TheVinster wrote:

Girl said, "Ｖｉｎｃｅって天然？ｗ"
I didn't understand so she followed-up with, "天然ボケって知ってる？"
I replied, "ばかみたい？"
She said that was wrong and replied with, "かわいらしい意味." She continued to try to explain by doing a translation (probably mechnically generated since she doesn't speak English) which read, "natural comic."

My own translation points to her calling me an airhead, but I don't think she meant it like that, especially if she said it has a good meaning?

Well, it comes from the ボケ of a manzai act.  If you don't know about that style of comedy, it's done by two comedians; one is the straight man (the ツッコミ) and the other is the funny man (the fool, ボケ).  Usually the ボケ says something silly or misunderstands the situation, and the ツッコミ jumps in and sets him straight.  The comedy usually comes from the nature of the ボケ's mistakes, or the manner in which the ツッコミ corrects him (for example, hitting him with something and yelling "What the hell is wrong with you?")

ボケ comes from 呆ける, so it essentially means being an airhead.  ツッコミ comes from 突っ込む, to thrust in, to butt in.  So the ツッコミ butts in to correct the ボケ's mistakes.

Now, a natural boke, 天然ボケ seems to be someone who naturally pulls of the roll of the ボケ of a manzai act.  Since it's a popular style of comedy in Japan, a lot of people purposely try to pull off the role of the ボケ, and one of their friends who is usually around will berate them for it in the manzai style.  I certainly have students who purposely pretend to misunderstand situations or be silly, and this is exactly what they're doing.  But, if you're a 天然ボケ, you just pull it off without realizing it.

Now, even though the ボケ is supposed to be foolish in a way, as your friend and kainzero mentioned it's not actually seen as a bad thing.  Because a 天然ボケ is not stupid in any way that matters, or any way that hurts anyone.  So it's a completely harmless kind of airheadedness, and it is generally viewed positively.

I once had my students write an essay about a good trait about themselves, and I had quite a few students write about how they are "good at ボケ" or "good at ツッコミ".

I first heard the word 天然ボケ when it was applied to me.  Someone at a bar introduced themselves, and when I tried to repeat their name I instead said 月経さん, 月経 being the Japanese word for a girl's period.  So I got various cries of "Oh, good ボケ!" and some people called me 天然ボケ.  Of course, I had never actually met them before and I don't think it's actually my personality, haha--just a Japanese mistake, but they enjoyed it.

Manzai (English):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzai
天然ボケ (Japanese):
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9% … C%E3%82%B1

Last edited by Tzadeck (2011 September 20, 8:09 pm)

I asked my JTE about this. This is a sentence from Core2k.
絵に触らないでください　vs 絵を触らないでください
He said that both are OK but 絵に sounds more right. Anyone able to give a linguistic reason why? Does に serve as an indirect object marker here?

Not too sure I follow really. I guess the way I'm understanding it is. を触る is a very specific "to touch/feel" but に触る is generic?

I've never looked into へ・に any further since my classroom days. My teacher always said they were interchangeable when referring to movement, but I vaguely recall there being some fine points to the use.

With all my respect, I don't think that this site's info is correct. I could easily give a new one which has a totally different answer (which I believe to be true).

This topic (～を触る、～に触る、～に触れる) was actually a topic on which a Japanese friend of mine, who wanted to become a teacher, had to write a short explanation in 200 letters (if I'm not mistaking). I can't give you a concrete example to prove my point though.

You could easily, however, use google and type in 「を触る」. You'll get many hits regarding 「Nを触る　心理」, the psychological part in other words, whilst the same isn't true when you type in 「に触る」.

In wikipedia's page about 愛撫, there's the following sentence:
「同じ場所を触るにせよ、やはり触り方如何でその影響は大きく異なる」

I highly doubt anyone would use ～に触る when he's getting intimate with his girlfriend (ex: 体を触る vs 体に触る)

vix86 wrote:

I asked my JTE about this. This is a sentence from Core2k.
絵に触らないでください　vs 絵を触らないでください
He said that both are OK but 絵に sounds more right. Anyone able to give a linguistic reason why? Does に serve as an indirect object marker here?

A simple grammatical answer to this is that 触る is an intransitive verb so it can't take を, i.e., it can't take an object in the first place just like ドアが開く (あく) is ok but ドアを開く (あく) isn't. But if you have Meikyo J-J dictionary, it also says 触る is starting to be used as a transitive verb as well by many native speakers, hence it's ok to say 〜を触る for those native speakers (I'm perfectly fine with the transitive use too, by the way.). The dictionary's explanation is that when used as a transitive verb, it emphasizes the action itself so that it sounds like a more active action where the person who does it is involved more closely in a direct manner, which is basically the sense transitive verbs commonly have.

So in this grammatical view, if you're already familiar with how transitive and intransitive verbs are different, を触る is simply a "transitivified" version of に触る with the usual grammar usage, meaning, and nuance which you can easily guess from transitivity.

