I'm running into a little bit of confusion in sentences like this:

菓子業界が始めたイベントですが、便乗する人たちもいます

Specifically regarding the も particle. I know how the particle works most of the time but not here. I'm used to seeing patterns where it's used for inclusion with a previous sentence, but here there is no nothing to be inclusive with.

I just can't quite pin down what も gives in this sentence over が. Any tips?

jpkuelho Wrote:僕がどうもそういうのが好きではなかったので

whats どうもうそういうのが　supposed to mean?

"I didn't/wouldn't have really liked something like that"?

そういうの = that kind of thing/something like that
どうも's meaning is really ambiguous to me and I have a really hard time figuring out how to properly translate it.. in this case I'd say it means something like "really/not really".

That's my best guess.

FooSoft Wrote:I'm running into a little bit of confusion in sentences like this:

菓子業界が始めたイベントですが、便乗する人たちもいます

Specifically regarding the も particle. I know how the particle works most of the time but not here. I'm used to seeing patterns where it's used for inclusion with a previous sentence, but here there is no nothing to be inclusive with.

I just can't quite pin down what も gives in this sentence over が. Any tips?

"Although this is an event the candy industry initiated, many more people are starting to jump in."

I think も is "more" in this case. As in, people, other than just those who are part of the industry, are also starting to jump on the bandwagon.

I think if が was used, it would imply something different. "Although this is an event the candy industry initiated, people are jumping in." In other words, of all the possible industries that could create an event, it was the candy company--god help us--but somehow, in someway, people are participating, although we can't begin to figure out why.

[edit] Actually, thinking of it in a very literal sense--the way I put it doesn't really stay close to the original--I think も would more mean "also". So, literally, "There are also people who are jumping on the bandwagon." But "Many more people" sounds better to me than the literal translation. Realistically, though, it's not completely accurate.

mirina Wrote:

jpkuelho Wrote:僕がどうもそういうのが好きではなかったので

whats どうもうそういうのが　supposed to mean?

"I didn't/wouldn't have really liked something like that"?

そういうの = that kind of thing/something like that
どうも's meaning is really ambiguous to me and I have a really hard time figuring out how to properly translate it.. in this case I'd say it means something like "really/not really".

More or less; often it means like "after all" or "no matter what", so it's slightly different from just "very" although it has the same basic effect.

Quote:Actually, thinking of it in a very literal sense--the way I put it doesn't really stay close to the original--I think も would more mean "also".

That's how I read it. も doesn't always need to connect to something explicitly stated. You can say something like この教科書は"basic japanese"というものの、上級の学生も使える。 The assumption being that if it's called "basic japanese" that it would be used by beginners, but that advanced students can also use it.

thanks for your help
now a challenge(I guess), saw this on a lyric :


12月24日また一人罠に落ちたね
Q+Ⅱ(クィーン)の君を舐め尽くしたなら

the translation I found says :

on dec 24, another person is trapped
if I lick her all over -- a 14-year-old girl

I want to know what this Q+II means?

I have no idea, although it appears to mean "queen" based on the furigana? What song is this? It's really hard (or impossible) to answer that question without more context.

Incidentally, 舐める can mean "make fun of" rather than "lick".

Can someone explain to me the meaning/usage of "yatsu" in those sentences? I know yatsu can be used when referring to someone, but I don't think this is the case.

「波長が合れないってヤツか。」

「初恋は実らない法則って奴？」

yukimine Wrote:Can someone explain to me the meaning/usage of "yatsu" in those sentences? I know yatsu can be used when referring to someone, but I don't think this is the case.

「波長が合れないってヤツか。」

「初恋は実らない法則って奴？」

奴 doesn't have to refer to a person (although that is the most common use). It can be used similar to もの to refer to an item, and possibly even to a situation like こと (but don't take my word on that, I'm not sure at all if that is the case).

Both of those uses look like こと rather than もの to me, although I'm not 100% confident without context.

I don't know if I'd say that やつ is most commonly used of a person. Maybe in fictional stuff, but in real life I hardly ever hear anyone use やつ to refer to a person (because it's so rude), but I hear it all the time referring to an object or thing. I certainly would not feel comfortable myself using it with a person, but I use it frequently as a substitute for もの.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I have no idea, although it appears to mean "queen" based on the furigana? What song is this? It's really hard (or impossible) to answer that question without more context.

Incidentally, 舐める can mean "make fun of" rather than "lick".

its dir en grey - 密と唾

lyrics here http://kiri10.blog107.fc2.com/blog-entry-18.html

In a sentence like this:

「彼女は国際的に有名な歌手です。」

So 国際的 is a な adjective, but why is it followed by に? It's almost like it's being used as an adverb. Except, what's the verb?

