Could you help me verify the translation I came up with for this sentence:

俺は「黒渦団」のエリートで期待の新人だからして～。

"Since I am the anticipated newcomer within the elite of the 黒渦団."

It's been such a long time on here I forgot my old login! I was wondering if anyone could help me with this phrase. It's been given to me out of context, but it's something a man is saying to initiate conversation with a woman, I think.

”◯◯さん、心があさってですよ？"

This has come up a couple of times -
さん - verb endings

For ex:
聖なる翼よ　ここに集いて神の御心を示さん

I think it might be archaic; it shows up in the same context with things like 選ばれし者, and ーがよい

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:This has come up a couple of times -
さん - verb endings

For ex:
聖なる翼よ　ここに集いて神の御心を示さん

I think it might be archaic; it shows up in the same context with things like 選ばれし者, and ーがよい

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/214421/m0u/

enantiogramme Wrote:It's been such a long time on here I forgot my old login! I was wondering if anyone could help me with this phrase. It's been given to me out of context, but it's something a man is saying to initiate conversation with a woman, I think.

”◯◯さん、心があさってですよ？"

（心が）あさっての方向を向く is an expression for being absent-minded.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:Could you help me verify the translation I came up with for this sentence:

俺は「黒渦団」のエリートで期待の新人だからして～。

"Since I am the anticipated newcomer within the elite of the 黒渦団."

Yes, you're right.

Thanks! I eventually made sense of it using this link:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1129356236
as well as the previously posted site.

viharati Wrote:（心が）あさっての方向を向く is an expression for being absent-minded.

viharati, thank you so much! That makes perfect sense. Really appreciate it!

I'm confused about knowing when まで is inclusive or exclusive.
The Dictionary of Basic Grammar has this note but I don't see how it applies to the rest of the examples.
http://i.imgur.com/J8LnMpT.png
私は来週の月曜日まで休みます
I’ll be absent until next Tuesday

昨日は三時から五時まで友達とテニスをした
Yesterday I played tennis from three to five with my friend.
>>Exclusive here. Consistent with the Dictionary of Basic Grammar's explanation since 三時 is an instantaneous point in time so "until" works.

アメリカ人は毎週月曜日から金曜日まで働く。
Americans work every week from Monday through Friday
>>Inclusive here. Consistent since 金曜日 is a span of time (24hrs) so "through" is used.

山田さんは来月までいる
Yamada will stay here until next month.
>> Exclusive. Inconsistent (maybe) since 来月 is a span of time (1 month) but "until" is still used.

Examples below are taken from http://richardfremmerlid.com/viewentry.p...ntryID=685

そのパーティーは次の火曜日まで延長された。
The party has been put off until next Tuesday.
>> Exclusive. Inconsistent: 火曜日 is a span of time but "until" is used

火曜日まで待ってもよいのではありませんか。
You might as well wait until Tuesday.
>> Exclusive. Inconsistent: 火曜日 is a span of time but "until" is used

http://www.tjf.or.jp/hidamari/4_mondou/mondou08.html

I had a quick search i dunno but this might be helpful

Ash_S Wrote:http://www.tjf.or.jp/hidamari/4_mondou/mondou08.html

My Japanese is extremely limited (i.e. beginner level, only recently started core2k) so I need to crawl through a dictionary/Rikaichan to understand anything on that site. So I'm always 99% unsure about whether I'm interpreting something correctly ^.^

From what I gather, it's explaining the use of まで together with a negative verb.
They give the example: 「生ゴミは7日まで出せません。」 and say it's ambiguous and can be interpreted as either: "You can throw out the garbage on the 7th" or "You can throw out the garbage on the 8th"

Then the site says: when a negative verb/sentence is not used, there's not much ambiguity? (Why?)
生ゴミは7日まで出せます。
（7日がゴミを出せる最終日を表している。)
林さんは来週の水曜日まで休みます。
(水曜日が休む最終日を表している。)
In both these examples they give for a non-negative sentence, the まで is inclusive.

I'm still confused at まで with a non-negative sentence. But now I'm also confused at how making a sentence negative can change things.

quanticism Wrote:But now I'm also confused at how making a sentence negative can change things.

I guess you could say まで implies a special way of negating that concerns not only the verb but the whole statement. So if you have an interval [0;x] and b belongs to this interval and is まで's bound, then the negation of [0;b] with b included would be ]b;x] with b excluded.

