could someone explain to me the meaning of this sentence:
八竜の一匹
eight dragons one animal ? eight dragon's animal ? I have no idea.

"One of the eight dragons"
匹 is the counter for small animals (cat, dog, etc), so I find it a little strange that they would use it for dragons... But without context, that's how it seems to me

It is from a manga I am reading the person that says that is shocked to see (from what I understand) 8 dragons released from one of the main characters. Still, what would 一匹 mean in this context ?

I'm still gonna say that it's just the counter. From what I can gather, you're either reading 烈火の炎, or something related to Final Fantasy.
Apparently 匹 is used for dragons.

伝説の八竜の一匹 -> seen in FF6 when dealing with the dragons.
And "違うと思いますが「烈火の炎」という漫画に刹那はでてきますよ。主人公じゃないですが主人公が使う八竜の一匹に刹那がいます。" <-- Essentially 'one of the dragons that the main character uses is "Setsuna" (link)

Yes it is from "Flame of Recca", so the meaning is "one of the 8 dragons" ?

In video games (and probably other media as well), 匹 is used typically for any sort of monster or beast regardless of size.

And yes, it means "One of the eight dragons" -- 一匹　is just a normal use of a counter.

I'm having trouble understanding the use of じゃ in the sentence これだけじゃわかりませんね. This question is probably silly and I feel like I missed something pretty basic along the way. Thanks in advance for the help

Could someone double check the last sentence in this?

タマルはもう一度、鋭い視線を青豆に向けた。「なあ、心にかかっていることがあるのなら、俺に言った方がいい。警官が何かに関わっているのか」

I think it means something like "Are the police concerned with something?", but I'm not sure if it is that or "Did you get involved with the police?"

Manske Wrote:I'm having trouble understanding the use of じゃ in the sentence これだけじゃわかりませんね. This question is probably silly and I feel like I missed something pretty basic along the way. Thanks in advance for the help

It's an abbreviation of では, which means something like 'with' in this case. The translation would be 'I can't understand it with only this' 'This isn't enough to understand it'. I'm guessing you're already familiar with the unabbreviated form, so I'll spare the haphazard explanations.

FooSoft Wrote:Could someone double check the last sentence in this?

タマルはもう一度、鋭い視線を青豆に向けた。「なあ、心にかかっていることがあるのなら、俺に言った方がいい。警官が何かに関わっているのか」

I think it means something like "Are the police concerned with something?", but I'm not sure if it is that or "Did you get involved with the police?"

警官 is cop, so without context, I'm guessing it means 'is the cop involved in something?'. Maybe you could rephrase this as 'up to something'.

Thanks Javizy!

One more question:

彼が小さな天吾を集金に連れてまわったのには、いくつかの理由があった。小さな天吾を一人でうちに置いてはおけない、というのがひとつの理由だ。平日と土曜日は保育園や幼稚園や小学校に預けていけるが、日曜日はそれらの場所が休みになる。それから父親がどんな仕事をしているか、息子に見せておく必要がある、というのがもうひとつの理由になっていた。自分たちの生活がどのような営みの上に成り立っているか、労働というのがどういうものなのか、小さいうちから知っておかなくてはならない。

Is this sentence essentially:

"What kind of work are our lives provided for? What is this labor thing? [He] had to learn it from the time he was small."

うちから seemed strange to me, because I have only seen it with うちに, but I assume it can be used like this to signify an ongoing process as opposed to something limited to a span of time?

1) 雨でピクニックにい行けないなんてつまらない。
2) １対０で負けたなんて悔しい。

The two sentences above are unrelated to each other. I have a couple of questions.

1. What does なんて mean in the above cases? Can someone direct me to an entry for it on WWWJDIC? It seems to me like it should be the te-form of んだ, so んで, so why is it this "なんて"?

2. With sentence 1), what is the meaning of つまらない in that case? It isn't "insignificant, trifling", and I don't think it's "dull, boring, uninteresting" either. It seems from context to be more like "annoyed", but this meaning doesn't appear in WWWJDIC, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

Thanks for any help.

vinniram Wrote:1) 雨でピクニックにい行けないなんてつまらない。
2) １対０で負けたなんて悔しい。

The two sentences above are unrelated to each other. I have a couple of questions.

1. What does なんて mean in the above cases? Can someone direct me to an entry for it on WWWJDIC? It seems to me like it should be the te-form of んだ, so んで, so why is it this "なんて"?

2. With sentence 1), what is the meaning of つまらない in that case? It isn't "insignificant, trifling", and I don't think it's "dull, boring, uninteresting" either. It seems from context to be more like "annoyed", but this meaning doesn't appear in WWWJDIC, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

Thanks for any help.

I think it's like "How boring/dull/dreary/etc." and "How regrettable"/"what a shame".

vinniram Wrote:1) 雨でピクニックにい行けないなんてつまらない。
2) １対０で負けたなんて悔しい。

The two sentences above are unrelated to each other. I have a couple of questions.

1. What does なんて mean in the above cases? Can someone direct me to an entry for it on WWWJDIC? It seems to me like it should be the te-form of んだ, so んで, so why is it this "なんて"?

It's a form of など or なんか; it's used here to emphasize the negative feeling.

Quote:2. With sentence 1), what is the meaning of つまらない in that case? It isn't "insignificant, trifling", and I don't think it's "dull, boring, uninteresting" either. It seems from context to be more like "annoyed", but this meaning doesn't appear in WWWJDIC, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

You could think of it as meaning something like "The result is boring" but it just basically means it sucks that they can't go.