「コロンブスは最も有名な探検家だ。」

Is similarly confusing for me.

最も is an adverb, is it being applied to だ？ If that's the case, is 国際的に being applied to the implied だ that's not shown because of the polite です?

I think it's possible for Japanese adverbs to modify verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns. (English adverbs also modify more than verbs. I always thought "pretty ugly" was interesting.) Adverbs can also be a topic or an entire phrase. They're kind of amorphous - so I'd just focus on the meaning and not worry too much about the exact grammar function.

FooSoft Wrote:「彼女は国際的に有名な歌手です。」

So 国際的 is a な adjective, but why is it followed by に? It's almost like it's being used as an adverb. Except, what's the verb?

Short answer: it's modifying 有名.
Long answer: adverbs modify predicates, which might be adjectives as well as verbs, for example in "この辞書は非常に高いです" 非常に is modifying 高い. Your original sentence has an embedded subclause 国際的に有名な which is modifying 歌手, and within the subclause
国際的に is modifying its head, ie 有名.

In your other example 「コロンブスは最も有名な探検家だ。」 最も is modifying 有名 again.

This is the pitfall of using the English grammatical categories to describe Japanese. Japanese does not have a word class "adverb" that matches the word class in English (and as Thora noted, the term "adverb" doesn't apply to English very well either because it was taken from Latin; English "adverbs" can modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.)

The underlying grammar here is very regular and patterned, but it's hard to describe without derailing this thread since it requires explaining some fundamental ideas that are not generally found in textbooks and standard grammar references.

I'm reading a manga recently and I'm trying to understand the nuance behind this kanji use.

Example: アンタに何が解かる(わかる）!!- "What do you know!!"

The writer has been using 解かる all over the place in place of　分かる and I suspect there's some underlying meaning to it, but I'm not quite following.　Anyone have a clue?

The 解 kanji is sometimes used when わかる means 理解する (understand). Because わかる is not an "official" reading of 解, it's not always used. Different dictionaries give different opinions about when to use 分かる vs. 解かる vs. 判る; it's not something that you have to be overly concerned with.

yudantaiteki Wrote:The 解 kanji is sometimes used when わかる means 理解する (understand). Because わかる is not an "official" reading of 解, it's not always used. Different dictionaries give different opinions about when to use 分かる vs. 解かる vs. 判る; it's not something that you have to be overly concerned with.

Ah that's interesting. My 英和辞典 shows the 判る as an "Uncommon" use but completely left out 解かる, so it must hardly never be used I'm guessing. I see it in the 国語辞書 though. Thanks!

One other one: そんな簡単に自覚なんて出来る訳がない (Context involves the care of a young child and the lack of oversight by the speaker)
The scanlation translated it as just "Like I could be that responsible all of a sudden." but I've entered it into my deck more as "It's simply not possible to be that aware." Which works better? Also, is there any good way to translate the meaning behind the use of なんて・なんか? As I understand it, the meaning in Japanese is somewhat abstract and more of an emphatic use to "belittle a noun" as someone here or over at Tae Kim said. So in the text of the example, the speaker is belittling their own awareness of things?

Thanks, again.

pm215 Wrote:

FooSoft Wrote:「彼女は国際的に有名な歌手です。」

So 国際的 is a な adjective, but why is it followed by に? It's almost like it's being used as an adverb. Except, what's the verb?

Short answer: it's modifying 有名.
Long answer: adverbs modify predicates, which might be adjectives as well as verbs, for example in "この辞書は非常に高いです" 非常に is modifying 高い. Your original sentence has an embedded subclause 国際的に有名な which is modifying 歌手, and within the subclause
国際的に is modifying its head, ie 有名.

In your other example 「コロンブスは最も有名な探検家だ。」 最も is modifying 有名 again.

Ah, that makes sense, but I'm surprised at it working like this, lol. It's too bad Tae Kim's guide doesn't mention anything about this...

yudantaiteki: Do you know of any books or grammar guides that do go over this kind of stuff? I hate seeing what looks to be simple grammar and not being able to pick it apart

FooSoft Wrote:yudantaiteki: Do you know of any books or grammar guides that do go over this kind of stuff? I hate seeing what looks to be simple grammar and not being able to pick it apart

Check out the book: A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar by Seiichi Makino. In general, the "A Dictionary of Begin/Inter/Adv" series is good. I say Intermediate in this case though because there's actually a really nice opening "Special Topics" section in the book called "Toward Better Reading Comprehension." Its a very in depth section on breaking apart Japanese sentences to understand them better.

edit: FooSoft, check your email.

