learningkanji Wrote:For こねぇって, how are you supposed to know that means come? I thought Yotsuba was supposed to be relatively easy. Same with おいといて.

You're supposed to learn ない->ねぇ (and the fact that こない is the negative of 来る) and ておく->とく (as well as ている->てる, ていく->てく) from a grammar guide. Or from a thread like this.

I had to write a sakubun, but my tutor tells me a couple of sentences are wrong and I'm baffled as to why.

One is ですからいつも退屈していません。According to him, いつも is wrong here and I should use 全然, and 退屈する should be some expression involving つまらない. Why is this? My intended meaning was "(since things are like that) I'm never bored".

The other is 春に見る夢は面白いです. He says this sounds literary and strange. The concept is flowery and stupid, but does it sound that stilted? My intended meaning was "the dreams I have in spring are amusing".

As for 退屈 and つまらない, they aren't equivalents. If you look them up in J-J dictionaries you get stuff like

退屈: having nothing to do and wasting time; to become bored of something and begin to detest it, or to be in the the state of detesting it; to feel tired and therefore unpleasant.

つまらない: not interesting, or not inspiring interest; having little or no value; foolish or meaningless; not worthwhile, not profitable.

What was the expression your tutor wanted you to use exactly? Could just be a common colloquialism for the concept you're trying to express (remember that speaking a language naturally goes way beyond understanding grammar rules and word definitions--there are sort of 'scripts' for certain situations and ideas that you're supposed to use).

Anyway, if you never do something you commonly say 全然しない. Can you use いつも with negatives? Maybe when not doing something is kind of active: like いつも家にいない。It's also paired a lot with は plus a negative: いつもはそんなことをしない ("I don't usually do that type of thing."). Also, 全然 can have both the connotation of 'never' and 'not the least bit,' and both probably fit the context well here.

Vempele Wrote:

learningkanji Wrote:For こねぇって, how are you supposed to know that means come? I thought Yotsuba was supposed to be relatively easy. Same with おいといて.

You're supposed to learn ない->ねぇ (and the fact that こない is the negative of 来る) and ておく->とく (as well as ている->てる, ていく->てく) from a grammar guide. Or from a thread like this.

Right -- no manga or authentic source is going to be easy for foreigners to the point where you can look everything up with no trouble. Grammar patterns are always going to be difficult (if not impossible) to look up, so you need to have a good grammar guide or understanding of the basic grammatical patterns.

Spoken variations and contractions are something you learn through experience or through asking people.

Quote:どこってそりゃおまえ

This still does not look like one sentence to me. Are these words separated in bubbles or on separate lines of a bubble? It should be どこって and then そりゃおまえ, I think?

You can tell how he says it though right? If I were to punctuate it it would be like どこって、そりゃお前・・・. I don't think Japanese treats this as two separate sentences, it would be a comma or nothing at all :/

learningkanji Wrote:For こねぇって, how are you supposed to know that means come? I thought Yotsuba was supposed to be relatively easy. Same with おいといて.

Even when I search these terms on google or something, it's hard to find their meaning if at all.

Mm, personally I've never thought that Yotsuba is a good 'first manga'. It's full of colloquialisms and stuff that you're probably not going to get. Yotsuba is easy but you need to be familiar with that style of speaking - and it's not the sort of speech you find in a textbook (though you hear it all the time in anime or on TV).

Ash_S Wrote:You can tell how he says it though right? If I were to punctuate it it would be like どこって、そりゃお前・・・. I don't think Japanese treats this as two separate sentences, it would be a comma or nothing at all :/

Something like that. Manga rarely uses punctuation, which can make it more difficult for beginners (a common mistake I've seen is for people to treat modifying clauses as stand-alone sentences because there are no periods to end sentences)

Vempele Wrote:

learningkanji Wrote:For こねぇって, how are you supposed to know that means come? I thought Yotsuba was supposed to be relatively easy. Same with おいといて.

You're supposed to learn ない->ねぇ (and the fact that こない is the negative of 来る) and ておく->とく (as well as ている->てる, ていく->てく) from a grammar guide. Or from a thread like this.