In "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" (page 28) this phrase confuses me a bit: "英語でも、'Thank you for the other day' とか 'It was good to see you the other day' などと言えないことはないが、日本語の「先日はどうも」のような決まり文句にはなっていない。"

Specifically the と言えないことはない. According to a dictionary of intermediate japanese, ことはない means "There is no need to; not necessary; there is no possibility that; there is no chance to", but then, together with と言えない ("it cannot be said..?"), it's like a double negative or something? I can't really make sense of it.

Am I correct in interpreting the second part of the phrase as "Set phrases/platitudes like ｢先日はどうも｣ are inadequate/no good/etc)"?

ないことはない (明鏡国語辞典)

二重否定の形で、肯定の意味をやわらげたり強めたりする。ないわけではない。ないではない。なくはない。〔上の「ない」が形容詞の場合〕「自信なら─」「反対意見が─」〔上の「ない」が助動詞の場合〕「授業はつまら─」

"It's not that you can't say things like 'Thank you for the other day' or 'It was good to see you the other day', but they're not quite at the level of set phrases like '先日はどうも'".

And then I remembered that this had already been discussed before. http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid200974

Thanks a lot Vempele!

Hey, I'm making a short sketch before I go to Japan, and one of my friends is going to ask me to say something in Japanese. Annoyed by people constantly asking me to just say a random phrase, I'm going to respond by saying "Did you fart? It stinks." Would the most natural way to say this be おならはでしたか。臭いな！ Or would this be incorrect? Thanks!

atambohmer Wrote:Hey, I'm making a short sketch before I go to Japan, and one of my friends is going to ask me to say something in Japanese. Annoyed by people constantly asking me to just say a random phrase, I'm going to respond by saying "Did you fart? It stinks." Would the most natural way to say this be おならはでしたか。臭いな！ Or would this be incorrect? Thanks!

I'm not sure why you've decided to end it with はでしたか, but おなら would usually just be said as おならをする (or おならを出す). However, you'd most likely be saying this among casual company so you can simply say おならした？臭いな！I get the temptation to add 今、to the front of it though, like 'did you fart just now?' / 'did you just fart?', rather than simply 'did you fart?'.

I ended it that way because that's how I found it on the internet. I was skeptical, so I came here, haha. Thanks for the help. I appreciate it!

無事に落ち着くところで落ち着いた話題。
I'm not sure how ところ is used here. "the topic was resolved just as it was about to be resolved peacefully"??

I googled around and found some similar sentences.

ことはみな落ち着くところに落ち着く。
いつの世も、学者や知識人は言葉の乱れを嘆くものだが、落ち着くところに落ち着くということだろう。

Hey guys, not sure what the しようと is doing here... is it short for しようとする？

そんな世の中、悪を滅して善い事をしようと
奔走する一人の少女がいた・・・

I'm reading it as something like:
"In such a world, good is trying to destroy evil... was one girl running about."

If you learned しようとする as a set pattern, it's actually a specific instance of the more general volitional verb X + と + verb Y, meaning "Doing Y in an attempt to do X" (しようとする is somewhat idiomatic so it's not bad to learn is separately).

Also this is one sentence; 悪を滅して善い事をしようと奔走する is a modifier for 一人の少女. I assume this is from a manga or video game; one thing you have to get used to in both of those is that sentences often stretch across lines, and especially in manga it can be hard to see that because punctuation isn't used consistently and the breaking of lines has more to do with the size of the speech bubble than any natural break point for the sentence.

yudantaiteki Wrote:If you learned しようとする as a set pattern, it's actually a specific instance of the more general volitional verb X + と + verb Y, meaning "Doing Y in an attempt to do X" (しようとする is somewhat idiomatic so it's not bad to learn is separately).

Also this is one sentence; 悪を滅して善い事をしようと奔走する is a modifier for 一人の少女. I assume this is from a manga or video game; one thing you have to get used to in both of those is that sentences often stretch across lines, and especially in manga it can be hard to see that because punctuation isn't used consistently and the breaking of lines has more to do with the size of the speech bubble than any natural break point for the sentence.

ahhh, this makes a bit more sense. So the girl is running about in an attempt to rid the world of the evil?

Yes.

A simple sentence from the core deck.

彼女はめったに怒りません。
She rarely gets angry

The way I would understand that sentence is "She rarely doesn't get angry."

Can someone explain the translation?

めったに + a negative verb means the verb hardly ever happens. It has to go with negatives, like あまり (in most cases).