ここで食べましょう。ここの寿司はおいしいから。

With these two sentences, the first one is polite because it ends in a -ます verbal form. However, the second one isn't polite, right, because it doesn't end in です. In my textbook these sentences are next to each other (which is evident from their content), so I'm wondering how one sentence can be polite and the next one plain.

also:

チェックインをします（ので/から）ちょっと待ってください。

How come here, there is a -masu form before the "because" particle ので　or　から。In every other sentence with this grammar in my textbook, －ますForms are not used before these two particles. Is the verb　するAn exception?

Ending a sentence in the middle after something like から or けど is fine even if the predicate before it isn't -masu form. This isn't something you'd do in the most careful or polite speech possible, but I hear people do it all the time even talking to superiors. It would also be possible to say おいしいですから there as well.

Using -masu forms in the middle of sentences is just more polite than not doing it; there's no rule about when you have to do it, though. する is not an exception, you can do it with any verb.

vinniram Wrote:ここで食べましょう。ここの寿司はおいしいから。

With these two sentences, the first one is polite because it ends in a -ます verbal form. However, the second one isn't polite, right, because it doesn't end in です. In my textbook these sentences are next to each other (which is evident from their content), so I'm wondering how one sentence can be polite and the next one plain.

I haven't yet gotten to the point where I've looked up the use and rules of Japanese particles, so you may want to take my observations with that in mind. But if I were to rate (on some ad-hoc scale) the politeness levels of the above two sentences, the first, I might call a "5", and the second, a "4". Different, but not so different that they are incompatible. Now, if I change the second sentence to

ここの寿司はおいしいですから。

Then I may rate that a "6". Again, a little different from the sentence with which it is paired, but contributing to a higher politeness level for the two sentences together.

Why do I still think they are different? Partly, I feel that it is because the first sentence is a request / command, so has some inherent impoliteness outside its grammatical structure, which needs to be compensated. The second is an explanation that is being offered, which by itself implies a certain level of courtesy.

I have a question about fourth line of the following. Is CATS really saying that he's grateful for their cooperation, in that through perhaps incompetence or treason, the ship's crew had helped him capture their bases? Or is he being sarcastic? Or is he telling them that he'd appreciate it if the crew would give up and die quietly?

CATS：連邦政府軍のご協力により、君達の基地は、全てCATSがいただいた。
CATS：君達の艦も、そろそろ終わりだろう。
艦長：ばっばかなっ・・・！
CATS：君達のご協力には感謝する。
CATS：せいぜい残り少ない命を、大切にしたまえ・・・・。
CATS：ハッハッハッハッハッ・・・

He's obviously telling them that all their base are belong to him.

About the line where he's thanking them for their cooperation -- I'd say it's sarcasm in the sense that they're not cooperating, but there's nothing they can do it, as he's going to take them over anyway.

Wow, what a quick reply! Thanks, yeah, that part does sound like he's being sarcastic, but I wasn't sure.

"All their base are belong to him" doesn't sound like a very high fidelity translation to English though.

What's wrong with it? All the words are from the original:

全て = all
君達の = your
基地 = base
は = are
いただいた = belong (to)
CATS = us

"Somebody set up us the bomb" is fine too

何者か = somebody
仕掛ける = set up
爆発物 = the bomb
("us" isn't in there but that's fine since subjects aren't always expressed)

"you know what you doing" and "move ZIG" are indefensible, though.

Hey guys, can someone check these two translations for me?

I think I'm getting the negatives sorted out correctly, but I'm not sure about the emphasis correctly. Does my translation carry the same sense of "cuteness"?
「こんなところはかわいくない、こともない。」
"It's not that this character quality isn't cute"

I'm a bit lost in this, but here's my best shot, I have a feeling I'm totally off though.
「イメージチェンジには失敗したが、それでも憂鬱なばかりではない。希望か期待か、とにかくそんな名称で呼ばれるべき淡い感情も、確かに竜児の腹をくすぐっている。」
I failed in changing my image, furthermore this wasn't failure in name alone - in my wishes and expecations too. And anyway, it would have tickled me a little bit to have been seen in this light.

A few things on the second one:

The な in the second clause is not "name", it's connecting 憂鬱 to ばかり; you may want to look at that grammar point again, especially if they have an entry for ばかりではない. 希望か期待か means "hope or expectation" and connects to what follows, not what came before. Everything from 希望 to 淡い is a modifier for 感情 to say what kinds of feelings the guy is having. (Isn't this third person for this 竜児 guy rather than first?)

Foosoft Wrote:「こんなところはかわいくない、こともない。」
"It's not that this character quality isn't cute"

I think「こんなところはかわいくない、こともない」is more like "Well, but [this feature] was also kind of cute".

Foosoft Wrote:I'm a bit lost in this, but here's my best shot, I have a feeling I'm totally off though.
「イメージチェンジには失敗したが、それでも憂鬱なばかりではない。希望か期待か、とにかくそんな名称で呼ばれるべき淡い感情も、確かに竜児の腹をくすぐっている。」

"Ryuuji had failed in changing his image, but he was not all depression. Hope? Expectation? − anyway, some faint emotion named liked that − also tickled his stomach."

Thanks! Yeah, ばかりではない was kind of confusing me. Funny thing is that I think I remember reading a thing that said it was kind of like だけではない but it just didn't connect when I tried to make sense of it. And yes, I think I just accidentally substituted "I" for Ryuuji because he's the protagonist

Could anyone explain the meaning of 「無い知恵を絞って考える」?

If I understand correctly, 「知恵を絞る」 means to think hard or rack one's brain at something. What does 無い change in this context?

My guess is that it means that you think really hard without coming up with a good solution. The word order was sort of throwing me off, so I thought I'd ask.

