More times than not って will be the -te form and not the quoting particle.
電源切って -> 切る、きる、きって、切って
it's the -te form telling someone to turn (cut) the electricity

in 黙って聞けよ, the verb is 黙る、だまる
If you have "-te form verb + another verb" it's kind of like "verb and verb" almost as one action.
so 黙って聞けよ、is like "Shut up and listen!"
whereas 黙れ、聞けよ！ would be more like "Shut up! Listen!"
in this case the -te is just connecting the 2 verbs to make them more connected. Similar to 持っていく、持って帰る、連れて行く, etc...

Thanks for the quick response!

unholyburger Wrote:what does 「あるある」 mean? like in niconico they say only respond with あるある or ねーよ. I think I know what ねーよ means, like a shortened じゃねええよ just.. like... no! but あるある confuses me... just because of the two options I would think it mean "yea I know" but on live streams they seem to use it when people make an "oops" mistake. like, forgot to get health potions in monster hunter? あるあるｗｗｗ

A:「トイレに携帯落としたことある？」
B:「あるある」
C:「ないよ」

A: Have you ever dropped your cell phone into the toilet?
B: Yep, it happens all the time.
C: Nope, never.

unholyburger Wrote:what does 「あるある」 mean? like in niconico they say only respond with あるある or ねーよ. I think I know what ねーよ means, like a shortened じゃねええよ just.. like... no! but あるある confuses me... just because of the two options I would think it mean "yea I know" but on live streams they seem to use it when people make an "oops" mistake. like, forgot to get health potions in monster hunter? あるあるｗｗｗ

In addition to what iSoron said, you see this a lot on nicovideo on 実況 plays -- like you said, when someone makes a mistake and everyone says あるある that means either "yeah, I did that too" or "that happened to me a lot" or "a lot of people do that" or whatever.

The あるある / ねーよ videos are supposed to be a collection of stereotypical things or thoughts associated with a nostalgic game, or anime, or whatever, and you're supposed to say あるある if you think it applies or if it happened to you, and ねーよ if you disagree or if it never happened.

Thanks a lot for the replies guys! It bothered me so much because I would see it all the time, but now I know! And knowledge is power!

This is probably a no-brainer for some of you but I was just wondering what 無理してたら means? It's part of a song lyric, and I don't get it. :]

aslx3 Wrote:This is probably a no-brainer for some of you but I was just wondering what 無理してたら means? It's part of a song lyric, and I don't get it. :]

Song lyrics are notoriously difficult to translate at the best of times, and you've given us a very short snippet from one. You're much more likely to get a useful translation if you give us more context. Otherwise all you'll get is what you could have got from a dictionary anyway.

aslx3 Wrote:This is probably a no-brainer for some of you but I was just wondering what 無理してたら means? It's part of a song lyric, and I don't get it. :]

I don't if it helps you, but it's the tara conditional of the te-iru continuous action of 無理する with the い dropped out of 無理している (common thing in spoken Japanese).

Grammar reference: Using 「~ている」 for enduring states and Past conditional using 「たら(ば)」.

kimagure Wrote:I don't if it helps you, but it's the tara conditional of the te-iru continuous action of 無理する with the い dropped out of 無理している (common thing in spoken Japanese).

Grammar reference: Using 「~ている」 for enduring states and Past conditional using 「たら(ば)」.

Oh thanks! It didn't even occur to me that it was している, mostly because I didn't even know that 無理する(な） meant 'take it easy' in the first place; I kept wondering what して was doing there.

pm215
Well the rest of the line is
無理してたら折れた翼　飛べないまま
So I guess..
If you keep forcing it these broken wings still will not fly
...?
Hopefully that wasn't completely wrong.

Not so much a word or a phrase, but what does this emoticon mean:

(ノ)・w・(ヾ)

?

aslx3 Wrote:Well the rest of the line is
無理してたら折れた翼　飛べないまま

The たら conditional here is being used as in「読書してたら、寝てしまった」

無理してたら折れた翼　飛べないまま
With wings broken from trying too hard, still unable to fly, I ... ???

Taurus Wrote:Not so much a word or a phrase, but what does this emoticon mean:
(ノ)・ w・(ヾ)

It's a face with big cheeks. むにむにって感じ. 「むにむに」 is the sound so-cute-you-cant-help-but-squeeze things do when you squeeze them. Can also be used as a verb 「むにむにしてて可愛かった」

Thanks!

That makes it quite an odd farewell message... It was from one of my students. Just that. Just a cute squeezy face. I wonder if she was referring to mine or hers...

Hi I want to ask about this ば after 頭を下げれば in this example because I see it quite often.

苦笑して頭を下げれば、向こうは片手で『わかってるよ』の合図をくれ、ココへの応対に戻る。

The 頭を下げれば makes me want to translate it to 'IF he bows down his head' but in this sentence it doesn't mean that at all. To me, it resembles the たら（ば）and なら（ば）conditionals but I must be getting something wrong. Any tips

(ココ is a name.)

Cosign Wrote:The 頭を下げれば makes me want to translate it to 'IF he bows down his head' but in this sentence it doesn't mean that at all.

仮定形+ば can mean many things. In this case, it means the same as 「頭を下げると…」"[soon after] I lower my head, [something happens]". There's most probably some subtle difference in nuance between them, but I'm not sure about it.

