mirina Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:仕事が回っていることを自覚して please can someone translate this for me?

仕事が = work
回っていることを = circulating well; getting done
自覚して = be conscious of

So, essentially, "Put your attention towards work getting done."

...true as far as it goes, but the part IceCream quotes here is missing the first part of the clause whose head is こと; if you look at the whole thing:

Quote:そういう女性たちに支えられて 仕事が回っていることを自覚して

you get something closer to "be conscious of the fact that work is done supported by those women". ("bear in mind that the work we do here depends on those same women" would be a more natural phrasing, I think.)

("仕事が回っている" seems from google to be a fairly common phrase, although annoyingly not one I could find a definition for.)

Quote:牙むく

牙を剥く (きばをむく) : 敵意を露骨にあらわす。(from 大辞林)

pm215 Wrote:...true as far as it goes, but the part IceCream quotes here is missing the first part of the clause whose head is こと; if you look at the whole thing:

Quote:そういう女性たちに支えられて 仕事が回っていることを自覚して

you get something closer to "be conscious of the fact that work is done supported by those women". ("bear in mind that the work we do here depends on those same women" would be a more natural phrasing, I think.)

Ah, good point, I should have paid attention to the whole thing rather than just focus on the small pieces.

IceCream Wrote:Anyway, i've never seen ろ at the end of conjugated verbs, i think... please could you give a snapshot / link of the manga page with it in?

I was curious too, so I Googled 「支えてろ」 I think it's a shortened command form of ～ている which seems to agree with this.

http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~wildbear/yurakusabo/ninja3.html

So, we have three comedic 忍者: くれない、ちゃすけ、and きいきい丸 plus a kite.

くれない　　わかった。おれがのる。そのかわり、しっかりあげてくれよ。手、離すんじゃないぞ。

ちゃすけ　　がってん、承知のすけ！よおし、じゃ、きいきい丸、おまえ、支えてろ。おれが走るからさ。

きいきい丸　　ＯＫ！くれない、がんばってね。（支えて）こうかな？

Not sure about 「たろ」though.

I hope it's ok to ask a complete noob question (only 1.5 weeks into sentences). I watch the jdrama My Girl and I keep hearing a phrase that sounds like そゆかた and cannot for the life of me find it, or any variant of it, in dictionaries and google searches. I swear I've heard it fifty times in the 250+ hours of drama I've watched. Can someone please put me out of my misery?!

Wow, I should have asked earlier, that's definitely it! I didn't bother with the subs because I can barely read right now anyway, but I suppose it couldn't hurt. Thanks Icecream!

IceCream Wrote:Anyway, i've never seen ろ at the end of conjugated verbs, i think... please could you give a snapshot / link of the manga page with it in?

Judging from the context, I think wildweathel is right. My first instinct was that it was a shorted command form, I just couldn't verify it. I'd post a screenshot of the page here, but it's on my other computer.

Got another question for y'all though - this is from the Core2000 deck, again:

「その質問に対する答えが見つからなかった。「」
I couldn't find an answer to that question.

Now, everything makes sense there, except for the fact that I can't understand what purpose 対する performs here. It has several definitions, according to EDIC, but I'm having a tough time seeing how they would fit. My first guess is it's being used sort of like: "the question that (I) am confronted with, I could not find an answer to."

That looks a little convoluted to me though. Do I have the right idea here, or am I off base?

brandon7s Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:Anyway, i've never seen ろ at the end of conjugated verbs, i think... please could you give a snapshot / link of the manga page with it in?

Judging from the context, I think wildweathel is right. My first instinct was that it was a shorted command form, I just couldn't verify it. I'd post a screenshot of the page here, but it's on my other computer.

Got another question for y'all though - this is from the Core2000 deck, again:

「その質問に対する答えが見つからなかった。「」
I couldn't find an answer to that question.

Now, everything makes sense there, except for the fact that I can't understand what purpose 対する performs here. It has several definitions, according to EDIC, but I'm having a tough time seeing how they would fit. My first guess is it's being used sort of like: "the question that (I) am confronted with, I could not find an answer to."

That looks a little convoluted to me though. Do I have the right idea here, or am I off base?

に対する is what you're looking for. Tip for developing deconstructive skills: Start wider than necessary when you're stuck (i.e. copy/paste and enter into dictionary search), then zero in on minimal, most logical selection. (The dictionary will cut stuff off, so that helps guide you.)