It seems to be emphasizing the difficulty or effort required moreso than the absence of a result. In other words, it would take more effort to squeeze knowledge out of a brain if there's not much there to begin with (ない知恵). I haven't personally heard the expression with ない added, but Kenkyuusha gives the following:

知恵を絞る rack one's brains; strain one's wits; tax one's ingenuity
ない知恵を絞る dredge up what little wisdom one has, rack one's brains

Some related expressions:
ない知恵を絞り出す rack one's brains 《for the answer, to find a solution》
なけなしの知恵を絞って make use of what (little) wisdom one has
脳みそを絞る rack [beat, puzzle] one's brains (slang); struggle hard to think out 《a plan》
声を絞る strain [force] one's voice.
[removed duplicate]

astendra Wrote:What does 無い change in this context?

I hope you don't mind my nosiness too much, but I'm actually more curious about your thinking process about the word order in this sentence. Why was this particular ordering confusing?

私が無い知恵を絞って考えて見みれば (thinking about it using my own non-existent wisdom), is it because you had previously studied forms where "無い" was preceded by a particle? Then my own (probably poor) example might bridge that conceptual gap.

I think it's just the fact that I ran into a phrasing I'd never seen before. I knew 「無い」 was being used as 形容詞, but the expression itself made little sense to me in the first place, hence I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to modify.

This seems to have been remedied by a good nights sleep and reading the posts here - thanks, guys.

How do you pronounce 突剣? I inferred the meaning (and google image search confirms it), but I can't find it in any dictionary so I don't know if it's supposed to be とつけん or とっけん or something completely different. The only way I found to write it in IME was とつつるぎ but that doesn't feel right.

Even though I know the meaning, this is really bothering me because I'm reading a text where the word appears frequently and it always causes a mental stop for me.

What about other words that are written as a kanji compounds, but are not commonly used words, for example 星海 ("sea of stars"). Just ほしうみ? And how about 海都? かいと? うみみやこ?

According to Google it's supposed to be とつけん. I highly doubt it's a real word though, sounds like fancy RPG/Naruto-speech to me.

For the other two, I would go with ほしうみ and かいと; I'm pretty sure I've heard them pronounced like that in video games before. みやこ is a pretty uncommon reading of 都 so I wouldn't use that.

I'm back with a couple more things, would love it if someone could verify my attempts at translating these sentences:

Not sure if なんて refers to 俺 here?
「女子たちに、俺がなんて呼ばれているかおまえも知らないわけじゃないだろう？」
"You should know what people like me are called by girls right?"

I know that くらい can mean to the 'extend of' like ほど, or it can mean 'only' like I think is going on here:
「自分のニヤニヤを感知できる人間は、おそらくこの世でこいつぐらいだ。」
"Out of all the people in the world only only he could percieve my grinning."

Not sure what's going on here with 禁じえない - is this some sort of weird way of writing potential form of 禁じる?
「竜児はちょっとした感嘆を禁じえない。」
”Ryuuji couldn't stop his trifling admiration.

ごと is supposed to mean something like "respective", but why is it being used here? with 椅子?
「突如至近距離から北村に迫られ、竜児は椅子ごとのけぞった。」
"Suddenly, pressed by Kitamura, Ryuuji bends backwards in his seat"

FooSoft Wrote:I'm back with a couple more things, would love it if someone could verify my attempts at translating these sentences:

Not sure if なんて refers to 俺 here?
「女子たちに、俺がなんて呼ばれているかおまえも知らないわけじゃないだろう？」
"You should know what people like me are called by girls right?"

なんて here just means 何と, so 俺が何と呼ばれているか means "What am I called by girls?" so it's "..what I am called by girls".

Quote:I know that くらい can mean to the 'extend of' like ほど, or it can mean 'only' like I think is going on here:
「自分のニヤニヤを感知できる人間は、おそらくこの世でこいつぐらいだ。」
"Out of all the people in the world only only he could percieve my grinning."

Looks fine to me, although おそらく isn't in your translation.

Quote:Not sure what's going on here with 禁じえない - is this some sort of weird way of writing potential form of 禁じる?
「竜児はちょっとした感嘆を禁じえない。」
”Ryuuji couldn't stop his trifling admiration.

It's an old potential form, but in the modern language it's just a set form meaning "Cannot help but do X" or "Cannot stop doing X".

Excellent, thanks for the reply I'm a little bit confused by なんて being used as なんと because I thought なんて was always meaning 'things like ...' or as an exclamation, whereas the と in なんと was like なん + the quotation marker or something (kind of works like か in なんか). Not sure how the て works there though (unless it's like って), but I'm probably just overanalyzing set expressions - good have one extra thing to watch for though!

A lot of times, the pronunciation changes slightly in speech. なんて呼ばれてるか is the same as なんと呼ばれてるか. you just wouldn't write anything formally that way.

FooSoft Wrote:Excellent, thanks for the reply I'm a little bit confused by なんて being used as なんと because I thought なんて was always meaning 'things like ...' or as an exclamation, whereas the と in なんと was like なん + the quotation marker or something (kind of works like か in なんか). Not sure how the て works there though (unless it's like って), but I'm probably just overanalyzing set expressions - good have one extra thing to watch for though!

It is like って; after the ん sound, it's て instead of って.

You know this can't be the "things like" meaning because it comes after が rather than directly after a noun.

FooSoft Wrote:ごと is supposed to mean something like "respective", but why is it being used here? with 椅子?
「突如至近距離から北村に迫られ、竜児は椅子ごとのけぞった。」

ごと here means "together with". 「椅子と一緒に…」「椅子と共に…」

Thanks for the explanation - makes sense now