Hey guys, I'm having trouble with the passive form and the だけ parts in this sentence...
今は親友どころか、私の顔を見ただけで顔をしかめられるほど嫌われている

My understanding with some guess work: Now, we're anything but friends; he just looked at me raising his eyebrows with contempt.

Last edited by sparky14 (May 11, 10:34 pm)

That しかめられる is indirect passive and it indicates the speaker's vulnerability, not his. In other words, his making a face can be enough voluntary to himself (though it's involuntary to the speaker).

Last edited by viharati (May 13, 3:32 am)

Hey guys, could you help me parse what is being said in this sentence?

君に、クリスタルの導きがあらんことを！

The end is slightly perplexing. Is the speaker wishing that I be guided by the crystal? I kind of understood it that way but I don't understand the exact grammar after the 導き part.

Right -- the あらん is an archaic conjunction that expresses either volition or something that will happen.

Tzadeck: I think you're interpreting it right; it doesn't always sound right when you insert all the subjects and objects because nobody ever says it like that, and I'm not sure that it feels to a native speaker like the subject is really changing.  If you search the phrase 顔をしかめられる on google there are a bunch of examples, mostly having to do with bad breath or the like.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (May 13, 9:27 am)

yudantaiteki wrote:

Right -- the あらん is an archaic conjunction that expresses either volition or something that will happen.

http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~houmei/kobun.htm#s64 for details (set Shift_JIS encoding manually if you get 文字化け).

CloverJoker wrote:

よくそんなんで生徒会に入る気になったな
The reason why よく is there eludes me. I noticed a few sentences on alc.jp too that seem to have the same kind of pattern.

よくそんなお金がありますね。
よくそんなことが言えるね？

They don't really help though, what does it mean?

I think the easiest to understand usage of this よく would be よく来てくれた, which means something like, 'It's good of you to come', or 'Thank you for coming'. To me there is a slight nuance that the person coming was perhaps not expected, but it would be good if they did. It could even be something like there was a heavy rain and so upon arrival it adds the feeling that it's good you've made it here through the pouring rain. Another would be よく気づいたね, which would be said by someone who maybe didn't expect the person to notice or realize something, but they did, so they add よく to give the nuance that they're glad/impressed/relieved that it happened.

In your example the same applies, the person saying this might not have expected the person to join the student council, but is glad that they got the notion to. The そんなんで makes me think there was a particular cause for this person to want to join, and the speaker is glad about whatever it was. If I'm wrong here I'd be happy to know. This よく can also sometimes have a sense of sarcasm to it as well, which is worth bearing in mind. For example, there is a lot of commotion/fighting going and someone is sleeping through it instead of getting up to help, then someone says to them 「よく悠々と寝ていられるもんだなー」. In this case the よく has the sense of: you've got some nerve to... Oh, how nice of you to...(sarcastically).

よくそんなことが言えるね？ (This one seems more on the sarcastic/ridicule side to me, like 'How nice it must be for you to be in a position where you can say that'.)
よくそんなお金がありますね。(This one is perhaps different than the others. I might be wrong but I feel like it could either be 'It must be nice to have that much money', or 'It's good that you had that money (so that you could take care of that problem you needed money for)).

Last edited by Roketzu (May 14, 4:11 pm)

All the J-E dictionaries I use (the Progressive EJ on goo, Eijiro on alc, and the Genius on my denshi jisho) have all the definitions for よく, with multiple example sentences that are much better than the ones on my J-J.

Here's the Progressive:
5 〔できにくいことに対して〕
よくまあ来られましたね
「How wonderful [I'm so glad] (that) you were able to come!
夫婦でよくあんなに話すことがあるなと感心した
I wondered how a married couple could possibly have so much to talk about.
よくまあ無事に帰って来られましたね
How lucky you got back safe and sound!
6 〔反語的に〕
よく (も) 平気な顔でいられるものだ
I don't understand how he can be so shameless.／How can he be so shameless?／What nerve!
よく (も) そんなことが言えるな
How dare you say such a thing?

I definitely disagree with Eijiro being useless in general, but it doesn't work very well in this case you're right.  It tends to work better with longer phrases or less common words.  For instance, you get good results from searches like よくそんな or よくこんな, phrases that are hard (or impossible) to search in other sources.  You can search partial phrases like んがため, だといい, あらん (from the above question), etc.