Also (re: てろ): http://books.google.com/books?id=xaXukH7...22&f=false

nest0r Wrote:に対する is what you're looking for. Tip for developing deconstructive skills: Start wider than necessary when you're stuck (i.e. copy/paste and enter into dictionary search), then zero in on minimal, most logical selection. (The dictionary will cut stuff off, so that helps guide you.)

Ah, you're right. I didn't even think about it being an expression. I'll keep in mind to expand the search next time.

Quote:Also (re: てろ): http://books.google.com/books?id=xaXukH7...22&f=false

Very handy! That explains a lot.

brandon7s Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:Also (re: てろ): http://books.google.com/books?id=xaXukH7...22&f=false

Very handy! That explains a lot.

The other ending you asked about was たろ, which I think is a compressed たろう which in turn is from ただろう. There's an example at the start of

where it's translating "didn't you?"...

Some questions for you guys

B: なあ。あいつムカつかない？
A: 誰ですか？
B: あのニューヨーク市警の日本人だよ。あいつ大して俺らと年変わんねえんだぞ。
A:１００人近い捜査の指揮官ですからね。あの年で俺たち末席ですもんね。
B: バカヤロー。

I really don't understand the "あいつ大して俺らと年変わんねえんだぞ。１００人近い捜査の指揮官ですからね。" part. I struggle with 年変わらない thing, I really don't get it. Therefore I don't really understand the answer, especially the １００人近い thing - does it mean that he's a commander for 100 people, that's somewhat close to him? Haha, man, just gambling here...

Another one:
ただの空き家に見えて隠しコンパートメントだらけだったらしい。
I don't think I understand the ただ in this sentence. Or maybe I'm just trying too much.
Does it mean something along the lines of: Looked in the ordinary vacant house, and it seemed to be full of hidden compartments.
Or?

Thank you guys!

Zorlee Wrote:I really don't understand the "あいつ大して俺らと年変わんねえんだぞ。１００人近い捜査の指揮官ですからね。" part. I struggle with 年変わらない thing, I really don't get it.

年 here means 'age' -- so 'he's not that much older than we are' (...so why's he ordering us around/acting like he's way above us/whatever it was he was doing).

Quote:Therefore I don't really understand the answer, especially the １００人近い thing

...means "nearly 100 people".

Quote:Another one:
ただの空き家に見えて隠しコンパートメントだらけだったらしい。
I don't think I understand the ただ in this sentence. Or maybe I'm just trying too much.

ただ here goes with 家, so ただの空き家 : "just an empty house"

Quote:Does it mean something along the lines of: Looked in the ordinary vacant house, and it seemed to be full of hidden compartments.

This is 見える (to look like, to seem, to appear), not 見る -- your guessed translation suggests you've missed the distinction...

ただの空き家に見えて隠しコンパートメントだらけだったらしい。is a slightly odd sentence if you're not in on the context. I would guess a proper translation would be something like:

While it seemed like just an empty house, it was filled with hidden compartments I've heard.

The main big deal here is that 見える and らしい are usually translated as seems, which makes little sense in this sentence. It can't look like JUST an empty house and still SEEM like it has hidden compartments.

Ah! Thank you so much, both of you!
You guessed right, Tobberoth - your translation makes much more sence. I just forgot the whole 見える / 見る difference, so thank you for pointing that out, pm215!

PS: pm215 - just ordered the grammar book you suggested earlier in this thread. I'm looking forward to having a good grammar reference! =)

1) having problems with the word くら暗. in the audio version it's read くらやみ, but haven't been able to find any reference to 暗 being read やみ (nor any reference to くら暗 in any dictionary). so, is it read くらやみ, or did the reader get it wrong?

context:
何しろどちらを見ても、まっ暗で、たまにそのくら暗からぼんやり浮き上っているものがあると思いますと、それは恐しい針の山の針が光るのでございますから、その心細さと云ったらございません。

2) the words 良い, 好い and 善い, are they usually read as いい or よい? or is it context-dependent? is there a difference in meaning? is there a difference in kanji usage?

3) does the word 云う have a different meaning than 言う? or is it just old kanji usage?

you've got it mixed up, it's 暗やみ or 暗闇. The 暗 is くら not やみ

quincy Wrote:you've got it mixed up, it's 暗やみ or 暗闇. The 暗 is くら not やみ

Googling for bits of the quote brings up the aozora text of the story, so if there is a mistake it isn't dbh2ppa's.

