I've been having problems with this word がち, which i think would be written 勝ち with kanji.

example1 (from a keigo manual): …言葉を省略がちですが、適切な言葉を使い…

which I think means "there is a tendency to abbreviate or omit a word, but we should use appropriate words..."

example2 (from lucky star where konata is romanticizing the idea of a dentist):
ドリルを武器に戦うロボットのがち勝負はたまんないらしいよ。

which I would guess means "I can't wait to see drill-fighting robots" or something but frankly this one has me a bit stumped.

thanks very much in advance... Cheers!

へええ、
sweet, thanks

apirx wrote:

I'm here with yet another one:

この仕事は来月の下旬には終わります。

この しごと は らいげつ の げじゅん に は おわります

It's once again from core6k.

Are there really two topic markers は in this sentence? Or is this a mistake? Or some grammar I don't know?

As yudantaiteki said, you can have multiple はs in a sentence. They can appear for various reasons. But maybe the simplest view of this is "nested topics." When you come across a structure like AはBはCはXです, it often means that C is a subsubtopic of subtopic B of the topic, which is A, of the sentence. To illustrate this, you can add another は to your example sentence and compare it with a reordered version:

この仕事は来月の下旬には私は終わります。
私はこの仕事は来月の下旬には終わります。

Both mean that the speaker will finish the task by late next month. But in the former, the main topic is この仕事, and 私 is a topic inside this. So it many imply that, for example, other people are also working on the same kind of work and the speaker thinks he'll finish it but isn't sure if others will. But the main topic of the latter sentence is 私, and この仕事 is a subtopic following 私. So, for example, this version may imply that the speaker has many things to do and この仕事 is one of them. And he thinks he'll finish this particular task by late next month. Also, because 来月の下旬 is marked as a topic after この仕事 in either sentence, in many cases it implies that there may be multiple possible dates by which the task finishes and that "late next month" is the one the speaker thinks is the "at the latest" kind of possibility, e.g., he's working hard on the task and isn't sure exactly when he can finish it, but he's saying he will by late next month at the latest. If 来月の下旬には is before この仕事は, it may mean that there are other things related to the period. And the particular task is the thing the speaker is talking about in his sentence.

So, for instance, if you say 来月の下旬にはこの仕事は私は終わります, one of the more likely semantic structures the listener assume is:

late next month (topic) --- this task (subtopic) --- me (subsubtopic)
                                  |                                 |
                                  |                                 --- you (working on the same kind of task)
                                  |                                 |
                                  |                                 --- him (working on the same kind of task)
                                  |
                                  --- that task (the boss wants to get this done too by late next month)

That said, this isn't a strict rule so you may run into many examples where order of はs doesn't quite follow this nested structure, especially when it's clear what the speaker means from the context. Also, while it's often seen as confusing wording, technically you can use two topics of the same degree of main topicness. So, at the end of the day, it all depends on context. But if there isn't context at all, which is almost always the case with an example sentence from a textbook, the majority would say the nested topics in this order is the most likely interpretation in many cases.

Elenkis wrote:

グダグダ言ってっと投げっぞ

Can anyone clarify what 言ってっと is a contraction of? Is this another version of ~ておく? Or is the と acting as a conditional?

It's the same as 投げっぞ being a version of 投げるぞ. So if you translate it into textbookneese, it's グダグダ言ってると投げるぞ or, if it doesn't allow directly attached る, グダグダ言っていると投げるぞ. All these three sound slightly different. It's the same difference though.

Tori-kun wrote:

I don't understand what's written in my book at this place:
Ｎ抜きでは～ない
Ｎ抜きには～ない
Are they identical?

I kind of feel like it's others, not you, who don't understand what's written in your book when you don't even write what it says. And, no. They aren't the same. The difference is exactly the same as how で and に are different because they aren't idiomatic per se, i.e., those phrases are N+抜く+に/で+は the literal way.

Last edited by magamo (2011 October 21, 5:05 pm)

I recently found a blog that I have been following about an Osakan MTG player.  I've been going alright with the articles I've read, but his latest one I'm having trouble with some of the words.

Here is the link to the post:
http://hutarinosora.diarynote.jp/201110232317459057/

The word I'm having trouble with is "ぴちゅん”　as seen in his sentence:
模試ぴちゅった。

Also, is (ry an emoticon of some sort?  He adds it to the end of sentences every once in a while like:
明日から本気（ｒｙ

and
それで、あんた紙束（ｒｙ
which is in the post below, for reference.

Ah, thank you very much!  The (ry was bothering me more than ぴちゅん。

I have a doubt.

I have seen 電話をかけます and　電話をします, I understand that there are both refering to the verb 'to call'. So what is the difference between them?

Last edited by claudia (2011 October 24, 9:43 am)

kainzero wrote:

her: にゃんこ病気なので、これじゃないとだめなのですよ!!

i interpreted it like this but i'm 99% sure i'm wrong:

"My cat is sick so this is bad!"

これじゃないとだめなのです => lit. "if not this then it's no good", so you have the sense reversed. "My cat's sick so it's got to be this stuff".

＠SomeCallMeChris
AはBに欠かせない is like "A is vital/necessary for B"

うちのにゃんこには、コレが欠かせない！！
This stuff is vital for my cat!!

ah, i didn't catch that the と in それじゃないと was a conditional. i thought it was a quote marker.

手伝ってくださってどうもありがとうございました。

いたたまらない appears to be some sort of set idiom or phrase.

いたたまらない［ゐたたまら―］  【居た▽堪らない】
(連語)
「いたたまれない」に同じ。

いたたまれない〔ゐたたまれない〕【居た▽堪れない】
［連語］それ以上その場所にとどまっていられない。また、それ以上がまんできない。いたたまらない。「騒がしくて―ない」「恥ずかしくて―ない」

I'm not sure what the underlying grammar is here.

About denwa simasu vs. kakemasu, I don't think there's any difference.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2011 October 28, 9:53 pm)

TheTrueBlue wrote:

Does anyone know what 七色のキノコ refers to? Neither Google Images, Google, or dictionary-related resources appear to turn up any definitive answers. Additionally the expression to have an 頭の中に七色のキノコが這入ること?

Any context for this?  Might make it easier.

This is an idiom, but 今 can mean "very soon" or "very recently" in some contexts, not just "now".  今に is given its own definition in the Koujien as "soon" or "someday".

If it meant "you understand right now" you wouldn't be able to use the に there, because the time-marking に only goes after specific times or dates, not after relative time words like 今, 今週, 来月, 明日, etc.

it's どうこう (from どうhow+こうlike this), meaning something like however +　より rather
rather than whether the mock exam is like this or like that, blah blah blah

but, instead of talking about how the mock exam went, *more importantly* recently really busy with study and...