That's what I (eventually) figured they were trying to say, because of the 単に.

本当に怖いですね。（０＿o）

駅の階段で転んだ。とても痛かった。
I feel down the stairs at the railway station. It hurt a lot.

The sentence, with the very dry, factual reading made it sound like a librarian trying to strike conversation at a bar. I won't be forgetting this sentence anytime soon.

And they saved the best for last...

アマゾンのジャングルは長い間人間を拒んできた。
The Amazon jungle has been rejecting humans for a long time.

lololololollololol. I just picture the jungle coming to life and totally denying humans entry.

mezbup wrote:

私の会社は隔週で土曜日が休みだ。
Every other Saturday is a day off in my company.

This sentence kinda scares me. Is this considered lenient in Japan? Are they talking a normal 9 - 5 kinda job makes them work every other Saturday??

There are some that roatate sat sun off, then sun mon off.

there are even worse gigs that just give for example 6-8 days off a months, and they are complete roatated. So you could work like 9 days straigh with one day off, then five days, etc.

OK I have to bring this topic up again for by far the funniest sentence I've seen in a textbook. Although that's not entirely accurate; the original sentence is not funny but nrg1701 made a slight mistake when entering the sentence into the shared spreadsheet and changed it to something IMO hilarious. This is from Kanji in Context book 2.

(not to single you out for nrg1701. You did an awesome job entering so many sentences!)

So here's the sentence I read:

運動会や修学旅行などの学校行事では、まず第一に児童や政党の安全に配慮しなければならない。

"In Soviet Russia...", right?

(actual sentence is supposed to be 運動会や修学旅行などの学校行事では、まず第一に児童や生徒の安全に配慮しなければならない。I've changed it on the spreadsheet).

Nii87 wrote:

While I know cancer is no laughing matter, is the cancer prevalence really that high?!?!

Yes it unfortunately is. From wikipedia: "Cancer caused about 13% of all human deaths in 2007" and deaths from cancer are relatively more frequent in advanced countries. Cancer is the leading cause of death in Japan and that number seems to be correct.

http://www.japanfs.org/en_/japan/population.html

Supposedly cancer rates among Japanese-Americans is even higher than Japanese too. I know from my family (small sample, I know), it's well over 50% for my family. They were all in their 80s and 90s, but it's still a little creepy!

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l511v03532h7h224/

That's all I could find with 5 minutes of internet searching.

Last edited by Grinkers (2010 January 23, 8:42 am)

Thanks for the insight people. I didn't realise the chances of getting it are so high =/

EDIT: Reading some of the comments above, it seems that 30% of *deaths* are cancer related, not that 30% of the population die from cancer. The KO2001 translation is worded a little differently, and suggests 30% of people will get cancer fullstop.

Last edited by Nii87 (2010 January 23, 10:31 am)

Nii87 wrote:

EDIT: Reading some of the comments above, it seems that 30% of *deaths* are cancer related, not that 30% of the population die from cancer. The KO2001 translation is worded a little differently, and suggests 30% of people will get cancer fullstop.

Obviously no one knows the future so we can't know how many people will die from cancer in the future. But the current trend is an increase of the proportion of deaths by cancer so it's not unreasonable to fear that more than 30% of people are going to die from a cancer.

On the other hand, maybe at some point, we'll have a cure for most forms of cancers and that number is going to be lower.

「この空港は市内にあるから、夜間は使えない。」
Because this airport is situated in the city, it is not available at night.

Haha, what?

SammyB wrote:

Because it would be too noisy for residents?

Because the city would be too dangerous at night.

FooSoft wrote:

「この空港は市内にあるから、夜間は使えない。」
Because this airport is situated in the city, it is not available at night.

Haha, what?

That has to do with Narita shutting down at night because of big fights with locals in the area.