pudding cat wrote:

I think
そんなんやったかな = そうなんだったかな
それでええの？＝それでいいの？

I think そんなんやったかな might be そんなの（を）やったかな

i see こと quite a lot in monolingual dictionary entries and i am wondering what it means/does to a sentance?
here is an example http://www.sanseido.net/User/Dic/Index. … J=checkbox

駐車
〈スル〉 車をとめること．

I understand that it means to stop your car(parking) but what does the こと right at the end mean?

Zon70 wrote:

i see こと quite a lot in monolingual dictionary entries and i am wondering what it means/does to a sentance?
here is an example http://www.sanseido.net/User/Dic/Index. … J=checkbox

駐車
〈スル〉 車をとめること．

I understand that it means to stop your car(parking) but what does the こと right at the end mean?

It's a bit of grammar (check your local good grammar reference :-)). In fact, こと has a number of grammatical meanings and is often a component of larger phrases and templates which usually get lumped under the heading of "grammar points". This example is fairly straightforward: it's acting as a "nominaliser", ie it turns a verb phrase into a noun. So:

車をとめる -- I/he/you park the car

is a verb phrase, describing an action.

車をとめること -- Parking a car.

is a noun phrase.

Basically the dictionary is giving you a definition of the noun 駐車 (== "parking") rather than the verb 駐車する (== "to park [a car]"), and so the definition is a noun phrase rather than a verb phrase.

In one of the KO2001 sentences;
"。。火事になって、" - which was translated as "the temple caught fire".

Does the expression 火事になる mean "to catch on fire"? I tried to confirmed it with my limited resources with no luck. (Language tools humoured me with the translation " to become fire")

FooSoft wrote:

The Kanji there can help you - 火事 is more like a "fire incident" not a "fire" itself.
So 火事になる would mean "become a fire incident"

Ah okay thank you. That sounds a bit weird when we directly translate it. Is this a natural way to say a fire occurred?

Oh and also:
あと十分しかない　＝　We have only 10 minutes left.

I don't really understand what does しかない means. Rikai-chan just says "to have no choice"

Last edited by PensukeD (2011 May 18, 5:38 pm)

yudantaiteki wrote:

daaan wrote:

My grammar book lists multiple uses of こと. This one seems to make most sense:

"こと is also used to highlight parts of lists of orders, points, and rules, etc."

This is not what's being used here; they're talking about things like 廊下で走らないこと.  Here it's just a simple nominalizer as pm says.

Sorry! I guess I'd better restrict myself to only asking things myself or simply keeping quiet, for now.

PensukeD wrote:

yudantaiteki wrote:

Yes.  火事 means a fire as in an accident, house fire, etc.  Can you post the whole sentence?  If it's using なる it might mean that a small fire turned into a 火事.

「このお寺は２年前火事になって、去年建て替えられた。」

There it's just an idiom -- Xになる is actually used in a lot of cases in Japanese where in English we would just use a "be" verb (i.e. "there was a fire").  You'll see more of these as you go on.

Thank you for the clear explanations. Time to break out DoxJG.

It should be in DoBJ.  As long as you have those you'll be fine; I just wanted to make sure you weren't only relying on Rikai-chan.

FooSoft wrote:

@Elenkis
Yeah, -te form can just be an "expression of states". I guess kind of like using ";"

Thank you!

jettyke wrote:

How is that Hentai beeper called?

The thing that if a pervert comes near a girl, it starts to beep:D?

There's a device that can detect the presence of perverts?

I haven't seen Sexy and Robo what you described makes me think of a 防犯アラーム.

It's like a keyring that makes an alarm sound when you pull it apart.

http://www.sanriki.com/alarm.htm

Edit: I just saw your edit, indeed it's also a 防犯ブザー.

Last edited by pudding cat (2011 May 20, 1:30 pm)

Came across 立ち位置 in 2 different places today.  The way I understand it, can be literally the place you're standing, or your standing within a social order.

Could I say basically..

あなたの立ち位置は危ない　 as in the place your standing is dangerous?
or if not, how would you use it in a sentence? 

すこし立ち位置がずれてる。　
and それぞれの高校で同じ立ち位置。

Were the 2 sentences I saw it,  Manga + TV Show.  But to be sure I'd like another example, seeing as my dictionary's examples aren't great.

So, I pissed off this Japanese girl, who is young and usually speaks very slangy and in Kansai-ben.  Anyway, she wanted to go on a trip with me.  I said sure.

Then last time we went out I held hands with her, and we talked about going on the trip together.  But then when I e-mailed her last night I said I thought we should go out a couple more times before we decide whether to date.

Anyway, I think she was assuming that we would date and that it wasn't really a question.  So she wrote an angry message on Facebook where she says she might cancel our trip and that she made a mistake.  Her post starts with:

やってもたー

What's it mean?