Here's the results for よくそんな (this doesn't apply to the question above which is そんなんで a different construction)

    よくそんなお金がありますね。
    Where did you ever get the money ?
    よくそんなことが言えるね？
    How dare you even say that?〔【場面】相手の言っていることは、ひど過ぎる。口にするだけでも許せない。〕
    よくそんなことが言えるね。
    I don't know how you can say that.《非難》
    よくそんなに単純でいられるなー。
    How can you be so naive?
    よくそんな口が利けたものだ。／そんなこと言っていいの。
    I wouldn't talk that way if I were you.〔【直訳】私があなたなら、そんなふうにはしゃべらない。〕
    よくそんな平気な顔でいられるな。
    How can you be so calm?
    「テストの勉強、あんまりしなかったようだね」「よくそんなこといえるね。君だって、たったの65点じゃない」
    "Looks like you didn't study much for the test." "You should talk. You only got a"
    あなたがそんなことを言ったなんて全く信じられません。／よくそんなことが言えたものですね。／そんなことを言われるとは心外です。
    I can't believe you even said that.〔【場面】非常に不適切なことを相手が言い、あきれたり、裏切られた思いだと怒ったりする。〕
    どうしてそんなことが言えるの？／何を言ってるんだ。／よくそんなことが言えるな。／そんなこと言っていいの？／何でそんな言い方するんだ。／あなたにそんなことを言う資格があるの？
    How can you say that?
    彼はよくそんなことができたもんだ。／彼はそんなことができた義理かね？／そんなことをするなんて彼はどういうつもりなんだ？
    How could he do such a thing?
    彼女はよくそんなことが言えるね。
    How could she say such a thing?
    我ながらすごいことを口走ってしまった。／自分でもよくそんなことが言えたなあと思う。
    I can't believe I said it.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (May 14, 3:52 pm)

今日も今日とていい天気。
I assume this ends up with the meaning of "Today's weather is also good" but I'm not sure how the "今日も今日とて" construction works.

遥か大昔、この世界は神が天使を遣わして作ったという。
Translation: They say long ago, God sent an angel that created this world

What should I know or look for to prevent myself from reading this as "They say long ago, God sent an angel and created this world".

No, the じゃない is just a rhetorical question. "You only got 65 points, didn't you?"

quanticism wrote:

遥か大昔、この世界は神が天使を遣わして作ったという。
Translation: They say long ago, God sent an angel that created this world

What should I know or look for to prevent myself from reading this as "They say long ago, God sent an angel and created this world".

The whole phrase is on the topic of この世界.  Personを遣わす means that a higher figure sends a subordinate for a purpose or to do something, and if that something isn't the 作った immediately following, it's a needlessly confusing way to structure the sentence.

EDIT: Another reason why I don't think the "[God] sent an angel and [God] created..." works is that by itself, この世界は神が天使を遣わした doesn't really make that much sense without some further context (if it's には it works, but just は is unusual.)

EDIT 2: I suppose I should make sure what you mean by your second reading; if you mean "God sent an angel and [through that angel] created the world" I think that's fine, and I have a feeling that in context English natives would probably interpret it in that way.  But if you're wanting to see these as two separate, unrelated actions, that doesn't work.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (May 16, 3:30 pm)

My interpretations:

quanticism wrote:

今日も今日とていい天気。

｢とて｣ has a meaning similar to ｢さえ｣ or ｢でさえ｣, i.e. ｢今日も今日とて｣ has a meaning closer to "today as well, even today, ...", strengthening the ｢も｣.

quanticism wrote:

遥か大昔、この世界は神が天使を遣わして作ったという。

Though this is only based on my personal experience, chaining words together with ｢-て｣ gives a feeling of actions taken in a serial manner and being in some kind of consequence relation. To chain actions taking place in a parallel manner, I think it would be more common to use the stem form, i.e.
｢世界は神が天使を遣わして作った。｣ = "God created the world sending an angel."
At least to me even in English the latter construction implies the angel actually creating the world, despite God being the subject of the sentence.