Hello! =)

あの映画は有名な小説に基づいて作られました。

The に particle in this sentence - does it indicate both the basis on which the action takes place AND that it's the agent of the passive verb? Or just the first (in combo with 基づく)?
My guess would be that it only indicates the basis on which the action takes place, since a novel can't be an agent (right?)

I'm just thinking out loud here, waiting for someone better than me to enlighten me =)

Thanks!

Zorlee Wrote:あの映画は有名な小説に基づいて作られました。

The に particle in this sentence - does it indicate both the basis on which the action takes place AND that it's the agent of the passive verb?

Xに基づいて is a standard unit meaning something like "based on X"; most grammar references will have an entry for it, I expect (as does EDICT). So 小説 connects to it and not to 作られました.

Thank you!
Yeah, I've seen it before, but I was just wondering if に connected to both of them.
Thank you clearing that up! =)

Zorlee Wrote:Yeah, I've seen it before, but I was just wondering if に connected to both of them.

I'm going to confidently assert that you can't have one に doing two grammatical jobs at the same time like that, because if I'm wrong this is the quickest way to find out ;-)

As far as I know you're right; I don't think you can have に connecting to two different words at the same time.

sennahoj Wrote:What "一と言ってもいいくらい" mean in this Death Note sentence and other places I found on Google?

"僕は日本一と言ってもいいくらいの、 真面目な優等生だよ. "

Thanks in advance.

You parsed it wrong, it's 日本一(best in Japan)といってもいい(is OK to say, i.e. "can say")くらい(level)

pm215 Wrote:

quincy Wrote:you've got it mixed up, it's 暗やみ or 暗闇. The 暗 is くら not やみ

Googling for bits of the quote brings up the aozora text of the story, so if there is a mistake it isn't dbh2ppa's.

but is it a mistake?

dbh2ppa Wrote:but is it a mistake?

A Google search for "闇暗"　and "くらやみ" produces quite a few results that suggest it can be read that way, so I'm guessing in your case it's 闇暗 with くら in the place of 闇. Based on what little older Japanese I've read, they often have readings that are pretty bizarre to people used to modern Japanese, but I heard from some Japanese guy on another forum that older works also use a lot of 振り仮名, so I'm not sure if you're actually supposed to be able to read these on sight or not.

dbh2ppa, くらやみ is correct. I had the same question. Here's what I found:

Akutagawa uses くら暗in some of his other works. Other writers used it a few years later (1920s). Some editors provided the やみfurigana (which suggests it wasn’t a common reading). Some earlier editions of the spider story had changed くら暗 to くら闇. Not all the furigana in the original draft made it into the published version, so perhaps they wanted to make it easier to read. In any even, it was corrected in subsequent editions.

I see that 暗is read as やみin other places in this story too:
-そのひつそりとした暗の中を
-今ではもう暗の底に

I read that the first appearance of くら暗 was in this story. Which suggests Akutagawa either coined くらやみ (?) or put kanji to an existing word along the lines of the ateji word 無暗(むやみ). The word 無暗 had already appeared in the story: その命を無暗にとると云う事は、いくら何でも可哀そうだ。afaik, 無暗 is the only word where 暗is read やみ. Here’s how you’ll see it written now: (Google hits)
無闇(280K)　　 無暗(60K) むやみ(に)　(~900K)　

It’s interesting to compare these numbers to results forくらやみ:
暗闇(2.8 mil) 暗やみ(170K) くらやみ(280K).

暗and 闇 are basically kanji synonyms. fyi my dictionary lists other hard to read words that use(d) either kanji:
くらがり・とうげ【暗峠･闇峠】
くらぶ・やま【暗部山･闇部山】

I’d love to know Akutagawa’s reason - seems like there must be one. He’s a poetic writer who's very precise with metaphor, sound and ambiguity. He’s obviously using やみ figuratively, but either 闇or 暗would have worked for that. I can make out a couple slight meaning differences in the dictionary, but since I have no idea what differences existed at the time, it’s nothing more than blind speculation. It's possibly just a play on 無暗 (showing ambivalence about Buddha's light and justice.) Perhaps Aijin or someone who has an etymological dictionary or a literature Prof handy could let us know?

Kind of amusing that one of the meanings of 闇 is: not being able to read. hehe

Edit: btw- I don’t think 闇暗 is a word. I see a character named 闇暗 魔夜（やみくら まや）from a light novel called くろかの、Maybe it's a name in games or shows or something?