. He's saying what he wants to tell the soldiers outside the wall -- "Go on enjoying your war games by yourselves!" If I were making a natural English translation of the manga I would go with something like "Those ass-holes can go on playing their little war games without us!"

Results do show up with quotations alone and I'm simply taking out ってなに　(note the minus sign) to make the results more obvious.

It's not a "should" it's an.. indirect command? :p Since they aren't present. This is what he'd like to say to them because he can't understand their drive to leave the walls. My explanations are maybe a bit.. hard to understand? But they aren't maybes and this explanation gave me deja vu! :/

That explanation makes more sense then everything else said about this structure. Thanks, yudantaiteki.

Thank drdunlap, I didn't completely understand it either until his explanation.

We said basically the same thing in different ways. However, I'm glad you found his wording more understandable so things could finally get cleared up. ;]

The structure is quite simply the command form being used in a colloquial way. The thought process behind it is Japanese, not English, much like the other 99.9% of Japanese, so it doesn't always make sense when being turned to English.

And thanks, yudantaiteki, for the more natural English translation. My English and Japanese brains don't communicate quite well enough most of the time for my translations to be any good. :| At least for them to be satisfactory in an explanation such as this. Maybe. I don't know.

In Core 2000, the sentence 「あなたは何かスポーツをしていますか。」 is translated as "What sport do you play?"

(this translation would imply that the speaker knew/took it for granted that the listener plays some sport, but it doesn't sound like the japanese sentence makes this implication...)

Isn't a more direct translation "Is there some sport you play?" or "Do you play some sport?"

Yes. I prefer your translation. You're understanding the sentence correctly

Yeah I remember coming across quite a few like that where the translation wasn't as direct as it could be. Perhaps to make it sound more natural in English I don't know... There are also times where the transitivity of verbs are changed and so on.

Are the two pronunciations of 'glass' interchangeable? It seems that ガラス is more common based on SRS I've done. When is グラス okay? Thanks

tashippy Wrote:Are the two pronunciations of 'glass' interchangeable? It seems that ガラス is more common based on SRS I've done. When is グラス okay? Thanks

ガラス = 硝子 = glass as in the material. グラス = drinking glass.

グラス can also be grass (only in katakana compounds?).

I was wondering what is the difference between 云う and 言う. There seem to be many kanji's with the same meaning with pretty much no differences like 聞く and 訊く.

There is a difference. It's a nuance. When i come across issues like that I google the words and 違い. An easy one I can explain is 会う 遭う 逢う
The second is for disasters like if u come across a bear
Third one is if you're meeting a lover
First one is just meeting anyone.
Depending on the kanji u can incorporate the nuance u want

聴く = hear (esp. listen to music and such), 訊く = ask, 聞く = either.

what about 云う and 言う? same meaning?

云う and 言う

After some poking around, it seems that in contemporary usage, it can be used to provide the nuance of more or an utterance or vagueness as opposed to a more discrete sound, such as a specific quotation or words used, or a specific sound. Some people seem to have the opinion that it more-so something employed at whim by the author, to create a certain feeling, as the kanji is an older form.


Someone with concrete knowledge will hopefully correct this explanation.

云う I think is mostly just associated with older Japanese.

One thing you have to be careful of when looking at these kanji differences is that you can find many web pages where Japanese people explain differences between these kanji that very few Japanese people actually observe. You can also look in sources like the Kanjigen or the Kanji Kentei materials and find very fine distinctions, which, once again, you'll rarely see Japanese people actually doing.

My personal guideline is the Microsoft IME and the Koujien. These explain major kanji differences but don't bother with the very close ones that hardly anyone pays attention to. For 言う vs. 云う vs. 謂う, both the IME and Koujien list all three kanji but don't explain the difference -- my interpretation of that is that most Japanese people don't know or care about the difference between these (which matches my intuition from what I've seen in native materials).　

You should also pay attention if the IME identifies one kanji as 一般的; this means that many people will use that kanji for all uses, and only some people will make a distinction. So for きく, 聞く is marked as 一般的 and the IME does explain the differences between the others. So my feeling is that if you only use 聞く that's perfectly fine. Koujien says 広く一般には「聞」を使い、注意深く耳を傾ける場合に「聴」を使う. No note is given for 訊く.

Thanks for the help guys

Personally I would just use 言う but there was this game I was playing and they used the 云う writing all the time. So I was just wondering if I understand it correctly.

Probably the game was just using it to give an archaic flavor.

Can someone explain to me (or link to an explanation of) the different uses of くせに? It's one of the common words i still wonder about when i hear it. Thanks