I'm translating a Japanese children's book I happened to have for practice, and ran into 手をたたく (叩く I assume; the book is mostly hiragana); my dictionaries give different meanings for 叩く, but can that phrase ever mean something besides clapping one's hands, like patting someone's hand?

This is the whole sentence (about two first graders in their first day of school sitting and waiting to go to an assembly): やすよちゃんが手をたたいたから、こうすけもまねをして、手をたたきました。 It appears elsewhere in the book, but there it was clearly people clapping their hands; this one, nothing applause-worthy is really going on, so I was less clear.

It can mean patting or slapping someone's hand, but usually it means clapping. It's hard to make out the situation, but from that sentence alone, it seems more likely to be clapping. If it was like おかえしに(in revenge) 手を叩きました, I would think it was slapping or hitting someone's hand.

Looking at it again, someone was doing kamishibai for them in the previous paragraph, so I'm sure now it's clapping; somehow the connection had escaped me... The boy was nervous, too, so I had thought the girl might be patting his hand.

Oi. I came across a sentence in KO2001 that I'm not completely understanding.

私は今年４０歳。最近体力がなくなった。すぐ疲れる。
I am 40 this year. Recently, I don't have much stamina. I become tired quickly.

What's the なくなった in here? Is it referring to 無くなる? Dictionary brings up a bunch of different verbs but this is the only one that seems to make sense to me. Probably a simple/stupid question for most of you

Thanks in advance!

Yep, meaning to run out, 'recently, my stamina ran out.'

I wonder why EDICT has an entry for that -- I always just think of it as ない + なる...

I'm unsure about the meaning of ～たらと思う in these sentences. All of them were written by native speakers. I have a guess about the meaning, but if anyone can provide a real explanation to confirm or deny that would be much appreciated.

布団の裾を啣えて振って見たらと思って、二三度やって見たが少しも効用がない。
彼から買った餌を全て使い切ってなかったたらと思うよ。
この先一生、ただのんびりして漫画を読んでいられたらと思う。
日本の音楽を少しは聞いたことがあるが、これぐらい聞けていたらと思う程は聞いていない。

Thanks for any insight.

sarenya Wrote:I'm unsure about the meaning of ～たらと思う in these sentences. All of them were written by native speakers. I have a guess about the meaning, but if anyone can provide a real explanation to confirm or deny that would be much appreciated.

布団の裾を啣えて振って見たらと思って、二三度やって見たが少しも効用がない。
彼から買った餌を全て使い切ってなかったたらと思うよ。
この先一生、ただのんびりして漫画を読んでいられたらと思う。
日本の音楽を少しは聞いたことがあるが、これぐらい聞けていたらと思う程は聞いていない。

You can think of it as "～たら(~だ)と思う" where (~だ) is omitted because it's obvious from context (though I think it's more like another idiomatic way to express an idea than omission). So it means "I wish...," "(subject) should have been/done/(insert your verb)...," "If it were..." or something along those lines. Here are example sentences:

外国語できたらと思って日本語習いはじめたんだよね。でもこれが意外に難しくてさぁ、スペイン語とか？　そういうもっと簡単なの選んでたらと思うよ。
I thought it'd be cool to be a bilingual, so I started learning Japanese. But it turned out to be harder than I thought. I guess I should've chosen some easy language like Spanish.

I don't know the context of each Japanese sentence in your post. But it seems to me the fourth sentence is written by a non-native speaker. Also, the second sentence should read "彼から買った餌を全て使い切ってなかったらと思うよ。" (not なかった"た"ら).

Awesome. That makes a lot of sense -- thanks for the explanation.

The second sentence was from a fan translation of some video-game content. You can find the original line in context here: http://wiki.livedoor.jp/questjapanizer/d/Q11329 . I also thought the double た was strange, which was why I included it in the list.

I can't speak for the history of the fourth sentence so I'll consider it unnatural. Thanks again.

今まで食った中で一番不味かったものを挙げろ

今まで見た中で一番かわいいと思ったコスプレ画像

今まで異性に言われた中で一番嬉しかった言葉 .

今まで買った中で一番高価なもの

So in the following sentences I presume 中 is read なか? As in like "The most expensive thing out of all that you've bought so far"とか・

Can someone confirm it?

Yup. It's なか.
It's interesting you say "out of" in English and "with in = 中で" in Japanese to mean the same thing.

pm215 Wrote:I wonder why EDICT has an entry for that -- I always just think of it as ない + なる...

Yeah, EDICT has all sorts of entries for things that probably don't need to be in there.

E.g. http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E8%8B%B1%E8%...dict=edict

Hi, I came across this sentence in a textbook:

くうこうはこんでいますがみちはすいています。

What do こんでいます and すいています mean? I tried looking them up but couldn't find the meaning.

vinniram Wrote:Hi, I came across this sentence in a textbook:

くうこうはこんでいますがみちはすいています。

What do こんでいます and すいています mean? I tried looking them up but couldn't find the meaning.

Probably the verbs こむ and すく. Traffic ok getting to the airport, but when you get there...

