From a website about grammar I'm reading:

Quote:あなた　　　は　 馬鹿　　に　 なる：You will become stupid.
…

Plus, "NARU" means "become" in Japanese. (Check GODANNKATUSYOU RAGYOU DOUSHI)
This word is a verb, so this example show you that when you put "DA" before a verb,
you will conjugate "DA" into "NI".

Is に really another form of the copula?

Source: https://sites.google.com/a/keisensei.com...-i--dantei

It was clearly a form of the copula in classical Japanese, and the particle に is almost certainly derived from some copula in pre-written Japanese. Whether this is useful for understanding modern constructions I don't know. I've never seen it described that way.

EDIT: I definitely don't like the vague language of that explanation that when you "put" da before a verb it changes to "ni", and I think that whole page is misleading, if not flat out wrong. I honestly don't know what the author means by calling だった and です 連用形 of だ; this makes no sense and doesn't fit with the way that grammatical term is usually used.

I also think it's totally wrong to say that だ "describes your strong opinion"; it may have that effect in certain contexts but it's just the plain form copula.

である does not show "high intellectual ability"; it's a written form copula that is rarely, if ever, used in speech.

The じゃ in じゃない is not slang.

Describing のだ as the form of だ going after YOUGENN (I have no idea what that term means, but apparently he wants it to refer to verbs and adjectives) is completely wrong.

I'm not going to read any more pages but I wouldn't recommend that site.

Thank you!

One more, about the particle? な.

If 道具は便利だ, 便利な道具 suggests that な is a form of the copula, what does 花は緑だ, 緑の花 suggest about の?

JSL suggests that both な and の are forms of the copula. There is a fundamental grammatical difference between 緑の花 and 私の本; JSL describes the former as the copula and the latter as a particle.

Thank you. I have another, what is the etymology of たり、たりする? Is it related to たる? There is one hit with the exact question being asked in Stackoverflow, but it does not actually talk about たり、たりする.

Yes, it comes from the たり (the 終止形 of たる)

CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THE KANJI SYMBOLS IN MY PROFILE PICTURE AVATAR???????????????? PLEASE.

knowinflowin1 Wrote:CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THE KANJI SYMBOLS IN MY PROFILE PICTURE AVATAR???????????????? PLEASE.

OKAY!!! ITS A FUGLY MS PAINT SCRIBBLE OF 旭 (ASAHI!!) WHICH MEANS MORNING SUN!!!

Do capitals make anyone else physically cringe?

OT: Is there a reason 八百屋 has "800" in it?

8 (and 80, 800, etc.) has always had a secondary meaning of "lots" or "infinity", so it's a store that sells lots of things.

Got it, thanks

[ファブリス]

knowinflowin1 Wrote:CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THE KANJI SYMBOLS IN MY PROFILE PICTURE AVATAR???????????????? PLEASE.

Hi knowinflowin1. We wouldn't have met you already on this board would we?

What sort of conjugation is this?

食べきれる。

It's a compound verb: 食べ切る　→　食べ切れる

切る in this case has a sense of finishing something, so for example ××(を)食べ切れるか？ would be to the effect of "××, can you eat it all?"

Something like 飲み切る works in the same manner. 酒を飲み切る、 drink up all the sake.

Pretty brief, but hope it helps.

I'd like to ask something regarding this sentence:

ステレオの広告を見て買おうと思ったら家内に反対された。
Upon looking at an ad for stereos, I thought I would buy one, but my wife objected to it.

I'm wondering what the -tara construction is doing here. I don't remember it being ever compared to the English "but", only "when" and "if". What's going on?

EDIT: Also, this sentence:

橋本が言っていたけど、中島さんは踊らないって。
According to Hashimoto, Mr. Nakashima is not going to dance.

I don't understand what kedo is doing here?

The first one is a meaning rather than grammar translation, if you want to be more literal just replace "but" with "then".

Second "kedo" is marking a topic being introduced.

So one of the visual novels I've been playing recently is using some old sounding Japanese in it. They are writing さよう as 左様. Is this ateji?　If not, what's the etymology behind this? Is it cultural that "left" was considered correct, hence the semantic-like meaning of "left seeming?"

I started to reply to a friend in Japanese today and realized I had no idea if the "for a ______" expression would translate literally, as in "you eat a lot for a 5 year-old" or "you talk a lot for a dead person". I learned to use ために　as the equivalent of "for", but for some reason the flavor of ために　seems kindof explanatory or causative. It doesn't seem suited to this kind of expression, where the observation is different than the expectation. Thoughts? What is a good way to say stuff like this?

ni shite wa?

vix86 Wrote:So one of the visual novels I've been playing recently is using some old sounding Japanese in it. They are writing さよう as 左様. Is this ateji?　If not, what's the etymology behind this? Is it cultural that "left" was considered correct, hence the semantic-like meaning of "left seeming?"

It's ateji. The さ is like その and has no relation to the Chinese-borrowed reading of the 左 kanji.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I'd like to ask something regarding this sentence:

ステレオの広告を見て買おうと思ったら家内に反対された。
Upon looking at an ad for stereos, I thought I would buy one, but my wife objected to it.

I'm wondering what the -tara construction is doing here. I don't remember it being ever compared to the English "but", only "when" and "if". What's going on?

It's not "but", but that's how it's translated here. 思ったら (at least here) is "when I thought" and the whole <obj>を見て買おうと思ったら means "when I thought I would buy (it) (as a result of / because of / by) watching".

Betelgeuzah Wrote:橋本が言っていたけど、中島さんは踊らないって。
According to Hashimoto, Mr. Nakashima is not going to dance.

I don't understand what kedo is doing here?

けど means "but" here. So:
橋本が言っていたけど、中島さんは踊らないって。
Hashimoto had said so, but Nakashima won't dance.

From Wikipedia, the only place I could easily find a formal instance of this being explained:

The ない ending conjugates in two ways.
1. As an i adjective.

2. There is a special te/naide form made by adding で de which yields ないで naide – this can be replaced with ず zu in formal usage.
Requesting someone to cease/desist: 食べないで下さい
Joining a subordinate clause: 食べないで、寝た。
**

What's the origin or explanation for that special で form?

EDIT: I found an excellent explanation in Michiel Kamermans' free Japanese Grammar book from page 100.

delta Wrote:けど means "but" here. So:
橋本が言っていたけど、中島さんは踊らないって。
Hashimoto had said so, but Nakashima won't dance.

Thanks for the help! However, would this mean that the original translation is wrong? The meaning is different from your translation, isn't it?

I don't think the original translation is wrong, but without more context that's what I could came up with.

”けど” doesn't always translate directly into English (as "but," etc).
I can't explain well but sometimes it's just used to move on to the next idea.
So it's hard to translate into English but,, if you hear it enough you'll get used to how it works. Just like every other thing in non-native-language-01.

"Hashimoto had said so, but Nakashima won't dance." Is really fkn weird in English. Ya?