「私の右手の方が左手より大きい。」

Uh...

blackmacros wrote:

Maybe its just me, but any time they start talking about getting a computer virus I experience uncontrollable laughter. Seriously. You have not experienced comedy until you have heard the katakana word for computer virus.

Eg. パソコンが急に動かなくなった。コンピューター・ウイルスかもしれない。The sentence is not, in and of itself funny...until the man pronounces it. It sounds like "computer wheelius" and it never fails to amuse me...

Just for the record, the Japanese word ウイルス comes from Latin and its pronunciation, not the English sound made up by Anglophones. I don't know if it's closer to the original Latin sound than the English version that happens to have the same origin, though.

bombpersons wrote:

「私の右手の方が左手より大きい。」

lolwut?! What is the translation of this sentence??

nmessenger wrote:

aphasiac wrote:

bombpersons wrote:

「私の右手の方が左手より大きい。」

lolwut?! What is the translation of this sentence??

"My right hand is bigger than my left hand."

Or at least that's my guess.   I'm still definitely a beginner and am not quite sure about the の方 part.

Yeah that's right.

magamo wrote:

Oh, if it means that my right hand is bigger than "my" left hand, then it should read either:

私は右手の方が左手より大きい。,
私、右手の方が左手より大きい。,
私の右手は左手より大きい。,
私、右手が左手より大きい。,
私の右手、左手より大きい。,
or something along those lines.

私の右手の方が左手より大きい。sounds unnatural if the speaker is comparing his or her own hands.

Ya I think that was a transcription error, the actual sentence from the book is 私は右手の方が左手より大きい。

OK need to take a forum timeout.

Blank wrote:

I'm only about 160 Kanji into the book but yesterday I had to laugh at the unexpected morbidness of 「子供が線路で遊んでいて、電車にひかれた。」

Haven't gotten this far yet, but does that by any chance say "A kid was playing in the train tracks, and was ran over by a train"?

edit - if so, i have a lot to look forward to!
edit again -Wow.  I just looked it up.  Using "some kid" makes it seem so much harsher haha.

Last edited by sup3rbon (2009 August 25, 2:34 pm)

sup3rbon wrote:

Blank wrote:

I'm only about 160 Kanji into the book but yesterday I had to laugh at the unexpected morbidness of 「子供が線路で遊んでいて、電車にひかれた。」

Haven't gotten this far yet, but does that by any chance say "A kid was playing in the train tracks, and was ran over by a train"?

edit - if so, i have a lot to look forward to!
edit again -Wow.  I just looked it up.  Using "some kid" makes it seem so much harsher haha.

I've heard "ひかれる” being used when two people had a car coming up behind them while walking in a middle of the street. One of the people said "あ、ひかれる！” and then they moved onto the sidewalk.  So maybe the sentence doesn't have as tragic an outcome as it seems (unless translation says otherwise )

Last edited by Nuriko (2009 August 25, 2:54 pm)

Not sure what you mean, Nuriko. 轢く = run over. 轢かれる = gonna get run over. 轢かれた = got ran over. The past tense is sufficiently tragic

aphasiac wrote:

nest0r wrote:

Ya I think that was a transcription error, the actual sentence from the book is 私は右手の方が左手より大きい。

I still don't get what the の方 is for???? Help!

It means that particular side, the side of that hand. You can't translate it literally. You use it when making comparisons. Aの方がBより is a classic pattern to say "A is more (something) than B". It's not actually necessary, and seems redundant, but it's just a common pattern in Japanese. It also makes it so that you don't actually have to use the より part for people to understand what you're getting at. Like when people say ～の方がいい, they're not mentioning what it's better THAN, but the fact that it's the better of two options is implicit. People will also just trail off, ～の方が...

travis wrote:

の方 --> http://www.guidetojapanese.org/compare.html#part2

この漢字の本は、漢字に番号が付いている。２３４番まで勉強した。
Guess which kanji number this was?

日本には危険な動物はほとんどいない。クマとヘビぐらいだ。
Yes, nothing dangerous. Except for all those killer snakes and bears.

Classic. Snakes and bears. Nothing suss.

I still can't get over the awesomeness of 原子力発電所. And I love that despite never having done production in it I can write it from memory.

Or as the Japanese would say (because there is an exam on it every year called the
原子力発電所と他の複雑漢字語を書けるの試験)


原子力発電所を覚えていて書けてよかったですね。

うん、よかった。
世論調査によると、それを書けるのは無理だと思って
ほとんどの人は合格しませんですね。
上手ですね

はい。ですね。

ですね。

ですね。

thecite wrote:

猿やゴリラの社会についての本を読んだ。 私の会社に似ている。

I thought that was fairly funny.
The writers of KO seem to have put a lot of self-opinion influenced sentences in.

Yeah, I actually laughed out lout at that one.

日本の男は家事をしない。 だから、女性に負担がかかる。
Japanese men do not do housework. Therefore, that imposes a burden on Japanese women.

HAHA.

Aさんの職業は会社員。

Mr A's occupation is a company employee.

Well no shit...