iSoron Wrote:You can use も even when the sentences don't exactly match; it's enough that things have something in common 「絵が綺麗だし、話も面白いし」. Maybe what the speaker had in mind was something else equally troubling, not something equally 長引きそう.

That's the weird thing, the character first enters the scene with that statement. So I don't see how it could be clear to the reader that he was already troubled, unless the reader is supposed to make assumptions about his state of mind?

@spideymike
You are totally right. I actually recognized that when I was reading but for some reason I totally failed to express that in English ;\ But yeah, causative + te + receiving v. = being allowed to do something

@mushi
That's interesting, I wonder if it's some of softness/politeness thing? Like using も to add ambiguity and not just saying "I'm troubled by X", but rather stating that there are other reasons which may not have been stated?

FooSoft Wrote:@mushi
That's interesting, I wonder if it's some of softness/politeness thing? Like using も to add ambiguity and not just saying "I'm troubled by X", but rather stating that there are other reasons which may not have been stated?

Yes, I think that's basically right. The も is quite politic. Another thing is that I think the use of も is a bit more ambiguous than it first looks. 話も長引きそうですし can also be implying (for the sake of politeness) that there may be other reasons for them to adjourn, like other commitments.

That's because it's not grammatically correct to try to disambiguate between the two by putting も at the end, like 話は長引きそうですしも.

これがいいんじゃないかと思います。

I can't get my head around this sentence.

これがいいんじゃないか = Isn't it probable that this is good?

と思います = I think

So putting it together...

"I think isn't it probable that this is good."
I just don't really get what this sentence is trying to convey. Is the sentence, overall, a question or a statement. Because there is か in the middle.

I found this: "これがいいだそうと思います" easier to understand. I translated as just : "I think this seems good". But with the negative question of "んじゃないか" added, I'm not sure anymore.

@vinniram:

It means something like "I think that this is fine" or more literally:
"Isn't this good", I thought.

The じゃないか is a rhetorical question of sorts. Just like how in English you could say "Isn't this fine". Basically じゃないか seems to almost always add rhetorical questioning to the meaning.

just another thing with that sentence that's been bugging me for a while:

with things like "んじゃない" and "んじゃありません", is the "ん" there functioning the same as nominalizing "の", and turning the preceeding clause into a nominal?

Yeah, it's the same thing as の, just shorter and less formal.

I found another sentence: これがいいんじゃない。 With the rhetorical "んじゃないか", can か sometimes just be left off?

Yes, that's the same thing here.

vinniram Wrote:I found another sentence: これがいいんじゃない。 With the rhetorical "んじゃないか", can か sometimes just be left off?

It feels kind of funny discussing these sentences so formally, as they're in a casual, slightly sloppy style that you'd use when musing to yourself or to close acquaintances, so don't strike me as being great examples for studying grammar. They are quite natural and common, however.

I don't think there is such a thing as "sloppy" grammar (when spoken by a lot of native speakers at least) Usage dictates grammar, not textbooks.

I don't think there's anything sloppy about them anyway; there's nothing wrong with the grammar. It's like the intonation change between "Is that right." and "Is that right?"

Couple of questions!

「多くは語らなかったが、無事にそいつの許へたどり着けたのは確かにワープの奇跡の賜物だった。 」
許 in this sentence confuses me. Is 許へ the same grammar construct as 許に meaning "just because"? So then this becomes:
"[She] didn't say a lot about it, but but just arriving safely at his place was certainly the miraculous result of a warp."

「いくら犬でも、大怪我なんかさせたら寝覚めが悪い。」
I thought いくら was only used for numbers and the like. Is it being used here in a more abstract way to say "No matter how much of a dog you are, I feel uneasy about seroiusly injuring you"?

「いつもの攻撃色はなりをひそめ、代わりにその目に溢れているのは――おそらくは自己嫌悪の奔流、なのだろう。 」
I don't understand the bolded part at all. I know the meaning of なり being "as soon as" but this doesn't apply here. I also can't imagine that this is v.masu of なる.

「木刀を持って殺しに乗り込んできた奴がよく言うよ、と言い返そうとし、しかし竜児はなんとなく口をつぐんだ。」
Is と+し basically と+して here, and v.vol + とする being "to try"? I think that's what it is, but "Ryuuji trying to answer back and then shutting his mouth (because he knows better)" sounds weird. How do you "try" to answer back? I'm probably being too literal about this though, just a bit suspicious and want to make sure I at least understand the literal meaning of the sentence here

FooSoft Wrote:「いくら犬でも、大怪我なんかさせたら寝覚めが悪い。」
I thought いくら was only used for numbers and the like. Is it being used here in a more abstract way to say "No matter how much of a dog you are, I feel uneasy about seroiusly injuring you"?

You mean like when you ask a shopkeeper how much something costs?

いくら... I'd say, is something of an amalgam between "no matter how much", and "even if that is so", as in:

No matter how hard you try, you won't succeed.
Even if he is the boss, I can't abide these orders.

What does 絵や　mean? I can't find it in a dictionary. It's in this sentence: "絵や、写真が多くて面白いと思いますよ。"

They're talking about advertisements on a train.

@mushi
That makes sense. Maybe the root of that usage is in counting the extent or degree of something. This is an interesting use of this word.