FooSoft Wrote:自分たちの生活がどのような営みの上に成り立っているか、労働というのがどういうものなのか、小さいうちから知っておかなくてはならない。

The two questions are linked with the verb 知る, so it's one long sentence. というもの seems to be focusing on the abstract concept of 労働, so I think it sounds a bit more eloquent than 'this thing'. I think the general gist of the sentence is like this:

He has to learn from an early age what it takes to support ourselves and what the concept of labour really means.

Thanks Javizy, I'm glad I wasn't too off (your translation sounds a lot more fluent than mine).

Another question:

その事実は天吾が『空気さなぎ』の文章に手を入れることの罪悪感をいくらか軽減してはくれたものの、全体として見れば事態をさらに——はっきり言えば抜き差しならないほど——複雑化させていた。

"In truth, Tengo's feelings of guilt regarding putting his hand to the composition 『空気さなぎ』have somewhat abated, but as a whole the situation got even more -- to put it bluntly, undeniably complicated."

What exactly does 抜き差しならない mean here? Is it the negative of 抜き差しになる, meaning "becoming so that you can't give or take (certain)" or ならない as in "can't help but do X"?

FooSoft Wrote:Thanks , I'm glad I wasn't too off (your translation sounds a lot more fluent than mine).

Another question:

その事実は天吾が『空気さなぎ』の文章に手を入れることの罪悪感をいくらか軽減してはくれたものの、全体として見れば事態をさらに——はっきり言えば抜き差しならないほど——複雑化させていた。

"In truth, Tengo's feelings of guilt regarding putting his hand to the composition 『空気さなぎ』have somewhat abated, but as a whole the situation got even more -- to put it bluntly, undeniably complicated."

What exactly does 抜き差しならない mean here? Is it the negative of 抜き差しになる, meaning "becoming so that you can't give or take (certain)" or ならない as in "can't help but do X"?

There are some interesting Google results if you search "抜き差しならない".

If you add the keyword 'idiom' for English explanations, one result is "be in a dilemma".

Thanks! Found this particularly interesting:
http://quisition.com/library/pack/443/japanese-idioms/

「花言葉は、草花にあてはめられた合い言葉や符牒（符丁）の事.」
They have 符牒 and 符丁...just an alternative spelling? If so is it similar to alternate spellings in English, or are there other connotations?

Just thought I'd ask something for once - so many things I don't know, maybe this will tip the balance!

Thanks!

The Touyou kanji list came out in 1946. Many words in use obviously couldn't be written using only these kanji. In 1956, the govt came out with a list of substitute kanji. The idea was to replace certain non-Touyou kanji in certain words with a Touyou kanji having the same reading. 符牒 →　符丁　is on that list.

Some unfortunate results of such kanji substitution (in case anyone's interested?):

Words whose kanji originally made semantic sense were reduced to phonetic symbols. It wasn't applied uniformly: some words use the original kanji and others use the substitute kanji. It complicates the work of researchers who must trace multiple forms of words and it screws up analysis of word families [which morphological analysers use]. If not done carefully, it can alter an author's intended meaning or nuance. Newspapers followed with their own lists, so it generally became an uneven mess. Some kanji were later added to Jouyou, so now which is the "correct" way to write those words containing kanji substitutes?

Edit: Wikipedia: 同音の漢字による書きかえ

I have come across a grammar pattern that seems both rare-ish and difficult to look up. I think I have found an appropriate explanation but would be interested in confirmation. I'm curious about the use of ～ながらに（して） in the following sentences:

「すべての人間は、生まれながらにして自由であり、かつ、尊厳と権利とについて平等である。」
「外国に居ながらにして日本からの生のテレビ放送が見られるようになった。」
「生まれながらに魔導の力を持つ娘か」

I'm especially having difficulty with the difference between the 生まれながらにして in the first example and 生まれながらに in the third.

(Sources are, in order: the official Japanese translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar, and the Final Fantasy VI script.)

Thanks Thora! That's very interesting...I'm quite keen on old (original) kanji. I'm going to enjoy finding out about this.

給料の２，３ヶ月分ずつボーナスが出ます。

”They give out salary bonuses 2 or 3 months each."

I know my translation is wrong. Can someone explain the use of 分 here, and translate the sentence as a whole? Thanks.

vinniram Wrote:給料の２，３ヶ月分ずつボーナスが出ます。

”They give out salary bonuses 2 or 3 months each."

I know my translation is wrong. Can someone explain the use of 分 here, and translate the sentence as a whole? Thanks.

I think it should be ずつのボーナス, and keep in mind 'ずつ' indicates an even distribution (see DOBJG), and it's this 分 I believe, simply indicating the 2-3 months as a 'portion' though perhaps 'rate' works too since it's time?:

分 ぶん
(n,n-suf,pref) part; segment; share; ration; rate; degree; one's lot; one's status; relation; duty; kind; lot; in proportion to; just as much as; (P)

給料の２，３ヶ月分ずつ、ボーナスが出ます。

I have a habit of taking out all the punctuation when I type sentences out; there should have been a comma between ずつ and ボーナス.

Every time i try to translate it, I just get stuck with what 分 and ずつ actually means here. Even distribution - but even distribution of what? Of "2 or 3 month portion"? I can't get my head around it at all. Is it like "2 month portion bonus" and "3 month portion bonus"? For some reason this is one sentence I just absolutely cannot even figure out how to start translating. If someone could translate it I'd be very happy.