Well I had to look it over quickly before school, but I feel like you covered everything correctly and in the right context. What I do is use TxtMiru to open the text file and read it as you would a normal Japanese book. Because I'm still rather new at reading books I am often throwing a bunch of content onto a page and using Rikaikun and the Jisho dictionary to help understand. The sentence I had trouble with, however, just has so many things that aren't easily deciphered by a dictionary that I posted it here. I don't have much time right now but I plan on looking it over more when I get a chance. Thanks a lot for all the work.

人よりもほんの少し多くの苦労、人よりもほんの少し多くの努力で、
その結果は大きく違ってくる。

what is this 人よりも?And this use of より I'm not familiar with

jpkuelho Wrote:人よりもほんの少し多くの苦労、人よりもほんの少し多くの努力で、
その結果は大きく違ってくる。

what is this 人よりも?And this use of より I'm not familiar with

人 (ひと) here means "others." より is used in the straightforward way, i.e., it's like "than."

Your example is saying something along the line of "Working a little harder than others makes huge difference."

I've heard a phrase numerous times recently. It means to "ignore" or "overlook" or "pretend it didn't happen" and it sounds like する or ずる or づる or すうる or something like that, but looking up synonyms:

http://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E7%84%A1%E8%A6%96

and using other tools such as JLookup doesn't return anything that fits that description. What is this word? Is it slang? A colloquialism?

TheTrueBlue Wrote:I've heard a phrase numerous times recently. It means to "ignore" or "overlook" or "pretend it didn't happen" and it sounds like する or ずる or づる or すうる or something like that [...] What is this word? Is it slang? A colloquialism?

スルー (n) (1) through; (vs) (2) (sl) ignoring; (P)

iSoron Wrote:

TheTrueBlue Wrote:I've heard a phrase numerous times recently. It means to "ignore" or "overlook" or "pretend it didn't happen" and it sounds like する or ずる or づる or すうる or something like that [...] What is this word? Is it slang? A colloquialism?

スルー (n) (1) through; (vs) (2) (sl) ignoring; (P)

Thank you very much.

I have a question about this sentence and hope for an answer.

だけど、帰り道が分からなくなりゃしないか。

What is りゃ? I take it that it must be some sort of contraction of something. But what? 分からなくなければ maybe? If it really is, does りゃ change the meaning of the sentence in any way?

Nagareboshi Wrote:I have a question about this sentence and hope for an answer.

だけど、帰り道が分からなくなりゃしないか。

What is りゃ? I take it that it must be some sort of contraction of something. But what? 分からなくなければ maybe? If it really is, does りゃ change the meaning of the sentence in any way?

You can see it as a spoken variant of りは. So the sentence means pretty much the same as だけど、帰り道が分からなくなりはしないか。You may also come across another variant りや. You don't use りや or りや in written language unless it's on your blog and such.

なりは. It's the same contraction that produces そりゃ from それは.

magamo Wrote:

Nagareboshi Wrote:I have a question about this sentence and hope for an answer.

だけど、帰り道が分からなくなりゃしないか。

What is りゃ? I take it that it must be some sort of contraction of something. But what? 分からなくなければ maybe? If it really is, does りゃ change the meaning of the sentence in any way?

You can see it as a spoken variant of りは. So the sentence means pretty much the same as だけど、帰り道が分からなくなりはしないか。You may also come across another variant りや. You don't use りや or りや in written language unless it's on your blog and such.

Thank you! Now the sentence makes sense. This is a sentence taken from a book, btw.

yudantaiteki Wrote:なりは. It's the same contraction that produces そりゃ from それは.

Thank you, too! I will go and look up the details later on.

Nagareboshi Wrote:This is a sentence taken from a book, btw.

It's the same as the "should of" thing. Pedagogically speaking, it's "wrong" unless you're using spoken language in writing (e.g., dialogue in a book and internet forums). But ultimately it's up to you. But if you do use it in a formal setting etc., you should know it very well.

Ok, I have another sentence that's left me rather confused:

一人暮らしをしている日本の学生の中には、カップラーメンに毎日のようにお世辞になっている人もいると聞きます。

It's the 毎日のようにお世辞になっている that's confusing me here and I feel like there has to be some other definition for お世辞 that I'm missing. I'm really unsure on お世辞になっている.

Unless it literally just means that there are people (among Japanese students living alone) that are growing to compliment/speak highly of cup ramen every day?

That looks like it should be お世話になっている

Oh wow, you're right. Well that makes a lot more sense!

The crazy thing is that I actually stared at that word for ages as I was almost convinced I must be reading the kanji wrong. Oh well, that's what happens when I try reading textbooks at 3am :-\

Thanks for the correction!

恥ずかしい

You definitely don't want to accidentally say お世辞になっている :-)

野球は九人で1チームです。

In this sentence from core6k 1チーム is read ひとチーム　according to the answer field.

Is this a mistake?

