My vote's for 'upon'! (See page p. 547 of DIJG for more on that one.)

Yeah, I read that while trying to figure it out, but two things that make me uncertain about that grammar:

1) It says that it must be used with past tense, here it's present tense
2) The verb that comes before 上で seems to always mean "preparation" for doing something else. This feels odd being used with 問題はまったくなかった

Edit: Although I've seen a lot of other grammar that's normally only "supposed" to work with past tense appear with present tense as well.

FooSoft Wrote:Yeah, I read that while trying to figure it out, but two things that make me uncertain about that grammar:

1) It says that it must be used with past tense, here it's present tense
2) The verb that comes before 上で seems to always mean "preparation" for doing something else. This feels odd being used with 問題はまったくなかった

Damn, spending too much time on this forum. On p. 549 it says: "N in N (no) ue de as exemplified by KS(B), Exs. (g) and (h) is typically a noun of investigation, interview, discussion, and the like. And the noun is usually a Sino-Japanese noun that takes (o) suru."

Those examples aren't past tense.

Don't some people consider living together to be a kind of litmus test for relationships before taking them to the next level? ;p

Ah, good call on the する bit not having to be した. In this case nobody is taking anything to the next level , but I see where you are coming from. Thanks nest0r!

FooSoft Wrote:Ah, good call on the する bit not having to be した. In this case nobody is taking anything to the next level , but I see where you are coming from. Thanks nest0r!

Thora posted this one before:

上で　　upon; after; in -ing
この辞書を二位本後を勉強する上で大変役に立つ。
(This dictionary is very useful in studying Japanese.)

It's easy to get caught up in literal word translations (insidious!) so perhaps that 'in -ing' sense helps make the original sentence seem less awkward? Maybe not. Actually it makes me doubtful again. Hmm.

No, I think you're right, -ing makes it less weird. Man, the different 上 grammar can be pretty annoying What makes the most sense to me in the flow of the sentence is the 上 (じょう) noun suffix kind of 上 but there really isn't grammar to back it up (that's why I thought I was missing something)

Thora Wrote:(From DIJG, but there may be input errors.)
この辞書を二位本後を勉強する上で大変役に立つ。

Sorry, the translation should have read:
(This dictionary is very useful in studying second place epilogues.)

Thora Wrote:

Thora Wrote:(From DIJG, but there may be input errors.)
この辞書を二位本後を勉強する上で大変役に立つ。

Sorry, the translation should have read:
(This dictionary is very useful in studying second place epilogues.)

Ahh. I was wondering.

田中さんが何をしているか木村さんだったら知っているでしょう。
I would probably know what Tanaka is doing if I were Kimura.

I want to check whether this translation is correct; I have a feeling it isn't, and that I haven't fully grasped the meaning of the たら clause in this case. Thanks for any help.

@vinniram

I would say it's more like (somewhat literally)

"If it's Kimura, he would probably know what Tanaka is doing."

たら just makes this a hypothetical situation, it doesn't imply "I"

Can we use this thread for Chinese as well? If so I'm stuck on 得. I'm not sure if I use it correctly. I'm really just following my gut feeling with Chinese grammar as I get more exposed to it but...

你說得不懂了。
你说得不懂了。
I don't understand what you just said!

謝謝。：）

Thanks for that FooSoft. I think translating is sometimes a bad habit, because I start putting in "I" and "you" when none of that is implied in the Japanese.

Guess I'll throw in this:

だったら
(conj) if it's the case; (P)

Also, for the 何をしているか which you didn't ask about, it goes into embedded questions on p. 137 of Japanese the Manga Way. ;p

皆、御苦労様。良く頑張ったね。１位にはなれなかったけど３位に入賞したんだから立派だよ。
Everyone, what a great effort! You really tried your best! Even though we didn't get first place, we won third prize, so that's splendid!

I just don't know what the red verb is. I was thinking it might be 慣れる 'grow accustomed to', but that meaning doesn't fit here at all. The translation is actually given by my textbook as well. Thanks for any help with this verb.

It's just the potential form of なる.

I feel so stupid not realizing that -.-"

Hi again guys.

Doesn't "お店はもう閉まっていました。" mean "The shop was already closing."? It's one of the sentences from Core and the translation I have is "The shop had already closed.".
And wouldn't "私は電車で通学しています。" mean "I'm going to school by train." instead of "I go to school by train."?
Thanks in advance.

Miguelitius Wrote:Hi again guys.

Doesn't "お店はもう閉まっていました。" mean "The shop was already closing."? It's one of the sentences from Core and the translation I have is "The shop had already closed.".
And wouldn't "私は電車で通学しています。" mean "I'm going to school by train." instead of "I go to school by train."?
Thanks in advance.

There are a lot of verbs in English that can use the 'ing' form to indicate that a process is going on, whereas in Japanese the ている form can't do that--and instead it just means that things are in the state resulting from the verb being done. 閉まる seems to be one of those verbs. So, '閉まっています' means that 'It is closed' and '閉まっていました’ means 'It was closed/It was already closed.' You can get around this in various ways if you want to express the English equivalent (usually various ways of saying something like 'the shop was about to close', or using つつある or something like that).

A lot of going and coming verbs are like this: 行く,　来る,　帰る.

As for your second question, you can use ています form to express habits, or things you do often. 毎日牛乳を飲んでいます, for example, is a perfectly fine sentence in Japanese (though, who would say it outside of a textbook?). In English you would just write it "I drink milk everyday." I guess it just comes down to the fact that we don't have a form exactly equivalent to ている in English.

Could someone explain the usage of こと in the following paragraph?

青豆は地図の道筋を辿るように、老婦人の筋肉をひとつひとつ指先で確かめていった。それぞれの筋肉の張り具合や、硬さや、反発の度合いを、青豆は細かく記憶していた。ピアニストが長い曲を暗譜してしまうのと同じだ。こと身体に関しては、そういう綿密な記憶力が青豆には具わっている。

Is this something like 身体のこと? I have no idea what purpose it serves in this sentence.

gyuujuice Wrote:Can we use this thread for Chinese as well?

It seems to me that you'd be more likely to have questions seen by people who could answer them if you created a "What's this Chinese word/phrase?" thread in the 'Remembering the Hanzi' section (please use a different title from that of this thread for the benefit of people who just look at the 'recent topics' list :-))

Thank you very much Tzadeck, that definitely helped a LOT.

FooSoft Wrote:Could someone explain the usage of こと in the following paragraph?

青豆は地図の道筋を辿るように、老婦人の筋肉をひとつひとつ指先で確かめていった。それぞれの筋肉の張り具合や、硬さや、反発の度合いを、青豆は細かく記憶していた。ピアニストが長い曲を暗譜してしまうのと同じだ。こと身体に関しては、そういう綿密な記憶力が青豆には具わっている。

Is this something like 身体のこと? I have no idea what purpose it serves in this sentence.

I found this: http://books.google.com/books?id=SszxbMt...22&f=false

I have a question, what does しっかり mean? I looked it up on rikaichan, but I just cant get the feeling that it means firmly, tightly, or reliable whenever I see it in context.

Zon70 Wrote:I have a question, what does しっかり mean? I looked it up on rikaichan, but I just cant get the feeling that it means firmly, tightly, or reliable whenever I see it in context.

My first encounter with this word came in, yes you guessed it, Japanese the Manga Way (p. 151).

The sentence was:

しっかりつかまって。
Hold on tight.

しっかりしなさい！
Pull yourself together!
(Tighten up!...if you wil)