mezbup Wrote:何をすればいいかわかっていることほど楽なものはない

Does that mean "Nothings as easy as knowing what to do" or "It's never easy knowing what to do"?

the ことほど楽なものはない turns up lots of results on google... but I don't quite understand it.

Your first guess is correct. はど always marks the extent: 'so ~ that', 'as ~ as'. If you take out the はど subclause you get:
楽なものはない -- there are no easy things
But we're not being that pessimistic, we're only denying the existence of some easy things, because of that modifier. So what are we saying doesn't exist? Things which are *as easy as* ('easy to the extent that') "knowing what the best thing to do is". Slightly cleaned up, "There is nothing as easy as knowing what to do."

@ chochajin:
2 and 4 are wrong because they are transitive verbs (the え sound in the verb hints to this), meaning that the が marked word(subject) performs the action to some object. Clothes can't perform an action unless personified. 終わった means finish or end. "The clothes finished" doesn't make any sense. し上がる ought to be 仕上がる or 仕上る meaning "to be completed;finished (tasks etc)" and is intransitive (the あ component of the verb hints to this) meaning it's an action (in this case passive) taken by the が marked word. 出来上がる would also be ok. Read up on transitive/intransitive verbs to better understand how this sentence works.

子供の誕生日に何をやろうか。
What should we give the child on his birthday?


This sentence and translation appear in my textbook in the section introducing giving and receiving verbs, and this sentence is using やる. but, I have no idea how やる turned into やろう in this sentence. Can't it just be やる? What IS やろう and what does it mean?

Thanks for any help.

やろう is the so called volitional form of the verb. In polite form, it' やりましょう which you're probably familiar with. When used in a question, it's usually translated to shall.
What shall we give (the child) for his/her birthday?

nadiatims Wrote:やろう is the so called volitional form of the verb. In polite form, it' やりましょう which you're probably familiar with. When used in a question, it's usually translated to shall.
What shall we give (the child) for his/her birthday?

Interesting, I read this sentence as "What shall we do on the child's birthday", using the "do" meaning of verb rather than "give", mostly because this sentence doesn't have an indirect object.

nadiatims Wrote:@ chochajin:
2 and 4 are wrong because they are transitive verbs (the え sound in the verb hints to this), meaning that the が marked word(subject) performs the action to some object. Clothes can't perform an action unless personified. 終わった means finish or end. "The clothes finished" doesn't make any sense. し上がる ought to be 仕上がる or 仕上る meaning "to be completed;finished (tasks etc)" and is intransitive (the あ component of the verb hints to this) meaning it's an action (in this case passive) taken by the が marked word.

I think this is only half right. 仕上がる and 仕上げる are verbs of themselves and so the transitivity of 仕上げる makes 4 definitely wrong, as you say. But in 1 and 2 終わる and 終える are auxiliary verbs, so their transitive/intransitive status doesn't matter -- it's the main verb (in this case する) which decides who's doing what to what, and which explains why neither 1 nor 2 is OK.

You can see that the transitivity/intransitivity of the aux verb doesn't matter by looking at sentences like 映画を見終わった . Here 終わる is intransitive but the direct object 映画 is fine because 見る is transitive.

FooSoft Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:やろう is the so called volitional form of the verb. In polite form, it' やりましょう which you're probably familiar with. When used in a question, it's usually translated to shall.
What shall we give (the child) for his/her birthday?

Interesting, I read this sentence as "What shall we do on the child's birthday", using the "do" meaning of verb rather than "give", mostly because this sentence doesn't have an indirect object.

Japanese doesn't require an explicitly stated "indirect object" for any verb, giving or not.

pm215, thanks so so much as always!!
Also big thanks to nadiatims.

caivano Wrote:Sorry I can't answer your question, but wondered where you are getting these questions from??

I use a N2 preparation book which has all these problems in it that are likely to appear in the test. The books title is "合格できる・日本語能力試験N2"

驚いたことに浅い眠りに入ったどころで

"astonishingly, no sooner had she fallen into a light sleep than"


驚いたことに　Is this just こと+に which turns it into an adverb
たどころで Is this what gives the sentence the 'no sooner ... than'

Many thanks

Are you sure it isnt ところで? That would make more sense to me. The form ～たところで means something like `even though`, so the sentence could be translated as `surprisingly, even though (they) had just fallen into a light sleep...`

nadiatims Wrote:やろう is the so called volitional form of the verb. In polite form, it' やりましょう which you're probably familiar with. When used in a question, it's usually translated to shall.
What shall we give (the child) for his/her birthday?

Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up. My textbook introduces -ましょう under the name "probability" or "let's" polite form, but they put the plain volitional into a verb chart hidden in the preface of the book. Now I've added another column to my verb conjugations chart

僕は子供が三人です。上の２人が女の子で下は男の子です。

Just with this, what does 上 and 下 mean here? I can kind of guess it from context, but what would be a good way to translate it, like what english word corresponds to their function here. And are the readings うえ and した or are they different here?

vinniram Wrote:僕は子供が三人です。上の２人が女の子で下は男の子です。

Just with this, what does 上 and 下 mean here? I can kind of guess it from context, but what would be a good way to translate it, like what english word corresponds to their function here. And are the readings うえ and した or are they different here?

