Ok now I get it Thanks so much yudantaiteki!

Yesterday I was watching Soul Eater and in the outro I heard these lines that I can't make out:

カミサマ　いるなら聞いてよ　いついつまでもこの瞬間
リピートできない毎日を見送らなくちゃ
(だからあともう少しだけって　子供でいたい...)

I don't really get this part: この瞬間リピートできない毎日を見送らなくちゃ in particular how 瞬間 and 毎日 are related.
Could it be translated as '(so that) I don't have to part forever with these days filled with(?) moments that can't happen again'? Can 毎日 also refer to everyday sort of as in a daily routine?

I looked up some translations online but the few I found were either too idiomatic or just plain wrong (I guess lol)

In 見送らなくちゃ, なくちゃ is a contracted form of なくてはいけない, so it'd mean "I have to part/leave behind"
I'd translate it like this:
"Gods, if you exists please listen, this moment can't be repeated forever, I have to part from the daily routine"

Jumpluff13 Wrote:In 見送らなくちゃ, なくちゃ is a contracted form of なくてはいけない, so it'd mean "I have to part/leave behind"
I'd translate it like this:
"Gods, if you exists please listen, this moment can't be repeated forever, I have to part from the daily routine"

Thank you You're totally right about the 見送らなくちゃ that was a terrible mistake on my end however I still can't understand the part about the days / daily routine and the moments, I mean if it were to be translated just like you said then shouldn't it be 'いついつまでもこの瞬間リピットできなくて毎日を見送らなくちゃ' ? With the て-form acting as a linker?

Edit: I've been thinking about it and maybe this is a slightly better translation 'God if you're there please listen to me, since I have to part with these days filled with unique moments I'd like to stay a child for just a little bit longer' however I'm still not sure about that 瞬間 - 毎日 part

Kuroro Wrote:カミサマ　いるなら聞いてよ　いついつまでもこの瞬間
リピートできない毎日を見送らなくちゃ
(だからあともう少しだけって　子供でいたい...)

(...)

Edit: I've been thinking about it and maybe this is a slightly better translation 'God if you're there please listen to me, since I have to part with these days filled with unique moments I'd like to stay a child for just a little bit longer' however I'm still not sure about that 瞬間 - 毎日 part

Yeah, I interpret it along the lines of: "God, if you're there, listen. Soon I'll bid a long farewell to these days full of these once-in-a-lifetime moments; so, just for a little longer, I want to be a child." That's assuming that what can't be repeated is この瞬間, but grammatically it seems ambiguous to me.

Well, maybe it's meant to be a bit ambiguous, it's a song after all. Anyway thanks as always Tzadeck, I really appreciate it

So it was like リピートできない acted as a "bridge" between 瞬間 and 毎日?
I treated the いついつまでもこの瞬間リピートできない 毎日を見送らなくちゃ like two spearated phrases,
but after reading Tzadeck's translation it indeed makes more sense to keep it as an unique phrase.
Thanks Tzadeck for clarifing this.

リピートできない is a modifier for 毎日, and my sense is that この瞬間 and リピートできない毎日 are supposed to describe the same thing.

Thank you yudantaiteki

At first I thought that the whole この瞬間リピットできない was acting as a modifier for 毎日 but the two nouns following one another (瞬間 and リピット) didn't really make sense, so I guess you're right.

My previous interpretation would have been correct if the line had been 'このリピットできない瞬間の毎日', right?

All things considered I would now translate it as 'God, if you're there, please listen to me. Since I have to part indefinitely with these moments, these unique days, I would like to stay a child for just a little bit longer'

The phrase in question can be heard here.

Sounds like (この瞬間リピートできない)毎日 to me, though the way it's written broken across lines certainly doesn't help with that interpretation

Thanks anotherjohn, well in any case at least I'm close to the right meaning now

Anyway I have another question, in the preface to a reading in the Nihongo sou matome series, I found these two lines:

事故にあっていただろう -> 実際は事故にあっていない

But as far as I know だろう indicates some sort of speculation, something that the speaker thinks might be the case, so from a sentence like the one above how can I draw such a strong conclusion?
I mean from 'it probably took place' to 'it didn't take place' there's quite a lot of difference in meaning, am I missing something? Is this related to the use of the past tense before だろう?

Context? Here's a deconstruction of a very similar sentence preceded by もし電車をのがしていなかったら　(even includes the exact words 実際は事故にあっていない, which is how I found it): http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...2111348087

Thank you Vempele in the book the sentence was split in half (the first part being もしのあの飛行機に乗っていたら -> 実際は飛行機に乗っていない) and I thought that, since both halves came with their own "arrow-related" explanation, there could have been a way to tell just from the second half. I stupidly ignored the conditional, sorry for the waste of time.

I'm reading through 斜陽 by 太宰治, and there's a sentence that's bugging me. I pretty much understand what the whole thing means (Jesus is sending out his disciples to expose the hypocrisies of the various scholars and such...), but there's a part I can't parse. The sentence is (copied from Aozora):

イエスが、この世の宗教家、道徳家、学者、権威者の偽善をあばき、神の真の愛情というものを少しも躊躇するところなくありのままに人々に告げあらわさんがために、その十二弟子をも諸方に派遣なさろうとするに当って…

the bit I'm confused about is:

告げあらわさんがために

It feels like this is contracted in some way I'm not recognizing, or I may just be missing something obvious... Any help is greatly appreciated...

ergerg Wrote:I'm reading through 斜陽 by 太宰治, and there's a sentence that's bugging me. I pretty much understand what the whole thing means (Jesus is sending out his disciples to expose the hypocrisies of the various scholars and such...), but there's a part I can't parse. The sentence is (copied from Aozora):

イエスが、この世の宗教家、道徳家、学者、権威者の偽善をあばき、神の真の愛情というものを少しも躊躇するところなくありのままに人々に告げあらわさんがために、その十二弟子をも諸方に派遣なさろうとするに当って…

the bit I'm confused about is:

告げあらわさんがために

It feels like this is contracted in some way I'm not recognizing, or I may just be missing something obvious... Any help is greatly appreciated...

you can look at ～んがために as a grammar point basically meaning ～するために:
http://viethuong.web.fc2.com/MONDAI/485.html

the ん comes from the old auxiliary verb む which attaches to 未然形. you see it in ～んとする as a modern grammar point too.

