TheSlyPig Wrote:Why is 強く modifying ぶつけた instead of modifying 頭？ It's functioning as an adverb...

It's functioning an adverb, and is therefore modifying ぶつけた, I feel like you answered your own question.

When adjectives go from -い to -く, they become adverbs.
強い頭をぶつけた -> hit my strong head
強く頭をぶつけた -> hit my head strongly

goes similar way with -な adjectives when it turns into に
奇麗な指を切った -> Cut the pretty finger
奇麗に指を切った -> Cleanly cut the finger

Wow, thank you Asriel. I have no idea how I've managed to study Japanese for multiple years without ever discovering this rule!

Are 偉い and 優秀な semantically similar? Because I neither appear in the thesaurus on weblio and the dictionary entry (#1 on 偉い） for both seem pretty similar in meaning. Am I missing something?

Probably the good old Yamato kotoba vs Chinese import distinction.

Meaning that 偉い would be more emotional and 優秀 more intellectual.

ここを右に曲がって、そのままずっとまっすぐ歩いていけば、10分ほどで駅のロータリーに着きますよ。

Just a question, but could one use と-conditional here, too? Sounds somewhat better to me, but that's only a 'feeling' :)

vix86 Wrote:Are 偉い and 優秀な semantically similar? Because I neither appear in the thesaurus on weblio and the dictionary entry (#1 on 偉い） for both seem pretty similar in meaning. Am I missing something?

You can also use えらい like ひどい which obviously you can't do with 優勢 e.g. えらいことになる、えらい仕事 etc.

えらい is used in some other cases like 偉い人 (someone in high standing in a company, etc.) or saying えらい！ to a child.

Tori-kun: I think you can use と there but ば seems OK to me too, not being a native speaker.

kitakitsune Wrote:Probably the good old Yamato kotoba vs Chinese import distinction.

Meaning that 偉い would be more emotional and 優秀 more intellectual.

Emotional in the sense that you'd use it in conversation more or more serious stuff, while 優秀 is very "paper based" like 'The subjects in the test were quite exceptional.'

pudding cat Wrote:You can also use えらい like ひどい which obviously you can't do with 優勢 e.g. えらいことになる、えらい仕事 etc.

Didn't know that. Maybe its a context thing but I would translate えらい仕事 as "highly respectable job." But maybe pragmatically its "ひどい” hmm

yudantaiteki Wrote:えらい is used in some other cases like 偉い人 (someone in high standing in a company, etc.) or saying えらい！ to a child.

Ya I hear these often.

yudantaiteki Wrote:えらい is used in some other cases like 偉い人 (someone in high standing in a company, etc.)

Which can also be used quite sarcastically...

The uses of えらい as ひどい, とても, and しんどい come from Kansai-ben, though nowadays you can here some Kansai-ben anywhere.

That silly Colloquial Kansai Japanese book gives examples for each:

ひどい：
えらい天気やなあ。大雪やわ。
This is really awful weather. It's snowing hard.

とても/非常に：
えらい朝はよから、会議すんねんなあ。
I've got a meeting very early in the morning.

しんどい：
今日、むっちゃえらかったわ。
Today was really tough.

It mentions that in Tokyo it is usually used as a synonym for 立派.

Nowadays I don't think it's even really considered Kansai-ben anymore; even the 5th edition Koujien has the following examples with no dialectical mark:

人がえらく集まった
えらい騒ぎ
えらいことになった
坂道を登るのがえらい

(The 5th edition Koujien has no entries for stuff like ほんま, めっちゃ, or ちゃう

Can you translate this sentence to english for me?

人に言われたことを丸呑みにしない。

animehunter123 Wrote:Can you translate this sentence to english for me?

人に言われたことを丸呑みにしない。

I've actually never heard 丸呑みにする before, but according to my electronic dictionary one of the meanings is something like 'to accept as it is without really understanding' 'to memorize without understanding' 'to accept the whole thing as it is.'

So it sounds like it means 'Don't believe everything that is said to you.'　Or 'Don't accept what others say without thinking about it yourself.'

Don't just accept what someone says without questioning/thinking about it.

Thank you so much for your comments. Yes that was a hard sentence!

I have one more quick one. What does this mean:

刀の鞘におさまっている

Does おさまっているmean... the katana is inside the sheath? or equipped? Thanks

animehunter123 Wrote:Can you translate this sentence to english for me?
人に言われたことを丸呑みにしない。

Usual remark: if you have a go yourself and/or say what you're having difficulty with this is likely to (a) generate more useful results and (b) be more interesting for the people answering.

puddingcat Wrote:Don't just accept what someone says without questioning/thinking about it.

I think that would be にしないで or にしないこと or にしないほうがいい or similar. As it stands I think it's more like "[I/you/they/...] don't just accept etc".

Yeah. 鞘に収める is to sheath a sword.

So 鞘に収まる is the intransitive version.

(So おさまっている is 'to be sheathed')

pm215 Wrote:I think that would be にしないで or にしないこと or にしないほうがいい or similar. As it stands I think it's more like "[I/you/they/...] don't just accept etc".

I disagree. The statement sounds like a maxim that you're supposed to follow, and the negative-as-command-form just makes it sound more literary.

Tzadeck Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:I think that would be にしないで or にしないこと or にしないほうがいい or similar. As it stands I think it's more like "[I/you/they/...] don't just accept etc".

I disagree. The statement sounds like a maxim that you're supposed to follow, and the negative-as-command-form just makes it sound more literary.

I certainly agree that it sounds like it ought to be a maxim, I just don't see how you can grammatically get there from the sentence as it's actually written. (Do you have other examples of using plain negative as a command form?)

I think it's stated as a kind of reminder, so it's kind of like a maxim, a rule to be followed. But it's not a command.

人に言われたことを丸呑みにしない。
(remember, )(we/you) (should) not just believe what (we/you) are told by people.

You do sometimes read する and しない within the context of instructions though, but again it's not command form. It's more like:
and then you do blah blah
Be sure not to blah blah
sometimes こと is added to the end.

By command form, I meant that it would be translated in English as a command form (since that's how we usually express this type of thing).

I'll see if I can find any other examples if I have time in the next couple of days. I'll probably have some downtime during work, but I'm busy tonight and tomorrow night.

You know you have a silly job when you're busier when not at work.

FWIW I agree with Tzadeck and nadiatims; there's no imperative or command *grammar*, but it's pragmatically a command/reminder/whatever.

I suppose given the right context it could be a statement about one's personal habits but I think that would be rarer than the reminder.

pm215 Wrote:I certainly agree that it sounds like it ought to be a maxim, I just don't see how you can grammatically get there from the sentence as it's actually written. (Do you have other examples of using plain negative as a command form?)

Here's an example from a light novel:

「ほらほら圭ちゃん、ぼーっとしない！　机を寄せて寄せて！」

I was looking for examples of こと and found this sentence on my dictionary.

他人のことを気にするな。
たにんのことをきにするな。
Don't worry about others.

I believe 気にするな is the imperative abrupt negative. But there is another, the imperative plain negative, なさるな. Why do you think the dictionary would use the abrupt form over the plain?.

I'm not fully understanding your question. I've never seen なさるな before; it's an odd combination of honorific-polite and the abrupt negative.

(After reading this post I searched the Internet and found some grammar site that described this as a "plain negative", and I did find some examples on google, but it's not something I've personally encountered that I can remember.)