I think that's right. いちチーム is unlikely (to me) although I can't say 100% for certain.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think that's right. いちチーム is unlikely (to me) although I can't say 100% for certain.

Now I'm confused. : )

I've only seen 1 read as ひと when used in compounds or counters like 一人　or 一つ.
I figured if used with an English word it would be read いち.

Could you or someone else explain when 1 is read as ひと? Thanks.

There was a thread on this recently. Here's Magamo's explanation.

Edit: The link didn't work properly. Scroll down to the bottom to recieve Magamo's wisdom.

Thanks that explanation made sense (sorta).

I'll just accept it as it is, it'll probably feel natural once I've encountered it a few times.

I have encountered the phrase ところが多い lately somehow and I was wondering if it really means "there are often times". The difference between ところ and 時　is not difficult to grasp, but I just wanted to ask, because 時が多い sounds strange to me, but google still shows me more hits for the latter.. And can you say it like that:
誤りをすることがある。 There are times I do mistakes.
誤りをするところが多い。 There are *often* ("lots of..") times I do mistakes.

apirx Wrote:野球は九人で1チームです。

In this sentence from core6k 1チーム is read ひとチーム　according to the answer field.

Is this a mistake?

I'd say ひとちーむ sounds slightly better, but you can use either of the two in this particular case. The general rule I originally wrote is a little simplified version of a more complicated rule, and it's not an exception in this more complicated version but may look like so in the simplified explanation.

Each Japanese word has its own "Japaneseness," and words behave differently according to it. In other words, there are grammar rules where how Japanese a word sounds to the speaker dictates how he uses it in a grammatical sense. Roughly speaking, words are of high Japaneseness if they come from classical Japanese, (i.e., guys who have been in Japanese for thousands of years) and are frequently used in everyday conversation. Frequency is very important here, and a newly coined word may behave like a traditional word from classical Japanese if it becomes so common in everyday spoken language that native speakers start feeling strong Japaneseness to it. But the vast majority of highly Japanese words are the yamato words, i.e., words from classical Japanese. So some grammar rules can be simplified as "If A is a yamato word, then B," though they will be slightly less accurate.

And when it comes to counters, yamato counters are generally the ones which represent the things you're counting the number of. So the grammar rule about counters can be simply stated like "If the counter is a yamato word, you say X" or less technically, "If the counter can be used for the word you're counting the number of, you say X."

This simplified version may not work perfectly if, for example, the counter is a relatively new loanword from a non-Chinese foreign language but is quite common in everyday language. チーム is an example of this. It's technically a loanword. But it's so commonly used in Japanese now it's losing the feel of foreignness. So depending on how Japanese the speaker feels about the word in a given situation, he may use either ひと or いち.

The 音便 rule is phonetic and irrelevant of this Japaneseness thing. So if you go with いち, as is explained in the post Splatted linked to, you might want to say いっちーむ. Probably I say ひとちーむ much more often, but いっちーむ doesn't sound extremely odd either.

Tori-kun Wrote:I have encountered the phrase ところが多い lately somehow and I was wondering if it really means "there are often times". The difference between ところ and 時　is not difficult to grasp, but I just wanted to ask, because 時が多い sounds strange to me, but google still shows me more hits for the latter.. And can you say it like that:
誤りをすることがある。 There are times I do mistakes.
誤りをするところが多い。 There are *often* ("lots of..") times I do mistakes.

I'm not sure if I understand your question, but it might be translated as "there are often times" in some cases. I don't think it's the most common or versatile translation at all though. If you want translate something into another language, you might want to take much more context into account.

Also, maybe you're doing it on purpose, but the two Japanese sentences don't sound quite right just like the English translations aren't extremely idiomatic; you "make" mistakes in English and you use 間違う, 誤る or some other idiomatic phrases in Japanese.

Thanks for the answer, magamo! I started reading DoBJG from cover to cover and came across this, concerning the usage of ために／のに:

Quote:Tame ni can only be replaced by noni when one does something in the process of achieving a goal.

I find the given example strange somehow:
体を強くするために毎日プールで泳いでいる。 I'm swimming every day in the pool to strenghten my body. (The reason why I find the explanation given strange, is that "strenghtening my body" is in fact a goal one achieves by the process of swimming every day. So for me this sentence is not explaining the difference between those forms that can express an "in order to.." in English quite well)
体を強くするのに毎日プールで泳いでいる。 wrong!

Can someone explain that?

Sentence from Core6000:

彼は握手をしようと手を差し出したの。

"He put out his hand to shake hands"

Is this ようと the same as ようとする, ie. try to do something? I'm getting confused. The English translation seems closer to a sentence like:

彼は握手をするため、手を差し出したの。

Yes, Xようとする is "try to X", so ようとverb is "do something as an attempt to do X".
ため doesn't really work for this sentence; it's too strong and it doesn't have the "try to do" meaning.

EDIT: I just saw another example of this in a manga I'm reading: あのバカ、相手のイギリス兵に握手しようとのこのこ出てって...撃たれてしんだんだとよ。