This may be more than enough for native speakers who bother to read dictionary's grammar column to get what's going on in the examples vix86 gave. But I guess that's hardly transparent to someone who isn't interested in grammar, let alone to nonnative speakers. So here is how を and に are different when a verb can take both, i.e., how those verbs change their meanings and nuances depending on if used as transitive or intransitive verbs.

Grammatically speaking, the に we're dealing with here is a kind of 格助詞 which marks the target point or the place where an action takes place and finishes. The を here is a marker for the direct object of an action. If it's confusing, this kind of に focuses more on how the action taker is going to do it than the を does, which is looking at the object more directly without considering the (sometimes figurative) space between the person/thing which does it and the object which gets the action on. So, for example, Aに触る, which is the traditional intransitive use, evokes the process towards touching A in a native speaker's mind while Aを触る, which is a newer sense, makes a native speaker picture all the things the person is doing by touching A. It might be helpful to see the traditional version as "reach and touch" and the newer use "touch and do something."

It might be easier to see the difference in examples with different verbs.

出る is another verb which can take either に or を like 触る. If you say 庭に出る, you're currently inside of your house or something, i.e., the action here is to go to the yard. In other words, the destination is 庭. But if you say 庭を出る, you're already inside the palce called 庭, and the action you take is to go somewhere else. So, with に, you mean it's the target place and are talking about the process while, if you use を, you are talking about the direct object of your action.

If you want to mean "go up a staircase," it's 階段を上る. If you say 階段に上る, people take it as you climb up to the place where there are stairs, which is kind of unusual.

If you want the final episode of your favorite show you're currently following to be really good, you say 最終回に期待している. You're expressing the idea that you are and will be in the state of your hoping that it turns out to be a good final episode. In other words, it's a sequence of hope, hope, hope, and hope about the final episode until you see it. But if you say 最終回を期待している, somehow the final episode is the "direct" object of your "hope and expect" without no trivial connotation about the process towards the episode being aired. You have some kind of hope about it now, and that's it. One possible situation where this makes sense might be that a TV show's got very bad viewer ratings and it can be dropped by your cable channel at any moment. You don't know if the final episode will be aired, but you hope it will be because you want to know at least how the story ends. So the difference is that Aに期待する means that you hope A turns out awesome, is going to be great, and so on. But Aを期待する is that you do the hoping A exists, happens, etc. thing right now (and you're NOT implying the excitement and such you would normally get while waiting for the final episode if it were your favorite show).

Another way to make the difference clearer is to add an adverb. For example, Aにゆっくりと触る tends to mean that you slowly reach your hand to A while Aをゆっくりと触る usually means that you stroke it slowly.

Of course, you can say that Aに触る tends to be less intentional, less active, or less involved than Aを触る. But that's because the former is about the process and action while the latter is focusing on the action itself. And this difference comes from the fact that one is transitive and the other is intransitive. If you ask a native speaker which version they feel is touching longer, they'd say it's the を version. And you can understand the why from grammar; the version which is focusing on the action would feel "longer" or sound like "a more deeper touch in a sense" than the version that is about the process plus the action.

The difference that stems from transitivity is quite obvious to native speakers, so often novelists use intransitive verbs as transitive verbs and vice versa to get the intended meaning regardless of whether it's "accepted" usage or not. Also, what is used to be transitive can become intransitive and vice versa or verbs which used to go either way can lose one of the two usages depending on the trend. So there is no such thing as "more right" about either of vix86's examples. If one version sounds better than the other to a particular native speaker, probably he either imagined a situation in which one of them fits better or is the kind of speaker who sees the transitive use as a little too new to be equally correct.

Last edited by magamo (2011 September 23, 8:21 am)

Wow, greats posts.

Thanks Magamo, pudding cat, and merlin.codex; for the information.

This seems like such a very nuanced thing that I might not really grasp it till many years down the road. Do you have to have a feel for this particular fine point of にｖｓを for the 1・2級?

The noun does not have to be the subject of the verb modifying it.  買った店 can mean either "the store where I bought it", "The store that bought it from me", "The store I bought", etc.  The noun can have a lot of different relationships to the verb.  It just means the modifying sentence is describing the noun in some way.

yudantaiteki wrote:

The noun does not have to be the subject of the verb modifying it.  買った店 can mean either "the store where I bought it", "The store that bought it from me", "The store I bought", etc.  The noun can have a lot of different relationships to the verb.  It just means the modifying sentence is describing the noun in some way.

And what about と言う意味 is that idiomatic?

Splatted wrote:

@Damicore: I think your confusion is either coming from not knowing the various meanings of と言う or from not properly understanding how it's interacting with the noun that follows it, so I'll try and explain both of those. I'll use something that can actually talk in place of 意味.

Lets imagine we want to say `the person says "big"`. That would be written

大きいと人が言う。

If we put 人 at the end, then the 大きいと言う is describing the person as if the whole phrase has become one big adjective.  This could have other meanings but lets keep the person talking.