I did Tae Kim's guide up to Special Expressions because it was starting to get pretty complicated and I wanted what I had learned to sink in for a bit before I started learning more. I also did Genki 1.

So, I came across a short clip the other day.

The first two phrases are for context (hopefully my translations aren't wrong), but my main question is in the last section.

人１
ニカ国の混成部隊なんて
ずいぶん面白いことをかんがえたものね
(The カ is supposed to be the small version)
A joint forced mixed from two countries...it was very interesting when I thought about it.
(or?: it was a very interesting thing when one thought about it)


人２
ああ。誰しも一度は考えるが
いざ実行となると、未だ多くの問題が出る
Yes, everyone thinks about it once, but when it's implemented, a lot of problems arise.

[いざ - not sure about this, besides from いざ、尋常に勝負せよ、but the meaning doesn't seem to fit]
[I'm unsure why は is being before 考える, I'm more used to seeing を]
My current assumption is that this is some kind of "royal dialect", befitting the speaker's social stature.

人２
それをこうも早々とやってのけるとは
さすがは「くらんすびにゃ」社といったところか。
Thinking this and pulling it off quickly...as expected of Kuransubinya Company [???]

Never come across こうも, but I was thinking it might be shorthand for こう思う
とは is used to denote his surprise/ amazement
といったところか - I just finished saying?


There's more, but the rest is about "Why are long hair and eyebrows are admired, but not long nose hair?"...so not really relevant.

Quote:A joint forced mixed from two countries...it was very interesting when I thought about it.

"You thought up a very interesting thing".

いざ…となると/となったら is "when it comes to ...", so "when it comes to implementing it", not "when it's implemented".

Quote:Never come across こうも, but I was thinking it might be shorthand for こう思う

No, it's the particle も as an intensifier for こう ("pulling it off this quickly", with a little more emphasis on the fact "this quickly" is really quick).

誰しも一度は考えるが

I would say the は is used to add some emphasis here for 一度, where it's followed by something negative afterwards (like lots of problems cropping up when it's put into action).

さすがは「くらんすびにゃ」社といったところか

といったところ is used to give a brief explanation of something or a situation. (The Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar gives 'I'd say/would say...' as a translation for といったところだ.) By adding か it sounds like a rhetorical question.

Thanks for the quick replies! Makes more sense now.

Out of curiosity I googled 一度は　英語 and surprisingly enough got a hit from here:
http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E4%B8%80%...6%E3%81%AF

I'd never heard about this site before, but it seems to have a lot of great information.

I have another question about a sentence in 陽だまりの彼女.

頭と尻尾はみ出させて、お皿の上で魚が啖呵切ってるの。

The context seems to be that the speaker is relating a story about how when she went to Hawaii, ordered something on the menu called 'fried fish' and a huge whole fried fish came out. I think the sentence above means that the waiter showed off the head and tail and then pulled the fish apart or something, but is that correct?

啖呵を切る seems to be used idiomatically to mean harsh or caustic words I think but in that case I have no idea what it might mean...

Any ideas?

As far as I can tell, 啖呵（を）切る always refers to harsh words and the phrase has no meaning aside from that idiom. Note that it's the fish doing the action so it must be some sort of joke or pun, but it's hard for me to tell what that might be without seeing more than just that sentence.

Taurus Wrote:頭と尻尾はみ出させて、お皿の上で魚が啖呵切ってるの。

Take a look at this tweet:
https://twitter.com/mao_watarai/status/4...5112356865

でね、白身魚のフライというのを注文したの。それなら軽く食べられると思うでしょ そしたら出てきたのが、こーんな巨大魚の姿揚げ。頭と尻尾はみ出させて、お皿の上で魚が啖呵切ってるの。「食いきれるもんなら食ってみろ」って

Does that help?

OK yeah, that's pretty clear then -- he's basically saying that the fish's huge size made it seem like it was mocking him on the plate, daring him to eat it.

Yet another question where I spent 5-10 minutes trying to come up with the answer and would have understood it immediately with the full context.