Excellent, will do, thanks

vix86 Wrote:One other one: そんな簡単に自覚なんて出来る訳がない (Context involves the care of a young child and the lack of oversight by the speaker)
The scanlation translated it as just "Like I could be that responsible all of a sudden." but I've entered it into my deck more as "It's simply not possible to be that aware." Which works better?

I don't think your translation is entirely correct -- 簡単に doesn't really match with "Simply" the way you've used it in your English. そう簡単に (and also そんな簡単に apparently) is sort of an idiom that means "suddenly", "all of a sudden", or sometimes "with little/no effort".

自覚 may work better as "responsible" in a translation although it's not completely literal, なんて is sort of belittling here in that it's used to emphasize the fact that 自覚 is not possible for the speaker. できる in this case should not be expressed in a passive, universal sense -- it definitely means "I can't..." rather than just abstract "It's not possible".

Two cautions about using fan scanlations (or any translation, I suppose) are (1) literal translations often don't work, so the translations given in them may not be entirely useful for you to learn the grammar of the Japanese sentence, and (2) fan translators don't always know what they're doing. I did some fan translations a number of years ago for a manga scanlation group, and there were times when I honestly didn't understand the Japanese and I just guessed.

As for FooSoft's question, maybe I should start a new thread about that.

FooSoft Wrote:In a sentence like this:

「彼女は国際的に有名な歌手です。」

So 国際的 is a な adjective, but why is it followed by に? It's almost like it's being used as an adverb. Except, what's the verb?

「コロンブスは最も有名な探検家だ。」

Is similarly confusing for me.

最も is an adverb, is it being applied to だ？ If that's the case, is 国際的に being applied to the implied だ that's not shown because of the polite です?

I don't mean to sound rude but just accept it the way it is. You don't always have to think too much. As you read more, you will see if being used. You'll just accept for the way it is. Btw, I'm sure you can tell I'm not a very big fan of talking about things grammatically.

What do you mean "accept it the way it is"? How can you understand the sentence if you don't know what's modifying what?

mr_hans_moleman Wrote:I don't mean to sound rude but just accept it the way it is. You don't always have to think too much. As you read more, you will see if being used. You'll just accept for the way it is. Btw, I'm sure you can tell I'm not a very big fan of talking about things grammatically.

That's a very AJATT way of looking at it and I kind of expected this comment from someone. While I strongly agree that "getting used" to grammar happens to a large degree through repition, I also know that grammar rules allow one to "cheat" in this and give them a direction to go in and start making sense of things. After all, it's hard enough become familiar with grammar constructs that you already know the rules for (such as intuitively knowing when to use が vs は).

And how can you you even accept anything if you won't be able to translate sentences correctly by the time the training wheels come off (English translations in KO2001)?

yudantaiteki Wrote:I don't think your translation is entirely correct -- 簡単に doesn't really match with "Simply" the way you've used it in your English. そう簡単に (and also そんな簡単に apparently) is sort of an idiom that means "suddenly", "all of a sudden", or sometimes "with little/no effort".

自覚 may work better as "responsible" in a translation although it's not completely literal, なんて is sort of belittling here in that it's used to emphasize the fact that 自覚 is not possible for the speaker. できる in this case should not be expressed in a passive, universal sense -- it definitely means "I can't..." rather than just abstract "It's not possible".

Two cautions about using fan scanlations (or any translation, I suppose) are (1) literal translations often don't work, so the translations given in them may not be entirely useful for you to learn the grammar of the Japanese sentence, and (2) fan translators don't always know what they're doing. I did some fan translations a number of years ago for a manga scanlation group, and there were times when I honestly didn't understand the Japanese and I just guessed.

As for FooSoft's question, maybe I should start a new thread about that.

All this is very helpful thanks! Sounds like the scanlation was closer after all. I'm well aware of the pitfalls of using scanlations. The problem is there really isn't an optimal solution for doing something I enjoy (reading manga I find at Bookoff) and using it to learn Japanese at the same time (AJATT philosophy). So guess I'm just stuck checking translations of people every now and then to make sure they are correct.

Thanks again!

yudantaiteki Wrote:What do you mean "accept it the way it is"? How can you understand the sentence if you don't know what's modifying what?

For example, take the sentence:
「彼女は国際的に有名な歌手です。」

I think in this case, what's hard to understand for the poster is the subtle use of に.
By accept it as it is, I mean accept that in this case after "国際的” there will be a に.
Get it, and then move on. It's not really essential to worry about small things like this. In long run, as you read more and more, if you still don't get it(which I doubt) come again and ask. Is it really important to know now? For sure there will be a time when it will naturally stick in through repeated exposure.