"The older two are girls and the youngest is a boy". Japanese uses 'above' and 'below' for ages in a way which English doesn't (see also 年上, 年下). Your guess on the readings is right.

chochajin Wrote:I use a N2 preparation book which has all these problems in it that are likely to appear in the test. The books title is "合格できる・日本語能力試験N2"

Thanks, looks useful

Can anyone explain to me the difference between
知れる
知られる

thank you

They're one and the same, but the first way is really informal and only used in speech. Second is more polite and is always used in writing, I believe.

I've got a couple of new questions:

「なにかを言いかけ、しかしやめた。傷ついているのは逢坂も同じ。だから――勝手な感情で「これ」を肯定するような真似はしてはいけない気がしたのだ。」
Is the は used here in 真似はして contrastive? I think it is, but it looks kind of confusing to me, and I wanted to make sure it's not the topic marker.

「……逢坂……いきなり、どうして……いや、どうしてもなにもないけどよ……」
I'm trying to get understand the meaning of どうしてもなにもない here. Is the translation of this sentence something like: "Aisaka, what is it all of the sudden - no, It's fine but..."

「そしたら、あんたは……好きにするといい。なにもしたりしないから。みのりんに告白するなり、なんなり。」
For some reason the たりs here are a bit confusing, does this translation look ok? "And then, you can do whatever you want. Don't do anything else [for me]. Do stuff like confess to Minorin."

Cosign Wrote:Can anyone explain to me the difference between
知れる
知られる

知れる is an intransitive verb meaning to become known, discovered or revealed. It is also the potential form of 知る meaning to know.
知られる is the passive form 知る, meaning to know.

examples:

カレシの過去を知れるなら知りたい? (potential form of 知る)
If you could know about your boyfriends past, would you want to?

よく知られている話だが...(passive form of 知る)
(it) is a well known story but...

お里が知れてしまった (知れる. This is idiomatic )
I gave myself away. literally, my origins became revealed.

FooSoft Wrote:「なにかを言いかけ、しかしやめた。傷ついているのは逢坂も同じ。だから――勝手な感情で「これ」を肯定するような真似はしてはいけない気がしたのだ。」
Is the は used here in 真似はして contrastive? I think it is, but it looks kind of confusing to me, and I wanted to make sure it's not the topic marker.

I'm pretty sure that は is acting as a topic marker. it's saying something like "I started to say something but stopped. because...acting like I approve of 'this' to service my own selfish emotions (topic) felt wrong(comment))

FooSoft Wrote:「……逢坂……いきなり、どうして……いや、どうしてもなにもないけどよ……」
I'm trying to get understand the meaning of どうしてもなにもない here. Is the translation of this sentence something like: "Aisaka, what is it all of the sudden - no, It's fine but..."

I think this is about right.

FooSoft Wrote:「そしたら、あんたは……好きにするといい。なにもしたりしないから。みのりんに告白するなり、なんなり。」
For some reason the たりs here are a bit confusing, does this translation look ok? "And then, you can do whatever you want. Don't do anything else for me. Do stuff like confess to Minorin."

Something like this:
then, you can do as you like. I won't do anything (object, try to stop you). Whether you confess to Minorin or whatever else.

Thanks for the reply!

nadiatims Wrote:

FooSoft Wrote:「なにかを言いかけ、しかしやめた。傷ついているのは逢坂も同じ。だから――勝手な感情で「これ」を肯定するような真似はしてはいけない気がしたのだ。」
Is the は used here in 真似はして contrastive? I think it is, but it looks kind of confusing to me, and I wanted to make sure it's not the topic marker.

I'm pretty sure that は is acting as a topic marker. it's saying something like "I started to say something but stopped. because...acting like I approve of 'this' to service my own selfish emotions (topic) felt wrong(comment))

So the noun used in a する verb can be a topic? I didn't realize this, that's why I thought it was contrastive. So you can do something like 勉強はする - "as for studying, do"?

FooSoft Wrote:So the noun used in a する verb can be a topic? I didn't realize this, that's why I thought it was contrastive. So you can do something like 勉強はする - "as for studying, do"?

(Just thinking out loud here in the hope somebody will come along and tell me whether this is rubbish...)

Since you can say both 勉強をする and 真似をして, you can look at this as just the usual "objects can be a topic". On the other hand google brings up things like "いろいろなことを勉強はするが " whereas *いろいろなことを勉強をする would be ungrammatical, I think, suggesting it's not masking an wo here. (On the gripping hand there's a lot of google hits for "を勉強をする"...)

What do you mean "objects can be a topic"? I must be missing something very obvious, I think I've only seen elipsis of を for は in contrastive usage. I know you can obviously do では, には, etc. Also, I know some particles drop (like を) when used with も following same rules as contrast use of は (ie, これを食べる、それも食べる).

So can you really do これは食べる and just leave it at that, with を just dropping? For some reason I didn't think this was possible.

Yes, これは食べる is a perfectly possible and normal sentence (although normally you'd find it more like これは食べるけど、それは食べない。). は always replaces が and を and goes after other particles. It goes anywhere that も goes.

Ah, cool! I totally didn't make the connection back from the ellipsis in just the contrastive usage of は (that particle dropping wasn't a special case for that grammar).

Domo for answering my questions earlier.


Another question:
I entered なりと into yahoo dictionary.
The model sentences are completely confusing me.

なんなりと言ってくれ
Say whatever [anything] you want.

1円なりとも無駄に使ってはだめだ
You mustn't waste a single penny.

What does なりと actually mean? What about なりとも? Ty in advance.