Quote:To me, it resembles the たら（ば）and なら（ば）conditionals but I must be getting something wrong.

There's just one conditional, applied to different verbals:

食べる → 食べれば
食べた → 食べたら(ば)
食べるのだ → 食べる(の)なら(ば)

静かだ → 静かなら(ば)
静かだった → 静かだったら(ば)

寒い → 寒ければ
寒かった → 寒かったら(ば)
寒いのだ → 寒いのなら(ば)

(た and だ are also verbs. たら and なら are their hypothetical forms 仮定形, respectively)

In a message I sent someone, I think my Japanese was kind of messed up and the person replied back trying to figure out what I was saying (I think).

She said: 「私は連絡は取らないようにするよ」　how does this translate out? "I would be sure not to take the contact."?
My concern was that my messages might make the person comfortable, but I think I screwed up trying to get that across.

Thanks

vix86 Wrote:She said: 「私は連絡は取らないようにするよ」　how does this translate out?

Thanks

Unfortunately, she means
"Be sure not to contact me." in otherwords, don't contact me in the future.

That's not what it looks like to me, ようにする means "will make an effort to do", so it looks like "I will make an effort not to contact [you?]"

彼は若い。経験も浅い。だからと言って教えられないわけではない。

I am translating this as,
"He is young. And he is inexperienced. But that doesn't mean he can't be taught"

But the model answers translate it as this:
"He is young. He has little experience. But it doesn't follow from this that he cannot teach."

Where did I go wrong? I think I'm not understanding the proper use of that passive.

Cosign Wrote:彼は若い。経験も浅い。だからと言って教えられないわけではない。

I am translating this as,
"He is young. And he is inexperienced. But that doesn't mean he can't be taught"

But the model answers translate it as this:
"He is young. He has little experience. But it doesn't follow from this that he cannot teach."

Where did I go wrong? I think I'm not understanding the proper use of that passive.

For verbs like 教える (v1, ichidan, whatever you want to call them) the passive and the potential have the same form, so you have to use context to tell which one you have. The model answer takes it as being potential form ("he cannot teach" rather than "he is not taught").

Also, your attempt to interpret as passive is wrong: if this is passive then there is no sense of "can't" in it (because that would be potential form). You would get something like "doesn't mean he won't be/is not taught". That's kind of weird and makes no sense, which is how you know it ought to be potential form :-)

another one from JLPT2
その女の人は私に家族のことから自分の悩みに至るまで、細かに話した。

The model answer translates this as:
That lady told me everything in detail, starting with her family and ending with the worries of her life.

I think it should be translated as:
because i was family, she told me her troubles in detail.

I thought ことから meant 'because' which didn't fit in the sentence unless it was translated so.

Cosign Wrote:another one from JLPT2
その女の人は私に家族のことから自分の悩みに至るまで、細かに話した。

The model answer translates this as:
That lady told me everything in detail, starting with her family and ending with the worries of her life.

I think it should be translated as:
because i was family, she told me her troubles in detail.

I thought ことから meant 'because' which didn't fit in the sentence unless it was translated so.

Well, sometimes ことから means 'because', but sometimes (as in this case) it's just こと followed by から (where こと is doing its usual nominalising job and から is "from"). In this particular case you can tell because the 'because' ことから links to a noun with である/だった/であった, not with の (ie it would have to be 家族であることから or similar).

So what you actually have is just a slightly complicated variation on the common pattern XからYまで "from X to Y".

Also "私に家族のこと" doesn't mean "I was family" -- that に particle has to tie up with a verb that will accept it, and you don't have one in 家族のこと, which is a noun phrase. [For "I was family" it would be something like 私が家族だったこと, I think.] In fact what that に matches up with (the only thing available for it to match up with) is the final verb 話した, where it indicates who the lady was talking to.

When can ことから mean "because"? When から directly follows a noun (like こと), as far as I know it can only mean "from" -- it only means "because" when it follows a predicate, and for a noun to be a predicate it needs the だ after it.

yudantaiteki Wrote:When can ことから mean "because"?

DAJG's example sentence for this is

Quote:彼はアリバイが成立しなかったことから犯行の嫌疑がかかった -- Because he couldn't establish an alibi, he was suspected of a criminal act.

or if you want one which isn't a verb-predicate

Quote:その教授は学生に高圧的だったことから、学生にひどく嫌われていた。

I guess that it's literally "from" in the sense of "from the fact that", but "because" is probably usually a less clunky translation.

pm215 Wrote:Well, sometimes ことから means 'because', but sometimes (as in this case) it's just こと followed by から (where こと is doing its usual nominalising job and から is "from"). In this particular case you can tell because the 'because' ことから links to a noun with である/だった/であった, not with の (ie it would have to be 家族であることから or similar).

I don't think 家族のこと is a nominalizer here, it's just 'thing' -> means 'things about his/her family'

robinowen Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:Well, sometimes ことから means 'because', but sometimes (as in this case) it's just こと followed by から (where こと is doing its usual nominalising job and から is "from").

I don't think 家族のこと is a nominalizer here, it's just 'thing' -> means 'things about his/her family'

Good point, I think you're right.