This is an offshoot of an earlier thread:

Tzadeck Wrote:

gfb345 Wrote:Frogs have no belly button.
original: カエルにはへそがないんだ。
mine: カエルにはへそがない。

The marathon started in the rain.
original: マラソンは雨の中でスタートしたの。
mine: マラソンは雨の中でスタートした。
...

I think that my translations are more correct that the original ones if we assume no context, and therefore more suitable for flashcards. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

I think that the translations are correct as originally given. In Japanese, various ways to show that a sentence is an explanation for something are used CONSTANTLY, much more often then in English. ... If you try to make everything an explanation in English writing, and to a certain extent English speaking, you sound really weird. So you vary your speech, by explaining things without using language that specifically states that what you're saying is an explanation. But in Japanese it's completely acceptable to use language that conveys the fact that you're explaining something over and over again.

How about the converse: does it sound weird (or impolite) to Japanese ears when someone omits all the gratuitous sentence-ending の's, んだ's, から's, etc.?

I ask because I find all this explanatory padding very unnatural, so I think it is unlikely that I'll be able to add it to my conversation any time soon. Somehow I find the extra politeness of Japanese speech a lot easier to incorporate into my thinking (and therefore my speaking) than all this gratuitous/pseudo explaining...

Based on a lesson I had with a teacher, if you don't spam them then you will sound more informative but less sociable. What I mean is in daily Japanese you just don't just state facts, you have tag questions, probablies and explanations (that can be erroneous).

But you don't have to worry about it. It isn't "rude".
頑張ってください

I think it can sound unnatural or even incorrect to omit のだ. If you listen to a lot of Japanese, you'll find yourself starting to use it quite naturally, since it's that common. It just starts to sound 'right' in certain situations. から is pretty standard, but I personally have a bit of trouble using わけ naturally (it seems relatively rare compared to のだ).

I think exposure is always the key to sounding natural. Whatever you do or don't do in English is completely irrelevant; you should allow your sense of what is natural in Japanese to develop from what you read and hear. Internalise the grammar, and the rest should come naturally.

gfb345 Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:

gfb345 Wrote:Frogs have no belly button.
original: カエルにはへそがないんだ。
mine: カエルにはへそがない。

The marathon started in the rain.
original: マラソンは雨の中でスタートしたの。
mine: マラソンは雨の中でスタートした。
...

This might just be me, but I feel like in the first one adding んだ sounds better, but in the second one の just sounds weird. Of course it depends on the context, but "the marathon started in the rain" sounds like it would be a sentence in a chapter of a book. Of course if you were having a conversation like this:
Aさん：最初の２キロメートルは遅かったね。
Bさん：だって、マラソンは雨の中でスタートしたの！

Or, I don't know, something like that, then it would make sense to use の. Maybe since "frogs have no belly button" sounds more like part of a conversation, the んだ sounds natural to me.

In conversation, leaving out things like んだ、んですが、わよ、or whatever, at the end of sentences, sounds very abrupt to me, like you're just telling someone a fact without trying to interact with them.

Like Javizy, though, I just can't get used to using わけ！

When I'm interacting, I see myself using quite a bit of them almost all the time.
I think just having a bunch of conversations with Japanese people over this year has sort of given me a "sense" of how it's used, although I'm probably screwing it up a lot more than I think I am.

But what I really want to say, is that all you having trouble with わけ, go and watch the Drama カバチタレ. One of the characters uses it quite a bit, and after watching it and hearing it so many times, it clicked for me. Plus, it's just an awesome show.

Everyone has a different way of talking. A kid doesn't talk like a full grown male adult, and females don't talk like males, superiors don't talk like their employees... etc. I think showing those kinds of different characters (more ore less approachable, more or less intimate, more or less authoritative) is what the extra sounds do. ..とは思うの。(<--softens the feel of things, effeminate).

gfb345 Wrote:How about the converse: does it sound weird (or impolite) to Japanese ears when someone omits all the gratuitous sentence-ending の's, んだ's, から's, etc.?

I ask because I find all this explanatory padding very unnatural, so I think it is unlikely that I'll be able to add it to my conversation any time soon. Somehow I find the extra politeness of Japanese speech a lot easier to incorporate into my thinking (and therefore my speaking) than all this gratuitous/pseudo explaining...

I actually agree with what you said about your own translations being neutral. In actual conversations though, yeah, you'd use these. If you always spoke to me without using these endings, I would consider it understandable, since you're a learner, but I would think that you're very difficult to read.

Because these endings, and how you say them, would tell me your intent, mood, and other contextual information. Are you surprised that frogs have no bellybuttons? Do you expect me to be? Did you recently acquire this fact? Are you expecting me to reply, or are you just musing to yourself? Do you believe I need to take some action as a consequence of frogs not having bellybuttons? Does the topic of frogs have any connection to a previous topic we just discussed? And so on.

Plus, these endings give your personality a chance to shine, and for you to cathartically express the full spectrum of your feelings, and not just ideas and facts.

Mushi Wrote:Because these endings, and how you say them, would tell me your intent, mood, and other contextual information. Are you surprised that frogs have no bellybuttons? Do you expect me to be? Did you recently acquire this fact? Are you expecting me to reply, or are you just musing to yourself? Do you believe I need to take some action as a consequence of frogs not having bellybuttons? Does the topic of frogs have any connection to a previous topic we just discussed? And so on.

Plus, these endings give your personality a chance to shine, and for you to cathartically express the full spectrum of your feelings, and not just ideas and facts.

I understand that much of everyday communication in social situations involves the sort of meta-communication you describe. What I have a hard time getting is how these pseudo-explanatory endings could be expected to convey them. For example, it's not hard to conjure up a situation in which an explanatory reply to the effect that frogs don't have bellybuttons would be perfectly fitting. My problem is with all the other situations, in which don't call for any explanation, but it is nonetheless given. I gather from the replies in this thread that these pseudo-explanations somehow convey that extra stuff you describe, but I'm deaf to it. In other words, I must take it on faith that the "んだ" ending of "カエルにはへそがないんだ" somehow would convey something about my mood/intent. But what? Does it convey my surprise? Does it convey dismay (at having to state the "obvious")? Does it prompt a particular counter-response? I have no clue. It's completely mysterious to me. I suppose that the answer to these question will boil down to "it depends on context"...

Let me put it differently: if you overheard "カエルにはへそがないんだ", and knew nothing else about the context, what meta-information would you get from the "んだ" ending?

You'd understand that the person is explaining to the other person "The frog has no bellybutton", probably after the original person mentioned a frog's bellybutton in error.

It'd be similar to hearing "But the frog doesn't HAVE a bellybutton!"

Well, the first thing I think of is surprise. Of course, this will probably be dependent on the tone of voice. Or they're remembering it.

Girl: じゃ、あたし、カレーにしよう！
Friend: この店はカレーないよ
Girl: えっ？カレーないの？

Kids talking about what they learned in class, but can't remember whether frogs have bellybuttons or not. Then they catch a frog.
Kid: そうか、カエルにはへそがないんだ！

Of course, this is just what I would think of first when I read it. Other people may be different, as there are a bunch of different circumstances in which it could be used.

edit: similar to zachandhobbes, how about a "contrary to expectations" kind of thing