Yeah, sorry, was unable to post the context immediately. Just came here to do so and someone else has kindly done it for me!

Actually from your confirmation that it was the fish doing the action I was able to work it out from the context myself, so thanks!

Hi guys.

A quick question. While looking up 檜風呂, I stumbled on some guy mentioning a ひだきぶろ, which he says is a bath heated by wood fire. Does anyone have any idea how it is written? My guess would be it's 火焼風呂, but I can't seem to find a confirmation anywhere, so I'm turning to you helpful people.

Thanks very much in advance.

EratiK Wrote:Hi guys.

A quick question. While looking up 檜風呂, I stumbled on some guy mentioning a ひだきぶろ, which he says is a bath heated by wood fire. Does anyone have any idea how it is written? My guess would be it's 火焼風呂, but I can't seem to find a confirmation anywhere, so I'm turning to you helpful people.

Thanks very much in advance.

Are you sure it couldn't have been 薪風呂 (たきぎぶろ)?

CaLeDee Wrote:

EratiK Wrote:A quick question. While looking up 檜風呂, I stumbled on some guy mentioning a ひだきぶろ, which he says is a bath heated by wood fire. Does anyone have any idea how it is written? My guess would be it's 火焼風呂, but I can't seem to find a confirmation anywhere, so I'm turning to you helpful people.

Are you sure it couldn't have been 薪風呂 (たきぎぶろ)?

Everything is possible at this point (木焚き, 焚き火...), it's not like the source if 100% reliable. I was thinking the original phrase might be kind of common but it doesn't seem so. Thank you for your input.

The Koujien has ひたき with three different kanji, including 火焚 and 火焼.

Hi all, I hope it's okay if I my first post to this forum is a question. :)

I'm trying to read an old manga, and one page has two speech bubbles on it:
われはよみがえり！
人間界をわれらが悪霊のすみかにせんがために！

I understand the first one (I am revived!) but have included it in case it's needed to understand the second, which has me thoroughly confused for (at least) two reasons. First, there's a direct object (人間界) but no verb...what is "the human world" the object of? And second, I'm not sure how to interpret せん since it isn't written in kanji and has many possible translations.

Oh, and in case it helps, I think the first bubble is the bad guy speaking and the second one is the good guys, but I'm not totally sure. Thanks in advance!

CraftHero Wrote:Hi all, I hope it's okay if I my first post to this forum is a question.

I'm trying to read an old manga, and one page has two speech bubbles on it:
われはよみがえり！
人間界をわれらが悪霊のすみかにせんがために！

I understand the first one (I am revived!) but have included it in case it's needed to understand the second, which has me thoroughly confused for (at least) two reasons. First, there's a direct object (人間界) but no verb...what is "the human world" the object of? And second, I'm not sure how to interpret せん since it isn't written in kanji and has many possible translations.

Oh, and in case it helps, I think the first bubble is the bad guy speaking and the second one is the good guys, but I'm not totally sure. Thanks in advance!

The verb here is する. It's the せん, and this is part of a classical grammar pattern んがために. I think it's the same as しようとするために if I remember correctly (the ん is similar to the しよう form from what I understand). I remember going over this for N1 study.

Anyway, I'm just giving a short answer because I don't have time, but I'm sure someone else here could explain it with more depth.

(In other words, I think the bad guys are speaking in the second also, saying something like "(The reason we've come back) is to make the human world the dwelling place of evil spirits.")

Thanks a lot, Tzadeck, that translation makes perfect sense! I've never seen the せん form of する before, and (in case anyone's interested) I was able to find a bit more information on the Wiki page for irregular Japanese verbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_irregular_verbs):

"The irregular 〜ない -nai stem of する is often overlooked; it is used in grammatical forms where the 〜ない form is used without the 〜ない – generally formal – as in 食べず tabe-zu "without eating" or 食べんがため tabe-n ga tame "for the purpose of eating". In these contexts する becomes せ, as in せず se-zu "without doing" or せんがため se-n ga tame "for the purpose of doing"."

You should be aware that this んがため is a literary/written structure and it's not the regular way to say "For the purpose of ~" in regular speech.