Tae Kim: Other uses of the te-form. See "Enduring state of being rather than enduring state of action" =　Verb (in て form) + いる

こむ　＝　to be crowded　(verb)
すく　＝ to become empty/not crowded (verb)
いる　(plain) →　います (polite/formal)

こむ　→　　こんで　(=てform) →　　こんで　＋　いる　→　こんでいる　→　こんでいます

すく　→　　すいて　(=てform)　→　　すいて　＋　いる　→　すいている　→　すいています

thanks for that detailed answer thora

Probably overkill, but I thought I'd err on the safe side. It's hard to know exactly what grammar people have studied. My reply to you in another thread wouldn't have been very useful (I realized later after looking at Tae Kim's content) b/c I had assumed the wrong level.

[edit] Verb conjugation isn't so difficult, but you want it to become automatic (comprehending them as a single unit quickly and producing them effortlessly.) It can help to make a list of some verbs you know and conjugate them as you learn new forms. (Write it out, do it mentally and say it aloud, go in reverse back to plain form, etc.) Relying on passive input alone will take way longer. And stumbling over long double negative verbs and ~aserarerarerareru's in the meantime isn't fun. :-)

Potential uses が instead of を. When you have a clause inside of a sentence, the "subject" of the clause also uses が.
But this leaves me with sentences like this:

私は、彼が魚が食べられると思います

The double が is what's kind of getting me here. I've also seen を〜られる, but I'm not quite sure what the thing of it is.
I guess the same could go with 〜したい as well, then.

Asriel Wrote:Potential uses が instead of を. When you have a clause inside of a sentence, the "subject" of the clause also uses が.
But this leaves me with sentences like this:

私は、彼が魚が食べられると思います

The double が is what's kind of getting me here. I've also seen を〜られる, but I'm not quite sure what the thing of it is.
I guess the same could go with 〜したい as well, then.

JSL calls these kinds of predicates "double-ga predicates" because both the "subject" and "object" are marked by が. This isn't always evident because most of the time they occur as XはYがZ rather than both of them being が. But when you have subordinate/relative clauses like this, they will both be が.

In strict prescriptive grammar, -tai forms and potential forms cannot take を, they can only take が. This is because を is only used with verbs that represent things you can directly control, and you cannot directly control wants or capabilities. So it should be 私が魚が食べたい (I want to eat fish) and 彼が魚が食べられる (He can eat fish).

However, many native speakers accept 私が魚を食べたい and 私が魚を食べられる, so you may see those as well. Both are used, in my experience. This same alternation occurs with some other predicates as well -- 彼が英語が分かる and 彼が魚が好きだ are both prescriptively correct and you certainly hear them, but を is used as well.

(Note that in all the previous examples, XがYがZ is relatively rare as a standalone sentence, but if it's followed by から or it is a relative/subordinate clause, it's normal.)

Ah, excellent.
It's been one of those things that I felt I learned one way, but in experience I heard it differently.

Thanks for the quick reply.

For this sentence,
以上のような次第で、退職することになりました。

The model sentence translates it as:
"(leaving it)In this condition, I resigned my job."

To me, the sentence translates as
"Given the above reasons, I resigned my job."

Or is this a case where both answers are correct translations? but then why 'leaving it'?
cheers.

Cosign Wrote:For this sentence,
以上のような次第で、退職することになりました。

The model sentence translates it as:
"(leaving it)In this condition, I resigned my job."

Where'd you get that translation? That sentence is from the Kanzen Master 2kyuu grammar book, which has no English translations included--at least my copy doesn't.

Asriel Wrote:Potential uses が instead of を. When you have a clause inside of a sentence, the "subject" of the clause also uses が.
But this leaves me with sentences like this:

私は、彼が魚が食べられると思います

The double が is what's kind of getting me here. I've also seen を〜られる, but I'm not quite sure what the thing of it is.
I guess the same could go with 〜したい as well, then.

In general, you can reword a sentence like that to make it simpler and clearer. For example, your example sentence means pretty much the same as 魚が食べられるのは彼だと思います. Using two がs in a row isn't the best wording in most cases.

Whether it's ok to use を (or が) in a sentence like yours is a difficult question. There are regional differences, and different generations might prefer different particles. Because no usage is definitely more common than others in this case, the important thing is whether your sentence makes sense or not. It's also important to choose the one which makes the meaning clearer or pick a simpler sentence structure, especially in writing because you can't take advantage of tone, intonation, and so on. Whether it follows a fixed rule made by a random guy doesn't matter at all.

Cosign Wrote:For this sentence,
以上のような次第で、退職することになりました。

The model sentence translates it as:
"(leaving it)In this condition, I resigned my job."

To me, the sentence translates as
"Given the above reasons, I resigned my job."

Or is this a case where both answers are correct translations? but then why 'leaving it'?
cheers.

Your own translation is much better. That kind of sentence usually follows some background on why and how you ended up quitting a job or determined to do so. So the sentence basically means, "That's why I quit the job," though it sounds slightly more formal and is often used in writing or a little formal speech.

with this sentence

ざんねんですがちょっとようがあって・・・

what does ようがあって mean? my textbook gives translation of

Too bad, but I'm busy and so, uh...

But I thought よう means to feel sick? Is it then that ようがあって is an idiomatic way of saying one is busy?

Thanks for the help. The model answers were supplied from one of the 8555 Anki grammar decks that I downloaded.