大きいと言う人 means "A person who says `big`"

In the above sentence 大きいと言う(A) has the same ralationship with 人(B) as 大きい on it's own would if we wrote 大きい人. A describes B. We could, as above, be describing A as a doer of B, but as yudantaiteki said, the verb doesn't neccasarily affect the noun that follows it. It's hard to say exactly what と言う means in that case, but I think it's more of a metaphor than an idiom. I can't really translate it, but I think if you pay attention to how it's used in the wild you'll start to get a feel for what it means. The best I can do is

大きいと言う can mean "-you'd describe as big"/"-big, so to speak"

so

大きいと言う人 can mean also mean "a person you'd describe as big." i.e. "a person that is big"

Another example might make this easier to understand.

「bob」と言う人 could mean "The person called bob" or "a person that says bob."

I'm not sure I actually explained anything but that was the best i could do. Just remember that the relationship between the descriptive phrase and the noun is defined by the context.

That last line was all I needed haha but it served to explain phrases as 大きいと言う人　meaning "a person that is big".
Thanks a lot to you and to you and yudantaiteki

I think the 一発 just means you'll be fired straight away with no second chance.

TheVinster wrote:

それからほんの少しだけ間をおいて、こう続けた。

That's not nearly enough context to say exactly, but it's 'Then after just a small break, (someone or something) was continued  like this.'
Anyway, 間をおいて is a set phrase meaning to pause, to take a break or recess.
In this case 'just a really small break'

Last edited by SomeCallMeChris (2011 September 25, 8:15 pm)

Thanks guys.

TheVinster wrote:

What I need help with: 「ああ、なんてこったい！　キノともあろうお方が立ちゴケをするとは。はい、さっさと起こす起こす！」

For context, the sentence before: エルメスを支えようとして力が入らず、そのまま左側に倒れた。

So the sentence before says キノ didn't put any effort into holding エルメス  up, so it fell to the left.

I'm guessing the context is:

1. It's from light novel キノの旅,
2. キノ is a human,
3. エルメス is a talking bike,
4. The sentence in question is by this talking bike エルメス spoken to this キノ person,
5. The "context" you gave is either a third person view narration or キノ's monologue.

These are just educated guesses from what I know about the series. I'm fairly certain of 1~3, but 4 and 5 can be wrong but are very important context. Please give more context if my guess is wrong.

Assuming they're all correct, you seem to have misinterpreted the sentence before it. Kino did try to balance Hermes but failed because he couldn't gather himself or whatever for reasons which should be explained somewhere before or after the line.

I have no idea what point you're having trouble with in the sentence question, but I guess it's 立ちゴケ? I don't know if there is an equivalent word or phrase in English, but it's a word that means "fall/lose balance at a stop" used only when you're talking about a person or people who is on a bike or motorcycle. It's the fail moment where you're sitting on a bike, not moving, and trying to balance yourself with your leg(s), only to fall because, for example, the motorcycle is too heavy for you. I don't ride a bike, so I don't use this word. But as far as I know, it seems to have a connotation of "newbie rider."

So the dialogue is, if it's said by Hermes, something along the line of "Hey, Kino, what gives? How come you failed to balance me? Let me up already!"

[Edit] I googled a bit, and it seems the Aともあろうお方がBとは structure is a little difficult to some people too. It's a phrase used when A is supposed to hold high standards but did B, which is considered bad, wrong, failure or something along those lines. Maybe you respect A and expect a lot from him. Or A could be a famous figure. B is usually a verb. You can use other words such as 人 and 者 instead of お方. A isn't necessary a human, though if it's not, it's usually an anthropomorphic use in a sense. For example, it could be a company as in ニューヨークタイムズともあろうものがこんな記事を書くとは (How come NYT, of all media, publishes such crappy articles?). Also, it has a written language feel to it.

[Edit 2] It seems the はい plus double verb combination is also challenging to some learners. はい(verb)(the same verb) or はい、(verb)(the same verb) is basically a command asking you to do the thing the verb is referring to right now. For example, はい起きた起きた！ is "It's about time you got up!"

There is さっさと thrown in in your example. As you probably already know (If you don't, you might want to look up words in your dictionary before asking questions.), it roughly means "quickly," "hastily," "without delay," "right now," and so on. Since the situation is that Hermes is kind of frustrated and asking Kino, who fell off him, to pick him up, it's like "Let me up already!"

[Edit 3] Ah, and if you're also having trouble understanding なんてこったい, it's a variation of なんということだ. It's a pseudo-spoken language version used in scripted dialogue such as in TV dramas and novels but is rather rare in real conversation. Other similar variants include なんてことだ, なんてこった and なんて様だ (The reading is なんてざまだ. This version carries a slightly more negative nuance than others). They're all the kind of phrase you use when you got screwed, found yourself in a clusterfuck, etc. You can use it when others got mucked too just like "Oh, god..." can refer to another person's misery, epic fail, and so on. Hermes' use is probably of this kind. It may sound you're disappointed in the person if you say it with the wrong tone of voice. So, be careful if you want to use it that way.

If I didn't cover all the problematic points you didn't get, it'd be helpful if you could be more specific.

Last edited by magamo (2011 September 27, 11:19 pm)