chochajin wrote:

あんなに素敵な人なのに色っぽい話が何もないなんて絶対おかしい。
Isn't it strange that such a great person can't have an erotic conversation. HUUH?????

I suspect that 話 is being used in the sense of 'story' or 'rumor' -- check out the full range of definitions in a 国語辞典.

"Isn't it strange that he/she is such a wonderful person, but you never hear about him/her getting laid?"

The context I'm imagining is a woman's close friends talking about how she never says "Hey guys, guess what happened last night?"

人民の人民による人民のための政治 is the word-for-word translation of "government of the people, by the people, for the people." We learn this quote as Abraham Lincoln's line at elementary or junior high school, and every kid gets confused because it's not clear which 人民 modifies which noun in what way. Anyway, it's part of the Gettysburg Address.

As for 色っぽい話, I think the author meant 浮いた話, 浮いた話の一つ or something along those lines. 浮いた話 is an idiom that means "rumor about romantic relationships/love affairs." A typical example is:

浮いた話の一つぐらいないの？ (implying it's very strange for a person of the listener's age not to be in a relationship.)

The original sentence with 色っぽい話 does make sense and is grammatically correct. So, it's ok if the speaker really means "erotic story." But the context, sentence structure, collocation etc. all tell me the author meant 浮いた話, i.e., it should read あんなに素敵な人なのに浮いた話がないなんて絶対おかしい。

あんなに素敵な人なのに色っぽい話が何もないなんて絶対おかしい。might work the same way as the 浮いた話 version depending on context. But if you read it out of context, it'd be more like "Why didn't this cool guy get a romantic arc in this drama? Obviously he was in love with the heroine's sister! They should've put at least a few fanservicy/love scene eps instead of the boring fillers!" This kind of interpretation is impossible if it were 浮いた話, and unlike 色っぽい話, it wouldn't necessarily imply sexual intercourse in an erotic way.

Last edited by magamo (2010 February 14, 9:25 pm)

chochajin wrote:

@Everybody: Thanks a lot! That really helped. The KiC sentences are really difficult

I just want to make sure I understood this grammar point (Kanzen M. 2kyuu):

この薬は人によって副作用が出ることがあります。

So this could be translated as: Depending on the person this medicine can have side effects. ??

I'm asking because the grammar explanation this time confuses me a bit:
ある〜の場合には〈「〜によっては」が使われる。〉

It just means "This medicine can cause side effects." Grammatically speaking, it's saying, "Some people get bad side effects and some don't." So I think "depending on" works.

Edit: If you add は so it reads "この薬は人によっては副作用が出ることがあります," the sentence sounds like the medicine causes bad side effects less frequently and is safer than the original は-less version, i.e., the によっては version sounds like it's kind of rare to get a bad side effect.

Last edited by magamo (2010 February 14, 9:38 pm)

chochajin wrote:

I hope nobody will grill me because of this OT question, but I just have to ask: How did you become so good at grammar??? It's my biggest problem and my strongest weak point

One of the things the traditional class-and-textbook approach is good at IME is teaching grammar. Textbooks are structured around an orderly progression through various grammar points and generally cover them in enough detail for you to grasp them. (I've said here before that I don't think the Kanzen Master one-liners are sufficient as the only explanation of grammar points.) Plus in the class environment you have a teacher who can explain things in a different way to the book if everybody's got confused. That's what worked for me, anyway.

It's because 七番目 is connecting to the predicate 多い (i.e. the sentence 人口の多い) rather than the noun 都市圏.  To connect a noun/na-adjective to a predicate, you have to use に.

@pm215: Thanks for your honest answer I can't take any classes, but I'm thinking about getting a private tutor. The thing is that most Japanese people can't really explain grammar that well. It's always difficult to explain the grammar of your own native language anyway.

New quetions:
最近バードウォッチングと言って、野鳥の観察がはやっている。

Can't figure out the exact meaning of "と言って" here.
According to rikaichan: と言って    といって    (exp) however; because; as; (E)

失敗も一度だけから見逃してもらえるが、二度目の失敗は許されない。

What's the function of から here?

Last edited by chochajin (2010 February 15, 8:54 pm)

chochajin wrote:

最近バードウォッチングと言って、野鳥の観察がはやっている。

Can't figure out the exact meaning of "と言って" here.
According to rikaichan: と言って    といって    (exp) however; because; as; (E)

The sentence means "Observing wild birds, called 'birding,' is popular these days." I think と言って roughly corresponds to "called" in the translation.

As for から, I also think it should read なら.

Edit:

vix86 wrote:

貴様

Is the the usage of this always derogatory? Or are there actual useful "Ok" uses of it (ie: Use it to refer to your friend normally;  not like "That lucky bastard!")

Does やろう and あいつ fall around the same level of politeness as 貴様？

貴様 sounds very rude in modern Japanese. It used to be a word to refer to a person of a higher rank, but the honorific sense was completely lost. You could use it when you want to sound humorous in a very very informal conversation with close friends, but it'd be very rare that you end up in a situation where you need such a strong word to offend the listener in real life.

Last edited by magamo (2010 February 16, 1:16 am)

Yes.

Babyrat wrote:

is there actually any difference between 脚　and 足？　im guessing that 足is just a simplified form, but why use the other 1? (saw it in a manga)

あし as "(a human's) foot" is definitely 足. The other kanji 脚 tends to be used when you mean "(a human's) leg" or the part from your foot/ankle to thigh/knee, but 足 is also popular for this meaning.

An insect's leg is 脚, but I think 足 is ok too. Mammals' legs can be either 脚, 足 or 肢. I think 肢 is used when you want to distinguish mammals from other living things with legs.

"Leg" as in the part that supports an object's wight such as a table's leg is usually 脚. Kanji's bottom radicals such as 心 in 思 are classified as 脚. Also, 脚 is better when you figuratively use あし to refer to movement of a moving object that can't move by its own will as in "雲の脚 (= movement of a cloud in the sky)."

あし as 足/脚 has other meanings, and 足 is always used for some of the meanings, e.g., 足 as "transportation." Also, there are tons of idiomatic phrases that have 足 such as 足が棒になる and 足が出る, and you can't use 脚 or 肢 in these cases.

On lang-8 someone said to me - みたくすればよかったですね^_^ .  I couldn't figure out what it meant.  Anyone know what this means?

Spines11 wrote:

On lang-8 someone said to me - みたくすればよかったですね^_^ .  I couldn't figure out what it meant.  Anyone know what this means?

So, magamo's examples of this are all Nounみたく ... did yours have a preceding noun too and you just cut the quote in the wrong place, or did the comment actually start みたく ?

Last edited by pm215 (2010 February 17, 4:24 pm)

Yea, the original sentence had an English sentence before the みたくすればよかったですね.  So she probably meant its good if she does it like the preceding English sentence.  Thanks for the help Magamo.