Help?

誰もジャンプしていません。
Translation: No one is jumping.
Literally: No one jumping is not.

First of all, please correct me if my translation is wrong.
Secondly, is this a double negative? No one and is not.
Or is this generally how negations are written?
I've come across a couple of phrases like this and they bug me each time.

I'm pretty sure it's ジャンプ.

Manske Wrote:I'm pretty sure it's ジャンプ.

Oops. Thanks.

誰もジャンプしていません
誰も can mean anyone. It means no one when the verb is negative.
So maybe, the literal translation might be: Anyone jumping doesn't exit.

だれも = everyone
ジャンプしていません = is not (doing) jumping

Everyone is not jumping.

Various sources may list "no one" as a meaning but that's only because of how we would say it in English ("everyone" with a negative verb becomes "no one").

Could some one explain to me how to use "~ta mama"? If you could provide simple examples it'd be awesome.

Thanks in advance

まま expresses that a condition remains the same; something is in a state, and that state is not being altered.

電気をつけたまま寝てしまいました - I fell asleep leaving the light on. (you turned the light on, and with it remaining in that state, you fell asleep)

行ったまま帰らなかった - Went and never returned. (the person went somewhere, and remained in that state of having left)

聞いたままを先生に話した - I told the teacher exactly what heard it (you heard something, and with it remaining exactly in that state of what you heard, you then tell it to the teacher)

買ったまま食べなかった - I bought it but didn't eat it (you bought something, and it remains in the state of when you bought it; i.e. it's unopened and uneaten)

It takes a while to "click" for most people, so don't get too frustrated if it takes some practice.

harhol Wrote:だれも = everyone
ジャンプしていません = is not (doing) jumping

Everyone is not jumping.

Various sources may list "no one" as a meaning but that's only because of how we would say it in English ("everyone" with a negative verb becomes "no one").

The way you put it explains that. I have to keep reminding myself not to look for English in the Japanese and to be more flexible when it comes to definitions. Thanks!

If you're a maths geek you might like to make the comparison between も and か and the logic symbols for-all and exists:
誰もジャンプしていません => "[∀ X, X is not jumping]" : for all X, X is not jumping
誰かジャンプしている => "[∃ X, X is jumping]" : there exists an X such that X is jumping.

If you're not a maths geek that will mean nothing to you so ignore it :-)

(PS: as usual, don't push the analogy too hard or it might fall over. Also asking questions in Japanese is a bit like Prolog unification.)

Aijin Wrote:It takes a while to "click" for most people, so don't get too frustrated if it takes some practice.

It sure does :p

Thank you so much for your explanations though, the kanzen master book 3 kyuu doesn't properly explain it

IceCream Wrote:pm!!! how do you get the universal & existential qualifiers on a keyboard?!? i've needed them loads!!!

He said he uses SKK, so it's probably:

/all<space>
/exists<space>

IceCream Wrote:pm!!! how do you get the universal & existential qualifiers on a keyboard?!? i've needed them loads!!!

I, er, cut and pasted from wikipedia :-) But, I just tested, and iSoron is completely right, I could have put them in with my input method: ∀ ∃ . Cool!

My textbooks don't mention that we can use なら with -i adjectives. But I came across with this sentence and I'm afraid it might not be correct


面白いなら、見たい。

Is it really　possible to use it? My books only mention the -eba form for i adjectives, like in

面白ければ、見たい。

I personally like to use nara the most : p

CarolinaCG Wrote:My textbooks don't mention that we can use なら with -i adjectives.

Is it really　possible to use it? My books only mention the -eba form for i adjectives

I personally like to use nara the most : p

Your textbooks probably haven't mentioned adj.i + なら (yet) because they've started with ば which is a straightforward plain conditional. Generally the form listed under ば for nouns and Adj.na is なら.

なら with things other than nouns has more of a feel of "supposing that", "if it's true that", which is probably why your textbook hasn't talked about it yet.

Basically, the various Japanese conditional forms (なら、たら、ば、と) which are not freely interchangeable. Textbooks try to avoid dropping all of them on students at once because that would get pretty confusing :-). The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar has a go at sorting them out in its entry for たら (and also has an entry for なら that includes the adj.i+なら form).

CarolinaCG Wrote:面白いなら、見たい。

Technically, there should be a nominalizer there 「面白いのなら」「行くのなら」「話したのなら」 because you can only put a copula after a noun 「*面白いだ」「*行くだ」「*話しただ」; but nowadays everyone says 「面白いなら」「行くなら」「話したなら」 so it's fine.

(see DBJG p282, note 3)

I didn't even know that the の was supposed to be there... I guess I need to read more grammar books, just on principle.

The note says "this の is optional in modern Japanese" which I take to mean that there is no longer any requirement, technical or otherwise, for it, although presumably there was at some point in the past.

Thanks PM215 and iSoron

I'll start using this thread because I recently started Kanzen master 3kyuu and its explanations are quite short and they give only 2 examples and 3/4 exercises.

I'm having some troubles understanding the てもかまわない form.

Just like my first post in this thread (a few ones above) could you give me a better explanation and a few simple examples?

I'm also having a hard time understanding the ずに form. I mean if it means "without ~ing" I undestand it, but if it means "do ~instead of ~ing" I don't.

Thanks a lot!

CarolinaCG Wrote:I'm having some troubles understanding the てもかまわない form.

かまわない is something like "don't mind, doesn't matter", so Xてもかまわない is roughly "even if X it doesn't matter". Some examples from 日本語文型事典:
このレポートは英語で書いても、日本語で書いてもかまいません -- I don't mind if you write the report in English or Japanese; you can write the report in English or Japanese
今できないのなら、あとでやってもかまいません -- if you can't do it now, it's OK to do it later.
(in both of these you could say てもいい instead.)
飲めないのなら、無理に飲まなくてもかまいません -- if you can't drink it there's no need to force yourself to. ...なくてもかまわない means roughly "there's no need to".
お金は十分あったので、高いホテルに泊まってもかまわなかったのだが、そうはしなかった -- We had plenty of money so we could have stayed at an expensive hotel, but we didn't. This sort of past-tense version is basically saying there was another choice that could have been chosen (but usually it wasn't taken). See also ...てもよかった.
意味が通じるのなら、表現は多少不自然でもかまわない -- I don't mind if my phrasing's a bit unnatural as long as the meaning gets through. This is てもかまわない meaning straightforwardly "I don't mind, it doesn't matter", it's not the best possible but it's good enough.