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1412020229
found this while searching the web too, the best answer goes quite in depth with the classical grammar if you care

Wow, that was a fast response! Thanks very much, I hadn't come across this form before, that's very helpful!

Hey, I'm going through Nayr's core 5000 deck, but I don't understand the furigana for one of the sentences:

Quote:行動を行さなければいけない。

(idx. 732)
The furigana is こうどうをおこさなければいけない, but I can't find (almost) any dictionary entries that have a word おこす spelled with 行.

Is there something I'm missing?

That seems to come from a book, but I think it's a mistake -- the normal way to write that is 行動を起こさなければいけない。 行さなければ gets so few hits on google that it's likely to be some sort of typing mistake. おこなう is usually written 行う, but apparently there is a rarer or older form 行なう, so maybe someone thought you could write おこす as 行す or just somehow managed to mess up the conversion.

(行う and 起こす are certainly etymologically related, but that's beside the point...)

I can't really understand this usage of にして, here are the three example sentences provided by my book:

先生にして間違えるのだから、できないのは当然である (considering that even a teacher)

竜巻が一瞬にして家を吹き飛ばした (in a moment)

彼は、医者にして、画家でもある。(not only, but also)

I wrote in brackets how I interpret its function, but I can't come up with a single definition. However since all these examples are meant to explain the same grammar point I guess there has to be one, can anybody help me out?

EDIT: The sentences are from the 日本語総まとめ N1 文法

yudantaiteki Wrote:That seems to come from a book, but I think it's a mistake -- the normal way to write that is 行動を起こさなければいけない。 行さなければ gets so few hits on google that it's likely to be some sort of typing mistake. おこなう is usually written 行う, but apparently there is a rarer or older form 行なう, so maybe someone thought you could write おこす as 行す or just somehow managed to mess up the conversion.

(行う and 起こす are certainly etymologically related, but that's beside the point...)

Let me ask you a question. If you were reading that, would that mistake even jump out at you? I scanned it, missed the problem, read your explanation, realized that I might well have scanned past the problem, showed to a Japanese speaker who did not react to it either.

I always wonder. when it gets few hits, is it all echos from one learner's mistake echo-ing through practice sentences, or a rare but consistent mistake natives make?

There was no way to make it spring out of the Google IME, FWIW. That's usually one way to find a rare but consistent odd kanji usage sometimes.

Kuroro Wrote:I can't really understand this usage of にして, here are the three example sentences provided by my book:

先生にして間違えるのだから、できないのは当然である (considering that even a teacher)

竜巻が一瞬にして家を吹き飛ばした (in a moment)

彼は、医者にして、画家でもある。(not only, but also)

I wrote in brackets how I interpret its function, but I can't come up with a single definition. However since all these examples are meant to explain the same grammar point I guess there has to be one, can anybody help me out?

EDIT: The sentences are from the 日本語総まとめ N1 文法

I've always interpreted にして as being similar to the copula, but used to express surprise (and, also, is chiefly used in writing). Not sure where I picked that up though. "Even though they 'are' teachers, (...)" "The tornado 'was' just for a moment, but.." "He 'is' a doctor, but..."

The 明鏡国語辞典 gives several definitions for にして:

1. 物事が実現する時間・段階などを表す。また、手段、方法を表す。・・・で。
2. 同類のことを並べ上げる。・・・であって同時に。・・・でありかつ。
3. 逆接を表す。・・・であるのになお。・・・なのに。
4. 幸不幸・運不運の評価を前置きして示す。・・・なことに。

I'm not sure it's necessary to try to encapsulate all of this in a single definition. Tzadeck's idea of the copula is probably pretty good, since する has a lot of uses that are very close to the copula (and I assume に here is the 連用形 of the old copula なり.)

kapalama:

Quote:Let me ask you a question. If you were reading that, would that mistake even jump out at you? I scanned it, missed the problem, read your explanation, realized that I might well have scanned past the problem, showed to a Japanese speaker who did not react to it either.

It jumped out at me in the context of this isolated phrase in a question by someone who didn't understand it. I have a feeling that if I saw it in context, I might not notice. Native speakers are so used to a set phrase like 行動を起こす that they are probably already anticipating it in the sentence and so regardless of what kanji pops up there they just read it as the おこす they were already expecting and move on without noticing.

yudantaiteki Wrote:That seems to come from a book, but I think it's a mistake -- the normal way to write that is 行動を起こさなければいけない。 行さなければ gets so few hits on google that it's likely to be some sort of typing mistake. おこなう is usually written 行う, but apparently there is a rarer or older form 行なう, so maybe someone thought you could write おこす as 行す or just somehow managed to mess up the conversion.

(行う and 起こす are certainly etymologically related, but that's beside the point...)

Thanks for the information. It makes the sentence much clearer. Thanks, man.

Tzadeck and yudantaiteki thanks a lot I think I'll try to memorize the various definitions that were put forward by yudantaiteki and use Tzadeck's idea to sort of tie them all together until I get used to seeing this expression.

Hey everyone, here's a sentence that's giving me trouble

なぜ彼は多少でも彼女に影響力というようなものを保つことができたか

not sure about the でも, and, という, and how 多少 fits within all this for that matter.