@vinniram
It's not 絵や, but rather 絵 + や. や is the inexhaustive list marker. So you use it to list things, like と except there is an understanding that there are other unspoken things that might be included. So basically that sentence just means:

"There are a lot of things like pictures, photographs, etc; I think it's interesting."

ooh I see it now. Often I miss those sorts of things ^^ ヘルプはどうも！

FooSoft Wrote:Couple of questions!

「多くは語らなかったが、無事にそいつの許へたどり着けたのは確かにワープの奇跡の賜物だった。 」
許 in this sentence confuses me. Is 許へ the same grammar construct as 許に meaning "just because"? So then this becomes:
"[She] didn't say a lot about it, but but just arriving safely at his place was certainly the miraculous result of a warp."

許 is read もと here and essentially just means "location" in this context.

Quote:「木刀を持って殺しに乗り込んできた奴がよく言うよ、と言い返そうとし、しかし竜児はなんとなく口をつぐんだ。」
Is と+し basically と+して here, and v.vol + とする being "to try"? I think that's what it is, but "Ryuuji trying to answer back and then shutting his mouth (because he knows better)" sounds weird. How do you "try" to answer back? I'm probably being too literal about this though, just a bit suspicious and want to make sure I at least understand the literal meaning of the sentence here

You could also think of this as "was about to" or "wanted to"

FooSoft Wrote:「多くは語らなかったが、無事にそいつの許へたどり着けたのは確かにワープの奇跡の賜物だった。 」

「そいつの許」 = 「そいつのいる所」

FooSoft Wrote:「いつもの攻撃色はなりをひそめ、代わりにその目に溢れているのは――おそらくは自己嫌悪の奔流、なのだろう。 」

It's a set expression: ↓

Green Goddess Wrote:鳴りを静める[潜める]　be hushed; be silent; 〔表だった活動を控える〕 be inactive; lie low
・鳴りを静めて見守る　watch with breathless attention
・満場しばらく鳴りを静めた.　The whole company was hushed for a moment.
・敵の砲台が今夜は鳴りを潜めている.　The enemy's gun batteries are quiet tonight.

FooSoft Wrote:「木刀を持って殺しに乗り込んできた奴がよく言うよ、と言い返そうとし、しかし竜児はなんとなく口をつぐんだ。」
Is と+し basically と+して here, and v.vol + とする being "to try"? I think that's what it is, but "Ryuuji trying to answer back and then shutting his mouth (because he knows better)" sounds weird. How do you "try" to answer back? I'm probably being too literal about this though, just a bit suspicious and want to make sure I at least understand the literal meaning of the sentence here

He was about to answer back, but then shut his mouth.
volitional+とする does not always mean "to try".

Minor remark: You don't usually put a dot 。 before closing quotes 」
× 「なのだろう。 」
○ 「なのだろう」
(other ponctuation marks are ok.)

Thanks! You guys are awesome as always

I looked up 月桂冠 in a Jap-Eng dictionary to find "laurel wreath". I found this on a label on an achoholic plum wine. もっと詳しく教えて頂けませんか？

どうぞよろしく御願いします！

gyuujuice:


Also: http://www.gekkeikan.co.jp/
Look at the lady in the banner on the right.

Oh, I see. The 月 was confusing me a little. >.<;

I've got two questions about this sentence:

「最初は泰子の出勤とともに帰宅していた逢坂だったが、テレビがどうの、漫画がどうの、かったるいの、眠いの、北村くんてさ、櫛枝さんてよー……だのと、次第に高須家滞在時間が長くなっていく。」

First of, is テレビがどう just kind of like a nested question here ("What about watching TV?", "What about reading manga?")? I'm not even going to try to translate that to English, but that's just about listing things to do in the house right?

Also is that 北村くんてさ and 櫛枝さんてよ really just being very slangish and really って and describes conversations that end with さ and よ?

さ is a very casual form of よ according to Tae Kim. See the entry in his guide here:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/wrapup4.html
Note: I didn't really know that and had to look it up.

I'm familiar with テレビはどう? as being "how about TV?" I don't understand that sentence.

-------
The main characters in Nyan Koi! are praying at a shrine on new year's　towards the end of episode 12:
Kanako: 今年も潤平と一緒にいられますように
Junpei: 今年こそ･･･水野と･･･水野と！
Mizuno: みんなが幸せでいられますように・・・それと・・・高坂くんと仲よくなれますように。

My question of course is about ように
It's this ように, right?
ように (exp) (2) hoping or wishing for something; (P)

In the Tae Kim guide, it doesn't talk about ように, it just talks about よう (様). See here:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/surunaru.html#part4
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/similar.html

My real world example is from Territoire (videogame) opening cutscene. This person is talking to their classmate / friend リアン:

ファシル
リアンはクラージュ先生苦手だったの？

気が合ってるようにみえるけど・・・

So this part 気が合ってるように is "as if you get along" or "like you get along" and has nothing to do with the ように discussed in the first part of this post.

Well, it has something to do with it -- the use of ように at the end of a sentence to express a wish is an elision of something like ように願える or ように叶える. It's ultimately the same as the second example.

(As for the previous question, because those are all subordinate clauses modifying の's, は can't be used in them so it has to be が. This is about the only place you would ever see テレビがどう.)

さ in that sense isn't really like よ -- さ is emphatic like わ or ぞ; it doesn't have the "new information" meaning. And in that sense, it's just a way to break up sentences or introduce topics; the rest would be something like 北村くんてさ、今日は来なかったよ！